Instagram for business: everything you need to know

In recent years we have found a great growth in the use of social networks among the population. Instagram has become one of the most popular and a great communication tool within any marketing strategy. Thus, it is necessary to know all the possibilities that Instagram offers for companies and take it into account when creating a marketing and communication plan for any brand.

What is Instagram companies?

For a couple of years, Instagram began to offer its users the possibility to make a change of profile to give it a much more professional look. Instagram for companies emerges as a way to formalize all the accounts of Instagramers and brands that had already started their journey in this social network. Creating an Instagram account companies does not entail a cost in any of the cases and is a good way to exploit the full potential of this network.

What is having an Instagram account companies?

• Advertising. To be able to carry out promotions and advertising campaigns it is necessary to have a profile of this characteristic. For this it is also necessary to have a linked fanpage and an account or bank card.
• Buttons in the biography. A business profile in Instagram can add up to three contact buttons: Call, Email and how to get there. These buttons serve to facilitate the communication of the users and to offer them a more direct experience. Although a purchase button is missing, this can be solved with the link that can be included in the biography.
• Classification of the business. When you create a profile of

Instagram companies you must assign the sector or the type of business you are dealing with.

• Statistics. Because it is a business account it is very important to measure the results of the actions to know what has worked and what does not.

Why create an Instagram company account?

This is a good question since not all companies will be well received on Instagram. First of all, you have to think about whether we really have interesting content to offer in this social network. Instagram is a channel where the visual has a great weight and focuses primarily on the youngest. It is important to have photographs and videos that draw attention, please and attract the public. Thus, we will find companies that have a lot to offer, for example brands related to fashion, restoration or design. However, everything is a matter of perspective and a marketing agency can find the potential of each company.

Thus, the reasons to create an Instagram account are several companies:

• Create a community.
• Enhance brand image.
• Increase web traffic and sales.
• Greater reach and impressions.

Tips to create a successful strategy on Instagram

Instagram has about 1,000 million active users per month, a figure that has been growing these years ago and that seems to continue with the same level of increase. Take the step and join this social network requires a lot of work and take into account a number of aspects to make a successful strategy.

Take care of your content and your feed

As FameMass mentioned, on Instagram, visual content is the most important thing. Both the images and the videos must comply with some aesthetic minimums and transmit the corporate lines of the brand. In this case, rather than looking for a nice feed, it is important to comply with the corporate image and establish criteria.

To achieve a harmonic feed it is important to raise the visual strategy beforehand. For example, select 3 or 4 key colors that reign in the photographs, thus maintaining the same tone; the puzzle style where the images make up a complete photograph in the profile; chess style, where two types of publications or rows are interspersed, allowing each row to combine three photographs.

The importance of engagement

It is very likely that you have already heard about the importance of engagement in social networks. Engagement is the commitment and the way in which a follower interacts with a brand. In a colloquial language, the love is professed to a brand or company. Any brand wants to speak well about it, its publications like and its followers comment. The engagement is the commitment and the way in which a follower interacts with a brand. Basically it is a term that measures in a certain way the degree of interaction between a brand and users.

Increase followers without buying them

Followers are often an obsession with companies and brands. We will never advise you to do this since it is not worth inflating a number. In fact, Instagram reported last November 2018 that it was going to control followers and false comments, even penalizing those users who had bought followers. Thus, it is interesting to propose a strategy based on attracting the attention of the target audience when the profile of Instagram is created for the first time. By creating content and working correctly, the volume of followers will increase in a controlled manner. Having monitored the competition and analyzing its followers is very useful to continue growing.

Keep a good rhythm of publications

Remember the maximum quality before quantity, but it is always necessary to meet a minimum amount to maintain a presence. The current Instagram algorithm seeks to reward those profiles that, literally, devote all their time to this social network. It is ideal to maintain a rhythm between 4 and 7 publications a week, without forgetting to make stories.

The stories are a lighter content, since it only remains in the profile for 24 hours unless it is marked as highlighted. This content also allows you to interact in a much more direct way with the user and interact with him: live videos, questions, surveys or photographs with text are some of the audiovisual formats that can be published through this communication channel.

Use (good) hashtags

One of the keys of this social network is the hashtags. These terms allow you to reach a larger volume of people and are totally necessary when we have a newly created profile of Instagram companies. The latest theories about the Instagram algorithm say that it is advisable not to use more than 5 hashtags in the same publication. However, I encourage you to use more when it makes sense to do so. Do not forget to always use a specific hashtag for your brand, create a corporate image and help you reach certain users.

Optimize your biography

Do not forget to correctly describe your brand or your company in Instagram's biography. It will help you create engagement with your audience by employing emojis that illustrate and attract attention. Remember to include a link to your web page and point out the different contact methods.

Create specific actions: raffles, influencer marketing or advertising

In addition to publishing content and generating interaction, it is also very interesting to carry out a series of specific actions that will help achieve the objectives proposed in the social media plan. Not only to get sales through Instagram, but to improve the reach and attraction of the profile. When the brand allows it, making a draw is a good way to get new followers and be known by a larger audience.

• Raffles: Conducting a raffle for a brand product serves to increase the volume of followers and enhance the brand image.
• Advertising campaigns: Carrying out advertising campaigns will improve statistics and help to push the actions that are carried out. The publication helps you to achieve a number of objectives such as purchase conversions, generate contacts or get interactions.
• Influencer Marketing: Creating campaigns or specific actions with influencers is also very interesting as it moves away from traditional advertising and plays with recommendation marketing, the great valued within social networks thanks to the results that are achieved. When we do not know whether to buy a product, the opinions or results that you have had in another person usually help a lot. If this opinion is made by a relevant person and we take into consideration, the results improve a lot.
• Measure and conquer: What publications have you liked and why? Let's repeat the format again and again! It is very important not to forget that Instagram, like any social network, requires a control of the actions taken to know what has worked and what has not. Redirecting the strategy in this way will help the growth.

I am a school teacher and professional guest post writer.