Boost Your Sales With Instagram

Instagram has become an important place for businesses. It is now pretty common for brands to have their own account. As a matter of fact, it has almost become a necessity for them to be on the platform. It is a great opportunity to get exposure without spending too much money. Many Instagram users discover brands through the platform. In fact, 1 in 2 users said they have used the social network to discover new brands. Another interesting thing to have in mind is that 90% of users follow at least one business. Therefore it is safe to say that people are interested in seeing branded content on their feed.

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Influencer marketing on Instagram

It is with Instagram that influencer marketing really became a thing. Before that some YouTube creators were already getting deals or free products but it was quite limited. But with the apparition of Instagram influencers, partnerships really took a turn. It was easier to create collabs as you only had to take one or two pictures. But what’s so special about Instagram influencers?

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Who are the Instagram influencers? 🔎

First thing first, remember that each social network has its specificity. Even though Instagram is constantly adding new features, it was originally created to share pictures whereas TikTok was created to share short videos. You can read more about the differences between Instagram VS TikTok here.

So what’s an Instagram influencer? First of all, there are different influencer tiers. Depending on the objectives of your campaign you might want to work with smaller or bigger influencers. There are in total 5 influencer tiers.

• Nano influencers (from 0 to 10K followers): they are just starting out as influencers thus they might not always be as professional as bigger influencers. However, they are easier to contact, more likely to accept partnerships and they are less expensive to work with.
• Micro-influencers (from 10K to 50K followers): These influencers usually have a very engaged community as they can more easily answer each of their comments and DMs.
• Middle influencers (from 50K to 200K followers): These influencers have already done multiple partnerships, so they have become quite professional.
• Macro influencers (from 200K to 1M followers): These influencers are professional and have a large community so working with them means reaching a lot of people.
• Mega influencers (+1M followers): These influencers are Instagram royalty. They know exactly how to do partnerships but they can be very expensive.

Now each influencer has their specialization, so you can be sure to find an influencer that matches with your business.

For instance, Lena Situations (@lenamahfouf) creates content focusing on fashion whereas Joe Wicks (@thebodycoach) focuses on fitness. It can be hard to find influencers relevant to your niche. On Favikon, you can research influencers by selecting their influencer tier and adding keywords (and many other filters: location, engagement rate…).

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What type of influencer partnership 👥

There are different types of influencer partnerships you can do. It all depends on your objectives.

Stories can be great because they are usually less expensive, and it’s easier to redirect people to your website since the influencer can add a link to their story. However, they only last 24 hours so the visibility will be quite limited.

You can also ask your influencers to do a post with pictures. It is usually easier to be creative and original for posts than stories.

Finally, you can create Reels. It’s the last type of format created by Instagram: catchy short videos. Reels are great because they are shown to more people. Instagram is focusing a lot on this new format, so it is favored by the algorithm. Reels are shown to people who don’t necessarily follow the influencer so the reach is definitely higher.

This is for the format, but you also have to choose the duration of your partnership. Do you want this partnership with this influencer to be a one-time thing or do you want a long-term partnership with them? Long-term partnerships are getting more popular because they look more genuine. An influencer wouldn’t want to work with a brand in the long term if they didn’t trust and believe in the brand.

However, you should be really careful when you decide to work with an influencer in the long term. Make sure you have checked their social media stats before and more especially their engagement rate and saturation rate. You would typically ask an influencer for a long-term partnership once you have already worked with them so you would know exactly if it is profitable to collaborate with them.

One-time partnerships can also be a good strategy for brands. This means that you can work with many different influencers and thus reach a wider audience and different targets.

Have a look at our article for more social media marketing partnership ideas.
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How to sell on Instagram

Instagram is the perfect platform to sell your products, but having an Instagram account won’t get you anywhere if you don’t have the right strategy. There are a few things that you can implement to help your account grow and gain visibility.

Influencers who sell on Instagram 💰

If there are people that know how to sell on Instagram it’s definitely influencers. Thanks to their content, they have managed to build a huge community of followers. Their proximity to their followers is often the key to their success. They are now real marketers and can promote brands to their community.

Let’s see some examples of content creators who are experts at doing collaborations.

1. Lena Situations

Of course, we had to mention the number 1 female influencer in France. In only a few years, Lena Mahfouf became the most influential French influencer in the fashion industry (but not only). So how did she do it?

If Lena became so successful quickly, it is because she did the opposite of what other influencers were doing at the time. A few years ago, YouTubers were known for romanticizing their life and showing only how perfect it was. On the contrary, Lena decided to show her real life in her vlogs: she wasn’t always wearing makeup, and her life wasn’t always super exciting but she didn’t try to hide it. People liked that she was being honest and they were happy to relate to her.

On top of that, she has always tried to promote positivity. She even created her own motto “+=+”, which can be summed up by “positivity attracts positivity”. So not only was Lena relatable to her community but she was also trying to help them feel better by promoting this mindset.

Now she collaborates with high-end brands as well as less expensive ones. In both cases, her collaborations always look perfect.

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2. Jack Morris

Jack Morris is a British travel influencer with more than 2.6M followers on Instagram. He gained popularity by sharing outstanding pictures of hidden places all across the globe. Surely his success is linked to his incredible content but it’s also thanks to the fact he created a coherent brand image.

People follow him because his life is inspirational. Many people wish they had this kind of lifestyle. Jack is always traveling in the most beautiful places, staying in luxury hotels and he is also quite handsome, which definitely helps we’re gonna lie. Overall, Jack gave himself a very high-end image. He is also careful with which brands he collaborates with. His partnerships are either high-end brands or brands that go with his lifestyles such as Aperol Spritz, Panerai, or Aorus.

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Boost your sales on Instagram

Now besides influencer collaborations, having your own brand account on Instagram can also boost your sales. So here are a few tricks to have a great Instagram account.

• Have a clear bio: The bio is the first thing someone will see when they go on your account so you need to make it clear. For that make sure to write what you do or what you sell so people will know immediately if they are interested in your brand or not.  

Instagram allows you to put a link in your bio, so don’t forget to add a link to your website. Your bio also plays a role in Instagram SEO, so it is great to have keywords in your bio or your name (this is different from your username).

So let’s say you are a clothing brand, it can be interesting to add words like “fashion” or “clothes” in your bio or name. You can also be more specific.

• Use relevant hashtags: Many people underestimate the power of hashtags but they are really important if you want to grow on Instagram. First of all, they allow you to reach a wider audience because people can find your posts through these hashtags but they also help with the algorithm. By using relevant hashtags, the algorithm knows which target audience you are trying to reach.

Remember to avoid too broad hashtags as your posts will be lost in millions of others, but they will also not be shown to people who are interested in what you sell.

Finally, there are many tools created by Instagram to help businesses and that you should use.

First of all, we more than recommend setting your Instagram into a professional account, as you will get access to more features and you will be able to see your account statistics.

Then, we have paid ads. Creating paid ads from time to time can be great because it will help you gain visibility. On Instagram, you can select the precise audience you want to target when creating your ad.

Instagram is trying to make its platform more attractive to businesses, this is why they created Instagram Shopping. This feature allows you to tag certain products on your pictures. Your followers can click on it and directly buy the product if they are interested.

Using Instagram can really make a huge Instagram on your business whether it is by working with influencers or having your own account. It’s a good way to gain visibility and boost your sales. Instagram is really trying to make the platform more business-friendly so they are constantly working on new features to help businesses sell their products. In 2021, 44% of users declared they used Instagram to shop weekly.

So are you ready to develop your Instagram brand account?