How to promote Instagram from scratch
People have little confidence in untracked accounts. The more subscribers, the more willingly new ones subscribe.
We will tell you how to start promotion from scratch.
According to statistics, Instagram has more than 1 billion users who log into the social network at least once a month. It’s easy to get lost among so many, especially if you’ve recently created a company profile or personal account.
For you, your posts and products to be seen by potential customers and followers, it is not enough just to post — you need to properly promote Instagram. Popularity will bring reach, sales, and new subscribers.
1. Prepare your account for promotion
Before attracting users to your account, you need to do some preliminary work:
Analyze the target audience (age, gender, interests, etc.), understand which profiles its representatives are subscribed to and which bloggers they follow. The better the company knows its target audience, the more accurately targeted advertising will be configured, the more correctly bloggers or partners will be chosen for cooperation. Accordingly, there will be more return on promotion and less cost for it.
Research competitors. You need to know which companies are offering similar products or services. Analyze their website and social networks with the appropriate services. You will understand how competitors differ from your company, what they write about, what promotions and sales are held, what contests and sweepstakes are arranged. Find out how the audience reacts to certain information to highlight your advantages and differentiate yourself from the competition.
Make a content plan for Instagram posts and write the first 9-12 posts. If the account looks empty, with errors in design, then it will not inspire confidence and, from experience, few people will subscribe to it.
Transfer profile to business account. A new account created on Instagram is assigned the type «Personal», which has restrictions. For example, you will not be able to see the number of account visitors, profile subscriber data (their weekly growth, geography, age, gender) and statistics (for example, the number of views and reach of each post, video, stories). Also, in your personal account, you will not be able to run targeted ads. But in fact, these two types of accounts are not much different. For example, the Credits type shows daily subscriber growth statistics, while the Business account shows weekly statistics.
To transfer a profile to a business account, you need to open «Settings», then go to the «Account» item, click on «Switch to a professional account» and select the item «Business» (if you will be promoting a company account) or «Author», which intended for public figures and bloggers.
The more thoroughly you carry out the preliminary work, the more likely it is to interest potential customers and gain first subscribers.
2. Do not hesitate to ask friends to subscribe to your account
One of the first steps in promoting Instagram is to gain at least 50-100 subscribers so that your account does not look zero. This will definitely inspire more trust among users who come from bloggers, targeting or Instagram searches.
Therefore, ask colleagues, friends, relatives to subscribe to your account and make a post about it in the feed or stories. I noticed that acquaintances are more willing to repost an entry you wrote than to come up with a text on their own.
3. Mention Instagram on all your resources
If your company already has groups in social media, base for email newsletters — write about a new Instagram account. Offer your users a discount, gift or useful content — this will make them more willing to subscribe. For example, a beauty salon can publish a post on VK:
«Friends! Our salon has an Instagram account. Now we have another platform where we will share with you information about the work of the salon, discounts, as well as publish reviews and post useful information. We will send each new subscriber a direct certificate for a 50% discount on any salon procedure! Subscribe. «