Undoubtedly, Instagram has emerged as one of the most important social media channels and occupies an important place in the marketing strategy of all types of businesses, and an online business is no exception. In fact, for an online business, marketing on Instagram is more pivotal than ever.

Instagram has over 25 million business accounts. According to the data by Social Media Examiner, 73% of marketers are actively using Instagram for the growth of their business hence, it is the second most important social platform for marketers behind only Facebook.

According to a survey by Facebook, 78% of the users say that they see brands on Instagram as popular, 77% as creative, 76% as entertaining, and 72% as committed to building community.

As an online business, if you are not capitalizing on Instagram, you are staying behind the curve. Below are some of the reasons you should include this platform in your marketing strategy:

Brand Awareness & Visibility:

It’s simple, “People who haven’t heard about you can never become your customers”, and your online business would only grow when more people buy products from your store. Instagram has become a haven for online business owners since it has over 1 billion active users on its platform and more than 500 million daily active users. It gives you a wider audience to make your brand reach out. Secondly, Instagram is a visual-only platform and enables you to create visual content like photos and videos that are much more effective than text for storytelling and showcasing your products. The images and videos help your customers to get a feel of the products and help you sell better.

So, if you would like to grow on Instagram, the question that is to be answered is “Do people know your brand?”

Higher chance of being found:

The users of Instagram are very active on the app. Studies show that 63% of Instagram users check the app at least once per day, and 42% open the app multiple times within the same day. Instagram users spend, on average, 53 minutes per day on the platform that is almost equivalent to the average of time spent on Facebook per day.

Additionally, it is found that 79% of the users search for info relating to a product or a service on Instagram, and 70% of users even look up brands on Instagram. If targeted well, the posts of your brand can potentially receive high impressions, thereby strengthening your branding approach. Quality content posted on Instagram can enhance the rate of conversion.

Better reception of Brands and Brand Posts:

Unlike other platforms wherein people don’t receive the brands well, Instagram users are more receptive to brands and their messages. Statistics show that 80% of Instagram users follow at least 1 brand, 50% of the users actively visit a business profile every day. Studies also show that more than 200 million users visit a business profile once daily, and Brand Stories enjoy an 85% completion rate.

If you can post great content and target the people who would be interested in the products you sell, you will start seeing the followers grow. Putting out great content and gaining followers would lead to good word of mouth and help get more sales.

Instagram has also become the place wherein the users get introduced to the products first instead of online store websites. More than 60% of users learn about new products through Instagram.

Higher Engagement rates:

Instagram enjoys one of the highest engagement rates due to its visual-only content that is engaging and its ease of use. Hence, it comes as no surprise that Facebook acquired Instagram within two years of its launch for a whopping $1bn. Instagram was a company with just 13 employees then.

Data on median engagement rate shows that Instagram has a 17X higher engagement rate than Facebook, and 33X higher than Twitter. Other statistics show that the images posted on Insta get an average of 23% more engagement than those posted on Facebook.

On Instagram, if you go by content-type, a post with a video gets about 38% more engagement than the images. Instagram Stories are also picking up well, and the brands are leveraging it. As per the data, nearly one-third of the most-viewed stories on the platform come from a business profile.

Hence, it is pivotal that you capitalize on the engagement of this platform for your online business. Invest in or make quality images/videos of your products and post them consistently on your profile. Another thing to have in mind is that to make the post reach outside the circle of your followers, use relevant hashtags with your posts. People search through hashtags, and if your posts don’t contain hashtags, they wouldn’t be able to find your posts. Data shows that the posts with at least one hashtag get an average of 12.6% more engagement than the posts that don’t have any.

Work with Influencers:

Influencer Marketing involves associating with Influencers (a popular figure in the community or among your target audience) and they leverage their followers & trust in you by posting about your brand.

Influencer Marketing has been an effective method for boosting sales for a long time and has only increased in its importance over time. Earlier, it used to be a method adopted by brands with deeper pockets signing up celebrities and renowned athletes as their influencers. The Social Media revolution has brought a huge change in the game. It has enabled many, including non-celebs to become influencers.

