Do you want to learn Instagram marketing?

Before I give you some Instagram marketing tips, let's take a look at information about the platform. 

Since the app was created, Instagram has become the ultimate platform for photo sharing.

There are more than 1.16 billion monthly active users on the site. Daily users spend about 8 minutes on the application and share 500 million stories a day.

There are also many influencers on the site with a large number of followers. And with the right plan, you too can create an influential brand.

To stay in touch with existing followers and at the same time gain new ones, you need to publish content that interests them.

However, it can be difficult at first to know which types of posts work best to grow your audience. That's why we'll be telling you how to become an expert Instagram marketer in our article.

Instagram Marketing Techniques

Here are 10 Instagram marketing tips to help you utilise the platform in a powerful way:

1. You Should Switch to Business Profile As Soon As Possible

Instagram pazarlama planınızı kurgulamadan başlamadan önce , Instagramınızın İşletme Hesabı olduğundan emin olun.

Switching your existing profile to a business account is easy.

To get started, go to your settings and click "Switch to Business Profile".

There are some benefits to having a business profile.

For example, followers can click on the contact button to get in touch with you from your Instagram page, just like from your website.

A business profile allows you to create and publish Instagram adverts without the need to use Facebook's advertising tools.

You can also access Instagram analytics tools called Insights, which provide statistics about the impressions and reach of your posts.

Once you unlock the free benefits that come with a business profile, you need to start using them to track metrics and understand your audience.

2. Use Free Instagram Marketing Tools

Business profiles on Instagram are not much different from Facebook business profiles.

Through Insights you can view statistics such as impressions, engagement data and more.

You can even get a breakdown of your followers' demographics, including information about their age, gender, location, and hours of most activity.

When you think about it, these free tools are invaluable because you use them to understand exactly how users interact with your content.

The more you know about how people interact with your posts, the better you can adjust/adjust your content to increase engagement.

A category of posts that almost always attracts attention: Product Promotions.

3. Post Product Promotions that (Gently) Nudge People to Buy

What if you could sell more products just by posting product promotions on Instagram?

You really can.

Instagram is a great place to advertise your products. And if you play your cards right, you won't annoy users or scare them with ads.

If you are too persistent, your followers will start to leave one by one. However, if you make product promotion posts, talk about your product and do it naturally as if you are trying too much, things will be different.

Here's an example of a post from Gilt Man's Instagram page that doesn't directly try to sell a product, but offers a free app where users can purchase the brand's entire inventory.

The brand offers a 70% discount while showing you photos of some of the products you can buy.

And each of the posts received thousands of likes, which is a huge number in the world of advertising.

Adverts work because they are not offensive. They beckon users with discounts and product images to download the app and make a purchase.

This is true for almost every industry. Starbucks plays with its audience by announcing seasonal drinks with sharp images and without forcing people to buy them.

When you tease people about products they are interested in and don't force them to buy something, you are more likely to pique their interest and get them to actually buy something.

Even if they don't make a purchase, they will at least interact with your post by liking, commenting or sharing it with a friend.

So don't be afraid to showcase your products by posting product photos. Just do it gently.

These posts also help you create sponsored adverts.

4. Create Sponsored Ads

Instagram ads have become commonplace on the platform. The best part? You can control for yourself exactly how much you want to spend on them by setting an advertising budget.

Thanks to the rotating feature available in the sponsored ad, you can display only one sponsored ad or multiple ads.

This gives brands the ability to target their audience in a whole new way. Before sponsored posts, only users who followed your account could see your updates and photos.

Now more than ever, brands can promote their photos to anyone who fits their target audience to increase their reach.

For sponsored adverts, you should use engaging content while appealing to the target demographic you want to get the advert in front of.

You can also convert existing posts into sponsored adverts.

You can then forward these high-performing posts to potential customers in the form of sponsored adverts.

Publish multiple posts to different audiences at the same time for more engagement. Remember that there are many different sponsored ad formats you can run, such as :

• Photo
• Video
• Rotating/Dynamic Ads
• Stories
• Stories Canvas

Sponsored or not, Instagram Stories are another great way to connect with followers.

