Instagram has become a popular platform to use for marketing purposes. In fact, 84 percent of Instagram’s users follow at least one business account.
It’s the application where people love creating likable posts, sharing engaging stories, using hashtags, and tagging their followers. More and more brands have started utilizing Instagram to make their online presence more notable.
With over 1.3 billion users worldwide, it’s a great platform to promote your product or service or simply showcase what your brand is all about.
In the USA, 73% of businesses use this social networking app in some capacity. They are using posts, stories, reels, and videos, but very few are taking advantage of the Instagram Live feature.
What is Instagram Live feature?
If you’re one of the Instagram users, you might have noticed some of the accounts you follow go live or perhaps you’ve tried the feature out yourself. Using the Instagram Live feature, you can live-stream to your followers, who can then see or interact with you in real-time.
The people who follow you may choose to receive a notification whenever you go live on Instagram. Apart from that, for the time you live stream, a purple circle shows up around your profile picture and your followers can see or join you from there.
As soon as you end your live video, it disappears. You can record your live streaming and then share it to your Instagram story so people who missed it in real-time can watch it later on whenever they are able.
Why You Should Use Instagram Live for Marketing?
Going live and engaging with your followers seems like a nice concept. However, it’s not as simple as it appears. It’s not like a video chat with friends either.
As a company’s representative, you have to make some preparations like finding a quiet place, deciding on an appropriate background, and dressing up professionally before going live with the audience.
It’s no short of a hassle and you may be asking yourself, “Is it really worth using Instagram Live for marketing and business growth? Seeing other businesses nurturing their connection with their audience through Instagram Live, we can definitely say it is worth it.
- Boosting engagement: In online marketing, the most important thing is engagement. If your brand is failing to engage potential customers, it may not survive in this space for long. Instagram Live allows you to start conversations and show your followers that you value them. Better engagement comes when you talk on specific topics during your live stream. You can talk about the benefits of your products or services. It depends on your communication style that how you pique their interest to learn more about your brand.
- Better reach: Increasing reach on social media is essential to target and convert the new audience. Whether we talk about Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, better reach helps in increasing brand awareness, building an online community, and selling more products or services. Going Live will help you expand your account’s reach because when you are Live, it shows right at the front between Stories which easily grabs the attention of your followers.
- Makes you authentic: The best way to humanize a brand is by showing people behind it. People are always more inclined to talk or listen to real people than bots. Using the Live feature, you can start real conversations and add more transparency to your brand.
How to Use Instagram Live for Growing Business
Instagram lives are not meant to be fun and they shouldn’t be stressful. Instead, they’re meant to help you connect with your audience and build an authentic relationship.
- Get Prepared: Prepare a topical idea and outline things that are going to be focal points of your conversation. Focus on topics that your audience frequently asks for. This way, you can stay calm, sit, and talk for about 10-15 minutes without a pause.
- Collaborate: Instagram lets you go live with up to three people at a time. This means you can ask someone ahead of time to join you and go live together. That way it won’t appear like you’re talking to the camera but a real person. You can choose someone who is in your contact, an industry specialist or maybe just a close friend.
- Show New Products: You can use Instagram Live as an opportunity to show the latest products. It may be an online course, an eBook or maybe a new fashion product that you’re going to launch soon. You can build hype around your product. You can showcase the benefits of existing products or almost make a tutorial of using certain products.
- Show Behind The Scenes: Another way you can utilize Instagram Live for growing business is by showing people behind the scenes. For example, if you’re a digital agency, you can ask your marketer to join you live and share their experience and how they convince people about your product or service.
- Show A Different Side Of Yourself: It’s about doing something weird and letting people be part of it. Maybe your team is going on a road trip or maybe you’re somewhere striking. Sharing these unexpected experiences may be a perfect jolt to get your audience shaken up a bit and engage them.
- Q&A Session: Another idea is to conduct a Q&A session. Make a list of questions your followers often ask and host a small live session, answering all those questions in a brief. This will also encourage people who are watching you, to ask some questions or put their doubts in the comments.
Instagram Live can be used as an effective marketing tool to engage with potential customers and grow your audience. 54% of Instagram users say that they made a purchase after seeing a product or service on Instagram. Using Instagram Live, you can let them know about your products.