7 Ways Instagram Is Perfect for Telling Brand Stories

Instagram is one of the leading global social media platforms today with over 1 billion users around the world, according to Statista. It is also fast becoming the preferred social media network for building brands. Have you ever wondered why this platform is so popular among all types of consumers and businesses, or why Instagram is so effective when compared to other social media platforms? Are you struggling to figure out how to build an audience or become profitable using Instagram?

If the answer to any of these questions is Yes, read on. Here are seven reasons why Instagram is so powerful for brands.

1. Instagram Enables You to Humanize Your Brand

Businesses that can give their clients a sense of personal connection do better than their competitors. Instagram is the perfect visual platform to build audience engagement in this respect. Every business needs to be able to connect to its existing and potential customers like a friend. To build trust and credibility, your brand needs to become a familiar and relatable one.

Humanizing a business requires effort. Your brand’s online presence and your company culture, should come across as reliable, honest, and consistent. With features like IG live, highlights, and Stories that move beyond a regular photo posting, businesses can successfully market their brands to a broad audience and derive favorable returns. Insta Stories, for instance, is vital among Instagram users. The more views you get on a Story, the more the chance of your content appearing in your followers’ feed and viewed increase.

Remember that you can assess the true potential of Insta Stories by:

• keeping your stories authentic and true to your company brand.
• engaging with your viewers and responding to questions or any other response they leave on your posts.
• collaborating with Influencers and other businesses to bring fresh content to your viewers.
• building a strong visual trademark, video style, and content strategy.

Because Instagram is “image-forward,” use it to create brand awareness that will visually impact the target audience. Engaging and high-quality uploads that sell by aesthetic storytelling can generate leads and attract traffic and audience engagement with your posts.

2. Instagram is Mobile Friendly

Instagram is a social media platform designed to operate primarily on mobile phones. In its initial avatar, Instagram was an iPhone-only app meant for photo-sharing. Later it was adapted to function on androids as well. Even now, although one can access Instagram on the web, and the function of the platform is no longer restricted to only photo-sharing, Instagram’s fullest functionality is only accessible via cell phones.

Photo by Denis Pavlovic on Unsplash

In an age when most internet browsing and e-shopping are done through mobile apps, the platform’s compatibility with the mobile device is a big advantage. Businesses can take advantage of the current trend of virtual browsing through cell phones when they use Instagram. By keeping your Instagram account active and engaging, you can give your target audience the convenience of browsing through your products and services from anywhere using just their cell phones.

The current generation is 24/7 hitched to their cell phones wherever they are. Using Instagram helps you build an image for your brand with the technology-savvy target audience quickly and conveniently.

3. Instagram Taps into the Facebook Audience

Instagram is owned by Facebook, so the two social platforms share several cross-platform benefits. Even though you can operate an account on either platform without using the other, it is prudent to have your business account linked to a Facebook profile and/or page. This will have the following effects.

1. Helps you to reach target audiences on both platforms simultaneously, thus broadening your online reach.
2. Allows your business account to use certain features of Instagram that are available only when you connect your account to your page on Facebook, including shoppable posts, Insta Stories and post promotion, Insta ads, payment methods and integrated messaging, and syncing data from business contacts.
3. Saves you time as you will be able to post ads, Insta Stories, and other posts on both platforms together automatically. In case you don’t want simultaneous posting on Facebook, you have the option to disable this feature too!

Using Instagram, you can keep your Facebook page active without needing to log into the latter. This keeps your feed on both platforms consistent and gives your business a good brand image.

4. Instagram Works for All Types of Business

Given its wide breadth of users, Instagram is an important place for brand building for small and big businesses alike. Whether your business is an well established or a startup, your target audience already exists among Instagram users, whether you run operations from a physical office space or you’re totally virtual.

Companies, partnerships and sole practitioners, B2B and B2C businesses can all successfully raise brand awareness on the platform. The features and outreach of the network are diverse. So, raising awareness using Instagram can be a very effective and efficient marketing channel choice.

