In 2010, Instagram came about as a simple photo-sharing platform. Now, it’s the most influential app of our generation — crawling with brands, marketers, and influencers.

In its 10 years of existence, Instagram has grown into a new sales channel for businesses and a source of income for creators, and it’s now the second most logged onto social networking site for daily use after Facebook. Previously known for showing static images, Instagram is now a hub for live videos content, interactive content, and shoppable posts.

Ready to harness the value of marketing through Instagram? We’re discussing how you can use this visual-heavy platform to reach new customers, engage your current followers, and promote your brand authentically.

First things First: Create an Instagram Business Account

With an Instagram Business profile, brands have access to Instagram analytics, which provide data about audience demographics, post impressions, post-performance, and follower growth. Instagram Business profiles also offer extra features like Instagram Shopping and Instagram Ads to help you grow your business.

By simply having an Instagram account, brands already have some leverage. In one survey, people said they perceive brands on Instagram as popular (78%), creative (77%), entertaining (76%) and relevant (74%). Instagram gives you the ability to share your brand story and sell yourself with many types of content — from customer photos to memes to bite-sized videos.

Video Content on Instagram: Instagram Live & IGTV

Inspired by features on other social media platforms, Instagram has built competitive tools to grow its video content offering. The platform has successfully integrated live and long-form video alongside its more traditional content formats, like sponsored posts, carousels, and static images — massively increasing consumer outreach.

Instagram Live

The popularity of live video is majorly growing — so much that it’s expected to be a $70.5 billion industry by 2021.

Instagram Live works as part of Instagram Stories, allowing creators and businesses to broadcast live video content to users on the platform. What’s more, using Instagram Live bumps you to the first position in the Stories that are shown above the feed. With developments such as push notifications to alert users to the publication of new live videos, leveraging Instagram Live can be a huge help in boosting your engagement with your live streams.

Instagram Live has proven its success significantly during quarantine, as brands are turning to the feature to connect with their followers digitally.

Patrón, for instance, opened a Virtual Bar on Cinco de Mayo to raise money for both bartenders and charities that support hospitality workers. The five-hour live stream featured 20 bartenders across the U.S. crafting easy-to-make margaritas at home.

PepsiCo’s Tostitos brand also went live on Cinco de Mayo. They hosted free livestreamed salsa dancing classes that raised money for 125 low-income Latino families struggling with household expenses. Before that, Jägermeister went live to show fans how to make cold brew martinis and other specialty cocktails during a virtual charity brunch on April 19.

Notice that all these brands are not broadcasting live content just for the sake of doing so — rather, there’s a specific purpose to their live streams. In these cases, it’s raising money for organizations and people affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

Hosting virtual charitable events is not the only way brands can engage their followers with live video. Here are some methods to consider:

Product marketing: Promote your products through demos, tutorials, teasers or launch announcements, or go live to alert your followers of a limited-time offer or sale.

Q&A: Giving immediate answers to your followers’ questions could influence them to make a quicker purchasing decision. In mid-April, Nikon launched a series of curated online events dubbed #CreatorsHour, in which Nikon Ambassadors guided Q&A’s on Instagram Live. The live episodes broadcasted on their @NikonUSA account covered topics such as how to livestream on Instagram and techniques for capturing family portraits at home.

IGTV

Allowing brands to upload long-form video content, IGTV is essentially Instagram’s effort to challenge YouTube for video supremacy.

IGTV videos can be viewed on Instagram or its standalone app, which features an easy-to-navigate interface with various tabs including “for you,” “following," and "popular.” Unlike videos uploaded straight to Instagram, IGTV videos can be anywhere from 10-60 minutes long, and can be shot in both portrait and landscape orientations.

Like Instagram Live, IGTV has become a useful tool for brands to engage followers in quarantine. In April, Anheuser-Busch brand’s Stella Artois began hosting a cooking show on Instagram’s IGTV. The cooking series dubbed “@StellaSessions At Home” is not only entertaining housebound viewers, but is also raising money for restaurants and bars.

