Top brands on Instagram are enjoying a 4.21% engagement rate per follower. That’s 58 times higher than Facebook and 120 times higher than Twitter rates.
Every once in a while, a new business comes along and skyrockets its way to the top. When that happens, it often brings some very satisfied advertisers along for the ride.
If you’re interested in reaping the benefits of a quickly-rising social media channel that’s showing high returns to advertisers, you might want to jump on the Instagram train before it becomes oversaturated.
“75% of Instagram users take action, such as visiting a website, after looking at an Instagram advertising post”
If you’re a wedding venue rental business and you’re new to Instagram, there are a handful of things you’ll want to learn before creating your first campaign:- How to set business goals.
- How to create a successful content strategy.
- How to build your brand.
https://clutch.co/agencies/social-media-marketing/resources/social-media-survey-2017 http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-monthly-active-users-2015-7?r=UK&IR=T
Understanding Instagram’s buyer personas
There are a few important things to know about Instagram’s general audience:- There are more women than men. 31% of American women and 24% of American men regularly use Instagram to like, share, and post.
- Over 80% of accounts on Instagram follow a business.
- 200 million Instagram users visit at least one business profile every day
- Demographics and numbers are changing rapidly due to growth. So far it looks like the under-50 crowd continues to dominate Instagram - but who knows what’s ahead?
https://blog.hootsuite.com/instagram-statistics/ http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/08/19/the-demographics-of-social-media-users/ https://instagram-press.com/blog/2017/11/30/celebrating-a-community-of-25-million-businesses/
Creating your first ad campaign may be easier than you think.
Instagram uses Facebook’s advertising platform. If you’ve already beaten the learning curve with Facebook ads, then you know how to create an Instagram campaign. You just use the Facebook platform to place your Instagram ads.
That’s great news for wedding venues because you can directly target people with upcoming change-of-life events.
If you haven’t learned how to use the Facebook platform to target your buyer personas, check out our 6-Step Guide to Facebook Advertising For Event Venues and Party Rental Companies. It will help you get up to speed quickly on both Facebook and Instagram advertising.
You’ll be able to use a combination of geo-targeting and detail targeting to reach engaged couples. You can also use detail targeting to reach people during other life events like anniversaries and birthdays.There are four different types of Instagram ads you can post.
Photo ads: Share photos in a square or landscape format. Video Ads: Share videos up to 60 seconds in square or landscape format. Carousel Ads: Carousel ads let you include multiple photos that viewers can swipe through. Stories Ads:“1 in 5 stories on Instagram gets a direct message from its viewers.” (- Instagram for Business)
Stories are a new way to advertise. They bring your brand to life in a full-size vertical platform. To view samples and find out more about stories ads, visit their stories page in the business section.Here’s how wedding venues can use Instagram to promote their business
1. When creating ad campaigns, be sure to use geo-targeting!
• 80% of Instagram users reside outside of the U. S., so be sure to customize your audience to a physical location.
2. Remember to target newly engaged couples in your ad campaigns. It’s easy. You can even narrow it down to couples who got engaged within the last 3, 6, or 12 months.
Since you use the Facebook platform to create Instagram ad campaigns, you’ll enjoy the same sophisticated system of targeting specific audiences. It offers you the chance to get very specific when tailoring your audience.
https://blog.hootsuite.com/instagram-statistics/You can target an audience based on countless details from the following categories:
- Location
- Demographics
- Interests
- Behaviors
- Custom Audiences
- Lookalike Audiences
Hashtags aren’t allowed in ads, but you can include up to 30 of them in each post. After posting your photo and description, post your hashtags in the first comment box.
Remember to hashtag your location!
Also, add campaign-specific hashtags alongside some of the most popular engagement and wedding hashtags.
Don’t feel that you need to come up with 30 just because it’s allowed. 3-4 are plenty if you choose them wisely.
5. Know when to post. According to an Instagram statistics report from Sprout Social:- Videos published at 9 in the evening get 24% more engagement.
- Photos generate 36% more engagement than videos.
- Weekdays are the hot time for posting. Avoid 3 p.m. because it appears to be a downtime.
- Sprout suggests posting at 2 a.m., 8 a.m., or 5 p.m. Try some research and experiment a bit on your own.
Remember, Instagram is growing so rapidly that stats like this are likely to change from month to month.
6. Photos with faces get 38% more likes. The attraction to faces applies to many different platforms, including blogs. Tip: try making the first photo in every one of your site's blog posts one that includes a face. Track the results to see if it makes a difference for you like it does for many other people.Track, measure, analyze, and adjust
As with any campaign, watch the insights and analytics carefully. You’ll learn more about your audience with every campaign you run. Adjust your results a bit each time and keep at it. In time, you’ll be rewarded with lower costs per customer acquisition and a higher return on your investment. On Instagram, be sure to spend time looking at the posts and ads that have worked best for you in the past. Do the successful ones have anything in common? Try using the same colors or styles to discover some of the more subtle details that your audience likes best.
Tools and resources that will help your wedding venue rental business succeed
- Grab some inspiration from Brides.com list of 16 wedding Instagram accounts to follow. Or take a peek at Instagram’s inspiration page and discover how other businesses use Instagram.
- Discover great tips for driving sales in this Kissmetrics article.
- Plan your content around monthly themes and holidays with the help of Sendible’s free social media calendar.
- Need more help setting up Instagram for your business? HootSuite has a walkthrough tutorial that will guide you every step of the way.