No social media strategy is complete without Instagram marketing. If your business is not active on Instagram or other social media platforms then your competitors definitely are.
The thing is, having an Instagram profile does not necessarily translate to sales you need to have a strategy to help you get the best out of it. Instagram marketing in Kenya can help your increase your brand awareness, increase sales and build a community.
These tips will help you improve your Instagram marketing strategy today.
Optimize your profile
First impression matters. When someone visits your Instagram account what is the first thing they see?
Your profile should communicate who you are and what you do from your bio, profile picture to your recent posts.
Consider using your logo as your profile picture because its is more recognizable than a picture of your products. You can as well include your website URL on your bio for people to visit your website because you can’t link your website on your posts.
Post regularly
Your Instagram account needs to be updated regularly. You just can’t be posting once a month and expect to grow your account.
You might consider having a content calendar that will help you in coming up with content and scheduling them in advance using free scheduling tools like Hootsuite.
You might consider posting one post per day if you want your brand to be fresh in the minds of your followers. Also if you have lots of content that you want to share each day, it’s better to add it to your Instagram story than flooding your followers feed which might be perceived as annoying.
Don’t be too ‘salesy’
The aim of your Instagram account is to ultimately drive sales but that doesn’t mean all your posts should be product promotion.
As we have always said, people don’t want to be sold to all the time, therefore mix up your content. Throw in some funny images, educate people on your products, motivate your followers, have some giveaways so long as it doesn’t stray too far from your brand image.
46% of users say they will unfollow a brand on social media if it posts promotions too frequently. Keep your posts short and to the point and keep off from using all caps in your posts if not necessary.
Use Insta Story
You can add videos and images to your Insta stories. You can add multiple images or videos a day without having to populate the timeline of your followers. If you have an Instagram shop you can even tag a product and people can view it on your shop.
Go Live
Instagram has a live broadcast and users love it.
As a business take this to your advantage and use it to connect with your audience in real-time. Don’t forget to comment on your followers’ comments while you are at it this will help you increase your engagement metrics.
You could use a live stream to introduce a new product, demonstrate the usage of a product, introduce your team or even have a QnA segment.
Partner with influencers
We know that 82% of people are likely to follow recommendations made by micro-influencers. And 94% of consumers believe these influencers are highly knowledgeable.
Influencers can help you promote your products, brand and services in an effective way. Influencers are a good way of helping with brand awareness and also getting you more sales. Most Influencers charge less compared to celebrities.
In Kenya, some influencers charge from as low as Ksh 1,000 to advertise on their Insta stories or their posts.
You can as well send them free products and then they can mention you on their videos.
Captions and Hashtags
Imagine if you post a product image without a caption, what do you want people to do?
Captions are as important as the images and videos in your posts and hashtags are definitely necessary.
You can use a branded hashtag or a popular hashtag to give you more reach.
Invest in Ads
The easiest way to reach people who don’t know you or follow your account is through the use of paid ads.
You can use ads to reach more people through Instagram targeting by age, location, interest among others. This can help you increase your brand awareness and get you more sales. You can run ads with as low as ksh.200 per day. Though it won’t get you as much results it will still be something.
Run Contests and giveaways
Contest and giveaways are the most effective ways of getting more people to follow your page as well as get more engagement. The tweak is that you need to know how to do it to effectively get a good response and also what you are giving away.
From the contest, you can make more than what you gave away. You can as well ask your followers to upload a picture and tag your brand this will expose your company to the people who follow the user’s account.
From this contest, the page will get more traction as well as more followers. It’s the easiest way of increasing brand following and brand awareness within a short period of time.
Shoppable posts
If you’re an e-commerce brand then you need to take advantage of this feature. You can sell your products directly through Instagram and you tag the products on your stories and posts. From the post, you can tag a product from which people will see the product name, price and a link to purchase.
Repost your products
If you post a product just once and never post it again, chances are people might have missed it or forgotten about it.
The first time they see your product, they may not have a reason to buy it. But if they see it more than once, it may start to pique their interest.
According to a study from Sprout Social, more than 60% of people need to see something on social media between two and four times before they buy it.
Don’t use the same image four times, have a strategy around it from the first post. You can use images as well as videos.
Remember posting the same product multiple times can increase the chances of people buying it.
Respond to comments and messages
In this day and time, you need to respond to people’s comments and messages no matter how tedious and time-consuming it is otherwise it will boil down to negative reviews.
People appreciate when they ask a question and they get a response. Responding to comments shows users that you value customer services. Even if it’s negative feedback, respond to it in a courteous and professional manner without defending yourself. Customer’s reviews can build or break your business and you need to tread carefully.
If you can’t respond to the comments or messages hire someone to do it for you otherwise it may tamper with your brand reputation.
Hopefully, these tips can help you with your Instagram marketing in Kenya and help you get more sales.
Also Read: The Ultimate Instagram Marketing Strategy Guide in 2021
