10 reasons your brand needs to be on Instagram
Do you want to increase your reach, boost engagement and drive more conversions? Instagram is the perfect platform to help you achieve your business goals.
With over 2 billion monthly active users, Instagram offers advertisers a powerful opportunity to speak directly to their audience and achieve business goals. As a visual platform, advertisers can be creative with their content to grab user attention and promote their products/services. It also has a wide range of ad formats that you can experiment with to help you get your message across.
With all these benefits (and more!), Instagram should be a key component in your paid social strategy. To help you understand the importance of Instagram, we have broken down 10 key benefits of using Instagram for business. Let’s go.
Why your brand should be on Instagram
1. Instagram is mobile-optimised
Due to its mobile-centric nature, Instagram can keep up with the growing trend of users using social media on mobile devices to shop and discover new brands. As most people use their phones to access social media, platforms must be optimised for mobile; and lucky for Instagram … it is!
Top tip: To make sure your content is optimised for mobile, stick to short-form content, the platform-specific specs/recommendations for content and include captions with audio.
2. By advertising on Instagram, you can boost your brand reach
As of 2024, Instagram has over 2 billion monthly active users. Your audience is likely in that 2 billion somewhere, making Instagram a brilliant platform for your brand because you can speak to your audience and increase reach. Over 15% of Instagram profiles are business profiles. This shows the profitability and the significant role Instagram can play in generating sales and boosting reach.
When comparing reach on Facebook with that on Instagram, it is important to note that Facebook’s algorithm makes it hard for advertisers to increase reach at the same rate they can on Instagram; the Facebook news feed algorithm favours family and friends content rather than promotional. Therefore, advertisers have a better chance of boosting reach on Instagram.
Furthermore, Instagram features like hashtags, reels and explore pages also help advertisers boost reach.
3. Enhance visibility with images
As a visual platform, you can use high-quality, visually appealing images to increase visibility on Instagram and drive engagement. Images are a powerful marketing tool that helps marketers get their message across in a creative, memorable way.
The better your image, not only concerning clarity and context but also in terms of relevancy and interest, the more people are likely to engage with your content. Instagram’s algorithm uses certain factors, such as audience engagement, to determine how often your posts will appear on user’s feeds. Therefore, producing high-quality, attention-grabbing imagery is crucial when enhancing visibility.
Top tip: you can optimise your Instagram profile and content to rank higher in Instagram search results and boost your visibility this way too.
4. Instagram has a wide range of content formats
You can make sure your content is engaging and fresh by utilising the wide range of content formats Instagram offers. For example, the platform provides format options like reels, stories, highlights, live broadcasts, carousels, videos and images.
Not only do these content formats give you freedom when creating content but they also allow you to repurpose popular content in different forms. This is a great technique where you can provide your audience with several ways to engage with your brand.
5. You can increase engagement rates and build community
Instagram is a powerful platform when it comes to increasing your engagement rates. Nearly 60% of micro-influencers stated that Instagram is the best platform for creating an engaged audience.
It offers an opportunity for connection with its interactive features, like polls and lives, as well as the ‘comment’ and ‘share’ features. In 2023, Instagram released broadcast channels, where a brand can directly message its audience and start discussions. Story reactions are extremely effective for increasing engagement, allowing users to express their feelings and providing brands with direct feedback.
Communicating with users is essential when building an online community and a loyal customer base. As Instagram offers several ways to do this, it is an effective platform for advertisers.
6. Instagram business accounts offer detailed insights
By switching to an Instagram business account, you are telling Instagram that you are using this account to sell. Because of this, you can access a range of useful tools that can support your business goals. These tools include Instagram insights, shoppable posts, paid advertisements, and more.
Having detailed insights helps you monitor your Instagram performance in real time. You can then see what content is performing well and what you need to improve. Successful social strategies need to be flexible and adaptable, so you can take learnings from the data and use it to refine your strategy.
7. Instagram shopping helps to generate sales
Instagram shopping is a key feature of Instagram business accounts. It allows brands to create shoppable posts, tag products and sell directly via Instagram. Ultimately, the easier it is for your audience to purchase, the more likely they are to buy.
It helps make your products/services easy to discover and browse, whilst also streamlining the customer journey, so potential customers have a positive experience.
8. You can boost conversions
The main priority for any business is to generate sales by boosting conversions and social media is an effective way to do this. The top-performing brands on Instagram have an average conversion rate of around 1.08%. This is much higher than other leading platforms like X and Pinterest.
Interestingly, Instagram has limited locations for links; you can only add a link to your bio, stories and shoppable feeds. Despite this, the platform enables high conversions which demonstrates the power Instagram holds for businesses.
9. By using targeted ads, you will see a higher ROI with Instagram.
Due to its integration with Facebook, Instagram paid ads can be targeted specifically to users most likely to engage with your ads. The advanced targeting options available mean you can be creative with your targeting choices and reach your ideal audience.
Therefore, by investing in paid ads and utilising targeting options, you are likely to drive more results and experience a high ROI.
10. Instagram collabs can increase your reach
Instagram collabs allow brands to partner with influencers/other brands and publish the same content across both profiles. This can help you increase reach and boost engagement.
Influencer marketing is a powerful tool for advertisers. They have loyal followers, who trust their opinions; by partnering with influencers, their audience will trust you too.
Want to start your Instagram journey today?
If you are looking for support with your paid social strategy, Embryo is here to help. Our team of experts are ready to help you increase your reach, boost your engagement and generate more sales online. Get in touch and let’s start your journey to paid social success today!
