Great news: millions of small businesses, startups, freelancers are successfully using Instagram to sell their products and services. As diverse as handmade embroidered gifts, plant table cards, wedding merchandise, or custom painted stationery, businesses are growing audiences by sharing their stories.

The truth is, there are real and easy ways to crack it big. Check out three broad ways to get started. If you have a working laptop and a stable internet connection, you are ready to go.

But before that, let’s briefly look at why Instagram is an absolute giant force to reckon.

Instagram: World’s Greatest Platform

No kidding. Not Facebook, not YouTube, not even Twitter or Snapchat. De facto, Instagram is the world’s most powerful social media platform to make money.

On engagement metrics, Instagram is better than Facebook. On influencer marketing, it gets more billing than YouTube. Moreover, compared to YouTube, Instagram supports multiple content formats. Instagram has posts, brand stories, promotional posts, IGTV videos, testimonials, live videos, etc. Even as a news source, Instagram has a leg up over Twitter. What’s more, if you compare Instagram with emerging Snapchat, advertisers and marketers still put their faith in Instagram for its reach and impact.

Let’s also look at some fascinating data points that not many are aware of.

Unlike any other platform, the gender mix on Instagram is 51% female against 49% male. It makes Instagram an ideal, fertile ground to sell the most diverse range of products and services.

What’s more? Unlike any other platform, a massive two in three people interact with brands here. Even more impressive is that a whopping 90% of users follow at least one business account, while two in three visits come from non-followers.

Considering millions of business accounts sit idle, with basic planning and little initiatives, you can grow your reach quickly, in a few months if not weeks.

Let’s get to the three musketeers of the Instagram world that would help you generate more engagement, drive more traffic and stimulate more sales.

Create a Business Account

It seems pretty straightforward, right? Wrong! For not setting up and not optimizing their business account, business owners score low-quality points, can’t get their ads approved or run them as they wish. They neither get access to analytics nor can add links to stories or tag products. What’s worse, they can’t even schedule or boost a post.

Completing a new business account or switching to one from personal is easy. Just visit your account settings, switch to a professional account, select the business account, select your type of business, and you are done. The best part? It’s free. How to advertise and promote.

Quick Takeaways

• Connect Instagram business accounts from Facebook or vice versa for ease of ad management.
• Manage multiple Instagram accounts from one brand. Helpful to serve niche product lines, geographies, etc.

Advertise on Instagram

Now get as many likes, comments, and engagements as you want. Boost any post. Select your audience. Allocate your budget. Add links, clickable buttons, catalogs, photos as required. Then schedule and release. It’s as easy as that. Your ad will now appear across users’ feeds, stories and reels. The advanced advertising tool offers curated ad formats to sail you through design challenges. It also helps you track the performance of the campaigns.

Quick Takeaways

• Got two ads from the designer? Not sure which one will lead to more sales? Test which ads perform better with free tools from Instagram.
• Control your ad, budget, design, text anytime, even after the campaign is launched. Run the ads long if they perform well, or hold on to them if they aren’t.

Engage with Influencers

Instagram and influencers go arm-in-arm. Though celebrity and mega influencers grab the limelight, their cost versus return mostly leaves a lot to be desired. However, due to Instagram’s favorable “creator” policy, nano and micro-influencers generate high engagement and conversions. And, a variety of small businesses love them.

Small businesses cannot afford top influencers like Virat Kohli or Deepika Padukone. Throwing millions at celebrity influencers cannot guarantee results these days, and there might be product-personality conflict or issues with influencers overshadowing the brand. There might be product-personality conflict or issues with influencers overshadowing the brand. Thankfully, top influencers don’t promote everything under the sun.

Instead of traditional ad placements, sponsored placements are organic, trusted, and score well on engagement metrics. Reels, stories, Messenger, or IGTV, a sponsored post can be a great fit across all the content features.

