Instagram is a powerful social media platform with more than 800 million monthly users. If you're a B2B brand, you might believe the publicity doesn't apply to you, but it really does. Many brands and a number of high-profile B2B organizations are currently using Instagram to boost brand awareness, engage with their audience, and, ideally, attract new consumers.
Interested? Us too! HubSpot’s B2B Team put these tips together, so we’ll go over them and add commentary where we think we can help! Let's get to it!
Use authentic, real-time user-generated content.
Forget stock photography and staged promotional pictures -- it’s time to go real-time. On Instagram, your prospects and leads want authentic content that offers a personal glimpse into your company's culture and product offerings.
Real-time content, such as live video/live streaming, is unfiltered and 100% you. It adds a much-needed human element to B2B businesses, and helps you form a genuine connection with your audience and potential customers. Extremely professional-looking content can often feel cold and dispassionate -- your customers want to know there are real people and real stories behind the branding.
Putting a face to the brand will generally create more engagement and ultimately, drive more interest in your business. Don’t be afraid to become more personable, companies are made up of people, so having a human connection with them will go a long way!
Go fast, and mix it up.
Instagram makes it incredibly easy for you to post photos or videos on your phone directly through its application. Just fire the application up, press the add button and select the photo or video you want to upload -- it’s that simple.
The advantage of this is that you don’t have to spend ages creating content. You can upload a variety of content wherever, whenever, without much pre-planning or editing required. Different types of content will not only attract and appeal to different members of your audience, but also show different sides to your business. No one wants to just look at images or just quotes on Instagram all day now, do they?
Make content that you would want to watch, even if it’s not directly relevant to your business. People are on social media for entertainment purposes for the most part, so trying to keep it strictly business is a good way to lose engagement.
Get involved in your niche.
Stop looking through the window at what’s going on inside. Join the party.
Just like any other social media channel, it’s important that you not only post content to your feed, but also partake in the wider conversation. Don’t just post images and videos, reply to your community when they leave a response. Take the time to check out other Instagram profiles, have a browse, like some content and maybe leave a friendly comment here and there.
If you take the time to engage with others, they're more likely to take the time to engage with you.
When growing up, I'm sure you heard “Treat others the way you want to be treated”, right? Same concept, if you want more engagement, you need to be engaging with others as well. Dont be afraid to comment and talk to people!
Make the most of the link in your bio.
While Instagram doesn’t let you link to websites within the captions of posts, you can include one in your bio. You can include up to 150 characters in your Instagram bio -- including a link. Your bio is the perfect real estate for a link to your latest blog post or offers. You can also use tools such as Linktree to create a custom link that includes a page with more links, allowing you to share up to five links and get the most out of your bio link!
Give-aways, pop-up events, offers, coupons can all leverage the 24hr rule for Instagram stories, it’ll put a fire under the butt of your customers to engage with your business, because no one wants to feel like they missed out!
Tell a story with every single post.
On Instagram, the businesses that tell the most interesting stories build the largest audiences. If you want to attract people to your business and get them to engage with you, you need consistent visual storytelling that cuts through all the noise on Instagram.
Don't limit your focus to your general photo and video feed. Instagram’s Stories feature allows you to create a slideshow or montage of photos or videos. When strung together, tell a story and provide your audience with a more personal experience.
As we commented earlier, good content is the way to your customers heart. Just keep in your mind and ask yourself when creating content “Is this something I would engage with?”
Stay away from vanity metrics.
Vanity metrics don't tell the whole story. While an increase in clicks and likes are beneficial, they don't tell you if the right people are actually interested in your content. Instead, look for indicators of real engagement, such as people commenting on your posts and new followers in your niche. These two metrics give a better indication of how well you are performing and how much exposure your business is actually getting.
People Lie, Numbers Don’t, but sometimes they don't tell the whole story. Quantifiable metrics are great to have, but if they don't lead to sales or revenue, they’re just there to look pretty. They should be observed, but not taken to heart when it comes to post interaction, just because you had a whole bunch of people saw it, doesn’t make it an engaging piece of content. If you use the prior mentioned tips in this article, you’ll be well on your way to utilizing Instagram to the best of its ability for B2B marketing. Good luck and keep chipping away!