Now it’s time to cover the social media giant known as Instagram.
When people think of Instagram, a lot of times they think of people sharing their favorite moments with an online audience. After all, the platform caters to video and photos; no such thing as links and text is pretty “limited”. When I say limited, I don’t necessarily mean a character limit as you can cram a LOT of hashtags and keywords into your description. What I do mean, is that the text is heavily downplayed by the images you’re uploading.
So with this in mind, is Instagram really that viable for marketing your services/products?
Hell yeah it is!
60% of users discover products on Instagram
A lot of online businesses have made their sales by having a huge presence on Instagram and focusing all their time on this one platform. Everything from shaving companies to female clothing lines to slime shops to photographers and more have all cut their teeth here. And for good reason.
As you can see by the stats, 60% of users discover products on Instagram. That’s a BIG number! Instagram makes it easy to connect with potential clients and buyers and you can also pay to boost your ads. And if you choose to do so, I can guarantee you will get views. Insta is great at pumping your paid content out.
The best time to post on Instagram is weekdays at 5pm or 2am
I’m going to be honest here… These seem like pretty wonky time slots. 5pm is pretty normal as people are getting off work so they’re checking their social media accounts, but 2 am? That just seems odd to me. However, it really is a good time slot for posting. You’ll catch quite a bit of activity around this time.
75% of users take action like visiting a company’s website after a brand’s post
This is the great thing about Instagram: if your post is seen, 75% of those will visit your company’s website afterwards. That’s HUGE!
This is also one of the pitfalls of Instagram. Your content needs to be catchy, attractive, and top quality to draw in attention. You really need to pump out something stellar! It’s not like Facebook where you can get away with an ad and a photo of your product/services…. You need to be creative! However if you can make it visually attractive, then you’re golden.
Instagram stories posted a 220% increase in year-over-year spending
Your Instagram stories are going to be important to your sales as well. Instagram stories let your audience catch up with you, see what you’re offering, and what your company is up to. It’s an informal but catchy way of marketing to your audience. Plus, your products may get buried in your client’s timeline. Especially if they follow a lot of people and businesses. Instagram stories are your way of “hacking the system” so to speak. Your story will show up at the top of everyone’s (that follows you) newsfeed. And even if they skip over your story to check others, chances are your story will play automatically while they’re scoping out what their friends are up to.
And those that are taking advantage of Insta stories will see more sales. People tend to forget about products and businesses unfortunately until a problem arises or they need something. Seeing your stories will remind them that hey, you exist! And that they should be using your stuff.
Instagram’s user count is growing close to 5% per quarter
That’s quite a bit of fresh blood to advertise to! And as an added bonus, Instagram doesn’t expect these numbers to dwindle off.
Photos with faces get 38% more likes
While Instagram makes it easy to market to your audience and attract new clients, you do have to “learn the system” so to speak. Photos with faces are going to get more attention than pictures of just your products. This is why you see a lot of people that advertise on Instagram videos feature models or even themselves alongside their products.
So if you can work your face or someone else’s into your product posts, you’re going to get a lot more attention.
As always, thanks to Jeff Desjardins for the graphic!
