It has proven to be true that it’s quite potent to build brand awareness on Instagram for Shopify businesses.
Not only is it important to gain recognition for your brands, but building brand awareness also retains existing customers and reflects professionalism.Â
Why Instagram?Â
To make your brand stand out from the digital era, marketing on social media is a must. Among all, boosting brand awareness on Instagram seems to be extremely effective due to its rapid growth these recent years.
It’s is known that Instagram is a social network for sharing photos and videos, but the following statistic shows how it’s the most potential one:
- According to Instagram’s latest announcement, there are 1 billion users on Instagram monthly.
- Instagram was among the top five most-downloaded apps in both the App Store and via Google Play in 2020.
- Over 120 million people in the US use Instagram on a regular basis.
- 90% of Instagram users are under age 34
Powerful stat shows that Instagram’s user growth has been steady and consistent, especially among the young crowd.
For eCommerce brands especially, Instagram holds enormous opportunities for online businesses looking to showcase their products/ services.Â
It is proven by many huge brands that building their visual presence on Instagram can boost brand awareness and devote hugely to the overall marketing strategies.
Instagram algorithm
Similar to any social media network, Instagram has an algorithm that organizes the user’s feed so they will see the content that is relevant to them. To make a post be on top of a user’s newsfeed, many elements are considered such as interest, engagement, frequency, follower,…
Considering the most important factors for the constantly updated algorithm will help to optimize your content strategy for brand awareness.
However, is it true that every Shopify brand should optimize its image on Instagram? The answer depends on each business. To help you decide if Instagram is a promising channel to boost your visual presence, there are a few questions to ask such as:Â
What is your industry?Â
How visually appealing is your product?Â
Are your customers on Instagram? (The most important one)
Below, there are some best practices to filter your Instagram marketing strategy that can boost brand authority and improve engagement.
Best practices to build brand awareness on Instagram for Shopify
Build your content on Instagram
Have personality
Whether you are a new business or a big brand with an existing audience base, you need a clear direction to build a content strategy on IG. It’s essential to have your own story and a human element: personality.
Think about your core value, your message and what your brand represents, what emotional aspects you would like your audience to feel while approaching your posts.Â
Be consistent
Moreover, it’s not enough to just showcase your personality in some random post, consistency is another key.
Followers might not associate a certain characteristic with your business if there is just one post showing it. If your Shopify business is about dog supplies, people will easily catch this idea if everything in your account is dog-related.
Choose image wisely
Choosing the publishing materials is also important. If someone saw a blurry low-quality image from your account, the possibility that they will visit your wall and consider your brand is nearly zero. People are around numerous options, so showing high-quality plus memorable images might set you to stand out from the crowd.
The image you choose must also stick with your personality: the type of imagery, colors, and filters you use to create a distinct atmosphere. You can also add the brand mark on each photo so your logo becomes a part of the viewers’ memory.
Have a posting schedule and stick with it
An active and professional Instagram account will have a fixed post schedule, it could be daily, weekly (monthly post is not recommended because it will not show your online frequency). There are many available social media post schedulers to get your post ready without login into your account at a fixed time every day such as Buffer or Sprout Social.
Use influencers voice
Influencers are individuals who affect the purchase decisions of others in a market because of their authority/knowledge or their position, relationship with their audiences.
If you’re exploring your Instagram feed, there’s a high chance that you’ve come across an Influencer’s post. This strategy removes the barriers of other traditional advertising methods because the customers approach your products through a trusted source on an authentic platform. Buyers are more likely to reach for reviews from people they know before actually buying the products so the voice of influencers would be powerful in the decision-making process. Â
Finding suitable Influencers for your business is the very first step for an effective influencer marketing campaign. The Influencers should match your brand image, style, and personality. When researching, check the influencers’ followers, engagement, reach and caption length. If these elements seem to match your brand, don’t hesitate to reach out and offer a collaboration invitation.Â
Budget is also an important factor to consider if this is the right ambassador for your business. The more followers and better reputation the influencer has, the higher they might charge.
