Have you ever dreamed of starting your own online business, selling all your belongings, and just packing your laptop, and traveling the world? For some, becoming independent and breaking that 9-5 mold is their ultimate life goal.
Quitting your job and creating an income of your own might seem scary, but it is actually not that hard. Many have gone before you, and now that remote working is becoming more and more popular, it’s easier than ever. Live on your own terms and start an online store with an Instagram business.
In this article, we’ll tell you what an Instagram Business is and how to use it to your own benefit.
Introducing: Instagram Business
Did you know that more than 90% of all Instagram followers follow a business account? An Instagram Business account is the perfect way to reach your customers, introduce a new brand, and simplify the selling process. Instagram Business is an essential tool for selling your products online. By creating a business account you’ll be able to use some handy features and make your selling process lots easier. The best of all: Instagram Business is free to use.
To be able to set up an Instagram Business account, you need to create a personal account first. Your business account will be linked to your personal profile. Instagram allows you to switch easily between accounts in the app or on the website.
The tool offers a professional dashboard with an Insights tool that helps you track important information, such as your performance but is also a great source of information for learning how to efficiently sell your products online.
Furthermore, a business account allows you to boost posts, include links in your posts, use Instagram advertisements, add clickable CTAs to your posts, and much more. Another interesting feature is that Instagram Business can be directly linked to web shop providers, such as Shopify.
Why you should use Instagram Business
Using Instagram Business is not only profitable for your sales, but when done well it can also boost your brand awareness and create a trustworthy image for your company.
Instagram’s users can function as a great source of potential customers and its embedded analytics tools can give you insights about your customers that can help you reflect upon your business plan and make changes accordingly. Instagram can help you actively engage with your customers and find out what they like to see.
Form a personal connection with your customers
Instagram is the perfect place to form a personal connection with your customers. One of the most important reasons for consumers to buy from a certain company is because they find a company trustworthy enough to purchase from them. The platform gives you the perfect opportunity to give your potential customers a sneak peek into your life or your production processes, essentially establishing that bond between both parties.
Online businesses with no social media presence often struggle to establish that personal bond with their customers. This is because they cannot see the face behind it all and start to doubt your trustworthiness in a time where everyone is present on social media and companies can be investigated online easily.
This means that not having a presence on social media can be harmful to your sales. Getting started on Instagram Business is free and your account can gain popularity quickly if you buy Instagram followers. Instagram users generally prefer to follow accounts with more followers.
Tell your story
Sharing your life with your Instagram followers gives them a sense of knowing you and the opportunity to assess your company. This can be done mainly through the story feature, and by regularly posting interesting content, but Instagram also has a lot of features that can be used to enhance your followers’ experience. It’s also easy to interact with your customers through the comments and all sorts of story features, such as the ability for customers to ask you questions.
Instagram also offers the opportunity to talk directly with your customers through Direct Messaging (DM). With direct messaging, customer service becomes easy, as customers prefer to talk to companies through chat instead of calling them. Reels can help you to tell your brand story and to offer exclusive behind-the-scenes content, which helps your customers to understand your company and products.
Instagram is full of useful features
If you want to create your own brand, Instagram is a great place to start. The many tools and features allow you to get in touch with your followers and find out what they want to see. Instagram stories is one of the most versatile features that the platform offers. By means of this feature, creating content that engages with your target group is easy.
Stories are a great way to create engagement and give your followers a behind-the-scenes, while Reels are great for introducing yourself and reaching people that don’t follow you yet. Instagram also has a feature to mix your Reels with those of others, which can be a great medium for collaboration and attracting each other’s follower bases.
Instagram has a massive user base
Instagram has one of the highest active user bases of all popular social media platforms these days. Therefore, Instagram is one of the best platforms to introduce your business on. Basically, you’ll be enjoying a massive international pool of potential customers, whereas contacting international clients outside of social media usually takes a lot more time and effort.
Research has shown that the two billion users of Instagram spend an average of 145 minutes per day on the platform. That is a lot of potential customers for your company. Besides, those people also see the featured brand stories, which make up for one-third of all daily viewed stories.
Source: picture from Unsplash.com by Gabrielle Henderson https://unsplash.com/photos/bmUa09zy2ZQ 03-07-2019
Work on your own terms with Instagram for business
Selling your products through Instagram is the perfect way to become location independent. All you need is your laptop and a bit of creativity. Most people think that in order to sell products through Instagram, they need to invest in an inventory. However, there are many ways to sell products without the need for making a financial investment, such as through drop shipping or by using a print-on-demand supplier.
Instagram Business can be accessed by any computer, so you can do business from your phone, tablet, or laptop. The initial research and set-up might take some time, but after that, you are free to divide your time however you want.
Keep in mind that a successful Instagram business needs to do lots of marketing. If you don’t want to spend your days making reels or updating your stories, think about using a social media planner that can plan social media posts. You only have to spend some time making posts, and they’ll be sent out whenever you please.
If your dream is to travel the world but still make money, to have more time to spend with your loved ones, or simply to be your own boss, starting an Instagram Business can certainly help you to realize your goals. If you are still not sure, in the next part we will give you some great examples of success stories in the Instagram Business world.
