Long gone are the days where we had to visit door to door to sell our products. These days you can sit in one place and sell your products throughout the world and this was made possible by the Internet and Social Media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Today there are over a million Marketing firms that depend on social media to promote and boost their businesses and if you’re reading this, you’re just one of them. But as there are too many businesses it’s quite hard to make your business shine brighter than your competitors. But in this article, we’ll give you trusted and tested tips that have catapulted no-name firms to one of the most renowned brands.

1. Hashtags matter

The era where people used to use hashtags just to sound cool is gone. Now people know that it’s a powerful and important tool they must use to unleash their full potential. If you use it properly you can get tons of benefits from it. Hashtags can help you find your ideal audience doesn’t matter whether they follow you or not, but yeah of course your page should not be private as I mentioned earlier.

With the new feature of Instagram, one can even follow a hashtag. The use of hashtags provides a 12.6% increase in engagement. The maximum number of hashtags Instagram allows is 30 hashtags per post. That doesn’t mean you have to use the limit if you are using irrelevant ones you might end up getting ghost followers. You need to find hashtags that are appropriate for your post so that you can become more discoverable. This way you can target a specific group of people who actually have an interest in your niche and react to your post genuinely.

Instagram does its organising and sorting through the help of hashtags. I suggest you find the most effective hashtags for your brand, rather than going overboard. If you’re tempted to use all the popular hashtags, do not do that. Otherwise, your post will disappear quickly in that cluster. Go for popular ones but not with overly popular ones.

Do make one unique hashtag for your page. If your content is interesting people might follow your hashtag. And Use your spying skills on your competitors and see what hashtags they are using.

2. Get more followers

On Instagram, Likes and followers truly define your success and failure, after all, they’re the ones who are going to buy your products and they’re also the ones who are going to help you gain the fame you rightfully deserve.

But sometimes it’s quite hard to gain a good number of followers and likes on your profile and this can happen even when your profile is quite impressive. If you’re going through something like that, then read this point carefully. 

3. Make use of Instagram live and stories

Instagram live and Stories are other great features that can help you sell better. Your feed helps people to know about your brand while through your stories and live sessions you can hook them up. Going live and interacting with your followers makes your profile more genuine and trustworthy (because communication is the key). It might take some time to share live content.

The good thing about Instagram live is when you are done with broadcasting, your video will disappear and with its new features, you can collaborate with other users too. Whereas Instagram stories are basically a slideshow of images, videos, gifs, posts, and messages which will be visible for 24 hours.

While using these features you should try to make your content more engaging, relatable, and interesting, to entertain your followers. By sharing the fun and more playful side of your work can help you in making them a part of it.

Try using the art of storytelling to engage them, to make them feel excited and curious. You can add hashtags to your stories too, up to 10 maximum. I suggest you shrink them and use a sticker or poll to hide them.

4. Partner with influencers     

As mentioned earlier, partnering with influencers is another great way to promote and boost your follower base on Instagram. Around 94% of the marketers on Instagram have found success after partnering with Social Media influencers. Why so? Because Influencers have loyal followers who absolutely trust them.

That’s nothing, in-fact 82% of people almost always follow the recommendations made by their trusted influencers, and 94% of people believe that influencers are experts. 

And as Instagram is the prime platform for social media influencers, so if you wish to opt for a cost-effective method for boosting and promoting your business on Instagram, then lookup for good influencers. They normally charge a few hundred bucks but if you wish to go for celebrity influencers, then get ready to empty your wallet.

5. Use targeted ads

Much like the Targeted audience you need to target your Ads too. Posting ads is yet another incredible way to boost your business. According to research, over 2 million businesses are already using Instagram Ads to promote their products. These ads do work and around 96% of the Marketers haven’t stopped their Ads plan.

By further understanding your targeted audience, you can easily target your Ads. To do know you need to know these following–

• Interests
• Location
• Demographics
• Behaviour.

Taking those 4 points into consideration while posting ads will definitely boost your business. Of course! you must pay, but I’ve also mentioned cheap and cost-effective methods in this article that’ll help you out if you’re low on funds.

6. Run contests and giveaways

Running contests and giveaways are a great way to appreciate your existing followers, to get new followers, and to spread awareness about your brand. You are giving something for free in return for more engagement, a win-win situation. But make sure to do it right with an adequate amount of planning. You don’t want to give away expensive gifts with zero benefits for your brand.

Steps that you can follow while planning for any contest or giveaway.

• Always have a purpose behind your contest and giveaway.
• Depending on your purpose form rules, which are easy and simple to follow.
• Choose a prize that you think your followers are interested in and are related to your brand.
• Promote your contest or giveaway through the help of ads.
• Keep track of your performance.

You can run contests and giveaways any time of the year you don’t need to wait for a certain occasion. When you think you have enough resources, when you are going to launch a new product (that will help you create a buzz about it) or when you reach a certain count of followers.

Just make sure that your contest and giveaways increase enough excitement for your audience. And they should be simple and transparent, if in case they are too hard then your audience might ignore it. Decide how long you want to run it according to your resources and prizes. Do enough research before getting into it.