Whether you’re a brick-and-mortar brand or an e-commerce store, you’ll be surprised at how effective it can be to leverage on influencer marketing strategies.

Spending on digital ads can end up being quite costly. Which is why endorsements and promoted posts by Instagram influencers have become more popular. And to top it off, according to the latest statistics, influencer marketing has among the highest ROIs compared to other methods of online promotions.

In our guide to Instagram influencers, we explain the basics of influencer marketing, how it works, how to find influencers on Instagram, and tips on making the most out of your influencer marketing campaigns on Instagram.

What is influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is a type of marketing strategy that involves the collaboration of brands and popular personalities or pages. Similar to conventional celebrity endorsements and ambassador programmes, influencer marketing leverages on an influencer’s large audience and loyal following.

They often get paid for Instagram posts, although in some cases influencers are willing to collaborate with brands in exchange for their products as gifts-in-kind.

Top-tier influencers can command large fees and usually have a following that ranges from tens of thousands to millions of followers. Micro-influencers, on the other hand, often have much lesser followers but receive higher engagement rates from their followers.

The Effectiveness of Instagram Influencers

Instagram has quickly become one of the best platforms for influencer marketing. It’s a great way for brands to partner with Instagram influencers to reach new audiences quickly.

The statistics on why promoting your business on Instagram is a good idea speaks for itself:

In a sample study by Rival IQ, the average engagement rates of influencers on Instagram far exceeded Facebook and Twitter.

Instagram influencers are seen to be more trustworthy than traditional ads

It’s not surprising that influencer marketing on Instagram works so well. While traditional marketing has become very intrusive, the new approach of reaching out to consumers through influencers has proven to be far more effective. Influencers are seen to be more trustworthy and command a lot of social influence among their followers.

As opposed to one-way conventional digital ads, endorsements and promotions by an influencer create a two-way communication channel with their followers. Just like word-of-mouth marketing, influencer marketing is able to reach consumers in a softer and friendlier way.

Still wondering how effective influencer marketing is on Instagram? Check out these 10 great examples of Instagram influencer marketing done right.

How does influencer marketing on Instagram work

Running an influencer marketing campaign on Instagram is a lot simpler than you think. It doesn’t involve any campaign management platform nor complicated ad buying or bidding systems.

All you need to do is:

1. Find an influencer with followers that match your brand’s target audience.
2. Once you’ve identified an Instagram influencer, drop them a message.
3. Then, strike up a deal on payment terms (or gift-in-kind) as a reward for his or her endorsement of your brand or product.

In your brand partnership deal with the influencer of your choice, make sure to set a time limit and use a unique code and hashtag for them to post in their post caption. It’s a simple little trick to ensure that you’ll be able to track your influencer marketing campaigns and analyze the effectiveness of different influencers.

How to Find Instagram Influencers

One way to find Instagram influencers is to simply use the search and discovery function on the platform. But that will be an incredibly daunting and time-consuming task. Instead, a better approach is to use Keyword Tool for Instagram.

To find influencers or pages with large Instagram followers, just click on the People function and enter a keyword or topic related to your brand.

For example, if you’re an e-commerce store that specializes in women’s makeup accessories, go to the People function in Keyword Tool for Instagram. Then, try entering related keywords like “makeup” into the search bar:

From the results, you can see an entire list of Instagram influencers and popular pages related to your keyword or topic entered.

Click the checkbox next to the Instagram influencer name that you want to target, and click Copy / Export all or Save (located in the bottom right of your screen).

Once you have saved the list, you can proceed to experiment with related keywords to find more Instagram influencers. You’d be surprised at how easy it is to find popular Instagram accounts with Keyword Tool for Instagram‘s People function. And you might end up with dozens upon dozens of both top-tier and micro-influencers to potentially engage in your brand partnerships.

How to run and manage an influencer marketing campaign on Instagram

Influencer marketing on Instagram has gotten so popular that Instagram itself has introduced a new feature for brands and influencers called Brand Partnerships.