5. Use Instagram Stories

If you want to generate leads, Instagram Stories is here to help you.

Instagram stories differ from regular Instagram posts in that they come in a "slideshow" format.

They are only live for 24 hours, but Stories can be saved to any of your devices and reused later.

This feature is very similar to Snapchat Stories (and is even a direct competitor ).

Instead of appearing in the news feed, Instagram Stories appears in a small area above it.

When a user clicks on your photo at the top, a window opens where they can view your Story.

The benefits of Instagram Stories for brands are truly endless. For starters, Stories are displayed at the top of follower timelines that users already look at on a daily basis.

Brands can use stories to capture behind-the-scenes posts from insiders that may not be as "high quality" as regular posts.

And when it comes to Stories, you don't have to worry too much about posting content that fits with the overall aesthetic of your brand or Instagram page.

Instagram also makes it easy to experiment with different types of content available in the Stories feature, such as photos, short videos, rewind video, live video or Boomerangs. You can use tools like Canva and InVideo to create great images and videos for your Stories.

Boomerangs are GIF-like images that play in a loop.

You can also tag other accounts in Stories, which is useful if you're collaborating with another brand or influencer.

Face filters, text or stickers make it easy to edit images or create fun, eye-catching visuals.

Each photo and video you add will play in the order you added them.

The amount of posts you can add to Stories at any given time is unlimited, and this feature is available to all businesses worldwide.

Stories are only available in the mobile Instagram app and it is currently not possible to send Instagram Stories as direct messages.

But since most Instagram users access the site via the smartphone app rather than the website, this isn't really something to worry about.

If you haven't already partnered with influencers who bring a lot to Instagram, find a few people you'd like to work with and reach out to them. 

6. Partner with an Influencer for a Wider Reach

If you want to reach potential customers on Instagram, the fastest way to do this is through influencers who already have a large following.

More and more people buy services or products from influential people they follow based on what they see in their publications. They trust them.

If you partner with influencers from the right industry, you can get your brand in front of these users.

The first step is to try and identify a few influencers with an audience relevant to your product or service.

An example of how Gravity Blankets uses the impressive Jessi Smiles to promote its products on its Instagram page.

The post received thousands of likes.

The brand sells weighted blankets for sleep and stress. Their Instagram page has more than 79 thousand followers .

But Jessi has more than 400,000 followers on her page who will probably trust her advice.

This means that the brand exposes itself to thousands of potential customers (and new followers) through a post.

If you put aside the short-term gains and direct sales you can get from an influencer campaign, there are even more long-term benefits.

If you build a relationship with each influencer, you will create lasting brand awareness with a new audience.

And if you play your cards right, you can even work with the best influencers to gain millions of likes in the future, as Coca-Cola did with this post by Selena Gomez.

Selena Gomez instagram advertising sample

Your existing customers may not be impressive, but you can still use their posts to influence people to buy your products by collecting user-submitted photos.

7. Collect User Submitted Photos

Wouldn't it be nice if there was a way to create great content for your Instagram page without much effort?

It exists thanks to user-submitted photos.

You already have an engaged audience. Whether it's hundreds or thousands of people, you can leverage your audience to create useful content for you.

And your followers will probably enjoy more user-generated content than yours because it's real and unpredictable.

Cosmetics brand MAC uses tonnes of user-generated content to showcase their products, which they promote on their Instagram page.

Here is a photo that one of their users posted, which they then added to their Instagram page. Notice how they used the hashtag #regram and how they tagged the user in the picture.

You may be wondering exactly how you can get your users to create engaging content without being pushy.

It's actually quite simple. Your audience probably wants to grow their followers just like you do.

If you choose their photos to reprogram, let them know you will tag them in your post, then they will have the incentive to post user-generated content consistently.

A win-win for you and your customers.

GoPro is famous for it. The brand chooses one #FeaturedPhotographer every week.

The brand (and its followers) treat it like a weekly competition.

If you try something similar, you'll probably be surprised how willing your followers will be to participate.

