What is Instagram Marketing, and which are its areas?

Instagram is a social media platform founded in 2010 that has grown steadily since its launch and is now used worldwide. The platform allows users to share images and videos and interact with the community. The social network acquired by Facebook in 2012 has currently more than 1 billion users per month and thus significantly more active users than Facebook, this is one of the reasons why Instagram has become an increasingly exciting marketing channel for companies in recent years.

For this reason, Instagram has developed its marketing in a targeted manner, i.e., the targeted, strategic use of the platform as an advertising channel for companies. Currently, there are three main areas in which Instagram Marketing is divided:

Business Account & Community-Management

The first essential part of Instagram Marketing is to maintain a company’s presence. To be truly successful and, above all, measurable in marketing on Instagram, the company must first move from a private to a business account; this allows the company to gain detailed insights on its activity, content and target audience. However, to get feedback on its Instagram profile, the company needs to place value in the form of targeted high-quality content either from its own or through third parties, this includes, for example, creating stories, adding images and videos to the feed or using relevant hashtags. Also, a link in the profile, also known as a bio, should lead to the company’s website, the online shop or directly to the product detail page on Amazon.

Influencer Marketing

Another way to increase brand awareness and strengthen the brand is to use Influencer Marketing on Instagram. In this case, a company cooperates with an influencer, i.e. a person or account with as many followers as possible within the community that is relevant for the company. In the case of an “influencer takeover,” the influencer could use the company account for a while and post pictures of him or herself using the company’s product. However, it is essential to maintain the look and feel and brand strategy for Instagram; this allows influencers to act as brand ambassadors who not only improve reach but also increase sales.

Advertising & campaign placement

Since Instagram is linked to Facebook, the advertising campaigns work very similarly for both platforms; therefore, the same campaigns can quickly be adopted. This possibility means one can choose between highlighting contributions in the Instagram app, running campaigns in the Facebook Ad Manager, or using the Instagram Page as a link to Facebook as well as partnering the account with an external partner. Partners include companies such as Buffer, Swat.io, and Salesforce. The advantage of the ad manager is that Facebook’s targeting settings can also be applied to Instagram. This makes it easier to work with and saves time and effort.

How do companies use this social media platform?

Instagram is much more than just a social media platform. Instead, effective marketing can help companies increase brand awareness and sales. Even a single successful contribution can increase sales enormously. This, of course, has a positive effect on your ranking as a seller at Amazon. Overnight, a unique product promoted by an influencer on Instagram, for example, can become a bestseller at Amazon, and for this to happen, a product must sell quite a lot in a relatively short time. Another positive aspect of Instagram Marketing is that it allows companies to link their Facebook page to their Instagram account. This way, contributions shared on Instagram can also be published on Facebook, increasing the reach and brand awareness.