Instagram for businesses, part 2: strategy and planning

If you’re active on social media, you’re probably aware of the ever-growing hype surrounding Instagram, the world’s most popular image-sharing app. The app is an unprecedented success story on a remarkable scale — over 95 million new photos and videos are uploaded on the platform every single day. Users don’t just consist of individuals but also brands, celebrities, and the so-called influencers.

Instagram’s combined approach of allowing its users to create and innovate while simultaneously providing a large public platform for self-promotion is unique among social networking sites. But ever increasing brand awareness doesn’t come automatically; Instagram can make or break your image — it all depends on how you choose to use its functions.

There are plenty of things to consider when planning an Instagram campaign: what makes good content? What is the best way to make use of Instagram stories, hashtags, and the Instagram community? And how can you integrate Instagram seamlessly into your marketing mix?

Summer 2016 saw the launch of the Instagram business account. Before that, personal and commercial accounts were often indistinguishable. This new kind of account offers extensive profile information as well as a CTA button with three contact options (e-mail, phone number, route planner), a selection of categories, and a statistics function. This last feature is of particular interest to marketers and businesses since as a new analytics feature, it makes it possible to learn more about your followers and how to improve the performance of your posts without using an external provider.

Once you’ve set up your Instagram business account, fleshing out your strategy and defining your key aims should be your primary focus. For further information on how to change your standard profile into an Instagram business account, check out the first part of this series.

The list of social media platforms that provide marketing opportunities is long — particularly when it comes to image-sharing platforms. Instagram is constantly battling competition from Pinterest, Snapchat, Flickr, and Facebook, all of which provide marketing opportunities via sharing images and videos.

One crucial difference between Instagram and other social media channels is their use of links; while tweets and Facebook posts often come with a link to a blog, landing page, or shop, Instagram posts do not include links. Put simply, the app does not generate direct traffic for a website. Instagram marketing instead focuses on key performance indicators (KPIs).

Instagram is not a typical performance marketing channel, it’s more of a tool to curate an image and increase brand awareness. Of course, this indirectly supports wider marketing objectives and sales but it is hard — if not impossible — to measure these effects. As no direct traffic is generated via organic Instagram posts, conversions are difficult to trace.

Instagram should be regarded as a digital branding channel. The aim isn’t to gain clicks, but to control how people perceive your brand. In this context, you’re likely to hear the following buzzwords:

• Visual storytelling
• Visual corporate storytelling
• Branded storytelling

Put simply: those who are active on Instagram want to increase their brand awareness and boost product communication through pushing image-driven content. The platform is used to attract attention with a strong focus on KPIs such as:

• Followers
• Outreach
• Interactions rate
• Generating and publicising campaign hashtags

Instagram is, therefore, often used as an extension of bigger branding campaigns, except for the newly introduced Instagram ads, which we will explain in the last part of our Instagram guide.

The right content strategy is required in order to build a brand on Instagram and reach out to the desired target group. Taking the right approach when addressing your target audience is usually firmly anchored in a company’s communications guidelines. Your content strategy should be reflected in the social media marketing plan. In Instagram’s case, it’s crucial that your communication objectives match the interests of the users. But there’s more than one way to define the visual identity of the company profile.

On Instagram, aesthetics are the be-all and end-all. A corporate web presence needs to be unique but consistent. This is because it is important for the brand to be identifiable. To get the right look for your business profile, it helps to restrict yourself to just one or two filters or use a distinctive visual element/style across all of your images. This will help you to develop a unique style that users can easily associate with your brand; this quality is desirable for successful branding.

Practical aspects of content strategy include:

• Regular new posts
• Timing of publication
• Choice of motifs, themes and style
• Creating a suitable content calendar

It’s important for businesses to post new images regularly without bombarding users with too many images. On average, brands post three times a day; however, as with any other social media network, the exact time depends on the target group. There’s no strict guideline for when and how frequently you should post; the best way to find out is simply to experiment and find out what time works best for you. The new analytics function helps here by offering comprehensive information about your follower base. You should then record the results in some kind of editorial plan or content calendar. This will help you determine the time you publish your content and allocate responsibilities.

The above example shows that #justdoit is the only hashtag used on the official Nike Instagram. As a global brand, Nike has adopted a minimalist hashtag strategy but this hasn’t prevented it from being seen by millions of people. However, if you want to expand your company’s Instagram presence and your follower base, it may be more effective to use more than one. But which hashtags are the best ones to use?

It’s important to remain thematically relevant to your content, so ask yourself how you would describe your photos and find out which hashtags your target group are interested in.

You can find an overview of the most popular hashtags on Instagram here. Popular hashtags have the potential to reach a large audience, but also face great competition and therefore risk getting lost in the flood of posts. Companies should try to strike the balance between popular and specific, target group-oriented hashtags that are not used a million times.

However, businesses should distance themselves from hashtags like #follow, #followme, #like4like, and #tagsforlike. These hashtags are used to quickly generate as many like and followers as possible. Using this tactic will make your company look like it is struggling and unprofessional.

Instagram Direct offers the option to share content with users via private messages. The photos and videos then appear in a specific user’s inbox rather than in the regular feed. Businesses can also use this function to contact followers. However, to use this function, it’s important that the user starts the conversation, i.e. sends the first message. If the company does this, it is seen as intrusive and the message will likely be regarded as spam. For example, a user might wish to open a dialogue with the company account about an inquiry or a photo competition. If the user is the one to initiate contact, it is then acceptable to continue the conversation.

Finally, we bring you the relatively new feature, Instagram stories. Launched in 2016, the function allows users to document their day using photos and videos that automatically disappear after 24 hours. Two months after the introduction of this function, over 100 million users were already using Instagram stories daily. This major win for Instagram promises companies a new opportunity to increase outreach, outside of ordinary posts and direct messages. The limited display time makes these different to normal posts. The stories provide a simple way of presenting additional content and strengthening your presence. In other words, this feature is a supplement to your regular content.

Users can find the story function on the app’s home screen. This feature is only available through the app and not in the web view. If a user has a story currently uploaded, his or her profile picture will be highlighted with a circle. You can view this story by clicking on the circle. Instagram stories can be a single image or video or multiple ones. Upon opening the story, the app displays all currently existing images and videos one after the other. The app then automatically jumps to the next available story unless the user exits the story feature. When you create an Instagram story, it will automatically appear at the top of your followers’ feed and may even appear in the ‘Discover’ section of related accounts.

As well as the limited availability of 24 hours, there’s one other big difference between stories and regular posts — while posts that appear in your newsfeed are usually structured and perfectly edited, stories have a far more spontaneous feel. Thanks to the fleeting nature of the story posts, users can post more often without flooding their followers' feeds.

In contrast to perfectly staged, optimised, and edited news feed content, Instagram stories are not made to be perfect. For example, companies can use stories to give their followers a glimpse ‘behind the scenes’. This strengthens customer loyalty, as you communicate on their level and give a more unfiltered insight into the company's everyday life. Product manufacturers can give insights into the production process, agencies might give followers a tour through the office. Whatever your sector, it’s important to always keep your finger on the pulse and remain relevant.

It’s always best to think your strategy through properly before posting with wild abandon. However, even with the most carefully structured plan and all the relevant facts and research, there’s still no guarantee of success. As in any other area of marketing, a strategy will either take off or flop. To avoid failure, you need to know why your plan is working or not working. That’s why analysing your progress on Instagram is vital. Until quite recently, it was only possible to gain insight about your followers and the performance of your posts via a third-party provider but now a built-in analytics function is available. For more information on this topic, check our detailed article on Instagram Analysis Tools.