With over 1 billion monthly active users, Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. It is no wonder that Instagram has become a key marketing platform for brands to reach, connect with and influence their target audiences.
You might think that only B2C brands can benefit from Instagram, but the truth is that any brand has the power to leverage Instagram and use it to supercharge their marketing efforts. You just need to adapt your Instagram marketing strategy!
This blog post will provide some quickfire tips for how both B2C and B2B brands can best use Instagram for marketing. If you want a more in-depth read, you can check out the full-length guide by clicking the button below!
1. Instagram marketing advice for B2C brands
If your brand is in one of the “Instagram-friendly” B2C categories – such as fashion, beauty, gadgets, art/design or travel – then being on Instagram can be an incredibly powerful marketing tool!
Instagram is a visual platform, and since what you are selling is visual and aesthetically-pleasing in nature, you should showcase what you have to offer by posting beautiful imagery that shows off your products in an eye-catching and inspirational way.
You should also strongly consider taking advantage of the Instagram Shop feature. With this feature, you can add shop tags to photos of your products, which opens a pop-up page of the product, containing details like the price and a link to your webshop. This makes buying easier for the consumer, as it reduces the number of steps they need to take from post to purchase.
2. Instagram marketing advice for B2B brands
But what if you are a B2B brand whose products or services are not so visual or “beautiful” in nature? Can you still use Instagram for marketing? The answer is yes, although you will need to adopt a very different strategy.
Instead of using Instagram to directly drive sales via Instagram Shop, you should instead use Instagram to tell your brand story to potential customers and recruits.
Post content that communicates your core brand values – such as sustainability, inclusion or giving back to the local community – so that potential customers and recruits understand who you are and why they should choose to work with you.
There may be many different companies that offer the same products or services as you, but if a potential customer is passionate about sustainability and only one company is posting about sustainability on their social channels, that company has a much higher chance of being the one that they will choose.
3. Instagram marketing advice for all brands
Regardless of whether your brand is B2C or B2B, something that you must implement across all your content is a strong, visual brand identity.
What you want is for users to come across your content on their feeds and instantly associate your brand with it. Think of things like photography style, colour scheme, graphic branding and fonts. You want your visual branding to be representative of you as a brand.
You should also be aware that, on your profile, the content is presented as squares. Make sure you are aware of this when you create your content. Make sure your graphics look good and are not cropped awkwardly as squares, and make sure that you create custom thumbnails for your reels that account for this square format.
Want to learn more?
I hope this blog post has been a useful introduction to Instagram marketing. For more in-depth information and advice, read my full-length guide here! From reading this guide, you will learn:
- why your brand should be on Instagram
- how to harness the power of Instagram for marketing
- special advice for global brands targeting multiple markets
Anlieka Marconi
Latest posts by Anlieka Marconi (see all)
- 3 tips for telling your brand story on social media - November 7, 2023
- Instagram marketing advice for B2C and B2B brands - January 20, 2023
- 3 Weibo features you may not have heard of - December 15, 2020
