With 200 million users visiting at least one business profile each day, it’s easy to see why Instagram has shaped into one of the best tools for marketing today. The social media platform allows businesses to find their target market. It also lets them engage with followers in a way that more traditional forms of media (like TV and radio) cannot.
Posting the right content on Instagram allows you to gain insight into their followers through likes and comments, share product updates and information, build affinity and loyalty for your brand, and, more importantly, drive traffic to your company website — which, in the world of e-commerce and online shopping, could very well lead to purchase and profit.
Sound interesting? Read on, and we’ll show you five easy ways to use Instagram to increase traffic to your website.
Put Your Link on Your Profile
If your website has a landing page, your Instagram account has your profile page.
It’s the first place your audience will look if they want to see an overview of your brand, so it’s crucial to keep your website’s link on your profile. First, create a short, exciting description of what your brand is all about, and below it, add the link to your site.
Each profile has short and sweet descriptions with links leading to a website, shopping page, or a new branded video on YouTube.
Aside from being accessible to your audience, note that your profile page is the only area you can place a hyperlink. You can also explore sharing links to pages you need to lead traffic to. Got a sale coming up? Link your audience directly to the promo page of your site. Got a video you want people to see? Link your audience to your YouTube page. If you’re using a link different from your leading site, it’ll be long and clunky. Remember to run them through link shorteners like Bit.ly and TinyURL before adding them to your Instagram profile.
Turn Your Posts into Ads
Another way to drive your Instagram audience to your website is by investing in sponsored posts. Unlike organic posts, you can make your ads clickable by adding a call to action right below your image. One tap on your call to action button, and your audience can instantly be redirected to your website.
Each post features a call to action specific to the objective of the ads.
Keep in mind that they also need to be engaging on the top of making your posts clickable. To ensure engagement, it’s crucial to create visuals that spark your audience’s curiosity and make them want to learn more. An easy way to do this is by adding captions to your images before posting them.
There are many photo-editing apps that you can download to amp up your visuals. One of our favorites is Instasize—the app has over 50 artisanal filters to choose from to make your photos eye-catching. It also offers typography tools to help you easily add stylized text to your visuals without cluttering your layout.
Instasize has a number of filters and typefaces for you to play around with.
End Your Captions with a Call to Action
After your audience has been drawn in by your visuals, the next thing they’re going to take a look at is your caption. Next, they’ll look for information like the name of the product you’re featuring, its price, and where they can purchase it.
Besides writing punchy captions that are both informative and interesting, it’s also good practice to invite your audience to visit your website. Although you can’t add hyperlinks in your captions, you can still note your website’s URL – especially if it’s short and easy for your audience to remember. If the URL of your website is a bit trickier to recall, ask people to click the link on your bio instead. Don’t forget to get creative with your hashtags!
Audiences are invited to check out each page’s profile links for more information.
Use Instagram Stories
According to Instagram, a whopping one-third of the app’s top-viewed Stories are made and published by business accounts. This, of course, is excellent news for all businesses on the platform—and even greater news if you’re a verified user. Those with verified accounts can now add links to their Stories; viewers have to swipe up on the video or post, and they can easily get to your page.
Add geotags to your Story to drive traffic to your physical store or invite them to check out the link to your online shop.
If you don’t have a verified account, fret not—there are plenty of other ways you can use Stories to boost clicks and sales. Explore using geotags so your audience knows where to find your physical stores or booths. Use hashtags to increase views and traffic to your Story and your page. You can also carry out polls to gain insight into the interests of your followers. No matter what your strategy, remember that if you have fun building your feed, your audience will have fun following it!
