3 Easy Instagram Marketing Tips to Increase Your Sales

RUN AN INSTAGRAM CONTEST

What if I offered you the chance to win a $500 gift card from your favorite brand—and all you had to do was share a photo. You’d jump at the chance, right? I know I would and so would a lot of others.

Instagram contests are one of the most effective ways to grow your audience and convert followers into customers. When followers like, follow, or comment on your posts it increases your engagement rating which favors well with Instagram’s algorithm— taking you to the top of followers feeds and search results.

There are many different effective types of contests you can run on the world’s favorite visual platforms.

Repost Contests

Reposting contests consist of followers using a repost app or taking a screenshot of a specified image. Participants post the picture, tag the brand name and mention you in the caption. This form of contest helps to organically spread your reach and attract the followers of your followers to jump in on the action.

Tag a Friend

Tagging requires users to mention their friends in the comment thread of a designated promotional image. Similar to a “reposting challenge”, when users tag their friends on your image it increases engagement and attracts those followers directly to your profile.

Photo Challenge

Photo challenges are the most popular contest type of them all. All it entails is users posting an image, accompanied with the promotional hashtag and tagging your brand’s name.

Allowing your followers to use their creativity by posting images they created will not only provide you with a slew of new content for your brand’s own profile, but will also build a trusting relationship between brand and consumer.

USER GENERATED CONTENT

User generated content (UGC) is the diamond of the digital marketing era. Nothing builds more trust with your followers than seeing others like them featured on your profile. Its effects are similar to those of reviews— providing social proof for your product and overall brand.

Using user-generated photos on your instagram increase your chance of conversion to 4.5 percent and higher. If those users like or comment on that post- the likeness of conversion increases to a whopping 9.6 percent.

It’s amazingly simple to collect user generated content from customers. Promote the designated hashtag on product tags or packaging. You can even tie it into a contest to boost participation.

CLOSE THE GAP BETWEEN LIKING AND BUYING

Instagram users are notoriously a mobile-driven audience. They are also more driven to purchase items discovered on Instagram, with 30 percent of users having purchased products they first discovered on the platform.

Because the purchasing intent is so high, it is essential to bridge the gap between liking and purchasing.

One of the quickest ways to lower conversion rates is to make your customer search through your entire product inventory on your website. Using shoppable content in your digital lookbooks is an excellent way to bridge the gap, while providing easy accessibility to the products followers saw in your posts.

By extending your story from post to shoppable lookbook, you make your promoted products more accessible- which in turn drives conversion.

If you sell products or services to consumers, it’s likely that your brand is already an advocate of the world’s most popular social visual platform. With these helpful tips, you can now be on your way to transforming your Instagram into a sales driving visual storefront your customers will like love.

Try it out and let us know how well it works for you.