If you’ve recently started your business and are passionate about improving your Instagram marketing strategies, there are some tips we can offer to optimize your current campaign, increase your following, and improve your reach. Standing out among the competition means inching closer to becoming a significant influencer in your industry. Many of these strategies are not difficult or time-consuming. They simply require you to consider what you’re doing well and focusing your energy on areas that could use some tweaking and improvement.  

Growing your following means finding and using accessibility strategies that provide you a connection with every potential customer. Individuals with disabilities now have access to tools and technology that allow them to garner information that may have previously been unavailable to them. Businesses who use smart marketing campaign strategies know that visuals not able to be perceived by visual impaired or bind consumers can now be narrated. A description of what’s happening or what is the in the image can be placed on Instagram, making content once off-limits available to a new demographic. Consumers who use screen readers will now be able to have the text read aloud to them, allowing the contextualization and description of the graphic or image more perceptible.

Instagram’s alternative text description feature provides two options. Your social media team can choose to use automatic alternative text that uses object recognition technology to create its own audio description of the photo. Or, the team can manually write its own text-based descriptions. Choosing the latter means that your marketing team can customize the experience for the consumer when she clicks on the photo. The second option is more time-consuming for your digital media strategists, but it will also give your company an opportunity to highlight the unique features of the product or service you want to emphasize and help increase your reach with potential consumers.

Create short URLs that can enhance your social media marketing. While longer, descriptive URLs are an important an effective part of your SEO strategy, lengthy URLs are not easily shared on web pages, social media platforms, or emails.’ Using a shortener makes the links more manageable to share and remember. 

What is more, many shorteners have their own tools that can be used as tricks of the marketing trade. Some allow you to track and compile data. You can learn important information about live click data, geographic location, and the web page the link was clicked on. Knowing this tells you where your customers are coming from, when and where they are engaging, and what interests them. When used properly, this data allows you to develop innovative marketing strategies and social media services that display rank domains and focus attention on popular links. URL shorteners can also act as a filter or aggregate social media content for future campaign planning, leading to some valuable mashups. Learn how people share, consume, and produce content while promoting their own brand.

There’s more to advertising than getting your brand noticed. Targeting an audience allows you to modify your marketing strategies based on people’s ages, interests, and location. Instagram, in particular, has one of the most advanced social media advertising platforms because it allows you to retarget individuals who have visited and browsed your site, but who have not yet been converted to consumers. Most businesses experience and weary of visitors who build and then abandon their shopping carts. If you’re looking to convert those individuals into purchasers or want ways to turn old leads into new sales, Instagram allows you to develop custom retargeting audiences. The data gathered about their posts engagement, video views, and even their email addresses can lead to strategies, including the development of product ads, necessary for making connections with them. 

Create a “close friends” lists on stories on both your personal and business Instagram account pages. Choosing specific groups with whom you can share specific content can provide a wealth of opportunities for marketing and building your brand. Your stories can encourage membership, optimize subscriptions, and reward consumers. Also important is the fact that the close friends list feature allows for a sense of intimacy, especially among brand representatives or loyal followers. In large social media groupings, such a sense of connection can be missing. The exclusive list of followers being granted special viewing privileges or permissions will feel valued, an important part of building business rapport and connectivity, thus encouraging loyal consumers.

What are some tools you have used in marketing? Feel free to share your ideas and suggestions here.