10 Ways to Use Instagram Influencer Marketing to Grow Your Business

Using Instagram influencer marketing to grow your business may sound complicated, but it’s actually fairly straight forward and can be incredibly effective. 

Here are 10 ways you can use Instagram influencer marketing to promote your business and increase your revenue.

Ways to Use Instagram Influencer Marketing to Grow Your Business

Instagram Is Fun

If you’re a business owner, chances are you already know about Instagram. It’s a simple way to create and share images with friends or strangers around the world. 

But if you haven’t yet tapped into it as an effective marketing tool, we can help! Here are 10 ways your business can grow through Instagram influencer marketing

The Basics

First, you need to know what an Instagram influencer is and why they're important. An Instagram influencer is someone who has a substantial following on social media. 

More specifically, according to DMR, influencers have at least 50k followers on Instagram or YouTube. While that may sound like a lot of people, there are over 300 million monthly active users on Instagram (MAU), and about 1 billion MAUs for all of Facebook. 

With that in mind, there's still plenty of room for Instagram influencers with just 50k followers. 

Why use them? Simply put, their audience trusts them and will follow their recommendations more readily than traditional advertising (we're looking at you billboards). The best part?

1) Research Hashtags

When you're setting up your Instagram influencer marketing strategy, start by looking at your audience. 

What are they interested in? Find people that post about topics related to yours and follow them. Hashtags on Instagram can be tricky; a lot of hashtags have already been established for things like travel destinations, which means you'll have to figure out new ways of thinking about how people would search for information about what you sell. 

Write down all possible terms and phrases you think could be used on Instagram and then search those terms on Instagram yourself to see if there's an existing community with content that aligns with what you have planned for your business.

2) Research Accounts

Instagram is one of my favorite social networks. I love that it’s image-driven (and visual). And for business, you can use Instagram influencer marketing in a ton of ways: Boost posts from your feed. 

Find new accounts to follow and engage with. Drive traffic to your site or other social media profiles. Find upcoming events in your area and attend them. 

Run promotions or launch giveaways on Instagram only. And a lot more! The key is having a solid strategy in place so you can execute well and see positive results (which also means having an engaged audience on Instagram). 

Now let’s get into 10 ways you can utilize Instagram influencer marketing right now—and tips for getting started quickly and efficiently!

3) Create a Plan

There are plenty of marketing agencies out there, many of which can help you figure out how to use Instagram influencers. 

But, even if you work with an agency, you should still create a plan for how your business will execute these campaigns and how they’ll fit into your overall strategy. 

In other words, don’t just call up any influencer and expect them to share your brand—research who would be best for your company and goals. 

If a rep from a specific agency is helping with everything, that’s great—you can give them parameters around things like target audience size and engagement rate for potential influencers and ask for a list of suggestions. And finally...

4) Direct Messaging

A direct message, or DM, is a private message sent between two users in a social media platform. DMs are different from general public posts because you’re guaranteed not to get spammed by bots. 

Plus, it gives you access to an influencer’s audience directly—which is exactly what you want if you’re planning on sponsoring an Instagram post or partnering with them for an upcoming campaign. 

While it can be intimidating at first, once you know how and when to use DMs on platforms like Instagram and Twitter, they're super easy to incorporate into your social media strategy!

5) Comment on Content

While anyone can promote a brand, people with established followings have an advantage. One of their followers might recognize them and click on their post, giving you more exposure. 

If you choose influencers whose content aligns with your brand’s values, you’ll likely get better results. Additionally, influencers are posting regularly and getting lots of likes and comments—this translates into increased visibility on your brand's behalf.

6) Create Good Post Ideas

Even if you're an experienced social media marketer, creating high-quality post ideas can be tough. There are so many different variables that affect your audience's interactions with your content. 

To make sure your influencer marketing campaign isn't wasted, it's important to get posts right before hitting publish. 

Here are some tips for creating a cohesive and effective strategy: Identify similar Instagram profiles: Finding influencers with content similar to yours will give you a better idea of how best to approach each one during outreach. 

Check out their most recent posts and figure out what types of content they like to share. What is their brand? What kinds of hashtags do they use? Understanding these things will help guide you in putting together good post ideas in advance.

7) Incorporate Video Into Your Posts

Video continues to be a highly popular and effective form of content on social media. According to Statista, 1.5 billion hours of videos are watched on Facebook each day.

And while most social media users are aware that video is easy to post, they don’t necessarily know how video content can benefit their business and overall marketing strategy. 

The key is in making sure your video has a purpose—that it provides information, entertains or sparks an emotional response (all of which are great reasons). 

Once you have a purpose in mind, you can use influencer marketing tactics with your videos by leveraging platforms like YouTube or Facebook Live and using influencers who share similar audiences with your brand.

8) Be Patient and Consistent

Though it might take you a while to build up your following, once you do it will be worth it. Don’t be discouraged by small numbers and instead focus on cultivating an audience with a growth mindset. 

Be consistent in posting and in responding to questions. Consistency builds trust and will pay off when potential customers are researching companies online. 

If your company seems like they are trying hard but may not have all of their ducks in a row, they will go with someone else because they don’t want to waste time on an account that doesn’t have professional posts or may disappear one day.