Image by Radoan Tanvir from Pixabay
These days, managing a successful business marketing strategy involves getting your business website a top spot on the virtual map. You can create a fantastic website yourself or hire professionals, but it can do little for your business if you do not have the correct number of visitors and organic engagement. How do you drive the right kind of traffic to your website once you have set it up? One great way to do so is to use social media marketing. When it comes to choosing the right social media platform to launch yourself on, Instagram tops popular choices, and it is easy to see why. Instagram has over a billion daily active users. Hence, a business of any variety (and of any niche) is sure to find a ready market of potential customers here. But this pool of users also comprises business competitors, and the key to successfully driving traffic away from them to your website lies in an intelligent Instagram marketing strategy.
Instagram is a space of fierce competition. Businesses, especially new businesses with little brand presence, often tend to give themselves a jumpstart by investing in social signals from reliable sellers. One can buy real-time followers and content engagement to build up an account activity rate. You may even buy IG views as part of content engagement. Once you have built a beginning for your Instagram account comes the tricky part: driving engagement from the social media platform to your official website. For all its updates and enhancements over the years, Instagram still notoriously does not permit the creation of clickable links in its post captions. How then can you strategically use your Instagram business account to drive your visitors to your official website?
Here’s a list of what you can do:
Provide your Website URL on your Profile page
Instagram does not provide many opportunities to embed clickable links, but one space you can provide is the URL space in your Profile information page. This page is Instagram’s most SEO-friendly page as well, so if you fill it upright and enrich it with keywords, your Instagram profile is likely to show up on search results outside of the social platform as well. This, in effect, means that both IG users can see the link you provide on this page and non-users provided your profile is a public one.
Make this link doubly visible to your IG visitors by including a call to action in your posts, encouraging them to “click on the link in the bio section”. This call to action directs your visitors to a page that already contains vital information about your brand and generates genuine traffic to your website. Those interested in knowing more about your business are bound to click on the provided link.
Make Use of The Swipeable feature in Instagram Stories
Another space where you can provide a clickable link is Instagram Stories. Using Instagram Stories to drive traffic to your website is a great idea considering IG Stories’ popularity. An IG Story remains visible only for 24 hours unless marked as a highlight, but there is no limit to how many times you can update your IG Story in a day or how many segments you post to each Story you create. Stories provide several exciting and interactive elements to your audience. You can get your audience hooked to your Story by incorporating a poll, survey, or a call for an opinion on a post before asking them to swipe or click on your link for more information. When you create an engaging Story with explicit and captivating content, your CTA is sure to find responses, and your website is sure to get new active visitors.
Include a Call-to-Action as part of Everyday Content
Whether you create a Story or a Reel, a single upload post, or a carousel, make sure to include a call-to-action in your content. You can make it a part of the video or image; you can also make it a regular part of your caption. When you create intriguing and exciting Instagram posts, your audience will naturally be curious to know more about your brand and business. Hence a call-to-action asking your audience to check your website out or visit the URL you have provided in your bio is sure to find takers. Ask your audience directly to do so when you go Live and through your posts otherwise. The best way to generate a response is to ask for it. You can also organize giveaways and campaigns which require contestants to engage with your website as part of entry rules to increase traffic to your official site. Find innovative and eye-catching ways to use CTA as part of your content and watch your audience move from Instagram to engage with your website as a result directly.
Image by Joseph Mucira from Pixabay
Look around for Ideas
Everyone is unique, and despite having access to the same tools and features, each has his ideas for using Instagram for their business. Be observant of your peers and competitors and see how they are driving traffic to their respective targeted landing pages. You never know which idea can work as an inspiration for you to create your means of generating traffic to your website. Try to use trending techniques diverting traffic into desired channels of action. Modify, emulate or adapt as the case may be to suit your goals. You will be surprised how much you can learn from the competition as well as complete strangers when it comes to implementing successful business marketing and brand-building strategies on a social networking site like Instagram.
