Reach a New Level of Your Instagram Marketing

Do you use Instagram for professional brand building and networking? Is increasing audience loyalty for your brand a key end goal for your Instagram activities? Suppose the answer to these questions is yes. In that case, you are probably already aware that an increase in the number of likes can go a long way in establishing greater visibility for your content and inviting overall organic engagement and growth. It can also earn you real active followers who may turn into your dedicated clients and supporters in the long run.

Brand building is all about building trusted relationships via your interactions, and these interactions find their beginning in content engagement. However, to get the ideal kind of engagement on your posts consistently requires much foresight and planning.

After all, your post needs an initial exposure to get the correct type of engagement that can propel its visibility further. How then do you get this initial reach and impression for your content? The answer lies in understanding the backend working of the social networking platform and planning your marketing strategy around this knowledge. So, let’s get started.

How Does Instagram Decide How Much Initial Exposure to Give Your Newly Posted Content?

Instagram uses many algorithms that sort all content into different categories to give each IG user a personal experience of the platform. In doing so, these algorithms bump specific posts out of visibility while prioritizing the reach of some others. As a result, each user gets:

• A different home feed experience;
• A personalized search and explore the experience;
• An individualized feed for Reels;
• An individualized feed for Stories.

In each case, the algorithms take into account:

• When did your post get published?
• Who usually interacts with your post?
• Whose post do you interact with more?
• The number of active fans you have?
• The hashtags used for your post and the frequency they come up in searches?

The algorithms predict how well your post will fare if displayed to a particular viewer set. The platform uses what is known as a score of interest to decide where in a person’s feed your content will be placed.

So, while your content may be on the very top for user A, it may be a few notches down on the feed for user B and not appear at all in user C’s feed, although all three are among your active fans. It may also show high up on user D’s feed when user D may not be your subscriber. It appears for user D because D most likely checks out and interacts with similar content on the platform.

In other words, IG tries to present your content in front of a mix of active followers and new users that it seems will bring your content the best engagement. It is how the first audience for a newly published post gets determined.

After this, your post’s interactions determine how much visibility your post will continue to get.

What Is Audience Loyalty and Why Is It Important?

Finding trust in your audience is a big thing. Ensuring that that trust is strong enough for your followers to continue interacting with you, trying your brand, and turning into returning customers is even more challenging. This customer retention is a result of finding your audience’s loyalty. Your aim should be to retain and grow your audience loyalty exponentially to bring ROI and profits to your business in an ideal situation.

Brand loyalty: 

• Reduces turnovers.
• Drives profits up.
• Attracts new audiences and customers.
• Retains existing client base.
• Grows social proof.

In other words, audience loyalty is crucial for the success of any business.

What Kind of Interactions Matters Most in the Attempt to Create Brand Loyalty?

From what we already know, we can surmise that a fundamental reason for wanting an excellent initial reach and impression is to lay the foundation for solid brand loyalty. After all, brand loyalty has the best potential to bring about sales and profits for a business. When customers repeatedly choose to return to your brand, you also earn a high consumer retention rate. Creating an environment that encourages users to keep coming back requires time and effort. The user must feel your authenticity and brand appeal. The user must also trust your products and business ethics to want to keep coming back. So, the following interactions on your account go a long way in building social proof as well as brand loyalty:

• Time spent: How long will a visitor devote time to your post?
• Likes: What is the possibility of the visitor leaving hearts on the publication?
• Comments: Does your post compel visitors to leave a comment?
• Saves: Will the content make a viewer want to keep the post?
• Profile Visit: What is the probability of your visitor checking your profile out after discovering you via your content?

What Impacts Brand Loyalty?

So, are there any particular types of posts that tend to inspire brand loyalty more than others? While you need to take into consideration many factors when trying to create a marketing strategy that impacts brand loyalty, you can be sure that the following will help you get there:

1. Know Your Customers

To retain customers, you must be aware of their likes, dislikes, and preferences regarding the products of your business. You must be able to give all customers a personalized and satisfying shopping experience. For this, the best way forward is to do your research. You can do this by:

• Using Analytics to understand your target audience’s consumer behavior.
• Understand your content performance and check what drives the most sales.
• Create polls and surveys that let your customers directly tell you what works for them.
• Maintaining good communication with your client base.