Though influencers’ remuneration varies, here is a ballpark figure for a rough estimate. According to a report on NDTV, an average micro-influencer with 5,000 followers and 25 sponsored posts a year can make Rs. 50,000 a year.

Quick Takeaways

• Should you invest in influencer marketing? Considering content creation consumes time, labor, skill, and production costs, you may begin with nano and micro-influencers. How about Rs. 5000 a post to start with?
• Niche, friendly and relatable voices command a strong level of intimacy with their followers. By engaging with them, small and medium businesses can make the most of their precious budgets.

Conclusion

With over 1 billion users and 200 million businesses, Instagram is the most influential medium of our generation. By getting their business started on Instagram, merchants, freelancers, startups, SMEs can explore a world of opportunities. To make your presence felt and help you make money quickly, make use of the top three strategies for you that we have rounded up.

The post How to Successfully Grow a Business on Instagram? appeared first on PayU Blog.

Ways To Get More Instagram Followers

Getting followers on Instagram is not tedious if you follow the right ways. And here, we have curated a list of things that you can do to increase the number of your followers:

1. Post at a Consistent Time

Your posts will drive more traffic if you are consistent with the timing you post the content. This way, people will know when you are most likely to post the content and can look forward to it. You can use a social media scheduler to time your content and match it with your other posts. 

2. Optimise Your Account

One that looks good sells more. If you want people to trust and follow you, you must optimise your Instagram account. It would help if you had a concise but catchy bio, a profile image that describes you best, and a link to your brand’s homepage. Also, try not to keep your username too complex. It should be simple and search-friendly.

3. Promote Your Account

How will people know that you have an Instagram account until you tell them? Promoting your account comes top and foremost in the list of ways to increase Instagram followers. You can add social media buttons to your website. Or you can also promote your account via other social media sites. It will give you more acknowledgement and drive traffic to your account.

4. Know The Best Time To Post Content

Posting at the best time can change the statistics of your account completely. If you post at the best time, you can outsmart the algorithm of Instagram, and your content will get live on the top of your follower’s home feed. In addition, it will help you garner more attention from people all over the world.

5. Avoid Fake Followers

Although it seems like an easier way to buy off the followers, fake followers will decrease the credibility of your account. On the other hand, if you have an account with thousands of followers but zero activity, people will deem your profile fake. And either way, you are not going to receive any ROI from the fake followers. So, why do it and risk the trust of your possible real followers? Instead, try and increase Instagram followers organically. 

6. The post What Your Followers Like

If you want to increase Instagram followers fast, you need to learn what type of content your followers like. You can do it by observing the views and likes of your content. For example, post more content like that if any of your videos get more views. It will keep your followers interested and also bring traffic to your profile.

7. Be Specific With Your Hashtags

So many content creators don’t give importance to hashtags, which is not a good practice. Hashtags help your post get discovered by more and more people and garner attention to your profile. Make sure that the hashtag that you are using is not too congested, or your post will get lost in between the ocean of other posts.

8. Create Engaging Content

If there is more activity on your profile, more people will notice it and then follow you. So, create contents that encourage people to comment, share, or like. For example, you can create a poll or ask a question in your story that will prompt your followers to react. 

Conclusion

Getting Instagram followers is the milestone to getting your small business or startup successful. It will extend the recognition of your brand or content to a wide range of people and garner their attention. So, you must extend your social reach to make your business visible.

Also read: How To Successfully Grow A Business On Instagram?

Frequently Asked Questions

The post Top Tips To Increase Your Instagram Followers appeared first on PayU Blog.

What’s so Important About Instagram Hashtags?

Hashtags are a combination of letters, numbers, special characters, and even emojis, preceded by the symbol ‘#.’ The intent of using them is to make content more accessible to a specific target. Since they tend to be clickable, hashtags allow the audience to interact with posts tagged with that particular hashtag. 