Remember to choose the photos you want to submit wisely. This can be difficult, but try to remember the following when thinking about the winner:

Does the photo fit the brand image you have created or are trying to create? Or does it go against it?

How many followers does the person whose photo you want to share have?

Is the photo suitable for your current target audience and followers?

When running a business, you need to make sure that everything you post is aligned with your brand's message (and audience). Even on Instagram, this is important.

If someone shares a user-generated image with a large following, those followers will probably be interested in checking out your page as well.

See how this user-submitted photo from Boosted Boards matches the brand's aesthetic. High quality, engaging and unique.

Choose images like this one that successfully mimic the tone of your brand.

However, try not to be too biased about the content you want to publish. Mix it up and watch your follower count and engagement grow.

It also helps to come up with some kind of branded hashtag that encourages Instagram users to be more interactive with your company.

8. Create an Interactive Branded Hashtag

If you want to create instant interaction, interactive hashtags are a great way to achieve this.

Red Bull has collected more than 299,612 posts containing the hashtag #itgivesyouwings.

Customers can then use the tag to publish user-generated content. This allows users to search for all posts related to your brand.

It also allows you to easily search through images that you might want to consider republishing on your own page.

Creating a hashtag that your company (and other users) can search for is essentially free advertising.

Every time someone posts a photo using the tag, they are exposing your company to their followers.

If you already have a popular brand slogan or phrase, consider making it your branded hashtag. Coca-Cola did this successfully with the hashtag #ShareACoke.

However, no matter what you publish, you should share at the right times and avoid sharing more than necessary.

9. Ship at the Right Time (And Don't Overship)

Instagram’da fazla paylaşım yapmak, mevcut takipçilerinizi kaybetmenin kesin bir yoludur.

If all they see in their news feed is your brand, they will probably unfollow you as quickly as possible.

However, you need to post consistently to remain a regular in news feeds.

One of the best ways to do this is to only post during peak days and times when your followers are online.

According to SimplyMeasured, the worst days to post on Instagram are Wednesday and Sunday;
Pazartesi ve Perşembe ise paylaşım yapmak için en iyi günler.

According to CoSchedule's research, the best times of the day to share are between 08:00 and 9:00 and 02:00.

The hour between 8:00 am and 9:00 am is associated with the time when people get ready for work or commute (and check their social media for the day).

And two a.m. is the hour when most people scroll through Instagram at a time when they should be sleeping, so it makes sense that this is the second most popular time to post.

You can find when your followers are most active in Instagram Insights, so your best days and times to post may be slightly different depending on your specific target audience.

Use a tool like Hootsuite, CoSchedule or Sprout Social to schedule your posts to be published on these days and times.

The research also shows that you should post one to two times a day, but no more or less.

If you want to post more, use Instagram's rotating album feature to post multiple images or adverts in slideshow format.

This way, you won't overwhelm your followers.

Once you have made these changes, be sure to monitor your measurements to keep an eye on areas where you can improve.

10. Make Sure You're Tracking the Right Instagram Metrics

You can't improve and optimise your Instagram performance without knowing how well (or poorly) your page and posts are performing.

When you have measurable results, you will know exactly what works and what doesn't.

Start by tracking your follower growth rate.

The total amount of followers you have is often seen as a measure of vanity. And it is.

But your follower growth rate is not like that.

When you take a look at what your follower growth rate looks like, you can see how the type of content you post (or your posting frequency) affects things.

Next, measure engagement rates. This includes likes and comments.

To get a clear picture of how your page is performing, you need to know the average engagement percentage of your total followers and the average engagement rate of each individual post.

If you have fewer followers, your engagement rate should be higher. Here's how your rates should look according to your follower count:

Finally, you need to monitor your URL click-through rate.

If your Instagram bio doesn't have a link to your website, add one as soon as possible.

Then measure how many people clicked on your URL.

According to Conversion XL, the average CTR on Instagram is 0.94%.

The more effective your Instagram marketing techniques are on your target audience, the higher your CTR will be. If it's low, try to improve your approach.

A tool like Sprout Social will measure how many clicks your link gets compared to impressions and interactions.