Most influencers might ask for an upfront fee. However, this method has a drawback when you can’t measure how the collaboration actually affects the business. Instead, you should negotiate a commission-based partnership, in which they get a bonus for each customer they bring to your brand. This method creates a win-win relationship and can be beneficial for every business, especially the new one. Advertising without any upfront cost won’t hurt your budget, you only pay when getting sales.Â
A powerful ambassador tracking tool called Affiliate by Secomapp – Socialhead‘s official marketing partner is recommended for building and maintaining a relationship with your influencers. It will help Shopify brands build, track and manage the ambassador team professionally and automatically.
Optimize the shopping experience on Instagram
The desirable goal for your Instagram marketing strategy is to get people to buy your products. Thus, optimizing the purchasing experience will enhance the chance of your target audience to place an order.
Instagram has released the Instagram Shop to allow eCommerce brands to create a digital, shareable catalog of their products right on Instagram.
With this function, viewers can learn more about products right in the app, and either make a purchase directly on Instagram or click through to finish the transaction on the brand’s eCommerce site.
However, Instagram places some rules itself for shops that are eligible for using this feature. Your business has to:
- Be located in a SUPPORTED MARKET
- Have an eligible product
- Comply with our MERCHANT AGREEMENT and COMMERCE POLICIES
- Own a website domain in which you intend to sell from
Plus, for Shopify brands, it is recommended to create an Instagram feed on your own website as a method to boost your social proof and Expand your Instagram followers with an Instagram feed by Socialhead. The plugin will Showcase your best-performing Instagram feed anywhere on your website within 1 click which helps you to easily create as many galleries as you want. Eventually, you can not only build brand awareness on Instagram for Shopify but also gain more traffic for both sites.
Optimize search
Searching is a basic action for any social media user, people search for what they care about.
If you can optimize your Instagram posts for various relevant keywords (by writing descriptive captions, including alt text, and more), they may appear in keyword search results — so it’s more important than ever to optimize your Instagram SEO.
The more you optimize your Instagram posts for relevant keywords, the more likely they will appear in the search results.
According to Instagram, the search results a user sees are based on a variety of elements, including who they follow, who they’re connected to, and what photos and videos they like on Instagram and the keyword as well.
Similar to other search engines, when you enter a keyword into the search box, the system will sort through millions of accounts to find the most useful, relevant results
There are many elements on your account to work on for effective search optimization:
- Your profile
- Your bio
- The caption
- Hashtag
- Alt text
- Tagged from other accounts
Instagram ads
A popular method to boost the visibility of a post on your profile is by using Instagram Ads. With the competitiveness in a mass-market like Instagram where every brand wants to be presented in front of their target audience, optimizing the search results merely might not bring your image to the potential users. Instagram gives you the chance to be known by people who are interested in your category by setting Ad campaigns.
There are various types of Instagram ads, including:
- Instagram feed ads (Photo Ads, Video Ads, Slideshow Ads, Carousel Ads)
- Story ads (single image, single video)
The cost of Instagram ads depends on your budget and the bidding option (manually or automatically). You can select the goal when creating an Ads campaign, it could be one of the options: brand awareness, reach, traffic, app installs, engagement, video views, and conversions.
The important steps when utilizing Ads on IG are: defining your target audience, selecting ad placements, and choosing a budget and schedule that works best for you and your business.
Take advantage of the Instagram story
Instagram story is probably the most popular tool on Instagram. More than 500 million Instagrammers use Instagram Stories daily. Along the way, Instagram has released new updates that help users and brands communicate through stories.
The highlighted updates include: music in the story, location sticker, ads in the story, swipe up links, mention stickers, shopping stickers,…
There are some formats that are proven to be extremely effective in connecting with the brand’s audience: tutorial & how-to videos, behind-the-scenes videos, question and answer sessions.
Plus, in order to expand your reach and grow your audience list, you can try location stickers, hashtags, and account tagging on Instagram stories. These functions might help to improve your chances of getting discovered. Using these handy tools properly might help you build brand awareness on Instagram for your Shopify effortlessly
In conclusion
With a huge user base, Instagram is becoming the primary marketing channel for any brand, especially Shopify businesses. It’s the potential platform to get your brand to be in front of the targeted audience.Â
Having a good schedule and Instagram strategy in place will help to leverage your social media marketing strategy. It’s time to build brand awareness on Instagram for Shopify, you will soon see a good return on your investment.