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 pub­li­ciz­ing 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 don’t appear in the public stream but instead in a specific user’s inbox. 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 initiates contact, it is seen as intrusive and the message will likely be regarded as spam. For example, a user might wish to open a dialog with the company account about an inquiry or a photo com­pe­ti­tion. If the user is the one who initiates contact, it is then ac­cept­able for the company 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, optimized, 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 industry, 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 with either take off or flop. To avoid failure, you need to know why your plan is working or not working. That’s why analyzing 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.