For individuals or businesses looking to expand their reach, this is an invaluable tool in the arsenal. When used appropriately, hashtags for Instagram posts allow your post to appear on the page for that particular hashtag. The same holds for hashtags for Instagram reels. Additionally, if hashtags are used along with a story, it gets included in the stories of the relevant hashtag and appears on the hashtag page. Hence, you may opt to follow a specific hashtag to be exposed to specific content. It is wise to use the trending Instagram hashtags 2023 to gain maximum traction.

What are the Different Types of Hashtags Out There?

Hashtags target specific communities, so using them strategically allows you to tap into the particular audience. There are multiple types of Instagram hashtags and they may be broadly categorized as follows –

1. Hashtags for a Specific Service or Product

Instagram hashtags for reels and posts tend to use specific keywords to accurately describe a service or a product being showcased as a part of the post. This is especially useful for individuals and businesses showcasing their offerings.

2. Niche Hashtags

Certain Instagram hashtags are more specific and fit into the context of specific industries. Namely hashtags for blogging your travels, food blogging, and so on.

3. Hashtags Created by the Instagram Community

It is common for Instagram communities to interact, considering it is a social media platform. Hence, it is not uncommon to come across hashtags native to the application.

4. Seasonal Hashtags for Festivals 

During festivals like Diwali, Christmas, or Ramzan, it becomes critical to be on point with your messaging. This is especially true when you are looking to pitch seasonal sales timed and placed strategically to cater to specific crowds.

5. Hashtags of Specific Location

Adding location-specific Instagram hashtags to your posts is a great idea. They act as a way to update followers on where you may be at that specific time.  

6. Hashtags of Popular Acronyms

Acronyms are a great way to connect with your crowd. Popular acronyms used in conjunction with hashtags include #OOTD, #TBT #YOLO, to name a few.

Final Thoughts

By now, you may have realized that hashtags can include anything and everything, as long as they are preceded by a literal hashtag. Therefore, when reaching out to your audience, it becomes important to not only use Instagram hashtags strategically but also to get creative while doing so. This helps distinguish between an Instagram post your user scrolls past and a post that engages your audience.    

FAQs

The post The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Hashtags for Businesses in 2023 appeared first on PayU Blog.

An Instagram bio is a short synopsis using up to 150 characters to encapsulate the essence of your product or you. It tells your audience who you are and has to capture your brand’s character and personality while your Instagram posts demonstrate what you do.

Why Is Creating An Instagram Bio For Your Brand Important?

Research shows that 93% of Instagram users follow at least one business globally, and 210+ million users visit an Instagram business profile every day. The people are active customers who make frequent purchases from online platforms. 6 in 10 users login to the media platform daily with average spending of 53 minutes surfing Instagram. 79% searched for more information about a product or a service. 46% of the people made a purchase. So the importance of using Instagram bio in marketing your products and services cannot be underestimated. 

Whether it is Instagram Bios for small businesses, Instagram bios for entrepreneurs, Instagram bios for businesswomen, or Instagram bios for online businesses, the advantages and the importance of Instagram Bios cannot be underestimated.

Analyze The USP Of The Brand And The Metrics Of The Target Market:

• What are your brand’s metrics?
• Is the brand personality serious, funny, and informative?
• What is the product’s end-use?
• What are the metrics of the target market for the brand?
• How can you create a lasting impression about the brand in the mind of your target audience? For repeated views and clicks.
• Is your business well known, locally, nationally or internationally?
• How to get in touch with you?
• Sharing content, registering for an event or providing the facility to make a purchase

First impressions matter as it determines whether the customers just view your Instagram bio and never return, or they follow you and become your lifelong customers. Small business Instagram bio ideas, Instagram Bio Ideas for Entrepreneurs and Instagram Bio Ideas for online businesses can have an external link, a hashtag, and a user name. Instagram bio ideas for business pages, Instagram Bio Ideas for online businesses and Instagram Bio Ideas for businesses run by women include the following:

• Photo of your profile: This should epitomise your brand. It should be recognisable, of high quality, and consistent across all your social media networks. The maximum size should not exceed 200X200 pixels to convey a clear image. Include your logo wherever possible. 