The popularity of Instagram has given birth to many Instagram Influencers, including product reviewers. Depending on your target audience, you can connect with the Influencers who have a strong following and associate with them to get a post about your brand on their profile. If they have loyal followers, it would be beneficial for both brand awareness and sales. Studies show that 89% of marketers consider Instagram as the most pivotal channel for influencer marketing on social media.

Impacts Purchase Decision & Boost Sales:

According to a survey, more than 80% of the people mentioned they use Instagram to decide whether or not to buy a product or a service. For an Online business targeting Millennials, Instagram is the place to be. Around 71% of 1 billion Instagram users are under the age of 35.

With the surge in the usage of mobiles and 50% of internet traffic coming from mobiles, the Instagram app’s usage has seen a rise too. The customers can check out your products through the photos posted by you and make their decision. Around 72% of Instagram users report that they purchased a product after seeing it on the app.

Create Hashtags and generate UGC:

If you are an online business, creating hashtags and asking your followers or customers to post feedback on your product using that particular hashtag is a great way of creating User-generated content. Several brands are capitalizing on it, and there are no reasons why you shouldn’t. Statistics show that 7 out of 10 Instagram hashtags are branded hashtags. It is noted that the posts that contain or feature User-generated content have a 4.5% higher conversion rate than the non-UGC ones.

What is Combin?

If you are a Marketer or an Owner of an online business looking to harness the power of Instagram for the growth of your business, then Combin is for you. It is different in comparison to TikTok marketing from SocialWick but More than 60,000 users manage their Instagram account with Combin. Combin is the Instagram Marketing and Content Planning Solution that you have been looking for. Combin provides two tools namely: Combin Scheduler and Combin Growth.



Combin Scheduler:
Enables you to plan and schedule the Instagram posts in advance

Combin Growth:
Enables you to manage and grow your account by helping you attract new followers and build a loyal community for your brand

Let us look at the features of Combin Scheduler Combin Growth in detail:

Features of Combin Scheduler:

Save Time with Flexible Posts Scheduling:

Combin allows you to post immediately or schedule posts for weeks and even months ahead. It saves your time and effort of having to post every day individually. You can invest the saved time in planning up other strategies for your Instagram account.

Create Dozens of Stories in One Click:

Have you been creating Instagram stories individually? It is time-consuming and frustrating.

With Combin, you can create numerous stories at one by just dragging and dropping the required images you would like to be stories.

Style Your Instagram Grid Layout:

Creating a layout of attractive images is important to attract more followers. You can schedule the posts and preview how your grid will look like.

Features of Combin Growth:

Detect Who Doesn’t Follow You Back:

Combin scans the list of your followers and track down the ones that haven’t followed you back. You can choose some or all of the accounts and set an action to unfollow them. Combin will execute the action in batches automatically with just a click from your side.

Check Your Instagram Audience Quality:

Instagram allows a limited number of daily actions from your account. Combin spots and helps you prevent using those actions on spam or inefficient accounts of individuals, businesses, celebrities, and other accounts that wouldn’t lead to a qualitative engagement on your side.

Find Target Audience on Instagram:

Combin helps you in searching for the posts with several combinations & possibilities like combining a hashtag and location in the query; using multiple hashtags within a single search, or multiple hashtags and locations within a single search. You can also find accounts that have engaged with particular kinds of posts, or through the keywords in their bios.

Find Instagram Influencers for Your Account:

Struggling to find an Influencer for your online business? Just add the characteristics like language, gender, and the audience size you are looking for in the Influencer and Combin will search them for you. You will be provided with a list of Influencers to choose from. You can preview the profiles in-app before connecting to them.

Monitor Audience Activity and Growth:

You can monitor and keep a track of various aspects like the number of likes and comments from and to your account; change in the number of followers; and how many people followed and unfollowed in a given period. This data helps in decision-making for the implementation of changes in further strategies.



Testimonials:

Conclusion:

Instagram Marketing is a must if you want to grow your online business. If you haven’t used Instagram still, it is time that you take it forward. If you using it, it is time that you optimize the usage. In either case, Combin is a tool to checkout. Get on the bandwagon of Instagram Marketing, optimize it with Combin to achieve the growth of your business that you always dreamt of.
Have you been using Instagram for your online business? How effective has it been for you? Are there other challenges you face relating to Instagram Marketing? Let us know in the comments below.