Your company may consider creating an Instagram influencer marketing campaign for multiple reasons, such as its broad market reach and the ability to create genuine connections with your users.
It’s virtually impossible to talk about influencer marketing without thinking about Instagram. If you’re looking for a unique way to create a brand image around your company through Instagram influencer marketing, read on to learn everything you need to know about the Instagram influencer world.
Instagram Influencer Marketing – Everything You Need to Know
Instagram is the most popular social media platform for social media marketing right now. As of the beginning of 2021, Instagram just surpassed over one billion global users on its platform.
Everyone from big corporations to individuals utilizes Instagram to connect with people and as a business tool to promote products and services.
What are your influencer marketing goals on Instagram?
As with any influencer campaign, before jumping into Instagram influencer marketing, it’s essential to determine that Instagram is the right platform for your company to meet its goals and needs. First, you want to choose the type of reach you’re looking for with your marketing. Are you trying to increase your customer engagement, video views, or the number of clicks to your content?
Do your products and services resonate with Millennials and Gen Z? If so, Instagram should be a part of your next influencer marketing strategy.
Source: Arien Reeberg for Stonfield
Why use Instagram for influencer marketing?
- Instagram is popular: Instagram is the sixth most visited website in the world, with over 1 billion active users using the platform. Users love to interact with the content they see on Instagram and are likely to take action on the content they see. That means that when your brand or company posts content on Instagram, users are more inclined to like, comment, and share what they see.
- People Trust Instagram: A study by Adweek revealed that 49% of Instagram users have made a purchase based on a recommendation by an Influencer and that 44% generally trust the recommendations they receive from Instagram influencers. Instagram’s platform is built on the idea of being authentic and sharing your true self. People resonate deeply with the content and stories that influencers share through their platforms. When audiences feel a connection with an influencer, they’re more likely to trust their suggestions.
- Offers Diverse Audience: While most Instagram users are on the younger side, you’ll still find a wide audience range available on Instagram. Most influencers already have an Instagram account, where their audience follows and interacts with them. This makes it easy to reach the customer base you’re looking for through influencer marketing. Plus, with Instagram analytics, you can even track your conversion rates.
- Photos Attract Visitors: Instagram is based on visual content, which keeps customers interested and scrolling. Web content that contains some type of visual like videos or images received up to 94% more views. Instagram is full of visually pleasing photos and videos, which captivate your target market’s attention, and in turn, draws potential customers to your brand.
- Promotes Website Content: With the swipe-up feature on your stories and the ability to tag products in your posts, it’s easy to redirect your customers from Instagram to your products and services. Your customers can quickly access the information they need with a quick swipe or tap. For example, you can tag clothing your brand sells with a direct link so that customers can make an immediate purchase.
Is your target audience on Instagram?
Users between the ages of 18-24 are the most significant audience group located on Instagram, with 67% of users on Instagram between that age range. 60% of people who are between the ages of 25-34 use Instagram. 49% of the population between the ages of 35-44 uses Instagram, while only 43% of users between 45-54 years old use the application.
The least represented population on Instagram are users who are 55 or older, with only 31% of that demographic logging in to Instagram every day.
While you can use Instagram to target any age range, you will have the most success if your ideal target market is between the ages of 18-34.
Plus, according to a poll by Ipsos, the younger the Instagram user, the more likely you will find them browsing through Instagram multiple times every day. This is great for your content because it’s more likely that your customers will see it.
What is an Instagram influencer?
Before using an Instagram influencer, it’s essential to understand what that means. Instagram influencers are content creators who have established an audience and credibility through their Instagram platform. Their audiences are very engaged in the influencer’s world, often turning to them to ask questions, find recommendations, or watch their day-to-day life.
While some content creators focus on very specific niches, such as a mom struggling with infertility, others will choose broad topics, such as travel, food, or parenting. This allows companies to have a more comprehensive list of influencers to choose from depending on how specific or niche they want to get.
Different Options for Content on Instagram
Instagram In-feed posts:
In-feed Instagram posts are the photos that pop up when you look at your Instagram page. It’s the original function of Instagram. This is the perfect area to showcase stylized images of your products or services. The longer caption format available with in-feed posts is ideal for sharing stories, asking questions, and showing your brand’s authenticity.
What to know:
- Standard feed posts are often more stylized than live or ephemeral content.
- Brand endorsements should feel genuine and in-line with the influencer’s interests and values.
- Allow influencers the flexibility to share brand messaging in their own voice rather than parroting corporate sales pitches.
- Influencers can temporarily change their bio link to a brand-owned promo page.
- Utilize Instagram’s advertising options (or partner with a marketing agency experienced in paid media planning and buying) to promote influencer-created content for highly targeted additional reach.
- Be sure to look at Instagram’s saved post metrics. Saves are a strong indicator that content is resonating with audiences.
Source: Raven Vasquez for Drinkworks
Instagram Stories:
Instagram stories allow users to post videos and photos that will disappear after 24 hours. There are tons of ways to use stories. You can post videos of your products or services, show them behind the scenes at your company, or show a snippet of a longer format video.
You can post pictures with open-ended questions or polls for your followers to answer.
Brands can even add links to their products or services through Instagram stories with the “Swipe Up” feature.