• Your username should be clear, visible and associated with your brand and company. Use business names where possible. Usually, users just try to search by typing in your user name. A photo profile is a primary Instagram bio idea for businesses and for entrepreneurs, online businesses, small businesses or businesses promoted by women. 

• Profile description: This is the heart of the Instagram bio. It should encapsulate the features of your brand, product or company philosophy. It should be compelling enough to stimulate customers to take action. It could also be fun to draw the attention of the customer immediately. Your Instagram bio becomes more likeable and recallable. Small businesses and businesses need to be promoted. You can also introduce your online business using this Instagram Bio idea for online businesses feature.

• There should be a clickable URL: This is not allowed on Instagram anywhere outside the website field. You can use this facility to drive customers wherever you want traffic to flow on your website. You should not miss your one shot to link your URL to a website that provides a more detailed description. Having your website is a pre-condition. A clickable URL is critical for Instagram Bio Ideas for online businesses and Instagram Bio ideas for small businesses.

• The particular business classification under which your company, product or brand falls is an important Instagram bio idea for entrepreneurs and Instagram Bio Ideas for small businesses.
• Call to action button: This is the most important feature which enables your customers to communicate with you directly. It could be a street address, email, telephone number, book an appointment etc. It should also include your hours of operation, where you can be contacted. It could also contain a line such as a shop at our summer sale with an embedded link that leads to the sale page on your website. A Call-to-Action button is a crucial Instagram Bio Idea for business pages and Instagram Bio Idea for Entrepreneurs.

• Story Highlights: This is also an essential part of the Instagram bio as it contains story highlights as clickable thumbnails. It can be used in the future highlights that you create. It consists of a custom image or icon and the story itself. Is it going to be fun and playful or informative and serious? This part has to be consistent across all platforms. This Instagram Bio Idea for online businesses and small businesses has to be uniform and ubiquitous across all social media platforms.
  
  This part should answer the key questions:
  
  • What does your company/product/brand do best? 
  • What is the USP of your brand? 
  • What makes you different? 
  • How do your company/product/brand answer a customer’s needs?
  • How are you superior compared to other competing products or brands? 

Online businesses and small businesses need to differentiate themselves, and this Instagram bio idea is essential for small businesses and online businesses. Using this Instagram Bio, you can make your story witty, compelling, humorous, or valuable to your potential customer. Online businesses can also offer some free resources on their company website to increase the number of clicks. 

• Your Instagram Bio should work as a search engine: Emphasise the keywords and the power of association of each word. Your word choice about your company, product, brand or slogan has to draw maximum attention amid the noise of the social networks. Instagram bio ideas for businesswomen can include their philosophy with special offers if the product is a make-up brand or kitchen product promotion. 
• Hashtags: Instagram bio allows hashtags, so use the most popular or branded hashtags in your Instagram bio. This will encourage your followers to use these specific hashtags while posting content relating to your Company, product or brand.
• Unique Fonts: Use a handpicked font and writing style to make your product/brand stand out. Your fonts should only be readable and attractive. Many apps are available on the smartphone that allows you to change your fonts. Using a unique font makes your brand stand out.

• Sufficient Spacing: Give enough space between every word. Use emojis, asterisks and spaces to make your content stand out and look stylish. Ensure you follow this guideline in your Instagram Bio Ideas for your business page.

Conclusion

Use the various Instagram bio features outlined above to make Instagram work for your company/product or brand, whether you are an entrepreneur, a small business owner, an online business or a businesswoman trying to promote your company, your product or your Brand. Whether you are a freelancer or a brand, use Instagram-bio ideas to make your social media connections and establish your brand. PayU can be your payment platform partner, connected to your Instagram brand page, which can seamlessly facilitate receipts of your online payments.

FAQs

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