Instagram is one of the most popular places today to sell your content. If your business does not have an Instagram page then you are not doing enough for your brand. You need to have it!
With more than a billion users (approaching a billion), it is the widest market free market that you can get to host your product. And it has got loads of advantages over Facebook.
It provides you detailed analytical tools that are not available on other platforms. Instagram is short and concise and straight to the point. Amongst all social media platforms, it offers the maximum user engagement rate.
In the following lines, we are going to talk about how you can use it to your benefit and avail the platform to promote your business.
Punctuality goes a long way
Gaps, unless they are building up to something much more significant, are not well appreciated. Anticipation is the key in areas where you have already managed to capture the attention of your followers.
But when you are vying to capture the attention of those whom you want to visit your site or page, you have to be regular with your content. A drop in consistency will mean that you have run out of ideas and have no further surprises to offer.
Stagnation is one of the worst things that you can do when trying to get the public’s attention. On your Instagram page, try to post at regular intervals, once a day is a nice average to maintain. There is no pressure to innovate frequently and neither do you have the fear of running out of inventory pretty soon.
Over time, you will have sufficient posts on your account to give it the “legit” tag. People on the platform would start to recognize your account as some place to see if they are browsing in the particular genre.
Although, if you are in a hurry to stock up, you can post multiple times in a day, but as we would talk about ahead, do not compromise on the quality of your work. In the end, it is going to describe who you are and what it is that you do.
For being punctual with your posts on your Instagram page, you need to have an arsenal. Start by building that, get together your best work and set to the task of making it public. Upload your work and always leave a link in the bio you have.
Build enigma. Because everybody loves surprises
An all out show is sure entertaining, for one night. In the long run, any product is just like a person. And like a person, it needs to have a personality. You need to build it up. And with time, as it matures, you will begin to notice that people start to like it.
Why? It is so because a product, like a people has got so much more to offer than just a front and an afterimage. And yes, you will get to know how to do in just a few lines. Never reveal all of it. That is the secret.
When you know that you have a work that people would want to see, it would be foolish to let all of it show in the very first go. The advantage of having a good product is that it will be a success solely on the basis of its quality.
In the long run, it might even become your signature approach. So, enigma! When you know your followers are looking forward to your product, just post a teaser and tell them to follow the link in your bio for the actual product.
The majority of viewers, the core target group will follow the given link in order to get to know the product. This is something that is done by companies all over the world. And it is what it is, the use of Instagram to generate traffic for their sites.
On Instagram, you are bound by the options available to you. You cannot do everything that you can do on your site. Which is why; it is wiser to first build the hype up and then debut your product.
You must have seen movie starts do this for their upcoming films. It starts with posing a poster or a teaser snippet of their film which is later followed by a full reveal and a call to action to visit it on a platform outside Instagram.
Leave your address on your bio
This should not even have to be mentioned. You need to let people know where to visit you. And on Instagram, the only place where you can leave a URL is in your bio. So, when you are posting the next time, always finish the post with a comment, “Link in bio!”
You will notice an immediate increase in the quantum of traffic that you had been thus far generating. Over a period of time, you will amass regular visitors to your site who would prefer your site over your age for availability of extra details and options.
There is no need to build it up in any which way. You have to simply let your link sit there on the bio, for everyone to notice. And if your URL is a long link, shrink it. You can get the option to shrink a URL in the options when you copy it for the first time.
A smaller URL is easier and more attractive, and it also looks legitimate. Too long a link is often prone to being doubted. This has nothing to do with you; it is just the age of cyber fraud that we live in. And there is not much that you can do too! Except keeping your page free from any outside unnecessary links.
Now let us get to the link. The URL should lead directly to your site without first taking the person to any third party platform that shows them ads or asks for donations. These shenanigans are not appreciated by Instagram followers.
When they click on a link, they expect to be taken straight to the source of the content that got them so excited in the first place.
Paid promotions are also a way
One of the surest ways to generate more traffic for your site from Instagram is to take the help of paid promotions. They greatly increase the visibility of your content and you gain many followers and users over the course of a simple week.
Now, this method is up for grabs only if you have the financial backing to pull it off. If you are just starting out it would be better if you wait for some time before paying for promotions. There are multiple reasons behind this.
If you are a beginner, you will not be having the sufficient number of followers to capture the attention of viewers who come through this form of advertising. And even if you do gain some, it would pale in comparison to what you could have done if you would have had sufficient preparation.
Paid promotions work wonders if done right. If you have a page that has got excellent standing and high user engagement rate then you stand to gain the most from this. You would have to put down an initial investment but he benefits that you would get would totally justify the cost.
Paid promotions have the unique advantage of greatly increasing your reach too far beyond what you could have normally managed to achieve based on your Instagram discover algorithm. One of the best examples of paid promotions would be Nike.
