If someone were to ask you to name the best social media sites, Instagram would probably be in your top five. As it turns out, Instagram is, in fact, the second most popular social media platform after Facebook. While many people use it exclusively to connect with friends and family, its reach goes much further. Today’s savvy marketers are also harnessing its power to sell products and services. For the most part, they are doing it by means of Instagram’s high-powered influencers.
HIGHLY INTERACTIVE FOLLOWERS
People who are heavy Instagram users take their role seriously. Not content to be passive viewers of sites such as that of Nick Gross on Instagram, they interact with posts at a higher rate than those on its nearest competitor, Facebook. When users establish a relationship to a message and the person who posted it by liking it or sharing it with others, they are far more likely to move to the next step and make a purchase.
INFLUENCER MARKETING CAMPAIGNS ARE CUSTOMIZABLE
You would be hard pressed to find a marketing campaign that cost you little or nothing to initiate. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that you need to shell out some dollars to get on board with an influencer. That being said, you can limit the hit to your wallet by choosing to collaborate with someone who has relatively few followers as size definitely does matter. Expect to pay about $125 per Instagram post if someone has less than 2,000 followers, $258 for influencers with 75,000 to 100,000 and at least $1,400 for the heavy hitters who have over a million followers. Because providing online viewers with numerous exposures to your brand is preferable to a one- or two-time shot, it is best not to waste all of your resources on a single post just because it comes from an influencer who is more well-known.
HIGHLY TAILORED CAMPAIGNS
One of the major reasons for Instagram’s success as a marketing tool results from its reach. Because so many influencers from a diverse variety of industries make it their home base, entrepreneurs can find just the right fit for their campaign. Regardless of whether they are in the business of travel, entertainment, home or lifestyle, they can use tried-and-true strategies to pinpoint the ideal influencer with whom to collaborate. The best course of action is to try searching for hashtags that are relevant to the brand and then to look carefully through the results to weed out those who are merely sharing a post. All that remains is to look at the posters that are left to see if one might be an influencer the entrepreneur can afford. Another method is to use online influencer tools such as buzzWeb and influence.co. Businesses with some financial resources and a shortage of time to do research can simply hire an influencer marketing agency. In short, Instagram succeeds because of the ease with which even novice users can become connected with the influencers they need.
NUMEROUS WAYS TO MARKET PRODUCTS
Influencers use several strategies to share information about the items they are endorsing. They often accept pay from businesses to create content about products. Another effective method involves the business sending free products to the influencer, who talks about them and gives them away to a lucky follower. Influencers can also unbox goods, participate in interviews about them and make instructional videos on their use.
It’s no accident that Instagram is taking the social media and marketing world by storm. It is fun, flexible and multi-facetted. Best of all, companies both large and small can easily incorporate it into creative, cutting-edge sales campaigns.
