Instagram is quickly rising in popularity for consumers all over the world. As a business owner trying to reach as many consumers as possible, this social media platform is an obvious choice for marketing, sales and overall exposure for your business! This particular app provides a variety of unique features that you can take advantage of to give your business the modern, innovative publicity it needs to succeed in this technologically driven society.

Story Swipe Up Button

One frustration for early business profiles on Instagram was the lack of accessibility to hyperlinked pages. The only available means of links existed in the profile biography. Now, Instagram stories provide a “swipe up” feature that takes your viewer immediately from an inviting advertisement directly to any webpage. Promotional deals, informational articles, whatever content you want can be easily accessed through a swipe up! The only requirements to access this feature is that your profile be “verified” as an official business profile, meaning it is proven as an authentic account for your business, it is exclusive to your business (no multiple Instagram accounts doing the same thing), it has all the elements of an active account (profile, bio, posts) and is something that users will search for. Fulfill the criteria, and you will have access to features like this along with data analysis for your own use and more!

Live Streams

This is an opportunity to connect with customers on a more personable, relatable, and accessible level! You as the business owner or any employee, ambassador or partner can take the wheel as the spokesperson for providing an “inside scoop” on any aspect of your business. Have a live Q&A, interact with the users in real time, share media, give a tour or tell a story that draws your followers further into your business’s brain. If they can see and connect with the vision you have, they will be more likely to support you through buying products or even sharing your content to their personal pages! Make sure that you notify your followers of the live stream well before its scheduled start, so that your curious or loyal followers have time and awareness of this exciting insight!

Instagram Checkout

E-commerce can be a huge beast to tackle. You can cut out the chaos and hassle that comes you’re your own online store, by using Instagram Checkout! Instagram Checkout is a new feature that will let you sell things directly on the platform and receive payments from there. The logistics of shipping, returns, and customer service rest on this new market platform, not you. This is a fantastic way to delegate one of the most stressful areas of running a business, to a well-established entity you can trust.

Stories (and Highlights)

Posts have developed a kind of weight to them that intimidates many users away from posting at all. The permanence and social pressure of gaining “likes” through visual material and well written content is enough to deter some users from creating effective posts. Stories, however, are the perfect tool for any business to provide consistent, engaging material without that weight and pressure, and without the question of overwhelming any user’s feed. Use them as polls for legitimate research or data collection (disguised as fun, interactive and quick posts), as links to your website, advertisements for products, and more. Stories are characteristically more casual and faster than posts, but can hold the user’s attention just as well! Plus, you can save these temporary stories into “highlight” collections that allow followers to go back and view them again and again, and thereby allowing you to keep your information available at all times.

Pin Comments

Customers—both happy and frustrated—can use the comment feature on posts to provide reviews of their experience with your business, for better or for worse. You can pin the comments you want to represent any given posts to the top of the list, so that the casual viewer scrolling through will see the commentary you want them to see! Take advantage of the best comments by making them a sort of subtle promotion, and address the less promotional feedback professionally by responding with a message of your appreciation of their time and concern, and dedication to improve.

Bio

When you’ve captured the attention of a consumer through your content or advertisements, you need your profile page to be a good representation of exactly what your business is—its vision, its function, its brand and its audience. Your bio is a chance for you to wrap all that up in 150 characters—a succinct and charming way to hold their attention. Define your cause, emphasize your style, and encourage consumer interest to invite further exploration into your business.

Take advantage of all the benefits of each unique feature that this fresh and exciting platform has to offer. These will boost your customer numbers, interest, interaction, and exposure so that you can best connect with the audience you need for your success.

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