Tips for Instagram Marketing and SEO for Your Business

by Shubham Yadav Digital Marketing Expert

Instagram is no longer a platform just for part time fun. It has opened a new way of marketer for businesses nowadays. On June 20, 2018, Instagram announced in an in-house event that it had reached 1 billion monthly active users after passing 800 million in September 2017 with 500 million daily users.

But, apart from this, it is also true that some companies are having a hard time adapting a new photo-gimmick platform. But, factually, Instagram can be a great platform for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) purpose, and to reach your marketing goals. Instagram has also launched some new features, including Instagram stories and new IGTV platform, which can be very useful for the entrepreneurs as well as marketers.

All you need to do is to make a killer Instagram strategy, which will definitely help you reach your SEO goals. Some of the tips that you can apply for the SEO process using the platform of Instagram can be read in the following points.

1.Complete Your Profile on Instagram

The first thing you need to do is complete the profile of your brand on Instagram. Include the logo of your company or pic that perfectly represents your firm in the profile picture. Besides, add the bio and the website link in your company. It is possible that people may not visit your website instantly, but as you will keep on adding the engaging posts, the chances of people visiting your website will increase.

2. Add Engaging Posts

There can be a number of ways to engage the users in your posts. You can repost the photos; like and comment on others’ pics; reply to the comments of users on your posts; add pictures of your company’s events, your services, workers in action, outcomes of your services; and there are a number of other options that you can use to engage the audiences.

For example, if you are a dentist, you can add the pics of teeth before and after the treatment, as you can see in an Instagram profile named @teethbeforeafter. Similarly, you can see a post of @isdentalcare, in which you can see a dentist on work.

But, have in mind, always posting like this may not be sufficient, and you need to add the things, which should retain the interests of the users. You can find a number of examples of the company events on Instagram.

3.Host Contents for Prizes

Hosting the contests is a prominent way to engage the audiences and promote the business or practice, and Instagram has been proven to be an excellent platform for contests.

You are just required to invest a little money for giving a specific number of prizes to the contestants on Instagram, and it will help you get thousands of followers, who may turn to your clients or customers any time. Hosting a contest for prizes means boosting your Instagram influence.

You need to keep in mind that Instagram is a picture-centric platform, and users are here to enjoy some excellent photographs in their feeds. So, your post would be photo-based. Your photo must be catchy and make sure that it should be attractive. Instagram also supports the small videos, so you can use videos also for the contents.

The contests can be run in the Instagram feeds as well as story section.

4.Research Keywords and Hashtags

What keywords and hashtags are being used on Instagram, it is also a subject to pay attention, because this is the aspect, which helps you in reaching the right audiences. Usually, the tools like Google Keyword Planner are used in SEO process to find out the keywords. But, you need to keep some different approach in the case of Instagram.

Of course, you can use some of the keywords as Instagram keywords to use in the posts, or as hashtags (by joining the words and adding it after # symbol), but, it is not sufficient. The reason is people use and search Instagram with a completely different mindset. They actually search for the images or small videos on Instagram and use the keywords accordingly.

A major power of Instagram is its hashtag support without any second thought. You can search according to different criteria when you are looking for the keywords.

First, you can use the words or combination of words, which best define your products, services or the post.

Another option is some trendy keywords. Whichever trendy keywords you feel are suitable according to your posts, you can use them and can attract the right audiences. For example, you can add the trendy keywords in restaurants’ post as you can see the New Year post of Arabella Hotel & Spa, in which it invites people to its restaurant. Apart from the post-related hashtags, the trendy hashtags such as #family, #travel etc. have also been used. Similarly, you can use the hashtags accordingly in your posts if you have some other business also

Apart from the above-mentioned ones, there are the trendy hashtags, which are launched to feature some big or little achievements of the industries. They ask to add the specific hashtags to get features in their accounts, and by using those hashtags, you can get the attention of wide audiences. For instance, in the profile of @teethbeforeafter, you can see the description as “Use the tag #teethbeforeafter to be featured”. In the posts of this profile, you can see the reposts of a number of profiles of dentists who have mentioned this hashtag in their posts along with their profile names.

The hashtags with the names of countries, cities, states etc. are also added by many users, which are helpful to get the random attention of the people who like to explore the posts of the places.

When your posts start becoming popular, some of them appear in the Google or Bing search results, which can help you in your business growth. Another thing is that the popular profiles get the clicks on their website names, which increases the traffic of your website, which is also helpful in increasing the visibility of your website.

5. Use Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories – this is the feature launched by Instagram on August 2, 2016, which was taken by Instagram from its competitor Snapchat. So, Instagram was not the first to launch the stories, but still, it gained a huge success.

According to Kurt Wagner of Recode, ‘Stories’ was Instagram’s smartest move yet. Kurt says in his article, “Instagram has turned a stolen idea into a massive hit.” Time to time, Instagram launches a number of updates in Stories, which are definitely beneficial for the entrepreneur.

#Basic Use of Instagram Stories

Instagram stories appear in a bar at the top of the feed. You can see the stories by entering into the profiles. Whenever someone shares something new, a colorful ring appears around the profile pic. By tapping the profile pic, you can see the story.

You can share images, 15-second videos, text and the Instagram feeds into the stories. More than one story can be shared in a single post, and the stories have the options to mention someone to attract his/her attention towards them; and to add hashtags, location and more. If your Instagram account is connected to Facebook, then you can directly share the Instagram stories to the Facebook stories (except when you share some internal post of Instagram to the story). There are some features in Instagram stories, which have been launched for the business purpose, which will be mentioned next.

#Instagram Stories for Businesses

Understanding the business usage of Instagram, the platform has started some features, which are advantageous for the entrepreneurs. One of the features is Instagram Stories Stickers. You can add location, weather etc. with the help of stickers, but for the businesspersons, the thing that is important is the survey that they can take via sticker option. This can be done with the help of question stickers.

Now, the shopping option can also be added to Instagram stories. According to Instagram’s own survey, “42% of women on Instagram surveyed in the US say they love to shop and consider it a hobby.”

All these options are perfect for increasing traffic on your website.

6.Marketing via Influencers

An excellent method to promote business on Instagram is to be in touch with influencers in order to push your brand messaging. Celebrities, well-known bloggers, or highly connected people can be influencers. So, find influencers and select who is suitable for your niche. Reach out to them and ask if they wouldn’t mind posting content for fees or free merchandise for helping to boost your SEO.

Influencer marketing is undoubtedly one of the most effective methods to promote your business or practice via Instagram and to boost SEO.

To Sum Up

Instagram is undoubtedly an excellent platform to promote businesses and to boost SEO. You can use the above-mentioned methods to promote your business or practices over Instagram.

But, Instagram marketing is a crucial thing and should be done in the way that it could give you the outcomes of the time you are investing in it.

To get the best outcomes, you can take the help of a social media marketing services. You can also take help for assistance of Instagram SEO or any type of social media or digital marketing.

This was originally posted on Tips for Instagram Marketing and SEO for Your Business.