Social media marketing is an essential tool for helping you sell more printing.

While you might already have your “hat in the ring” on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, many printers have yet to take advantage of the many benefits Instagram marketing can provide for their printing firm.

Why You Need to Consider Instagram for Your Print Business

Instagram marketing is no longer a mere trend for the “young’uns.” Rather, it has grown to reach over 1 billion users with 95 million photos and videos posted daily.

If that weren’t enough, check out these other powerful Instagram marketing statistics:

• According to Forrester.com, Instagram initiates more engagement — reaching 4% of followers, while Facebook typically reaches .1% of followers.
• Instagram is an impressive tool for research. Roughly 70% of Instagram users have used the platform for brand research at some point. (Iconosquare)
• A typical Instagram user will spend 28 minutes per day on the app.

With numbers like those, you may start to wonder how you can use it for your benefit and how your business can stand out in such a vast sea of competing content. But, keep in mind that beyond the numbers, Instagram allows you to:

• Connect with your print buyers and easily tell your story visually
• Showcase print marketing in the real world, inspiring your audience to think about print more often.
• Thrive no matter the size of your business. Big and small can compete on the same playing field.
• Keep your business more relatable to your print buyers.
• Keep an eye on your competitors and see how they’re using the same tool to engage their audience.
• Be more creative in your postings – think beyond links and articles.
• Improve your customer service and overall customer satisfaction level of your business (more on that later).

3+ Tips to Do Instagram Marketing Right

1. Before you dive in, consider what you’ll need for effective Instagram Marketing. 

First, you’ll need to clarify your vision and strategy for your Instagram marketing. And, you’ll need consistency to maintain your posting frequency.

You’ll also need to know your audience and consider the demographics of Instagram. For example, Instagram works best for the 18 to 29-year-old crowd (53%), and engagement goes down with each older-age bracket from there.

2. Define Your Goals

Before you jump onto Instagram because you think it’s “where all the cool kids are,” consider what your goals are for adding another platform to your social media marketing lineup.

Here are some common goals/reasons why businesses decide the effort of Instagram marketing is worth it for their companies:

• “We want to increase the visibility of our products and services.”
• “We want to build a bigger online community.”
• “We want to increase awareness of who we are and what we can offer.”
• “We want to highlight our company culture and values.”
• “We want to be more effective at advertising to our prospects.”
• “We want to increase loyalty to our company’s brand.”
• “We want to share news and updates regarding our company.”

As you’re getting started, try to pick and focus on one or two attainable goals. Be sure to make them specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely (S.M.A.R.T.). All in all, you want to be clear on how Instagram will offer something different for your print business than your other social media channels.

3. Perfect Your Homepage Profile

One of the great return on investments of Instagram will come from the effort and thought you put into your Instagram profile or home page.

Here are a few tips to make sure you nail it:

1. Write an impactful bio description. You want to make this description personal and represent your business well. This is a good place to include your print company’s tagline or an outline of who you are and what you do. Shorter is better, so it’s worth the time taken to really think it through.
2. Make your logo shine! For your profile image, you’ll want to feature your logo or a logo mark (i.e., your logo without words). This is also the area where some businesses will feature their mascot if they have one. Whatever represents your business the best is what you’ll want to use.
3. Make the best use of your link. One of the unique things about Instagram is you’re not allowed to have multiple links. You get ONE link and only in your profile section. This means you want to use this link to the best of your ability to drive traffic back to your website. You can also update that link often to coincide with specific campaigns you’re running. For example, when you publish new content, you might consider sharing a relevant image or video and update your profile link to reflect your most recent content, campaign, or event.

Here are few bonus tips to ensure you’re doing Instagram marketing well:

• Be sure to reply to all comments/likes you receive.
• You also want to make sure you’re on top of responding to negative feedback right away. Don’t shy away from this. Users want to know they’re being heard. Even if your response says you’ll follow up with them one-on-one, your actions in this regard will be seen and watched by many.
• As you get your feet underneath you, begin to analyze what’s working and what’s not (the type of posts/design, etc.).

The Heart of Instagram is Content

If you want to sell more printing using Instagram marketing, you need great content to post. Here are some examples of the types of content that work well for Instagram.

• Real-life usage of your products
• Insights to your workplace community and culture
• Focus on connections (for example, asking your customers to share stories about what they’re passionate about, etc.)
• Behind-the-scenes content (welcome your audience into your world)
• User-generated content (Having your print buyers share their recent print successes)
• Educational content (e.g.,  “Best Direct Mail Tips”)
• Fun or humorous content
• Introduce your team members and allow your followers to get to know them a little.
• Use quotes that speak to your audience and invite them to share their own
• Run contests or giveaways (For example, maybe they share a photo of their “print in action” with a designated campaign hashtag to enter. Or, if you want to simplify things, maybe they only need to Like or Comment on your post to be entered into your contest.
• Instagram stories. These are great for short video snippets of your every day, no-filter, authentic moments (e.g., “Follow me, and let’s check out this job we have running on our Acme press today.”)
• Take advantage of specific day hashtags. These are great to have if you’re running low on content ideas. To help you out, grab your free copy of the 2021 Social Media Hashtag Calendar for hashtags for every day in 2021.

3 Tips for Boosting Engagement on Instagram

1. Focus on consistency by creating a style guide. Because Instagram is such a visual social media platform, you need visual consistency, ensuring everything you put out looks like it came from your printing firm.
2. Overuse hashtags. It sounds over the top, but Instagram marketing research shows that over 11 hashtags get the most engagement. To help you come up with so many hashtags, consider using a hashtag generator tool, such as Display Purpose. This slick tool is designed so you only need to put in a few keywords, and it will generate an entire list of hashtag ideas for you to use.
3. Don’t forget the power of smiling faces. People connect best with other people, so while print products are cool, smiling people holding those print products are even better.

To calculate your engagement rate on Instagram, follow this simple formula. Take the number of likes your post receives plus the number of comments and divide that by the number of followers you had at the time of posting. On average, Instagram engagement hovers around 3%, but start by simply competing against yourself and focusing on getting better over time.

The Best Times to Post on Instagram

Lastly, you’ll want to optimize your posting strategy by knowing when and how much to post. Here are some helpful tips in this regard:

• Buffer indicates that major brands share on Instagram an average of 1.5 times a day. So, aim to post 1-2 times daily.
• The best days for posting on Instagram are Mondays and Thursdays, with Sundays being the worst day (lowest engagement).
• The best time to post is between 8:00-9:00 AM, 5:00 PM, and 2:00 AM. The worst time to post is between 3:00-4:00 PM.
• Videos posted after 9:00 PM tend to get 34% more engagement. So, remember to post content more during off-work hours than during the workday (aside from the optimal  times mentioned above.)
• Avoid using curated content on Instagram. The best content on Instagram is unique and personalized to your company. Only curate content when necessary and beneficial to your audience.

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