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The Easiest Ways to Increase Sales on Instagram Right Now

Fri, 07 Jan 2022 09:44:36 GMT

Instagram is one of the most widely used social media platforms, and therefore an excellent marketing channel.

That’s why even a casual glance at its accounts will reveal lots of big brands. Its unique photo-sharing platform offers brands one-of-a-kind opportunities to gain visibility and engage in dialogue with their customers.

It’s highly likely you’re already doing your best to market your business through Instagram. Here are ten of the easiest (and most effective) ways to increase your sales on Instagram and optimize your content.

#1: Grow a real and engaged following

With all the buzz around about Instagram now, it’s easy to get swept up in all the fanfare and neglect the basics.

When you are looking to generate sales from social media, be it Instagram or any other platform, you need to come across as real and authentic. Buying followers, spamming people via direct messages, and pumping out lots of ordinary content, might increase your “followers” but none of them will know who you are, what you do, or why they would want to buy something from you.

Instead of applying spammy and low-brow tactics to grow your influence on Instagram, build a real and engaged following with smart automation and an active presence. Here are some tips for making this work without tearing your hair out:

Plan all your content in advance and use an Instagram scheduling tool to automatically share the content at an optimal time.
Instead of following and unfollowing people, which Instagram is trying to ban, like, comment, and engage with relevant posts shared by people within your target market.

#2: Use hashtags

To attract customers and boost your sales, even more, you can use hashtags relevant to your services or products. When you use the right combination of hashtags, it becomes easier for your target consumers to find you. This method will increase the awareness of your brand.

But it’s not as easy as it sounds to come up with the right mix of effective hashtags. You need to invest your time and effort into extensive research. Make sure you use a balanced combination of unique and common hashtags on your Instagram posts.

Experiment with different combinations to see which works best for you. Also, if you are working with influencers, ask them to use the same mix of hashtags.

#3: Only post compelling images

Instagram is a visual platform. So first and foremost, you should only post high-quality images.

Ideally, your images will be creative and eye-catching, and appropriately highlight the products you wish to promote. Once your customers land on your profile, they must be able to recognize your brand immediately.

Ensure that every image you post on Instagram matches your overall branding and business strategy to lend them that authentic brand feeling. If your branding is sleek and minimalist, it should be sleek and minimalist on Instagram.

Pick an aesthetic and stick to it. This extends to Instagram captions. Do not switch between different tenses and tones of voice. Keep it simple. Consistency is key.

While original images are always best, sometimes stock images can help add some variety to your account. There are many different royalty-free image websites where you can source amazing high-quality photos. Better yet, web tools like Canva allow you to create custom images to promote discounts, giveaways or contests.

Remember, visual representation of your brand online may be the first experience your customers have with it, so make sure it’s great.

#4: Make friends with influencers

Influencers are Instagram personalities who already have an established audience. Their followers look to them for purchase recommendations and advice, so it should come as no surprise that increasingly brands are turning to influencers to promote their products.

As a visual platform, Instagram offers the perfect avenue to engage your target audience using the help of influencers. A good Instagram influencer marketing strategy can help you get high traffic and more engagement, which ultimately brings higher returns/conversions.

Instagram influencer marketing is also a great way to boost your search engine ranking because it literally gets more people talking about your brand. Studies have revealed that in comparison with paid advertising, customers generated through word-of-mouth advertising have a 37% higher retention rate.

#5: Show your products in action

Although high-quality images of your products may grab people’s attention, they may not always be enough to drive sales alone.

For your Instagram content to have a real impact, showcase the experience of actually using your products. Tell a story through your Instagram content using photos and videos that show your products in action.

For example, if you’re selling a particular ingredient, you can post images of dishes that can be made with the ingredient. Include the recipe in the caption, and perhaps describe the perfect occasion in which to enjoy the dish.

Alternatively, if you’re selling clothes, you can show people wearing the clothes in different contexts. Include a caption that describes the experience of wearing the clothes or evokes the texture of the fabric.

GoPro does an excellent job of showcasing their product in action. All of their Instagram posts are photos and videos taken using their camera.

#6: Embrace user-generated content

User-generated content is another form of word-of-mouth advertising. Your existing customers help create content that showcases your product. This in turn helps promote your product or service to the new customers or their followers.

What could be easier, right?

However, some customers may not readily share images of your product without your encouragement. To encourage them, you will need to offer a reward or incentive, such as a chance to win something if they post photos featuring your product or hashtag.

For example, you could offer a chance to be featured on your official Instagram account, or a chance to win freebies or gift cards. Make sure you encourage them to use that branded hashtag to help you track the effectiveness of your efforts.

