According to Instagram, over 2 million businesses currently advertise on the social network monthly including global brands like Beats By Dre, who reportedly saw a 29 percent increase in purchase activity after running an Instagram Stories ad campaign. For a sales professional, it’s the first step to finding your next client. With "Tags" and "Places," Instagram gives you access to find and engage users that you might not follow using the search functionality. On Instagram, you can reverse the search process by looking up relevant hashtags to your potential client such as #BrandMarketing and then engaging in discussions on posts which contain this tag. The other approach would be to run a "Places" search and see what’s being posted at a company’s HQ or post content and tag that company’s HQ location. It’s no secret that Instagram is known as the Hallmark card of social media where millions of daily users are going to share photo and video content. Engage in the #hashtag feed for industry conferences. Then, on Instagram follow the hashtag for the events. Follow up on LinkedIn. Although you will spend a significant amount of time using Instagram in the steps listed above, LinkedIn is still the go-to social network for business networking.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
With over 1 billion active monthly accounts, there’s more to Instagram than funny memes, motivational quotes and people living their best life.
According to Instagram, over 2 million businesses currently advertise on the social network monthly including global brands like Beats By Dre, who reportedly saw a 29 percent increase in purchase activity after running an Instagram Stories ad campaign.
Also, small businesses such as apparel brand Young and Reckless are seeing revenue grow two to three times year-over-year since they began advertising on Instagram, according to case studies published on Instagram’s website.
While the case can be made for Instagram being a credible social network for businesses which is used by 71 percent of all 18- to 24-year-olds in the U.S. and is fueling a billion-dollar industry through influencer marketing, the secret to unlocking Instagram’s full potential for B2B sales professionals is in plain sight within every photo and video.
Metadata.
To the average Instagram user, a hashtag is a merely a #word or #phrase used to get cheap likes, but it’s a way to become discovered within the social network. For a sales professional, it’s the first step to finding your next client.
Next is locations.
If you have a brick-and-mortar business of any kind, it’s likely to be listed on Instagram under “Places” in the search bar. Not only are businesses listed in “Places” but so are company headquarter locations, convention centers and airports — all public places where daily Instagram users are checking in, sharing their moments and often tagging their colleagues.
If you never use Instagram to post a single photo or video, there are still plenty of opportunities to explore, as I describe in the video above.
Below are five tips to help you find potential customers on Instagram and the tactics you can apply to reel them in.
1. Use Instagram as a search engine.
With “Tags” and “Places,” Instagram gives you access to find and engage users that you might not follow using the search functionality. For example, if you want to connect with an executive at a company that you’re trying to sell to, you might run a search on LinkedIn…
COMMENTS