Written by Vlad Shvets
Instagram is more than just a photo-sharing app. It has incredible features that can help you grow your business, reach more people and gain more customers! Find out how you can do that from this post.
Introduction
Social media sites are incredibly popular, and although they were once reserved for personal use or social media influencers, they have evolved and are now helpful tools for any business.
Apps such as Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram are their own living ecosystems, with Instagram having more than 1 billion active users.
Interestingly, data from Hubspot shows that 83% of people use the app to find new products and services. Statistics such as this highlight how much time people spend on apps like Instagram and how beneficial these platforms can be for businesses.
It is not only possible to use Instagram to attract new customers and build brand awareness, but you can also use it to convert them into leads.
Lead generation is the process of getting someone's contact information in order to market to them in the future. The information collected can be anything from names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses. When you capture leads, you are building a list of your potential buyers for your business.
Here are three ways on how you can use Instagram for lead capturing.
Run an Instagram contest
Viral marketing is a powerful lead generation technique that you can leverage on Instagram by running contests. The idea is to offer rewards that an individual can win.
These rewards can vary from big things such as cash prizes to smaller offerings such as free products or subscriptions.
If you'd like to try this method, follow these steps:
- Plan your Instagram posts. Consider what your prospects like to see and how they behave. This is important as it will determine the engagement rate of your post.
Tip: Use Combin Scheduler to plan your Instagram posts and stories!
2. Create well-explained mechanics. Would you want them to like and share your post or write content and mention your business? Create a clear step-by-step process that your audience can understand and follow.
3. Think of a suitable reward for your audience. Consider your budget, your audience's preference, and your goal when thinking about the prize.
4. Use hashtags. Do some research and see which hashtags can help you reach more potential followers and buyers.
5. Promote the contest. After preparing all the content, it's time to publish and promote. Use your blog, email list, and other social media platforms to do so.
If you don't know where to start, here are some Instagram contest examples:
- Like, comment, and follow. One of the easiest and most common contests. All the participant needs to do is like your post, comment their answers, then follow your page.
- Share your story. You can ask the participants to share how you helped them succeed and pick the best content as the winner. Some businesses use this strategy to use the content and post it on their social media.
- Mention a friend. Another simple yet great idea that will help you grow your visibility and gain more followers. To join the contest, participants must tag one to three friends on your post.
Add action buttons to your profile
Action buttons on Instagram are powered by third-party apps to let users make appointments, reservations, order a product, or buy tickets inside the app. This makes things much easier for businesses and encourages users to complete actions as they will not need to open other apps.
To utilize this tool on your Instagram Business account, you can follow these steps:
- Go to your business profile and click “Edit Profile”.
- Under Public Business Information, select “Contact Options”.
- Click the “Add An Action” button tab.
- Choose the website you'd like to integrate. You might need to do some research before choosing as Instagram now offers a significant number of options.
- Log in/create an account at your chosen third-party site. If you don't have an account yet, you'll need to set it up first.
- Once you log in, the action button will show on your profile.
Whilst action buttons make it easier for users to convert to customers, they are also helpful when it comes to capturing leads. Action buttons could be utilized in order to gather customer information via a web form or through a payment gateway.
Use Instagram ads
Social media ads have been growing in popularity and functionality over the past few years, and Instagram is no stranger to offering paid ad options. On Instagram, ads are paid posts or campaigns that help businesses to reach more people. An ad can be an image, video, or a series of posts.
In order to utilize Instagram ads, you are required to have a Facebook Business Page. Once this is connected to Instagram, it is possible to start posting ads.
Although there are a variety of ways to create an ad, arguably the easiest is by reusing an existing post. A good practice is to choose one of your existing posts that has high user engagement and use Instagram to promote it.
After answering a few questions like the audience, budget, destination, and duration, you can press “Create Promotion”. In order to ensure all ads are adhering to guidelines, Facebook will take 24 hours to review the ad. Once it’s been approved, it will go live.
Another method is to create Instagram ads inside Facebook Ads Manager. The steps you'll need to do will all be done on Facebook.
Follow these steps for the second method:
- Open your Facebook Ads Manager and click “Create”.
- Choose one from the eight campaign objectives available. You need to make sure to select the best one that's in line with your ad's content and your goal.
- Select your budget and schedule the ads.
- Next is to create a profile for your new audience or select an existing one.
- Choose where your ads will be seen. You can either click the automatic or manual placement. The former will let Facebook decide the best area to put your ad, while the latter gives you the option to choose.
- Create, review, and confirm your ad.
Although ads are often designed to sell, it is important to ensure they don’t sound too salesy, as people are less attracted to sales posts. Instead, try to make the post as engaging to your user base as possible.
Having a call to action is also crucial in creating effective ads. According to Copyblogger, CTA buttons can boost conversion rates by about 45%.
Instagram ads are an excellent way of capturing leads, especially if you use a URL that directs users to a form to collect information.
Maximize Instagram’s features
Your business can grow if you know how to use Instagram properly. Start experimenting and take note of the results in every experiment that you run. And for now, start with the three tips above.
About Author
Vlad Shvets is a growth marketer at Paperform.