Table of Contents
TogglePros or Advantages of Instagram for business:
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Instagram is all about Photos:
Instagram has made it super easy to post photos and videos from your smartphone. Posts of images that the user posts on Instagram are going to remain on the platform forever unless the user deletes the post from his profile.
Not many companies would want to make their ads just by using photos.
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Instagram connects to your target audience well:
Instagram is proven to be one of the fastest-growing social networks. It has over 800 million monthly active users on its platform as well as over 40 billion shared photos,
It has a large number of active users and currently, its users are uploading about 95 million photos every day. The photos that are uploaded every day are getting about 4.2 billion likes per day. This comes with the help of sites like https://famoid.com where you can gain followers and subsequently your own audience for your photos.
The amount of audiences for facebook and instagram is almost the same hence there is a huge community of audiences who wants to see your ads.
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Instagram has a high rate of engagement:
Instagram can provide you with high engagement rates due to its ever-growing number of active users. As a matter of fact, Instagram has the most engaged users compared to any other social media platform. This engagement rate is about 70% higher than Facebook, apart from this the follower growth rate is 9% higher than the follower growth on Twitter at about 0.11%
People are free to like, and comment just like anybody would on facebook. It is monitored and acknowledged by the team at facebook since instagram has been taken over by facebook. If you are wanting to increase engagement levels on your account, there are various tools that you can use to do so.
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Instagram allows you to post your content easily:
Since Instagram is developed specially made for smartphones, you can post your content any time and from any place provided you have an Internet connection. Of course, certain providers may offer you more benefits when it comes to their plans, so researching packages similar to what this htc internet service can provide should be in your best interest before deciding to see how the likes of Instagram can benefit your business. With that being said, you can also enable your Instagram posts to appear on your other social media accounts. In order to do this just link your social media account to Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr account.
You can easily share your content and monitor it just like on other social media websites.
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Instagram provides a visual representation for your business:
Instagram is one of the best platforms for visual promotion for your brand or your business. That being said, you can post eye-catching photos of your products that can eventually increase your sales. People have been known to engage more in content pieces that have visual photos than plain texts. However, you should not just focus on providing good photos. Your Instagram post should also make use of the description field properly. And posts are known to drive more engagement when it comes to providing an interesting caption as well as a relevant hashtag.
Being able to provide stunning visuals representations for ads enables your audience to quickly connect with you and your product.
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Instagram enables you to respond more quickly:
If you are in the marketing group for your business, you have to be active in your category or niche. You need to make sure that you respond to your audience’s messages as well as their comments. Since Instagram is specially made for smartphones, you can respond to these messages and comments easily. People are more likely to trust your brand when you connect with them. It is important that you have a two-way connection between you and your target audience with your messages and comments. By doing so your audience is assured in trusting your services as well as your products.
As a business owner, it has never been so easy to respond to your target audience and interact with them. “Writing personalized messages to your followers may significantly boost your brand recognition and customer trust”, says Dorian Martin, an editor and senior content writer for a writing service essaysupply.
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Instagram can easily increase your reach:
The posts that you put on Instagram is going to remain on the platform forever unless you are removing or deleting them. That is the reason why your old posts can provide you with engagement. However, you need to use hashtags carefully if you want this to happen.
All of your Instagram posts can help you to increase your reach. Just make sure that your posts are aimed as well as it is visible to your target audience. When used properly the hashtags can easily help you to increase your posts reach by multiple folds. You can use a lot more hashtags in your Instagram posts when compared to Twitter and still be free of any kind of penalties like that of twitter.
You might also want to consider using the services of a company like Kicksta to help to organically grow your account. This will only help to increase your reach. The amount of reach that you can leverage as a business is similar to the reach that you get on facebook. Tight monitoring is possible as well as your approach can be easily targeted for better results.
Recommended Read: How can PPC ads help to grow your business
Cons or Disadvantages of Instagram for Business:
The main disadvantage that comes to mind is probably that Instagram is not a platform that just focuses on businesses. Usually, people use Instagram to pass time and connect with other people. There is only a small percentage of people or users who have the intention of buying something that they see on their news feed.
Instagram is a photo sharing website that serves to organize and share your photos which you want to share with your friends and people.
Using Instagram to market your services or products can lead to the following disadvantages:
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The biggest advantage can become a disadvantage:
The main advantage of using Instagram can also become its disadvantage: it relies heavily on images. That means you need to be very careful of the images that you post on Instagram. Because it will attract followers.
Poor images will cause people that follow you to skip your page in their feed and not read the messages in your description.
Instagram pictures need to be square in dimensions to be the most effective. Using nonsquare images will cause parts of the image to not appear perfectly in the people’s news feed. That means that your message or your branding can get sloppy because not all of the words may be shown.
The dimensions and size of the photos that can be put up on this platform is limited. There is not much that you can do about it when it comes to advertising in a limited amount of space.
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Not everyone is on the Instagram Platform:
This is one of the most obvious disadvantages of Instagram. Instagram is only available on iPhone and Android. And this further limits the users that you can leverage because if you need to target blackberry or Linux users, you cannot do this. This means you won’t be able to reach your target audience. That is why it is recommended to use other platforms to increase brand awareness. Facebook is now owned by Instagram, and its integrated marketing platform makes it easy to reach a larger audience.