Whether you will use Instagram’s official Brand Partnership feature or not, it may not have a huge impact on your campaign. But if you choose the former, don’t forget to follow and abide by their partnership policies.

At the end of the day, what matters more is how you approach and manage your Instagram influencer marketing strategies. To help you get started, here are 5 steps that you should follow:

Step #1: Define your target audience

Before you reach out to influencers and engage them in a campaign, you’ll need to have a clear idea who is your target audience. Make sure that your potential Instagram influencer’s followers match closely with your target audience.

Another approach is to divide your audience into different tribal groups. For example, your brand carries a variety of products for men. You can source for influencers with specific niches within the men’s lifestyle space, like fashion, beard grooming, snickers, adventure traveling, and so many more. Each influencer can then help to promote different products or angles for your brand.

By segmenting your target audience, you can approach micro-influencers and potentially increase your ROI and experience better engagement rates. It will also allow you to zoom in on more relevant audience based on specific products or brand pillars.

Step #2: Find the right influencers

First, start by finding influencers and popular pages using Keyword Tool for Instagram. Type in a keyword or topic related to your brand or product in the People function. From the results, select a list of Instagram influencers and click Copy all / Export.

Next, you should filter and select only relevant influencers for your brand. Although you may have a sizeable list of influencers with large followings, not all will end up being a good Instagram marketing partner.

Take a closer look at their content and how they present themselves. Does their Instagram personality and visual look complement or enhances your brand value?

If they do, the final step is to calculate their average engagement rates. Use an Instagram engagement calculator for all the influencers in your list. As a guideline, engagement rates of at least 2-3% is the median average for 2018. The higher the engagement rate of an influencer’s Instagram page, the better it will be for your campaign.

Step #3: Add micro-influencers into the mix

It’s definitely tempting to engage with influencers that have hundreds of thousands or even millions of followers. But loading your Instagram marketing campaign with only top-tier influencers may not be the best strategy. Firstly, they usually cost a lot. Secondly, a large following doesn’t necessarily command a high engagement rate.

Micro-influencers usually only have several thousand followers (and often less than ten thousand). But you might be surprised by the fact that they can attract much higher engagement rates compared with Instagram pages with larger followings.

Adding micro-influencers into your Instagram campaign may not only help increase conversion and engagement rates of your campaign but also make it more cost-effective that results in a higher ROI.

Step #4: Take action by building a relationship first and foremost

Influencers are human beings after all. While some top-tier influencers are only contactable via their manager or influencer marketing agency, the large majority of influencers are pretty much self-employed.

Once you’ve identified an influencer that you’d like to work with, send a DM in a professional yet friendly way. Follow their account and drop in a like or comment as well. Engage with them like how their follower would.

Gary Vee, famed entrepreneur and Instagram maestro, often talks about the power of networking and building relationships through Instagram DMs. Try it yourself and you might be surprised at how easy and effective it could be for your brand.

Step #5: Measure your results and track your campaigns

A solid influencer marketing campaign is not complete without analytics. Whether you paid big bucks to an A-list Instagram influencer or a gift-in-kind arrangement with a micro-influencer, you should know how they performed.

By analyzing the numbers, like engagement and click-throughs, you’ll gain better insight into which influencer gave better ROI to your campaign. With this data, you’ll be able to tweak future campaigns to ensure they run smoother and more effectively.

Here are a few ideas on how to measure and track your Instagram sponsorship campaigns:

1. Use a unique code and/or hashtag to include in your influencer’s post or Instastory caption.
2. Shorten your link to bit.ly so you’ll be able to track the clicks performance (only applicable to arrangements that require the influencer to insert your link in their bio).
3. Set up a separate landing page for your Instagram promotion. Once you’ve created the page, install a Google Analytics tracking code. This option can be incredibly useful if you’re running an important holiday campaign (e.g., Singles Day, Black Friday, and etc.) or a big budget influencer campaign. By having a unique landing page, you can also apply remarketing campaigns to target Instagram visitors on Facebook or Google.
4. Create a tracking spreadsheet (on Excel or Google Sheets) and include metrics like Name of Influencer, Follower Count, Impression, Traffic, Clicks, and Engagement. This document will help you keep track of your campaign in a more detailed manner, especially if you’re engaged with multiple influencers.