What to know:
- Stories are usually more informal and spontaneous. Content often feels like an authentic “behind-the-scenes” peek into the influencer’s life.
- For accounts with Swipe Up, audiences can tap the arrow at the bottom of their screen or simply swipe up on the Story to access links.
- Nano influencers with followings under 10K should plan to engage audiences via DM to share sponsored links.
- Stories also support the ability to share polls, get audience feedback on a brand or product and/or further explore consumer preferences.
- Stickers can boost reach. When hashtag or location stickers are included, Stories are more likely to appear in Explore. The Explore discovery feature is tailored for each user based on “the people you follow or the posts you like,” according to Instagram.
- Stories “interactions” analytics provide plenty of deep-dive performance data. Try dividing total interactions by total reach to see the percentage of viewers who took action after seeing a Story.
Instagram Reels:
Instagram reels are short, engaging videos that are between 15 to 30 seconds long. They’re used to compete with TikTok and allow brands to create fun, shareable videos that your audience would enjoy and interact with.
Instagram reels are not meant to explain products or services in detail. Instead, they should be quick, to the point, and be relatable to your customers.
What to know:
- Influencers can tag shoppable products in Reels.
- Perfect for humor, short how-tos, product shout-outs, before and afters, relatable memes and viral moments of all kinds.
- While Reels metrics are currently limited, users can tap on individual Reels to see the number of likes and comments it has received.
IGTV:
IGTV is a separate tab of your Instagram app where you can create longer format videos for your audience. The length of your video can vary and be as short as a minute or up to an hour if you’re a verified account. IGTV is a great way to share information like how-to guides, stories, answering Q&A, and so on.
Source: Raising Whasians for Igloo
Instagram Guides:
Instagram guides are essentially a collection of your content presented in smaller, more digestible pieces for your followers to watch. They live in a separate tab on your Instagram profile page.
Instagram guides are a great way to combine both videos and pictures to create recommendations, product reviews, step-by-step guides, or tips for your audience on your products or services.
What to know:
- Guides can be shared via Stories or sent via DM.
- There are three types of Guides: places, products and posts.
- Up to 30 posts can be shared in a single Guide.
- Unlimited curation possibilities for sponsored influencers (e.g., “My favorite beauty products,” “Watercolor 101: easy projects to try,” “Tips for lower back pain,” “Best places to visit in Missouri,” etc.). Any Guide can include promoted products/services with brand engagement in mind.
- Guides do not yet have their own metrics, but audience engagement can be measured via the post/Story content included in each Guide.
Ideas for Instagram Influencer Marketing Campaigns
- Behind-the-Scenes: People love a behind-the-scenes moment on Instagram. And the great thing with this tactic is that it can work across many different verticals and types of content. An influencer can share their recipe or craft development process in photo or video. Fashion influencers can share a sped-up video of them organizing their accessories or shoes. Interior designers influencers go do a walk through of client spaces and talk about styling options. The content is often very authentic and consumers respond very well to it.
- Reviewing Your Products: On Instagram, there are so many ways that your influencers can share information about your products with their audience. First, they can create an Instagram post with your product or service featured while including an eye-catching caption or story. They could also choose to share your content in an Instagram story format and tag your company’s website or give out a promo code. If they wanted to go more in-depth about your product or service, they could create an IGTV video to go through product benefits or how to use it.
- Instagram Live: Instagram live videos are usually pushed to the top of the user’s feed because the Instagram algorithms love interactive content. Using an Instagram live video is a great way to share a special message with your audience or showcase your products in a laid-back, relaxed way. You can encourage interaction with your audience by answering questions and providing entertainment.]
Paid Social Advertising
Instagram’s continually changing algorithm can make it challenging to attain your brand’s KPIs. Besides the money you’ll need to spend to hire an influencer to promote your products, you’ll also want to optimize your content by using paid social media advertising. Boosting your posts or using dark ads will drive engagement, awareness, and clicks to your website. Most importantly, you can target your audience directly and serve your brand message to future customers. Sway’s paid media team is the perfect solution to take care of your paid marketing needs so that you don’t have to figure out the right strategy by yourself.
Instagram Quality Assurance
Companies love to use Instagram influencer marketing campaigns because of how beneficial they can be to their goals and overall marketing strategy. However, it’s essential that you make sure to follow all of FTC’s guidelines for your content and advertisements by checking for quality assurance.
Like all social platforms, you’ll want to ensure someone is checking for disclosures and that it’s done the right way. Instagram has specific rules on what needs to be disclosed in a sponsored post, such as using particular language in your hashtags and your written content. At Sway Group, we have a QA staff that looks at every piece of content before and after it’s posted to ensure all guidelines are being followed. As a client, you’ll also get post-approval.
Last Thoughts…
Creating an Influencer campaign for your marketing can seem overwhelming, but by using a well-known Instagram influencer agency, like Sway Group, your worries will fade away.
Sway will find the perfect influencers to create the content you want and need for your marketing goals. Once the ideal client-influencer relationship has been formed, we’ll even handle all of your paid media to ensure we’re reaching your target audience. Your brand will thank you for using Sway Group’s services and investing in Instagram Influencer marketing.
Contact us today to learn more!
