Before Ecover was my favorite ecological cleaning brand, it was just someone’s little idea to change the world one sink of dishes at a time. Now look at them! The company started before social media, but were early to connect with bloggers and blogs in a transparent way.
If you want to increase product sales, one of the best ways you can do that is to create buzz around your product with Instagram. If you’re just getting started with the social media platform, then you can use a powerful Instagram bot to help fuel your account growth while you work on the content that generates buzz.
1. Call for (and Use) User-Generated Content
Leverage the following you already have on social. Cross-promote your Instagram account with your other social channels, and announce a call for user-generated content (UGC) to feature on your Instagram account. Create a branded hashtag (#nowaste #worldsoilday #upcycledceramics), and encourage people to use it when they post photos featuring your product on Instagram and other social media channels. Feature at least one a week – and tag the user in it so they get a little shoutout.
2. Offer Discounts
Everyone loves discounts – but what does everyone love more than a discount? An exclusive discount. Create a discount specifically for your Instagram followers that you do not publish elsewhere. You can do the same for people who connect with you on other social media channels, too – so long as you keep the codes unique.
This company Reformation talks to you like you are one of the girls.
Then, pay attention to which codes are used most often. That way you learn which channel is more engaged with you, and where the majority of your target audience is.
In addition to offering discounts to new customers, you may want to offer a discount to returning customers, too, especially if you have a product where refills and replacements are common because it’s a consumable. All too often businesses tend to focus on customer acquisition, when customer retention is where the profit is. Once someone becomes a customer, do everything you can to keep them one of your customers, while still working to bring in new ones.
3. Host Contests
Contests are a great way to get your products in the hands of people who will use it, get UGC to use in the future, and grow your Instagram following all the same time. There are several ways you can do a contest, depending on what your goals are.
Want to grow your following? Host a contest where people have to follow you to enter. As an extra entry, ask them to tag a friend who may also be interested in entering to win.
Back in the day people used to participate in typing contests. You can be much more creative today on social media, or not!
Want to increase your engagement? Host a contest where you have people like the post and leave a comment with a hashtag to enter. Then, use the hashtag to track the number of entries and overall engagement. Make the hashtag unique so you don’t count unofficial entries, but keep it related to your brand.
Try a contest where people submit photos of your product in use, and the best ones (by user vote or a panel of judges) are chosen to win a prize. Remember that because this kind of contest requires the most effort, the prize should be larger than if you were to use another type of contest where the entry is easy and takes only a few seconds.
These are the best option if you have a high-dollar product that people aren’t so willing to invest their money on right away. You can also use this approach with influencers by giving them your product for free in exchange for promotions with their audience.
You can run contests back-to-back so you always have something running. This way you are constantly working on improving your engagement and building your tribe. Just take time to look at the results of each contest and make adjustments so you can continue to get a good return on your investment.
4. Share How-To Content
Use Instagram videos, slideshows, and Stories to demonstrate how to use your product. Demonstrate how to make the most of your product, and you’ll be encouraging people to buy it while also meeting the needs of your current customers.
Show how to set up and use your product. Show how to fix common issues for easy troubleshooting. You can use an Instagram Slideshow to splice together up to 10 minutes of video, as long as you edit it for flow, since you can combine 10 images or 10 one minute videos.
5. Highlight How to Use Your Product in Various Ways
Continuing with the How-to content, use all of Instagram’s features to show the various ways you can use your product. Bonus points if there are unique ways you can use your product compared to the competition, or out of the box ways you can use it that aren’t obvious to the average user.
Take for instance the Foodsaver. It’s a line of products designed to help you cut food waste by vacuum sealing your food so it lasts longer in the freezer. What many people don’t realize is that you can also use the vacuum sealer to save other things – such as your child’s schoolwork and other items you want to preserve, almost like a laminator. You can create bags for storing just about anything.
Whether you need to generate buzz for a product launch or a seasonal product, Instagram is one of the best places to do it. The audience is generally more affluent than other social media networks, and it definitely has more engagement compared to Facebook or Twitter. What’s more is people come to Instagram looking for things to buy, so if you don’t have a presence for your brand there yet, you should get started right away.
