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Instagram has become one of the easiest and quickest ways to announce a new business. You may often see while casually scrolling through your feed, an ad persuading you to learn more about a person’s profile, download a free guide or register for a workshop. If you are slow at tapping through your instagram stories, you might catch a random ad prompting you to swipe up to read more, learn more or get a special offer.
There are 1 billion people who use instagram every month and on average, there about 25 million business profiles. New small businesses and entrepreneurs are defaulting to this way of digital marketing to reach their target audience – I mean who wouldn't take their recent post and ‘promote” it for a week for just $25 for at least 2500 people to see it? Instagram if used strategically, is a great start to digital self marketing, however in order to gain more exposure, and awareness of your brand/business you will need more than Instagram to successfully reach your ideal target audience for these reasons.
10. Not Everyone has an Instagram Account
Over an eighth of the 7.7 billion people on the planet (and counting) use Instagram. It is important to note that and cross market to those who are heavily on Facebook, Youtube, Pinterest, twitter etc.
9. May not be the best platform for you audience
Although Instagram is a great starting point to market your business it may not be suitable for you. For instance, if your target audience are women between the ages 35-44 years old then you are marketing to 9% of Instagram users. It’s very important to know who your audience is and meet them where they are, this will save you time and money.
8. Instagram’s Algorithms
Show of hands if you too have been personally victimized by Instagram’s random algorithms! Every once in a blue moon Instagram will change their algorithm which is their way of determining how and when users see content. In the past Instagram did reveal that the three main factors that determine what you see in your feed are:
Interest
Timeliness
Relationship
It’s safe to say that if Instagram does not consider your post to be relevant, recent and engaging enough to the potential user, it’s not going to rank high on their feed.
7. Pay to Play Model
In order to win or become a valuable player at Instagram algorithm, get ready to pull out your credit card. There are 2 million businesses that advertise monthly on Instagram for placement in users stories and feeds. The more you pay the more you play – if you allocate more to your budget, the higher and more frequent you will rank in feeds and stories. Keep in mind that Instagram stretches out your budget based on how much you set. For smaller budgets ($15-50$) its best to keep the ad duration less than 2 weeks to ensure you are reaching as many users as possible.*Rule of thumb: The smaller the budget the shorter time you have to promote. The larger the budget the more time you have to promote.
6. Diversify Your Message
In order for you to connect and engage with your target audience, your message has to reach them in different ways. Instagram does allow you to post to your feed, stories and even their IG TV however that still is considered one channel. For example, how often do you see an ad for a new iPhone launching on tv, then later you see it on twitter, facebook, mentioned on the radio etc. As we stated previously your target audience may not solely be on Instagram, so it is important to consistently meet them where they are.
5. Better Conversions On Other Platforms
You may find that the majority of your audience is on Pinterest and that offers a better chance of converting your pinterest followers to clients/customers. Find which social media platform works better for you and optimize your marketing plan to increase your conversions.
4. You don’t control the timing of the message
Have you ever wondered why a post from 8 weeks ago is getting new likes or comments? Even though you post to feed when you want, you have no control of when your followers will actually see your post.This why email marketing is a great and effective strategy you should implement in the beginning because
Your email list is owned by you
Your emails are delivered when you want and how you want
You have the guarantee of your message reaching the right people
3. Hacking and Technical Issues (Shut downs)
No one likes the feeling of logging into their instagram to see that they have been hacked or noticing that the app is down and is not working. If you solely use instagram to engage with your audience you are in trouble when situations like this occur. One day of Instagram being shut down can cost you money, what’s worse is if you lose those thousands of followers you have worked so hard to gain due to hacking.
2. Instagram requires visuals that you may not have
Let’s face it, we all love those instagram pages that have well organized posts with consistent and cohesive brand colors. For those just starting out, it can be intimidating and time consuming to make your page just the same which is why I have created affordable Instagram story and feed templates that you can customize to fit your brand.
1. Instagram will eventually Die just like
I know it probably feels like yesterday you were coding your Myspace page or creating a Vine video with your college roommates. Sadly, those platforms are dead and gone, people are often moving on to the next best thing. In the social media world, things are changing every second, so it's important to not only keep up but to stay ahead. Like its forefathers, one day Instagram will be considered a thing of the past, people will shift their focus from followers, likes and comments to something else. The question then becomes how will you prepare your business for that possibility?
Who says you need a big budget to market your business? There are so many free ways to market your business online well – in fact, here’s 25 FREE Ways to Market your Business on a Small Budget