Celebrate your existing customers. Think of content from them as a kind of living social proof for prospective customers who still have doubts about buying from you.

#7: Be witty and relatable

Humor goes a long way in engaging an audience. To increase sales, try to implement witty puns and relatable humor into your Instagram posts. The goal is to improve people’s perception of your brand. And you already know how much positive brand perception can affect sales!

Also posts fan-submitted photos with witty captions.

If humorous content doesn’t fit with your brand, aim for thought-provoking and inspiring – both recipes for shareability. Instagram is the perfect platform for aspirational posts that are very, very relatable for ordinary people.

#8: Offer discounts or giveaways

Offering discounts or giveaways is one of the most effective ways to boost your sales on Instagram. It’s a cost-effective method to promote your products and increase sales.

Through this method, you can also increase the awareness of your products or services as customers share news about the offer with their friends

This then increases your engagement rate. Once your Instagram followers engage with your content in some way, you can acknowledge them and offer them a discount.

When you offer giveaways or discounts, it naturally attracts prospects and encourages them to buy your product or services. If your customers love your products or services, they won’t hesitate to talk about your brand and promote it. To reward such loyal customers, you can give them attractive offers such as a VIP discount or a membership to the top tier of your rewards program.

#9: Leverage Instagram stories

Instagram has released their Instagram Stories feature, through which you can post and share videos and images with your loyal followers. Brands can really take advantage of this feature to boost their sales.

But how can you use it effectively?

Here are a few suggestions that can help you create effective and impactful Instagram Stories. When implemented correctly, these tips can significantly boost your sales:

If you have shaky hands, buy a tripod. A tripod will keep your smartphone or camera stable and steady when recording videos and taking photos.
Capture and share the brand’s story or journey with your followers in your Instagram Stories.
Use your product images to create a video and share it in your Stories. Make sure you use natural lighting.
Capture and share the experiences of your customers using your products or services.

Take some behind-the-scenes shots and videos, relevant to your product or services, and include them in your Stories.

#10: Don’t post pushy or salesy posts

You must keep in mind that Instagram is not a platform meant for selling and buying. People are there not to buy from brands but rather to socialize virtually. So you should post content that is not too pushy or salesy.

If you want to utilize Instagram to sell your products, you have to do it in a creative manner. This means you need to provide prospects valuable, engaging content.

To do so, you can post pictures inspired by real-life situations or share pictures of customers using your product. You can also post photos and videos with tips or recipes including your products.

You could even take it a step further and work with Instagram influencers. Influencers are known for their ability to promote products in a way that’s convincing without being pushy. So, you could try finding relevant influencers in your niche who would speak on your behalf.

In conclusion

Social media is constantly evolving, and Instagram is no exception. The above tips should give you some great ideas on how to increase your sales on Instagram.

As you can see, influencers can make a huge difference to your marketing efforts and provide even more opportunities to engage with fans and share great photos and videos.

With more than 600 million monthly active users, Instagram is giving brands some great results. It’s a place where people turn their passion into purchases.

Social Media Selling

info@mofan.nl — Wed, 05 Jan 2022 14:11:17 GMT

Influencer Marketing Growing Faster than Organic Search

Marketers rated influencer marketing as their fastest-growing channel for acquiring customers online. Organic search and email are too mature to provide the same yearly growth that influencer marketing now delivers. Affiliate marketing and display advertising performed poorly, scoring below 10%

Influencer Marketing Tied for Most Cost-Effective Channel

22% of marketers say influencer marketing is their most cost-effective customer acquisition channel. Email received the same percentage, while organic search came in third with 19%. Affiliate marketing performed poorly, ranked most cost-effective by just 2% of marketers.

Influencer marketing is quickly becoming one of the most important online marketing channels. Budgets are growing fast, and marketers are seeing strong returns. The vast majority of marketers are generating real revenue from influencer marketing, and the top 13% are making $20 or more for each $1 invested. With returns like this, budgets will keep increasing for the foreseeable future.

Currently influencer marketing is so cost-effective that marketers can afford to make mistakes, learn, and refine their process. They can try different influencers, gather analytics, and become more sophisticated buyers. At the same time, influencers are becoming more savvy and figuring out the best way to engage with their audience. There has never been a better time to get started.

The percentage of brands using TikTok for influencer marketing continues to increase.

TikTok is a relatively new social media platform that exploded in popularity over the last year. The number of users grew by 85% from 35.6 million in 2019 to 65.9 million in 2020.

Those users don’t just passively scroll through the one-minute videos, though. Some 39% of respondents buy products through TikTok (compared to 22% for Instagram and 9% for Facebook influencer posts).