Avoid Selling Directly on Instagram
You may not have this feature available in your country yet, but if you have, you are indeed aware of the benefits of using shoppable tags and third-party cloud services to sell directly through Instagram. If you want to generate traffic to your website, avoid selling all your merchandise on Instagram. Direct selling makes it convenient for viewers to bypass clickable links that take them away from Instagram. You can soft sell your brand on Instagram and interest your target audience into going to your website for making real-time purchases or inquiries. Alternatively, even as you use shoppable tags, you can still direct potential users to read the FAQs or Terms and Conditions for Purchases listed on your website before they invest in your brand.
Be Consistent in your Approach to Reaching your Goal
Consistency is the key to success in any venture. If your final aim is creating traffic for your website, you must stay focused on this goal and be consistent in your endeavors to achieve it. As the saying goes, Rome was not built in a day. Similarly, it may take you time and effort to generate the desired traffic flow for your website. Experiment and adapt to bring actual results. Use insights to keep track of how your CTA on posts are faring. Promote posts by choosing to direct traffic to your provided landing page or profile and ensure you have your website as the updated URL for the duration of the post promotions. Keep track of the conversions coming in through your Stories and any other post format. Periodically repeat your CTA.
For best results, study your target audience’s behavior and the time your posts sync with their most active online schedules. You are likely to drive more traffic to your website if you reach your audience during their busiest time on the platform. The higher your visibility and get, the more chances you can direct the audience to your website. Hence also ensure that you are using the right hashtags and keywords for maximum post visibility. If you are consistent in your marketing strategy, you are sure to see your goal accomplished sooner or later.
Use Influencer Marketing
Influencers are to social media what celebrities are to traditional advertising. They have their presence, and while they may endorse or favor your products, they rarely become a brand ambassador for you. This is why IG users trust influencers and their reviews of companies and their products. Find an influencer who suits your budget as well as your business ethics. Let them have complete autonomy over what content they create for you. The right kind of influencers can help drive real and active traffic to any landing page you want. A smart influencer marketing strategy would be to request your influencer to use as many Instagram posting formats as possible and include CTA in their content and captions, inviting the audience to check your website out.
So, while you are driving more traffic to your official website, why not use the leverage of trust an influencer brings to your brand? This will not only increase your audience reach but also enable you to reach your goal faster. Drive traffic to your website more quickly by getting influencers to organize campaigns or polls that involve checking your website out as part of audience interactions. You can collaborate with multiple IG profiles for maximum reach. Even when you choose to go live, you can collaborate with up to 3 fellow IG users, so wisely plan your Influencer marketing strategy.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Use Instagram to Build Social Networks
Your content creation strategy should not focus only on creating great posts with a strong CTA, and it should also aim at building you up as a social and approachable brand. Even as you conduct yourself professionally and remain focused on your prime intent, you must remember that Instagram is, after all, a social networking platform. Hence, success is directly proportional to how you conduct your social behavior — network with all who matter to your business. Follow and engage with peers, collaborators, influencers, and allied companies of your niche industry. Reciprocate mentions, appreciation posts, and shoutouts by creating like posts. Be prompt and courteous in responding to DMs, queries, and comments.
Your online behavior is a prime indicator of how you are as a business and can determine your visitors’ willingness to click on any links you provide. Personalize your responses even if you feel the need to use automated responses. Humanize your brand to create organic interest in your website, and you will see the traffic to your website increase naturally.
Conclusion
It may seem like a challenge at first but driving traffic to your website using intelligent Instagram marketing techniques is very much an achievable goal. The key to success lies in focus and persistence. Do not lose sight of your micro-goals, and work on tailoring your content towards achieving the same. Present yourself as a genuine brand and work on attracting the attention of your target audience. Be authentic, and your website will soon see an increase in the number of daily virtual visitors and customers it records. You will quickly see a reciprocal natural interest build-up for your brand. This will lead to more people becoming more curious about your services and products. In short, you will notice an organic and steady flow of traffic to your website from Instagram as more and more IG users respond to your CTA and engage with your clickable links.