Success story: how Watch Anish Broke the Mold
The story of Watch Anish will certainly inspire you to chase your dreams and leave your 9 to 5 job behind. The creator behind the brand is Anish Bhatt. Bhatt was once fired from his job in the fashion industry, but rather than moping at home, he decided to pursue his dreams and started an Instagram Business account.
Bhatt became successful in combining the two things that he loved: design and photography. His brand is the first ever digital-only watch and lifestyle publications page.
The best thing is, he didn’t have to spend a single dollar on traditional marketing as he cleverly used the features Instagram provides to grow his brand. He fully focused on building a strong Instagram page filled with interesting content, while simultaneously liking and commenting on the posts of other popular Instagram presences on a daily basis, which brought him the attention of their followers.
His persistence paid off as he is now inspiring a whopping amount of 1,7 million followers. He now travels the world, acting as a consultant for luxury watches, including brands such as Rolex, leaving behind the 9 to 5 working days for good.
How to make your Instagram business profitable
A profitable Instagram business isn’t built in a day. You only get one chance to introduce your business, so really think about what you want to sell and come up with a detailed business plan before you get started.
Selling through social media can be a main business outlet, but it can also be part of a bigger plan if you also want to sell through a regular webshop or physical store. It doesn’t matter what place your Instagram business has in your business plan, it cannot be profitable if you don’t put the hours in and take the following steps.
Think about your strategy
The first thing you need to do is think about the strategy you are going to use. No Instagram Business has ever become successful by just winging it. Instagram needs continuity and you will never be able to make it if you don’t put the time and dedication into it, especially when you are still a start-up.
Firstly, determine your niche. Instagram works when you post interesting content, but what is interesting to one person will most likely not be interesting to others. To be able to fully focus on those who are actually interested in you, find out what they are interested in first. Find out what their passions and interests are and how your product can solve their problems.
Look at a competitor’s Instagram and find out what they do and what kind of people follow them. Read their comments and see what they like, but also read what they say on forums in order to learn more about them. Now that you know who your potential clients are and what they like, focus on making content that is interesting for them. Process all of this information in your social media strategy.
Set-up an account
If your plan is finished and you’re ready to start selling, set up your business account. Remember that your account needs to be linked to a personal profile, so set up one of those first if you don’t have one yet. Fill your business account with important information, such as a catching biography and a profile picture that fits with your brand. Later on, you can make use of Instagram’s highlight function and add information about your company as an extension of your bio.
Now that you have a business profile, you also need a shop. To open up a shop, you need to connect a catalog or use a partner. After this step, you need to connect to a website that will be verified by Instagram as well. Choose your sales channel and add your first products to the shop. Always preview and make sure there are no typos before saving and publishing your changes. After your shop is ready, you can start creating shoppable posts and sell them on Instagram.
Build your brand
Instagram is the perfect social media platform to build your brand. First and foremost because of its massive followers base, but also because it is full of successful brands that started from the bottom and created their brand without having to make a financial investment.
Building your brand on Instagram does not require a financial investment, but it is wise to keep in mind that posting interesting content regularly is important, so you’ll need to put some time into it. The first thing you do is properly introduce yourself on Instagram. Make a post with interesting facts about you and your company to give your businesses a “face”.
Some websites recommend posting nine posts before you introduce your business to the world, but this is not a good strategy as it is a waste of content and it won’t help to build your brand if the content isn’t interesting. Always make sure that the pictures and videos you post are high quality, as low quality doesn’t grasp the attention of your followers.
Once you have introduced yourself, it’s time to start posting. The average lifespan of an Instagram post is 48 hours, so it’s recommended to post at least once every day. Jump in on trends and use trending sounds and templates. Also, use hashtags to reach people who do not follow you yet. The copy of the post is also important, as simply using a Pinterest quote is not engaging enough anymore.
To make your content more interesting, make use of the many tools and features that Instagram has to offer, including the many different story features, trending sounds, popular post templates, pinned content, highlights, and more.
Create engaging content
Engaging content is the way to grow your profile into a strong and popular Instagram business. Your popularity is often measured by taking the engagement rate of your account. The engagement rate is calculated by adding the likes and comments together and dividing them by the number of followers you have. If you have many followers but not much engagement on your profile, potential clients are much less likely to follow you or buy from you.
Popular brands are more likely to appear on the Explore page, a page with public content that suggests posts based on the users’ interests. Appearing on the Explore page can make it easier to attract the attention of potential customers that do not follow you yet.
An example of something you can do with Instagram stories is make announcements. Introduce a new staff member through a short video, announce your new products, or give general updates about your company.
Do you want to know what your followers think about a product or what products they prefer? Simply start a poll. The only thing a follower has to do is click on their desired answers. This easy method enhances engagement and is a great way to gather information about your customers.
Another great way to find out what your customers like to see or know is to introduce questions to your stories. The question feature allows customers to ask you any questions, which you can then answer with a short personal video, strengthening the feeling of trust. If you want to focus on building a strong brand, partnering up with popular influencers in your niche can help you to reach potential customers in their follower base and boost your sales.
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The post Breaking The 9-5 Mold: How Instagram Is Empowering Entrepreneurs To Make A Living On Their Own Terms appeared first on Social Media Magazine.