The popular ity of TikTok marketing is great news for brands who want to capitalize on influencer collaborations—especially considering high-profile users on the platform have the engagement rates. TikTok influencers with fewer than 15K followers have an incredible 17.96% engagement rate, trumping Instagram’s 3.86% average.

Covert TikTok Followers to Instagram to drive sales

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20 Surprising Influencer Marketing Statistics

Wed, 05 Jan 2022 10:17:40 GMT

Influencer Marketing Statistics

Interest in influencer marketing has only grown, which means a lot of research has been conducted, producing interesting statistics. So let's take a look at some of the most eye-popping results of these studies. Here are 20 influencer marketing stats that will surprise you.

1. 70% of Teens Trust Influencers More than Traditional Celebrities

It's extremely difficult for brands to build the same level of trust that influencers possess, but thanks to influencer marketing that trust can be transmitted to your brand. So much so that 4 in 10 Millennial subscribers say their favorite influencer understands them better than their friends. Another effect of influencer marketing is that brands don't have to waste resources promoting themselves, and instead use influencers to speak on their behalf and deliver the message they want people to hear and trust.

2. 86% of Women Use Social Media for Purchasing Advice

This statistic should be important to any brand that either has women as their primary target audience or within their scope of ideal customers. It seems if you want to reach more women and get them to buy your product or service, you need to be present on social media and aware of the influencers they are interested in. And this behavior is growing, as 78% of women are active on social media with a preference for Snapchat and Instagram . When it comes to influencer marketing, over half of women made purchases due to influencer posts. The key to engaging this cohort through influencers is to be genuine and inspirational.

3. 49% of Consumers Depend on Influencer Recommendations

This statistic demonstrates the growing importance of social media influencers for brands to connect with their audiences. Not only do 49% of consumers depend on influencer recommendations, 40% had purchased something after seeing it on Twitter, YouTube or Instagram . If consumers feel confident about an influencer's recommendation, they are more likely to make a purchase. Brands are able to piggyback on the trust of influencers.

4. TikTok has created a $1 billon Creator Fund to nurture influencers

To encourage creators that dream of making a living from TikTok using their unique voice and creativity, the platform launched the TikTok Creator Fund in 2020. This fund requires creators to have up to 100,000 video views over a month to be eligible and is a reward to TikTokers for bringing joy to large audiences. The fund started at $200k and is expected to grow to $1bn in the U.S over the following three years. Their aim is to build an army of influencers that can make a living through brand partnerships, sponsorship and representation deals. Some of the first recipients of the fund were chef Matt Broussard , ‘Kombucha girl’ Brittany Tomlinson and prankster David Dobrik .

5. Influencer Marketing Campaigns Earn $5.78 for Every Dollar Spent

The State of Influencer Marketing 2020 fou nd that 66% of marketers plan to increase their influencer marketing budgets, this area of marketing is becoming the fastest-growing channel for brands, beating organic search, paid search and email marketing. In addition, businesses earn $5.78 for each dollar spent on influencers, with some seeing as much as $18. That's a significant return on investment and you can figure out yo ur ROI using a social media calculator . In terms of influencer channels, Instagram and Twitter are cited as the most effective platforms.

6. Influencer Marketing Helps Brands Acquire Better Customers

It's becoming more important than ever to build relationships with influencers who resonate with your brand and to create campaigns that are aligned with the values of an influencer's followers. In addition, 51% of marketers say influencer marketing helps them acquire better customers.

7. 57% of Fashion and Beauty Companies Engage in Influencer Marketing

Fashion and beauty are industries that rely heavily on influencer marketing, as organic growth for brands has become more challenging without advertising and amplification. In this sector, 57% of companies now use influencers as part of their marketing mix, while 21% are planning to add this to their strategy in the coming year. Many brands now use influencers to great success such as Tropicana using @foreveryoursbetty , Tess Daly who has landed deals with Benefit and boohoo gaining hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram. However, while many fashion and beauty brands are keen on using influencers, many want to ensure that those they choose have social consciousness sincerity to drive success.

8. Major Brands Plan to Increase Spend on Influencer Marketing

More brands and marketers are coming to realize the incredible results that influencer marketing can produce. This impact is resulting in an increase in spending, with some 71% of marketers planning to increase their budgets in the next 12 months with the majority preferring to work with micro-influencers. Not only is spend increasing to help boost brand awareness, reach new audiences and improve brand advocacy, but it’s also fast becoming an important channel, with many marketers setting campaign KPIs to measure success.

9. The Influencer Marketing Industry is Expected to Hit $13.8bn by 2022

As an industry, influencer marketing has expanded exponentially over the past two years. Worth just $1.7 billion in 2016, the industry is set to reach $13.8 billion by 2022 as the industry witnesses more growth and becomes a more effective marketplace. This growth means more widespread use and will require marketers to evolve influencer marketing strategies in the way campaigns are measured, create analytics to scale campaigns and look at how to manage relationships between brands and influencers.

