3 Instagram Tips For Small Businesses and Startups in the Philippines
According to AdEspresso, Instagram is a highly visual platform unlike Facebook, where links, texts posts, and call to action are competing for your attention alongside images.
Sometimes copy plays a role but it’s totally images are what stand out. Huge companies like Coca Cola, Starbucks and Nike dominate the space.
But how can you use Instagram for small business and startup?
When it’s done right, you definitely can use the power of Instagram.
Imagery, copy, and aesthetic are the factors that complete the whole forefront of Instagram marketing.
In Instagram marketing, if you:
- Get creative with your photos
- Post photos of your products
- Show your product authentically
It’s not a guaranteed that your ads will work well. It takes more than a great picture/video to make a successful Instagram ad.
The best ads work when they are better connected to the target market. Try the 3 tips below, and see how authentically successful your visual marketing can be.
3 Creative Instagram Tips For Small Businesses And Startups
Instagram Tip #1
Have A Theme
Think of your feed as the landing page on your website, complete with a color scheme and specific style.
Whenever you launch an ad, it creates impacts to the brand awareness of your company in the marketplace. Your brand is what others say about you not what you think it is. All of your Instagram content should reaffirm your brand.
How to specifically do this:
- Showcase your product in the ads using a specific color palette or prop
- Ensure the company logo is included
Having a theme enables the audience to begin to recognize your brand, capitalize on this and make it so that they are so captivated by it that they engage with instantly.
For example, influencer marianna_hewitt maintains her personal brand by ensuring all her sponsored images have a similar look by using specific filters, regardless of which product she’s endorsing:
Via marianna_hewitt
Cetaphil makes sure that their ad promoting new products align with their corporate branding, which frequently uses blue and green:
Via Cetaphil
Similar color usage on the Cetaphil website
Instagram Tip #2
Determine the Goal
Whether it’s increasing brand awareness, reaching people near your business, driving traffic to a website, getting app installs, selling a product, or generating leads, make sure you have a goal to achieve and the ad supports the desired action you want your target audience to do.
It’s cliché but the ad creative needs to be relevant to the objective.
Fitness guru Kayla Itsines uses video ads of her demonstrating her workout routines to promote installing her mobile app:
Via kayla_itsines
PLDT Home encourages Instagram users to avail their product by applying online:
Via pldthome
Here are the following ideas for ways to make your ad creative relevant to your goal:
- Create a visual portfolio of your work
- Shoot a product demo and answer FAQs
- Highlight special offers and events
- Invite fan and follower submissions via hashtags
- Humanize your brand
- Increase engagement on Facebook
Instagram Tip #3
Think Like Your Audience To Keep Your Audience
Imagine yourself as your target audience.
Look at everything from that group’s point of view.
That’s the first thing you need to do before you start any marketing activities. When you think like your audience this affects your entire marketing strategy.
After you have identified and segmented your audience, you need to determine how best to reach each group. Ask yourself the following questions:
- What does my audience want?
- What do they care about?
- What do they dislike?
- What social media platform do they hang out?
Only after you find the answers to these questions will you be able to speak to your audience and have them listen and respond. Once you have clearly defined your audience, you must tailor your message to speak to them.
Coca Cola collaborated with popular artist today lizasoberano to target millennials and show how she thinks the product can make her afternoon better:
Via lizasoberano
Wrapping Up
When creating Instagram ads, there’s no need to guess how your images will perform.
By understanding which images are resonating with your Instagram followers, you can refine your ad strategy and deliver true value to both the broader Instagram community and your brand.
Protip: Once you’ve launched your ad, make sure to make notes on what targeting options, placements, budget, and bid type you used. Once the ad’s run is finished, you can evaluate the performance of the ad compared to the overall goal. Those insights you will get can help you determine the next steps to implement to your ads.
