Is Instagram Right for My Business?

If you’re starting or growing a small business, trying to navigate the options for social media platforms can leave you feeling confused and frustrated. Instagram is one of those platforms that receives mixed reviews – and for good reason. The fact is, Instagram is a powerful tool for certain businesses, but doesn’t make much sense for others. How can you determine if Instagram is right for your business? Let’s take a look!

All About Instagram

Instagram is a rapidly growing social media platform with extremely high rates of user engagement – more than any other platform. Users post images, graphics, and videos with captions to encourage conversations with other users.

There are over 1 billion active Instagram accounts worldwide. Of those, 80% follow at least one business. More than 60% of Instagram users are millennials (born after 1980), and 68% of users are women.

Combined with the power of Facebook’s marketing platform for small businesses – Instagram is rapidly becoming a promising branding tool for ecommerce.

The platform is very image and video centric – and authenticity is key. Creativity and originality are rewarded on Instagram, canned ad posts tend to get rejected – sometimes very aggressively.

Instagram is rapidly changing, rolling out new opportunities for businesses every year – so even if Instagram isn’t a fit for you now, you’ll want to keep an eye on this platform for the future!

Understanding Your Needs

To crack the social media code, you need to start by knowing your own business, your industry, and your audience. You don’t need to be on every platform – but the platforms that you do use, you need to master.

Hair salons, clothing stores, music groups, business coaches, real estate firms, and other image-centric business models lend themselves very well to Instagram. If your audience is under 35, you’re more likely to find success on Instagram. If you competitors are gaining traction on Instagram, it’s certainly worth a second look for your business.

This is yet another area where writing your business plan can help you determine the best course of action.

Influencer Marketing on Instagram

If you’re going to be successful on Instagram, you need to understand and harness the power of the influencer. It’s not enough to simply post on Instagram, you need to connect with other personalities to build your own engaged following.

Influence marketing isn’t necessarily new – celebrities have been promoting products for decades. However, today’s influencer is vastly different than the concept of an untouchable character in a seemingly perfect ad campaign. On Instagram, influencers are those with a substantial amount of followers and high engagement on their content. Brands work with these influencers to promote their products in the posts of that particular personality.

There are substantial risks to influence marketing. For example, if the influencer you work with makes a post that goes against your brand in the form of racism, political or religious bias, and so on – that can reflect poorly on your brand.

Managing an influence marketing campaign on Instagram takes a lot of work, and a lot of forethought. However, there are many case studies that demonstrate a higher rate of success for brands that are able to master this approach.

Understanding The Commitment Required to Succeed with Instagram

Instagram is a big time commitment. You have to post very regularly – several times per week. You’ll want to test different times and intervals for posting to create the perfect content schedule for you particular business – this is not an area where you want to simply copy another company. Your audience is unique, and Instagram followers are fickle. You have to keep them interested without bombarding them with too much branding.

Regardless of the platforms you choose for your business, if you’re not willing to put in the resources, you won’t see the results you need. It’s important to consider the actual cost of using Instagram to grow your business – both in time and money. If the investment doesn’t meet the return, Instagram may not be the best option for you.

As with any platform, a little research goes a long way! Take your time, invest in training, and your chances for success increase dramatically.

Guest Contributor: Erika Heeren is the founder of Heeren Content & Strategy. With 14 years of experience marketing and public relations, she has a professional focus on integrated media spanning 16 different industries.

Heeren works with small businesses and non-profit organizations to provide affordable, professional-quality content development, marketing, and public relations services. Her clients include local small business owners, marketing agencies, public universities, media outlets, Huffington Post-published authors, IT firms, and non-profit organizations.

A military spouse herself, Erika is an outspoken advocate for veteran and military spouse education, employment, and entrepreneurship. As a volunteer eMentor for the Military Entrepreneur Program, she works one-on-one with aspiring military-affiliated entrepreneurs to help them grow their business. She also volunteers as a digital marketing instructor with Treasure Valley SCORE.

Heeren is an award-winning writer and has been featured on NextGen Military Spouse, Veteran on the Move, Wright Stuff Radio, and Social Media Week.