As one of the biggest companies in the world, it has got a decent number of followers (well into the millions) and it continues to use paid promotions to boost its followers and amplify its reach.
Nike pays for advertisements even after being so huge because every new follower is a new potential customer for them. And it is the same for you too; a follower is always a potential customer.
Stories! Interesting stories!
As we were talking above, teasing your followers is an important aspect of gaining traffic. True but at the same time you also need to provide human touches to your brand. Amongst other things, it lets people connect with the name.
Now that you have established a personality for your brand, you need to let people know that there are actual men and women working behind the scenes to help them get to the product.
This is where the Instagram stories come in. they are an excellent and delightful way to share some behind the scene moments and some bloopers that make the atmosphere light. The beauty of Instagram stories is that they are not permanent and they disappear after 24 hours from the time being posted.
So you can share interesting snippets without changing the tone of your page. There are other benefits too. You can share URLs on them too. If you want to send out some form of e-invite to people then this is the best way to approach it.
Also, you can post multiple stories at a go. So what you get is an opportunity to share multiple products with a direct link to them attached in the story. It can be used to organized giveaways or to garner attention for some time limited event occurring on your page.
Personal comments are also invited to your stories and again, they are a great way to get to know the views or thoughts of the people who follow you. If you get decent number of replies to your stories then you know that people are actually taking interest in what you have to say for your brand.
And the beauty of it is that it is always on the top of the page, your stories will never get buried under loads of content piling on top of each other. You stay visible and you stay relevant even in face of other, more popular pages your followers follow.
Quality investment for quality content
Having an excellent strategy will get you nowhere if you do not have the necessary content to support it. All the points mentioned in the above lines, they will prove to be futile if you don’t have good content on your age.
Invest in your business. Do not look to cut corners where it is not possible. You will end up losing money and followers. Invest in the product you are selling.
In short, if you are not sure about what you have, take your time before going online. Diverting traffic from Instagram to your site will work only if you have a fully functional and ready to perform site. Otherwise, your URL will lead to nowhere.
An interactive website is one of the prerequisites to having a good Instagram account. Imagine having a smooth ride, only to crash at the end. Well, not exactly a car crash but you are diverting traffic; you need to have a reception party ready for all the incoming queries.
Any business today, that is flourishing, is managing to do so, on the basis of a quality online presence. People love to get to know everything about a brand before they even go to the shop. In a time where internet has changed the way people shop, online gateways and smooth transitions are the norm.
So invest in a quality background, invest in building up an interactive site, and invest in your brand and its online identity. You are not going to get a second chance at making a first impression.
Hire an external resource to get the work done faster. Or, if you lack in the technical expertise, even hire someone form a resource company to do your job for you. For once you are set up, you will be able to transition from prospect to offer in no time!
Do more of what gets you there
Having followed all the above for some time, you will start to get an idea of what boosts your traffic and what brings it down. Good! Now is the time to set the standard, draw the line.
When you know the times when your traffic was the highest, contrast it with the times when you did not get much exposure even in spite of your posts.
Contrast those two to get to know what drives your traffic up and what pulls it down. Do more of what benefits you. One high will lead to another benchmark. Pretty soon, your best performances will become your average performance and you will move on to the next milestone.
Not just a strategy but this should be your general approach in business, do more of what gets you success. The aim here is to increase the traffic for your site from your Instagram account. That cannot be done without first boosting your Instagram profile.
It is not necessary that gaining followers brings to you an increased amount of user engagement. Many a time it also happens that you gain passive users, i.e., people who scroll through your content without liking or commenting on it.
Boosting your follower engagement metric is also one of the ways you can increase traffic. It is so because follower engagement metric means that people listen to you and your content. That when you post, it is actually capable of bringing about a change in the number of units sold or products moved.
And isn’t that the end goal that you have in mind?
Well, so do more of what gets you there! Most people think that the journey to success is a twisting and turning road, while in reality it’s fairly straight. Consistency is what leads you to success. And consistency is boring; it is doing the same thing over and over again.
Perseverance (revise, post, repeat) beats all!
If you are able to get up every time you fall down, there is noting that you cannot achieve. You will reach your goal; it may take a bit longer. It is the same when we talk about business strategies. You have to stay on course; you have to stay motivated even when you are not getting any results.
Coming back to the topic, diverting traffic from Instagram is actually quite economical. You get exposure on this platform which in turn works as a free promotion for your business and website.
Harnessing this traffic for your business can get a bit tricky if you don’t know the way, but regarding the material you have been through just now, the road ahead should be a lot smoother. There are not hidden texts here; all you have to do is repeat the procedure over and over again.
Yes, they are not one shot solutions, they are something that you have to stay on. You need to consistently work on your content, you need to stay regular, you need to reach out to your followers and you need to issue a call to action.