Instagram is probably the most visual based social media platform out there with more than 300 million active users every day. Staring as a small photo/video sharing tool used mainly by teens and young adults to exchange visual material together, Instagram has grown to be one of the most useful platforms from business perspective.
Every industry and business has its own specific audience, which in turn has its own social media channel preferences, and for a fitness company Instagram is the bread and butter platform to utilize.Buyer personas of fitness industry are mainly visual content driven people, and while there may be some differences depending on a specific company, they share the same view of life, interests, pain points, attitude and behavior.
Instagram Ads
Instagram was acquired by Facebook in April 2012 for roughly around 1 billion dollars and grew by 23%, while Facebook itself grew only by 3%. A year ago Instagram ads launched for the first time and gave companies the opportunity to expand their sales via Instagram. Companies that had a lot of followers, but struggled to close them into customers got an excellent chance to increase their sales. Instagram adds work similar to Facebook ads. They target specific groups of individuals and post ads based on the information that the app has about the user, ex. What pictures did that person favorite? Who is he following? What kind of pictures does he/she post? Etc. Apart from the information gathered by Instagram app, the ads also use the Facebook information of the same person to help make their ads even more targeted. Since Facebook is the father company of Instagram, their cooperation was very easy to establish and it worked twice as well, with twice as more information about their users. The first Michel Kors ad gathered 218.000 likes in 18 hours, which is about 4 times more the usual amount that the designer gets in his feed. The company also got 33.000 new followers during those 18 hours, 16 times more than usual. Lexus launched its first Instagram add in November that got around 170.000 likes in 3 days. It turned out to be roughly 10.000 followers a day, compared to the usual 200 Lexus got before. These numbers prove that there is a huge potential in Instagram advertising, even though not all the engagement and comments were positive. Lots of people hated the idea of being introduced with ads on Instagram, but even more of them were quite happy to learn something about a brand they didn’t know or follow, and become a dedicated follower. In any case, the number of engagement can’t be ignored and should be considered very seriously. For a fitness company that wants to get noticed, this is more than just an opportunity. Because fitness industry is mostly visual based, this is an opportunity to be reckoned with. If you have developed your buyer personas correctly and mapped out the buyers journey, the combined information of Instagram and Facebook can help you target the pain points of your audience with such precision, that it will skyrocket your followers and correspondingly sales, in just a matter of days.
Instagram Shoutouts
Instagram shoutout is a feature used to promote an account with the help of your page. It’s basically a screen capture of a person’s/company’s/brand’s page that you repost on your wall telling your followers to go like that page, since it has valuable material. This is another great opportunity for fitness companies to utilize and get noticed. Paid Instagram shoutouts can be posted on popular accounts in the niche of your choice and bring thousands of followers to your profile. Again, getting the buyer personas and buyer’s journey all planned is your first priority, but if you have successfully accomplished this task, then shoutouts will be directed towards the correct people and tons of positive engagement will be awarded to you for all the hard work you have been through. With this information available, all the smart managers are bound to see the opportunity to make things work with the most valuable visual social media platform available today. Correctly targeted ads and shoutouts will bring the necessary traffic to your page and website and help drive your sales up significantly. If you are a fitness company that wants to get noticed on Instagram and is already utilizing the best tools for your marketing efforts, don’t miss out your chance to take a huge leap forward towards more likes, followers, engagement and sales.
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