If you have reached the end of this article, you would have a clearer idea of how influencer marketing works on social media platforms. And more importantly, how easy, cost-efficient and effective it can be for your campaign.

Instagram influencers can be leveraged in so many ways; to promote a brand, sell a product, or even help to grow your Instagram page. Use this guide to make the most out of your Instagram influencer marketing campaign. And watch as your brand reach skyrocket, conversions improve, and a higher than ever ROI.

The post Instagram Influencers: The #1 Tool to Find 💪 Influencers on Instagram appeared first on Keyword Tool Blog: How to Find Great Keywords.

Hashtags have become increasingly popular on Instagram. The platform encourages large-scale hashtag usage, with many companies and brands using hashtags for special campaigns and branded content.

Although Instagram has seen the largest uptake of hashtag usage, the use of hyperlinked hashtag first began on Twitter in 2007. Nate Ridder, a web developer and resident of San Diego, California, tweeted about the wildfire in his local area and tagged his tweets with #sandiegoonfire.

In 2009, Twitter picked it up and officially incorporated the feature into the platform as clickable links that shows users all content that carries the corresponding hashtag. Not long after that, other social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube followed suit. Instagram then officially introduced hashtags for users and brands in 2011.

But unlike Twitter’s recommended hashtag use of up to only two to three, Instagram users can incorporate many more hashtags.

The advantage of using Instagram hashtags

Instagram is one of the largest and fastest growing social media platforms on the web, boasting over 800 million monthly active users worldwide. From startups to large multinational corporations, more businesses are adopting Instagram into their social media outreach and content marketing strategies.

A study in 2016 found that 48.8% of businesses use Instagram, where the figure doubled for the following year.

With millions of new photographs and videos uploaded daily, hashtags are an ingenious way of sorting out and indexing mass content by channeling them to specific search terms.

By adding relevant hashtags, you increase the likelihood of people you are targeting to see and engage with your content. It is an incredibly cost-efficient way of expanding content and campaign reach for brands.

How do Instagram hashtags work?

A hashtag is marked with the hash symbol (#). It can be a single word or conjoined words made of letters and numbers, but not symbols or special characters. Once a hashtag is formed, it automatically becomes hyperlinked.

Hashtags assist Instagram to sort, organize and categorize content. So, when a user clicks on the hashtag, it will show all content that carries the corresponding hashtag.

It is a great way for content creators and brands to get to expand their content reach while also helping users find content that they are interested in.

Note: Your account needs to be set to public for your content to be visible in the pool of corresponding hashtags.

Hashtag limit

Instagram limits the use of no more than 30 hashtags per post (i.e., in the post caption box). The limitation is placed to ensure that hashtags are not abused by potential spammers. It also helps Instagram to show users more relevant content based on the hashtags that they are tagged with.

Following hashtags

As of 2017, Instagram has allowed users to follow hashtags. Like your favorite influencers or celebrities on Instagram, you can now choose to follow hashtags based on content that you enjoy.

How can Instagram hashtags be used?

Instagram hashtags can be used by casual, individual users to add their photo or video to a hashtag to get more engaged viewers, participate in a viral hashtag, or merely to be part of a community.

Meanwhile, businesses and brands can use hashtags for specific or seasonal campaigns. By creating unique hashtags that are identifiable to a particular project or idea, brands can build communities of loyal consumers while tracking the campaign’s engagement performance (via user participation by using the brand’s designated hashtag) on Instagram.

Hashtags can be powerful tools to gain more likes and followers. According to a study by Agorapulse, Instagram posts that has hashtags receive over 70% more likes than those without hashtags.