2. Publish Content that Highlights People-Friendliness

It may seem like an extension of the last-mentioned point, but it is worth being considered and planned as a whole subject of its own. A lot of companies forget to be social on social media platforms. While you are primarily here to attract more business and sales for your brand, using strategic soft selling tactics will likely bring you better results than hard selling. Think communication rather than selling, and you will have figured out the right kind of posts. Build brand recognition that visitors find relatable. At the same time, push up your social proof by creating content that nurtures trust and goodwill. Some types of posts that will help you do that include:

• Posts that give your audience a behind-the-scene picture of your business;
• Posts that highlight your background story;
• Posts that showcase your ethics as a business;
• Your brand may have done social welfare work, engaged with, or sponsored. 

3. Publish Audience Reception

Does your existing audience base have great things to say about you? Have they posted anything using your products? What do influencers say about your products? Let your new audience build their own opinion about your products by showcasing some of the reviews and comments you have received already. You can link testimony published elsewhere or snapshot praise left for you in the words of a post. Think of curating and presenting any information conducive to building a positive brand image for you. You could:

• Take a snapshot of any written review and acknowledge the source in your caption for the photo posted.
• Take permission from customers to share their posts and if they agree, post them while buying them. Mention and tag your reviewers, and always thank them for letting you use their publications.
• Update your bio frequently with a clickable link that leads visitors to real-time comments, review articles, or any other page that gives you a customer’s stamp of approval.

4. Publish Rewards and Rebate Announcements

If you are looking for customers, you must think like one. What will get you to try out a new brand? Often the prices of products become a determining factor. People will be more willing to give your brand a chance if you are selling something amenable to their budgets. Some consumer benefits attract more interactions than others, while some provide the perfect stepping stone to creating audience loyalty. They the following types of posts out to check how they change consumer reception for you:

• Special deals for new consumers;
• Seasonal discounts;
• Festive rebates;
• Welfare service discounts;
• Loyalty program rewards;
• Referral incentives.

5. Publish Posts that Reflect Your Business Values

Often audience loyalty is organically linked to the policies and principles you share as buyer and seller. An animal rights activist will not be willing to buy your leather products regardless of the pricing. Highlight your business standpoint when you post anything and be consistent about it. For instance, if you are a green business, you will likely lose out on audience loyalty if you tie up with an influencer with good content about plastic purses. It is not just about what you post but also who you choose to collaborate with, finance or sponsor. Choose your fundraisers and community
work wisely, too, in this regard.

6. Be There for Your Customers

It too probably goes without saying, but you are likely to retain clients if you serve them well and humanize your brand into an approachable and courteous one that is always ready to assist, answer and give customers a great overall experience. Each interaction you have with your customer matters in this regard. To create a rewarding customer experience, you should pay attention to the following:

• The overall design of your Instagram account.

Your page is what a store would be physically. Let your clients feel invited and impressed. Keep it accessible to navigate through and arrange content to create a favorable impression.

• Language.

You must be professional but also kind and polite. How you respond to DMs and comments is very important. Do not forget your brand persona even when you reply to what may look like bot activity on your page.

• Timeliness.

Respond to any interaction as soon as possible. If required, use services that allow you to auto-reply or acknowledge a DM/comment receipt. Your response rate lets your customer know they are valued.

• Declutter.

Like anything else, keep your activity organized. Whether it’s a posting schedule or a shopping catalog, your audience will have an opinion on everything. Please keep it clean and predictable, or keep it wacky and unpredictable. Whichever way you do it, don’t let your visitors think you are disorganized.

• Make direct sales a breeze.

Use Instagram’s shoppable features to give your audience a hassle-free one-stop-shop experience. You need to create a catalog of your merchandise and create shopping tags on your content that link back to it. You can also add CTA buttons on your profile so your clients can directly make bookings or reservations with you.

7. Use Instagram Ads

Using Instagram Ads periodically helps you find new clients and reinforce your presence for existing ones. Since you can control the budget and target audience for these ads, they are an excellent means of increasing reach, impressions, and conversions as and when required. Choose content that has the organic potential to invite comments, criticism, or any other form of engagement. Using a post with great attention and promoting it for some time is a time-saving way of repurposing old content to strengthen your brand image. Ads, furthermore, can be tagged for a direct shopping experience. You can also add a CTA to your advertisement to direct traffic to the desired page. It makes Instagram ads a powerful tool for creating and sustaining audience loyalty.

In Conclusion

Getting your audience to grow loyal to your brand requires little effort from your end. You must be your authentic self and represent your business values in all your actions as a brand. If your visitors believe in you as a business, they are likely to come back for your products even if they do not have a great shopping experience now and then. It is okay to make mistakes, and it is okay to experiment. As long as you are focused on your end goal, you will soon be able to take your IG marketing to the next level and build excellent audience retention and customer loyalty.