It is known that every facebook use might have or not have an instagram account. So the amount of global audience that you can target is pretty limited in number.
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Limitations to your content:
On Instagram, you cannot explain further the product in your post. You are allowed to only upload the videos that are about 60 seconds long. Also, the ideal length of captions for Instagram is 138 to 150 characters. For any kind of advertisement, it is 125 characters.
If you plan on using multiple hashtags, it is advisable to use only 5 to 10 hashtags. Using too many hashtags can easily be the reason for your account to be banned.
Instagram ads are usually a perfect square in size. There is not much things that you can add to your ads or photos.
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Instagram posts do not support clickable links:
The ideal length for Instagram captions can be only 125 to 150 characters. It can feel that it is even more restrictive if you want your audience to click on a link and lead them to a landing page outside of Instagram. You cannot include links in your caption because they won’t be able to click on it. You should not leave a link to a website outside of Instagram expecting your audience to copy and paste it in their browsers. This is too much work for users who are using an app where they can only scroll through their news feed and double tap on a post that they like. So instead of a link, you need to think of a creative way to invite them in order to visit your website. You can also have the option to leave your website link in your personal profile’s bio section.
Also there is no clickable links that you can add in instagram ads.
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Advertising is more difficult:
It is more difficult in order to target local markets on Instagram when you compare it to Facebook or Twitter. Instagram has fewer options to narrow down your target audience. You are also forced to rely only on organic traffic. Large businesses can only afford to advertise on this platform. The average CPC on Instagram is $0.50 to $1.00
What are the 5 benefits of Instagram?
Its Visual:
It might sound like we’re stating the obvious here as a photo-sharing platform. But unlike the majority of other social networking sites, which emphasise text and links, Instagram is only used for posting photos and videos.
Given that visual information is more compelling than text, marketers have a large window of opportunity here. You may utilise images to convey a more powerful message than trying to get followers to visit your website in order to make a purchase or learn about the advantages of working with you.
It has a high rate of engagement.
In 2016, Instagram users liked more than 4.2 billion posts per day. In comparison to posts without hashtags, posts with at least one hashtag receive 12.6% greater interaction on average. Many marketers utilise the platform for this reason alone.
Marketers’ dissatisfaction with their engagement rates is understandable given that organic reach on Facebook has declined to as low as 2-3%. However, your Instagram followers are more likely to notice whatever you publish there. This is a significant advantage, especially in light of the fact that a lot of businesses now utilise Facebook’s paid advertising tools only to get their postings in front of their own followers.
Wider Reach of Audience:
Regardless of whether you use Instagram, some of your clients definitely do. This indicates that a post about your company could already exist.
This is particularly valid if your company has a physical presence that clients may visit, such as a restaurant or retail store. Users may add location tags to each of their posts, so if anybody has ever taken a picture while visiting your establishment and shared it to Instagram, it definitely has a tag.
Additionally, customers may publish pictures of your goods online and tag them with your company name. This is especially true for businesses that offer consumer goods like apparel, furniture, and housewares.
Best for Brand Building
You can’t count on Instagram, unlike the majority of social media sites, to drive visitors to your website with every post you publish. In reality, the only link you are allowed to have is in your bio; you are not allowed to add any links in your articles.
This might seem like a drawback, and it is if you were hoping to generate income straight from Instagram.
Because they understand that you aren’t attempting to sell them anything, people are more inclined to follow and connect with your business. Instead, you may develop your brand using the platform.
Comprises of Targeted advertising options
Like other well-known social media sites, Instagram lets companies buy advertising space. These advertising tools can be a useful approach to expand your account, even if you can manage a successful account without paying a dollar.
What are the challenges of Instagram?
The software doesn’t offer a post-scheduling option.
Don’t misunderstand us. Social media real-time publishing offers advantages of its own.
Posting whenever you have a free minute in real time isn’t feasible when it comes to consistency with a deliberate visual strategy.
Fortunately, a variety of third-party platforms, including applications like Hootsuite, Buffer, and Iconosquare, can assist with scheduling.
Any one of these tools can assist you in optimising your posting at the optimal times for your audience in addition to scheduling convenience.
Why Instagram is the best social media platform for business?
Instagram may be the finest social media platform since it gives potential buyers a chance to interact naturally with your company. Facebook’s initiatives to connect friends and family have been refocused. The largest Twitter accounts run by news organizations, politicians, musicians, and singers. On Instagram, companies may, however, duplicate the posts that customers currently see from the people they follow to reach their followers’ newsfeeds. Businesses who spend money on targeted advertisements, sponsored partnerships, or high-quality organic postings will succeed on Instagram.
You may also read: Online Advertising Trends For 2020
Conclusion:
So now you know that every platform has its own advantages as well as disadvantages. You need to be careful when you choose a platform for your marketing purposes to meet your targeted marketing expectations. If you found this article useful then do check out our other articles as well. You can Outsource Digital Marketing Service from Nimap Infotech to grow your business.
Author
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Sagar Nagda is the Founder and Owner of Nimap Infotech, a leading IT outsourcing and project management company specializing in web and mobile app development. With an MBA from Bocconi University, Italy, and a Digital Marketing specialization from UCLA, Sagar blends business acumen with digital expertise. He has organically scaled Nimap Infotech, serving 500+ clients with over 1200 projects delivered.
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