You must remember that audience engagement does not appear overnight. For an organic growth of followers, views, and likes, use the platform’s various tools to your optimal advantage. The most efficient way to reach and expand your audience is to:

• post regularly.
• engage with your followers by responding to comments.
• develop a visual brand that can be easily associated with you.
• hold contests, giveaways, and surveys.
• give shoutouts to customers or allied companies.
• collaborate with others to build credibility for your products.
• associate your brand with social causes.

All of these can be done without burning through your budget. If planned correctly, they are sure to help you build a formidable online presence.

5. Instagram Helps You Make Money Directly

With a business account on Instagram, you can utilize the platform as an e-commerce site and directly sell your merchandise to customers. You can do this in a variety of ways.

• Include call-to-action buttons in your profile information. These buttons that let your buyers book your services are available only if your account satisfies certain eligibility criteria. You must also have an account set up with one of the sites that Instagram ties up with the said service provider.
• Encourage clients can DM you for sales and business-related queries.
• Utilize the integrated product-placement features to reach your target audience.
• Team up with influencers to sell your products. Whether you invest in a big celebrity or a micro-influencer, influencer endorsement not only gives your products more extensive audience visibility it can lend your brand credibility and trust. Viewers who are convinced about your product’s quality and authenticity are likely to shop from you through the links you provide on your posts and bio.
• Use the Shop tab and put up Shoppable posts. This is not available in all countries and has particular prerequisites like having a linked Facebook Page and catalog. If you are approved to use this feature, you will be able to add tags to the products in your photos with links that lead to their product description and price. The tag also gives the viewer the option to “shop now”, which leads to the online sales store URL.

6. Instagram Lets You Track Your Audience Reach

Tracking your virtual performance and visibility is always a bonus in planning your social media marketing strategies for the near and distant future. The business accounts on Instagram can use a unique feature of the platform known as Instagram Insights. Here you can check the performance of each piece of content you post on the site, including the number of views received by each post, the time of engagement with the post by the viewer, the age and gender of followers, and the location of active users.

Such information can enable your business to answer questions like: When and what kinds of posts get your business the most online traction? Should you improve your social media marketing campaigns as you build brand awareness and grow your audience? What is the best time of day for you to post content? How frequently should you post content to keep your viewers engaged and active?

7. Instagram Ads Can Generate Revenues

The opportunity to cash in using Instagram is enormous! If you use the Instagram ad feature prudently, your business can make a substantial amount of revenue.

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

Here are some of the most significant advantages of using Instagram ads as part of your online marketing plan:

• Only followers or recent viewers get an immediate update of your posts on their home feed on Instagram. To reach out to people who do not follow you and haven’t checked any of your posts yet, you need to first be visible on their direct feed. You can achieve that by creating an Insta ad.
• You can customize your target audience for Insta ads by specifying demographics and locations.
• You can gather data from insights on the ads you create to study consumer behavior.
• You can re-run the ad for the same audience or change target audience specifications as needed.
• Your Instagram ad campaign can be run on both Instagram and Facebook, thus targeting audiences on both platforms.
• Instagram ads can convincingly direct viewers to your company’s landing pages and e-commerce sites.

You can even pay to promote your posts when you operate a business Instagram account. Use this micro-advertising technique if you have a large follower base to boost your visibility on their feeds.

The Takeaway

Now that you have seven compelling reasons to try out Instagram, why not give your business the edge it needs to tell your brand story and build a compelling online presence? Make use of the business account tools and execute your marketing tactics on the platform creatively to give your audience a reason to engage with your brand. You will not only be able to gather online followers, but also to increase customer traffic and conversion on your e-commerce sites. Give your company’s brand strategy the boost it needs by making Instagram an integral part of your marketing playbook.

If you’re looking for more tips on using Instagram to tell your brand story and transform your customer experience, subscribe to the TopRight blog! Or connect with me on Twitter and on LinkedIn.  You can learn more about how to bring simplicity, clarity, and alignment to your brand’s story, strategy, and systems in our best-selling book: Marketing, Interrupted.