You have heard that businesses can turn their Instagram followers into customers, but you don’t know how.
Yes, building a brand presence on social media can be challenging. And even more, once your business has accumulated a user base that follows your content, to step into the process of converting them into paying customers.
In this article, we cover the 7 effective ways on how to do so, so you don’t have to waste time trying to figure out.
Why choosing Instagram
Since 2010, Instagram has been one of the platforms that never stop growing. Even though competitors are fierce, they’ve created many features to keep users and marketers engaged.
As of 2022,
- Instagram has more than 1 billion users worldwide. And that’s not all.
- According to Instagram for business, 90% of users follow at least one business account on this platform.
How To Turn Instagram Fans Into Customers
1. Build a community on Instagram
Instagram is a very complete platform where you can communicate with your fans and customers in different ways: DM, feed, link in bio, stories, etc…
So, how can you build a community?
First, by giving.
This is something we talk about almost in every post, but it’s crucial. Educate, entertain, inspire your audience with your purpose. Channel this information through different types of content. You can create videos, photos, mini infographics, checklists, hacks, quizzes, mini guides, etc…
Creativisocial Tip #1: You’ll get more exposure if you use your different content through the variety of features that Instagram offers you. That is, reels, video, stories, lives, carousels, etc.
Creativisocial Tip #2: Use Canva to create awesome pieces of creativity, in different sizes, with just one click.
Secondly, you have to interact with them.
That means to answer the majority of comments if your account is large, and all of them, if it’s manageable.
2. Hack the Instagram algorithm
What does the Instagram algorithm favor?
Content?
Yes, but…what else?
Mmm…
Categories!
Right. Structure your content creation strategy by categories.
Here’s an example of a hotel.
Category #1 – Location
Category #2 – Services
Category #3 – Installations
Category #4 – Restaurant
…
Got it? So once you get all the categories in place, we are going to create content for each category using the different types we talked about and publish them as reel, video, photo, carousel, and so on.
Don’t forget to use a hashtag strategy, that will help you stand out.
Related content: How to beat the Instagram algorithm
3. Offer Instagram Promotions
We always recommend creating an Omnichannel Strategy, yet it’s important that you treat your fans of every channel specially.
Omnichannel strategy – is a sales and marketing approach that provides customers with a fully-integrated shopping experience. It encompasses the online and offline touchpoints of your brand. |
So one way to honor that treatment on Instagram is to offer a promotion exclusively on this platform.
We share two ways to offer a promotion on Instagram:
- Instagram Shopping – If you own an ecommerce, and you already have your products downloaded on your Instagram Shopping page, you can offer a product discount.
- Post a photo with a discount code to use during 24 hours.
Related content: How To Promote Your Brand On Social Media: 10 Easy Tactics
4. Offer value in your Instagram bio
Your Instagram bio is the opportunity your business has to introduce their brand. You can use up to 150 characters, so be wise to get to the point.
There’s also space for just one link. Don’t worry, you can use tools like Linktr.ee to highlight multiple links in one.
So, how can our business offer value in our Instagram bio?
We can think of a lead magnet; an e-book, for instance.
Make one of the links a way to drive your Instagram fans to a landing page where they can download an e-book of their interest in exchange for their email.
5. Analyze your content performance
Maybe you think that you are sharing a great content—you put in the hours, the effort to research, and the skill to make them beautiful.
However, you need the validation of your fans.
Without it, the above endeavors mean nothing.
So, one important step of your strategy is to analyze your content performance with key performance indicators, aka, KPIs.
For Instagram content, we recommend you to track: Likes, shares, comments, and saves. If you use Planoly, you can easily analyze them on your platform.
Related content: 4 Social media mistakes and how to fix them
6. Tap into user-generated content
Who doesn’t want to become famous? Who doesn’t want their minutes of glory?
Even if your answer is negative, still, nowadays in the social media era we found that craving from many, many users.
So why doesn’t your business make someone special by posting a photo of your product? Many authors do it with their followers and their books. So you can do it with your products too.
How can you start off?
Let’s run a contest. Inspire your followers to share a photo in their feeds with your product and the hashtag of your business.
Creativisocial Tip: Use both campaign hashtag and company hashtag.
7. Run Instagram ads
According to Hootsuite, 27% of internet users discover new products and brands through paid social ads.
Take into the consideration the following:
- Get to know your target and their pain points.
- Use a well-defined campaign to your goal.
- Create a great copy and beautiful creatives.
Conclusion
With the above tactics, we are sure you are going to turn Instagram fans into customers.
Yet, remember that shortcuts don’t exist. Keep creating great content, publishing when your fans are active in the platform, and you’ll see the results. It takes time to build an engaged community. So Be on service. Be valuable. Be authentic.
And if you think that you need a customized strategy, you are most welcome to contact us.