With similar intentions, Sennheiser — the maker of headphones and audio equipment — debuted a livestreamed concert series for music fans called #DontStopTheMusic. While the performances were free to watch, Sennheiser urged viewers to donate to the World Health Organization (WHO) in support of its efforts to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Instagram Stories

The Snapchat feature clone has become a popular feature among Instagram business accounts and users since it was introduced in 2016. With over 500 million active Story users daily — compared to Snapchat’s 190 million total daily users — it is clear that Instagram Stories are an important channel for brands. Instagram Stories are ephemeral, meaning they only live for 24 hours — or forever if you share them as Instagram Stories Highlights.

Here are some elements that can help you bring Stories — which also includes Instagram Live session — to life:

Location and Hashtag Stickers: You can see location-based stories on the Explore page, and you can also search for Stories by location or hashtag.

Question Stickers: Using question stickers allows users to submit questions for you to answer.

Countdown Stickers: These stickers are great for building anticipation for an upcoming event — whether it be a product launch, an in-store sale, or some other monumental milestone for your brand.

Clickable Shopping Links: More recently, Instagram rolled out the ability to add links to Instagram Stories. This means you can easily send your followers to a specific landing page, be it a product page or a new blog post.

Unique Formats

Video formats Boomerang and Superzoom allow you to make your Story more visually impactful. Boomerang enables mini videos to loop back and forth, and Superzoom lets you dramatically zoom in on certain elements.

Poll and Emoji Sliders: Stories have become more and more immersive, inviting followers to actually respond and engage with content. With the poll and emoji slider sticker, you can survey your followers to gauge their interests, likes, and dislikes. They’re great for many instances — from collecting feedback to crowdsourcing ideas.

GIF Stickers: Thanks to GIPHY, you have access to a library of fun, expressive GIFs you can overlay on Instagram Stories.

Music Stickers: On both photo and video Stories, you can add a soundtrack that fits any moment or mood.

Tagging Other Accounts: This feature is very useful when it comes to partnership marketing and cross-promotions. You can also tag other businesses in sponsored Instagram Stories.

Stories can help bring your brand’s story to life. What’s more, Instagram Stories are displayed at the top of a feed — making them more accessible to users upon logging in. Stories are often used for product marketing — the “tapping” progression of Stories makes it a great place to build anticipation around your products or services.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing has fully taken off on Instagram. In fact, 79% of brands turn to the photo-sharing app for influencer campaigns. Furthermore, the introduction of live video has encouraged a more informal, authentic presentation of influencers to their followers.

For brands, partnering and collaborating with respected influencers in your industry is a great way to gain exposure to a wider audience. When influencers speak to the quality of your brand, it can feel far more genuine than traditional advertising.

Brands are increasingly tapping into influencers of all types, including micro- and nanoinfluencers, kidfluencers, gaming influencers, and even virtual influencers. On Instagram, influencers can share their thoughts on a brand in many creative ways, from live video testimonials to photos featuring the product or service.

Shopping Features

Content published by brands on Instagram plays a key role in each step of the buying journey. Consumers use the platform to research brands and products, discover what’s trending, and aid their purchase decisions. Instagram is often used in the discovery portion of the sales funnel — in fact, 83% of users discover new products or services using the platform.

What’s more, 87% of users said that they took action after seeing product information on Instagram, such as following a brand, visiting their website. or making a purchase online.

These are two of Instagram’s features that specifically aid consumer purchases:

Explore Page: The Explore page is an endless scroll of content featuring photos, videos, Stories, and products that Instagram thinks a user will like based on their interests. Getting content featured on Instagram’s Explore page allows brands to reach users that don’t already follow them. More than half of Instagram users check the Explore page every month, so landing a post there is sure to increase your brand awareness and engagement.

Shopping: The shop feature is a personalized feed of shoppable posts from brand accounts, enabling brands to tag products in their posts and Stories. 130 million Instagrammers tap to reveal product tags in shopping posts each month, making the shopping feature a great way to boost conversions. With the “checkout” feature Instagram introduced in early 2019, consumers can make secure purchases right within the app, without having to navigate to a different browser. Users can also bookmark products into personalized collections to revisit later.

TIME TO TAP INTO INSTAGRAM

50% of Instagram users follow at least one business, meaning brands have a great opportunity to grow their reach through the platform. With features like Instagram Live, Stories, IGTV, the Explore Page, and shoppable posts, Instagram is a powerful marketing tool that can help you engage your followers, promote brand awareness, and drive sales.

Marketing In The Age of Instagram: What You Need To Know