Using Instagram As A Successful Marketing Tool

How To Use Instagram Successfully
In Marketing Campaigns

It’s clear that Instagram isn’t just for personal use anymore. It’s now a global platform that allows brands to humanize their content, recruit new talent, showcase products, and inspire their audience. Instagram users aren’t just active, they’re engaged.

This photo and video sharing app has quickly turned into a top social media site. More than half of the platform’s active users visit the site daily, and 35% say they check it multiple times a day. Instagram can also help you grow brand awareness and introduce products. 70% of Instagram users have spent time looking up a brand on the platform. Instagram allows you to promote your brand and product in a friendly, authentic way without hard selling to your customers.

So, hopefully we’ve convinced to hop on the Instagram wave … but maybe you’re still unsure of how to get started. We know the platform can be a little intimidating at first, and that’s why we’ve created this guide. Read along or use the navigation in the header to jump ahead...

How to Create an Instagram Business Account

Before we begin, it’s important to note that Instagram is intended for in-the-moment content. To stay relevant to your audience, you’ll need to invest the resources required to post regularly. Keep your profile up-to-date, and you’ll keep your followers around and engaged. Below, we’ll dive into how to build and maintain a successful Instagram profile. If you don’t have it already, you can download the Instagram app from the App Store or Google Play Store. You can view content on Instagram’s website, but you can’t upload it via your desktop. You’ll need the app for that.

Setting Up Your Instagram Account

When you open the Instagram app, you’ll have two choices for creating your account — Log In With Facebook or Sign Up With Phone or Email. Be sure to sign up with a business email so your Instagram profile isn’t linked to your personal Facebook account. Next, enter your account details. Under Full Name, enter your actual business name so your profile is recognizable to visitors. This name is what’s displayed on your profile; it isn’t your account username (or handle, for those Twitter folks).

The Username is a name unique to your profile and allows other accounts to engage with your brand. HubSpot’s username is @HubSpot. Pick a username that is recognizable and easy to find. If your business name is taken, try to keep the first part of your business name in your username. Note: You can update your username later in your account settings, so don’t worry if you want to change it in the future.

Optimizing Your Instagram Account

Now it’s time to choose the right profile picture. Your profile picture is a big part of your first impression on new visitors. For this reason, keep your image consistent with your branding and visual markers.

Consider using your logo or another familiar image. Instagram profile pictures are automatically cropped into a circle, so leave room around the corners of your image.

Next up — your Instagram bio. Instagram bios have a 150-character maximum, so your goal here is a direct, concise summary of who you are and why people should follow you. Tell your audience about your business using a hint of personality. Instagram bios aren’t searchable, so don’t worry about keywords or hashtags (which we cover more below).

In your bio, you can encourage users to take a specific action, such as using a certain hashtag or visiting your website. Your bio is the only place where you can feature a clickable URL and drive traffic to an external site.

For this reason, it’s common for businesses to update their featured URL to align with their most recent post. If you decide to add a link, be sure use a link shortener like HubSpot's Tracking URL builder or a tool like Bitly or Goo.gl to keep your profile from looking cluttered. Tracked URLs also help you better understand the amount of traffic Instagram is driving to your website. For future edits, click on the Edit Profile button on your profile to change your photo, name, username, bio, and URL.

Managing Your Instagram Settings Lastly, let’s review your account settings. Click on the three stacked lines in the upper right-hand corner of your profile, then click on Settings at the bottom of the window. (Under your username, you’ll see a few choices that we’ll cover below.) In your settings, you’ll be able to do things like change your password, see posts you’ve liked, enable notifications, and much more. Here are a few things you should check out right away.

Story Settings, where you can manage who can see and reply to your Instagram Stories (which we discuss below). We recommend allowing all your followers to see and reply to your Stories to increase brand engagement.