10. 82% of People Trust Social Networks to Guide Purchasing Decisions

Over three-quarters of consumers trust opinions they find on social media, including those from friends, families and influencers, to help them make the right decision about buying a product or service. This creates huge opportunities for marketers in the promotion of products (sponsored or not) to reach new audiences and influence key cohorts by catering to Gen Z and Millennials.

11. Social Media Marketing Has Surpassed Print Marketing

What this means is brands are undergoing a transition in the ways they spend their marketing budgets. Expensive and inefficient ad buys, such as many of those found in newspapers and magazines, are giving way to influencer marketing. The return on investment in social media marketing is now far outpacing any traditional medium.

12. 42% of Customers Use Ad-Blocking Technology

More and more Internet users are removing traditional ads from their online experience. In the US ad-blocking usage is 37% on laptops and 15% on mobile, as consumers are tired of being hammered with pop-ups and banners. But influencers are now filling the gap. People aren't blocking videos from their favorite social media celebrities - in fact, they're eating up every word they say. Advertising power is shifting to real people and influencers.

13. Marketers Spend up to $100,000-$500,000 on Influencer Marketing Campaigns

Spending on influencers has gone up over the past few years, and it's only going to increase. Many budgets for influencer marketing are on the rise, with 19% of marketers expected to invest an average of $1,000-$10,000 followed by 18% spending $100,000 to $500,000 in multifaceted campaigns.

14. 41% of Twitter Users Intended to Purchase Based on a Tweet

It seems Twitter influencers do, as a matter of fact, have the ability to impact the purchasing decisions of followers. On the platform, influencers are now rivaling friends in terms of building trust, with 61% of Twitter users following a creator resulting in a 61% lift in brand favorability and a 64% increase in recommendation intent. Engaging in marketing campaigns with influencers clearly has the potential to drive up sales of goods and services and newsjacking on Twitter may also be something to consider.

15. Couples are changing influencer marketing

Couples are emerging as a new wave of successful influencers across platforms. Using their relationship, many are leveraging their status to build a brand. Reality TV is one of the main drivers with participants in series such as ‘Love Island’ and ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ creating stars that can influence an audience. Think Joe Sugg and Dianne Buswell or Tommy Fury and Molly-Mae Hague. With over 10 million followers the former Duke and Duchess of Sussex (otherwise known as Harry and Meghan) combine their star power on Instagram to great effect.

16. Facebook is the Most Influential Social Media Network

With about 2.89 billion monthly users across the world, Facebook is one of the most influential social media channels, with 52% of purchasing decisions being influenced by the platform. Other social media networks are catching up to the giant, but Facebook is holding its own, especially with its ownership of Instagram and WhatsApp. Therefore, it's vital to stay active on Facebook and engage with influencers to expand your Facebook reach.

17. YouTube is Hot on Facebook's Heels

While Facebook is still the alpha dog, YouTube is snapping at its heels particularly when it comes to making millionaires of its influencers. The platform has made celebrities and influencers of regular people (think PewDiePie and Ryan’s World ) and fame is open to all age groups and demographics. There's something for everybody on YouTube, and marketers are taking notice by putting more money into influencer marketing on the platform.

18. 60% of Consumers Have Been Influenced by Social Media or a Blog While Shopping at a Store

This changes the meaning of comparison shopping. According to research, 3% of consumers would consider buying a product in-store if promoted by a celebrity, compared to 60% for an influencer. Not only is the influence greater, but over half of customers are consulting blogs and social media on their mobile devices prior to shopping, highlighting the importance of easily accessible information and posts (social and blogs) to reveal a product's reputation.

19. Purchase Intent Increased by 5.2x by Influencers on Twitter

Part of influencer marketing research means discovering which social media networks are most suitable for promoting your brand and where your target audience can be found. According to Twitter, influencers created a 5.2x increase in purchase intent when users were exposed to brand and influencer tweets compared to 2.7x when just shown brand tweets.

20. 71% of Marketers Believe Influencer Partnerships are Good for Business

Influencer marketing campaigns should not be a one-and-done proposition. They are a valuable ongoing strategy in a marketer's toolkit, with a Mediakix survey revealing that nearly three-quarters of marketing professionals cite them as good for business. If you can partner with them and create a long-term relationship, making them ambassadors of your brand, the message they portray comes across as more trusted instead of promotional. It helps to boost your brand's credibility if you're seen as trusted by an influencer.

First published October 2018, Updated October 2021