You’ve heard the rumors and you can witness the success for yourself. Brands like Nike and Coca Cola are absolutely killing it on Instagram.
It’s true that they may have a billion dollar ad budget, but it isn’t necessary when you have a billion dollar strategy. Turn your own brand into an Instagram success story with the following steps.
Step 1: Define your target market.
Notice Asos’s caption, ‘Happy hangover! Oh, and a happy New Year obv’. Not every brand could get away with this, but with their young audience it’s clear that a casual and slightly risqué vibe resonates.
Although abbreviations may give the impression Asos’s posts don’t involve a lot of planning, there’s definitely a lot going on behind the scenes. Instead of publishing a standard ‘Happy New Year’ post, they’ve determined what their target market would most likely relate to.
In this case, they relate to waking up the morning after New Year’s Eve with a hangover.
Step 2: Use promotional content sparingly.
Remember when people read magazines? Besides the fact that images and articles are easier to access from your phone or the web, magazines lost their appeal due to a big wrong move: way too many ads.
The video above uses Cosmopolitan as an example. Out of 160 pages, only 40 were not ads!
Somewhere along the line, magazines went terribly wrong with their good content-to-ad ratio. Luckily, your business can learn from their mistake and limit your use of blatant promotional material.
Step 3: Ask for interaction.
Sometimes it takes more than a great image to stir up interaction. Run contests to get your Instagram followers excited.
A huge advantage here is that your business hardly has to do anything. In the example above, Red Bull asks for photo submissions from their followers for a chance to be featured on their account. No prizes or costly incentives. They even set a time limit!
And you won’t have to twist your follower’s arms either- they want to do it.
Step 4: Partner up with accounts that can increase your exposure.
If your account is looking a little lonely, try sponsoring a post on a social media influencers’ account. These social media influencers have millions of followers separated by interests.
After you’ve narrowed in on who your target market is, you can post an ad through accounts that your audience is likely to follow. For example, one of our channels (@basketballvideos) currently has over 2 million followers.
These followers are mainly male, millennial, sports fans. If your business targets this market, purchasing an ad slot with @basketballvideos could grow your followers and brand exposure.
Step 5: Never assume your brand is too boring to be an Instagram success story.
In years past, businesses that weren’t already “hip” and “cool” would shy away from Instagram entirely. Not so anymore.
Take Maersk Line for example. They’re a shipping company – and let’s face it, that’s about as boring and corporate as you could get.
Except they’re not! Maersk Line is putting in the effort on Instagram.
How easy would it have been for them to say, ‘Instagram just isn’t for us. We’ll stick with LinkedIn thank you very much’?
Instead, like many other growing brands around the world, they’re heading into uncharted territories in order to connect with millennials and the future.
If they can do it, your brand can do it.