Nonetheless, with Instagram, there is an enormous growth with about one billion people using it monthly. Interestingly, about 63 percent users log into this social network at least once in a day, while 200 million users visit a minimum one business profile every day.

Moreover, there are over 80 million photos shared on the Instagram every day and about 17,000 likes per second are given. The number of influencers on this channel, who have a large number of followers, is increasing. Where you are one among the MSMEs who want to reach a wider audience, then you need to have a right strategy to make the most of the Instagram.

What Are the 10 Instagram Marketing Tips for MSMEs?

The following are the 10 influential marketing tips for MSMEs:

1.Have a business account: If you have an Instagram account, then it is essential to switch to a business profile from a personal profile. You can do it in a few steps by clicking the “Settings” icon and choosing the “Switch to Business Profile” option. Since Instagram is owned by Facebook, it will need your Facebook page and profile to connect. You are also required to fill out some details to complete the process.

Some benefits of having a business account are: 

• You get access to Instagram Insights, which is an ‘analytics and performance statistics’ tool. With it, you get to know all the information about your account. For instance, you will know how your posts perform, what content works well, your performance last week and your followers’ demographics.
• You can add a contact button to help someone contact you via email or phone.
• You will be able to add links to your Instagram stories if you have over 10,000 followers.
• With a business profile, you can advertise on Instagram. In a way, you can create your ad on Facebook and choose Instagram to place your ad.

A business account comes with several free perks and using them you can track metrics and know your audience.

2. Post great product ads that attract the viewers:  Social channels are undoubtedly a great place to build brand, as well as product awareness. All you need is to plan an Instagram campaign with product teasers to drive in more traffic, engagement and impressions. Simple ads like teasers give information about the product in a natural way, which is not overbearing but exciting. For instance, running a contest or offering a free app helps get more people to tag the post and share the brand message. The ads that are not pushy have received a large number of likes for they do not force you to buy anything. Such posts will allow people to engage by liking them and commenting and sharing with your Instagram feeds.

3. Go for sponsored advertising: With about 4.21 percent engagement rate, Instagram figures on top of the list of social channels. By advertising on this platform, you can target your audience in a non-intrusive way. You can have sponsored ads for the budget you want, though the cost depends on various factors like ad format and placement, target audience and time. As for ad formats, you can choose anything like photo, stories, video, collection, carousel and explore ads.

4. Use Iconosquare to view and manage Instagram following: You need to monitor the engagement and likes of your followers and without viewing the statistics, it is difficult to manage or grow your Instagram following. By having the Iconosquare, you can view the posts in volume and use the statistical tools for details on impressions you received, all for no cost.

5. Focus on diverse community: With a large and diverse community of users, Instagram offers unlimited marketing potential to businesses. Being a democratic platform, your focus should be more on the members of the community than on individual influencers. 

6. Using Instagram stories as a prime strategy: Creating stories for your brand, product, or business is fun. Using Instagram stories offers you a better reach and interaction with a large audience, enhance brand visibility and transparency, generate leads, receive quick feedback for your products, use real-time marketing, and more. Using stories also permits you to experiment with diverse content like short videos, live videos, photos, boomerangs, etc.

7. Show innovative ways of using your product: With Instagram being a prime platform to show off your products, it is advisable to show new creative ways of using your product through your posts. This gives some value in return for the followers’ engagement.

8. Use hashtags: The search feature on Instagram demands using hashtags, which helps reach more people and increase visibility of your product or brand. However, it asks for being strategic about using the correct hashtags and when to use them. Though there are innumerable popular hashtags, you can use those that are relevant and smaller and can engage audience. You can do some research to find out the hashtags your audience, competitors and industry are using and providing the most engagement.

9. Run an Instagram Contest: Engaging with the present and potential audience is important to achieve great results and you can do it by running a contest. You need to do it right by reading IG’s promotion guidelines for getting maximum followers.

10. Collaborate: The easiest way to get a large number of new followers is to get a mention of your brand from someone having an established account. Such accounts are owned by lifestyle entrepreneurs who have done enough research to build followers. A shout out from them will bring followers to you.

The above-mentioned tips are good enough to show how effective Instagram can be for MSMEs.