10 Tips for Using Instagram to Promote Your Store

Instagram by the numbers

These are the key Instagram numbers to understand the influence Instagram has on your potential  customers:

Instagram Worldwide Statistics

Number of Users

• Instagram now has 400 million active users.
• 75% of Instagram users are outside the US.
• Over 60% of users log in daily, making it the second most engaged network after Facebook.
• 30% of internet users are now on Instagram.
• Instagram usage has doubled in the last two years.

Demographic

• 90 percent of Instagram users are younger than 35

Retail and brand usage

• 48.8% of brands are on Instagram. By 2017, this is predicted to rise to 70.7% a number that is expected to increase to 70.7% by 2017.  (1)
• If we only look at the top 100 brands in the world, 90% have an Instagram account.
• 96% of US fashion brands are on Instagram.
• Outside China, almost 50% of Instagram users conduct product research on social media.
• Engagement with brands on Instagram is 10 times higher than Facebook, 54 times greater than Pinterest, and 84 times larger than Twitter.
• Over a third of Instagram users have used their mobile to purchase a product online– making them 70% more likely to do so than non-users .(2)

Instagram in Canada

• Canada accounts for approximately 0.5% of the global population, but more than 2% of Instagram’s worldwide user base.
• 8.5 million of its estimated 400 million worldwide users are from Canada. The average Canadian user checks his or her Instagram app an average of 11 times a day, six days a week.
• Instagram is also highly influential, with 60% of users saying they learn about products and services on the platform and 75% taking action – defined as visiting a website, searching, shopping for or purchasing or telling a friend – after being inspired by an Instagram post. (3)

10 Tips to promote your store on Instagram

1. First Select Theme and Tone – For example: if you are posting mostly in black and white do not start doing lots of color pictures. If you do, real life photos do not start posting cartoons. That way your followers will not be surprised and disappointed.

2. Post at least once a day but not more than three posts per day – Posting too much or too little is not a good idea. Do not post just to post, always keep the posts valuable either by entertainment, offering, product. Etc value. Your birthday party might have been great, but most of your business followers will not care.

3. Respond to new followers with a special offer or even just a welcome message. – It is a very good idea to have an offer for Instagram followers that you can respond with via DM. Something like 10%, for example, is a great of engaging your new followers.

4. Have giveaways to attract followers, can be an item from your store – These types of events do attract a large number of followers and can be relatively not expensive. The rule is simple the bigger the item, the greater the number of followers. The recommended frequency is 1 to 2 months. Keep in mind that after the event is finished, you will tend to lose followers, so hopefully, more will stay based on your daily content.

5. Have Brand Ambassador and Brand rep contest to attract followers – This is very similar to the product giveaway, but here you can only give brand discounts and encourage other users to promote your brand. These are usually more valuable, but you need have the right product offering for this type of campaign. It might be hard to find brand representatives if you are in the grocery business for example. Do not run 2 of these campaigns at the same time.

6. Include some motivational messaging in some of your posts – A great picture is only as good as the caption underneath. You can make any post better with some humor or motivational quote.

7. Have a special day once a month with a special discount but change it every month – Having a monthly sale for Instagram followers is a great way to engage users but keep the day different, so people anticipate the events and not unfollow.

8. Announce new arrivals at least one week before they actually arrive – It is an excellent way to increase engagement by having early announcements and building anticipation of your shoppers. Depending on your type of business you may have seasonal, event specific, etc. products and you can run a sneak peek campaign even as early as a month before sale.

9. If you can, produce some videos, either educational or funny with your products. If you have a YouTube channel, include a link in your profile description. –
   It is always a good idea to have videos. You may choose different types of videos that help demonstrate the service/product better than just a picture: an educational, a fashion show, or a short comedy. Remember, an Instagram video should be short, longer videos should be left for YouTube.

10. Always stay up-to-date with holidays and current events – Never miss an opportunity to have the current events posting. These hashtags are always popular during the event and might attract shoppers that have not thought of your store before.

Remember that to keep followers engaged and not clicking the dreaded “unfollow” button, you got to have a real Instagram content strategy. 1000 followers today could quickly become 500 overnight by one wrong post.