During a recent study on the current state of small businesses, we asked marketing teams where their most significant opportunity to build brand awareness was, and the number one response was in social media.
Social media was also the number one answer when we questioned them where they believed the best opportunity for gaining new customers was.
As a result, we asked them where they planned to increase their spending for 2019 and the years to come; social media marketing was among the top three responses.
Seventy-three percent of respondents reported that they’d increase spending on social media marketing.
When trying to decide which social media platform to turn to for your marketing efforts, it all comes down to finding out where your target audience spends their time. When we break down the most used social media sites, we come up with:
- YouTube
While many already have a substantial presence on both YouTube and Facebook, many brands are finding that their audience has made a move over to Instagram for their daily dose of social media.
Why? The scrolling feature is easy to navigate, and videos and photos have proven more easily digestible by consumers.
What is Instagram marketing?
Instagram marketing is simply another strategy used to spread your marketing materials across a given digital channel. What makes Instagram a great platform is that many are finding that they can implement influencer marketing to help them reach a wider audience.
Is Instagram marketing worth the time and resources?
With more and more people spending time at least once a day on Instagram, marketing on the popular social media platform can be worth the time and effort. However, just like with any other digital channels, it takes strategy.
Source: Pew Research Center
Features that make Instagram marketing worth it
When building your Instagram marketing strategy, you’ll want to make sure you use the following Instagram features.
Instagram Stories
Instagram stories is a way to get more direct with your audience, and, thanks to updates such as being able to mention accounts, add stickers, and shoppable tags, it’s also become a great way to promote products. Not only that, it allows brands to interact one-on-one with their audience.
Source: Calia By Carrie Underwood/Instagram
IGTV
IGTV takes stories to a whole new level by allowing brands to create longer formatted videos to share with their audience.
Hashtags
A massive part of Instagram is the use of hashtags. Hashtags are indicated by the “#” symbol and help to connect users to similar posts. Take Calia’s brand hashtag, #staythepath. When users add it to their posts, they end up viewable by others who make use of the hashtag, increasing their chances of interacting with brands and each other.
Source: Instagram
How to measure the success of your Instagram marketing efforts
Measuring the success of your Instagram marketing efforts is as simple as monitoring your Instagram insights.
While reviewing your Instagram insights, you’ll be able to see not only who’s interacting with your posts and stories, but you’ll get a more in-depth look into who makes up your audience and what they prefer, as far as your posts go.
Source: Neil Patel
Does Instagram marketing really matter?
With over 800 million unique monthly users on Instagram, marketing on the platform is absolutely worth it. Not only does this give your brand an additional channel to use when interacting with your audience, but many have also found success with direct purchases through the platform. So Instagram marketing does matter and, while it may not be ideal for everyone, it’s worth looking into.
What now?
Now that you know Instagram marketing is worth researching further, why not take a few minutes to review these six important Instagram metrics to help you get a deeper insight into your marketing efforts?