These are two metrics that both individual consumers and established brands aim to achieve, and that is continuous growth and exposure:

• Increasing Engagement (Likes, Comments, Saves, Profile Clicks): Categorizing your content based on specific hashtags will increase the probability that it will be found by Instagram users who are interested in your type of subject matter. The more reach your content gets, the higher the likelihood that your page will receive more engaged users.
• Getting More Followers: Hashtags on Instagram is an organic method of targeting a potential audience based on interest. It’s just like running an ad, except you don’t pay a single dollar for it. If your content becomes discoverable, other users who will like your content might stumble upon your account, and proceed to follow.

Boosting reach and engagement through hashtags

Who wouldn’t want to get more likes and followers? By using hashtags, you get to do it at zero cost and without needing to create and manage ad campaigns to maximize reach for your content.

The new feature of following hashtags has created yet another avenue to increase engagement for content that incorporates hashtags. And this is good news to content creators, brands, and Instagram users as a whole.

Instagram has grown at an incredible pace over the past few years. There are more content published on the platform every day, but there are also many more active users every month. And there is no better time to use hashtags in your posts and campaigns than right now.

Ride the trending wave with top Instagram hashtags

Leveraging on popular trends is a great way to get free organic reach. And there is no better way than to ride the wave of top Instagram hashtags.

There are many types of popular hashtags, and the list of top Instagram hashtags do change from time to time. Here is a list of most commonly used types of hashtags:

• Popular – #love, #food, #nature
• Niche – #teethwhitening, #bowties, #freerunning
• Seasonal – #summer, #christmas, #valentinesday
• Viral – #metoo, #icebucketchallenge, #inmyfeelingschallenge
• Campaign – #StrongerTogether, #JustDoIt, #ShareACoke

Some hashtags are constant favorites, while others are seasonal by nature. Many businesses create niche hashtags to develop interest, and to group together posts relating to a specific product or campaign. And some have done very well, becoming part of the most successful hashtag campaigns of all time.

How to find the top Instagram hashtags for today (and beyond)?

There are many websites that show a list of hashtags with the most number of corresponding posts. Another way is to manually search on Instagram and pick the hashtags you want to use.

Alternatively, you can use Keyword Tool for Instagram. The tool allows you to search for terms or hashtags and gives you a list of similar hashtags, showing you the total number of posts that are tagged with each hashtag.

Keyword Tool returned 3,487 hashtags with over 70 million searches. Here’s a peek at them.

To find high-volume hashtags, just key in a search term that is related to your content, subject matter, or industry. From the results, pick the most relevant hashtags and insert them in your Instagram post caption box.

Make the most out of Instagram

Using the top Instagram hashtags for 2018 increases potential of your work to be found, but you still need great content. Users will be less likely to engage in your content if it is inferior in quality.

Instagram is a crowded place and consumers have lesser attention spans than they ever had before. Make sure you focus on creating quality content, first and foremost, to attract authentic follows and engagement.

Then, you can select which top Instagram hashtags to use to boost the reach of your content.

The post Top Instagram Hashtags: Popular, Seasonal and Niche Hashtags appeared first on Keyword Tool Blog: How to Find Great Keywords.

From a purely social space to share photos to a legitimate platform to grow business, Instagram has changed a lot over the years. Organic reach has reduced, and it has proven to be more challenging to increase Instagram followers than it used to be.

Although its algorithm has evolved over the years, there are many ways to use them to your advantage and boost your post engagements.

Whether you are managing a client’s account or your business page, here are proven tips and tricks to help you get more Instagram followers:

1) Develop a strong visual brand

Instagram is a visual platform, which makes the aesthetic quality of your brand and content very important. An excellent visual brand is not just about having beautiful photos, but also a well-curated account.

Imagine if a potential customer sees your photo on the Explore page and clicks to your profile to find out more about your account. If your Instagram page is a messy mix of products, events, random quotes, and others, will it be enticing to follow? Most likely not.

Instead, it gives a better impression if your account is well-organized in a visually attractive, consistent theme. Think about what your brand is about and what kind of visuals represents who you are the best way possible. It will be worth the effort to take time and plan your posts well ahead in time.

2) Publish good content

Whether you are managing a food services page or a fashion label account, you need to have great photos. It is the best way to stand out among your competitors and capture the attention of potential followers.

A well-taken photo reflects quality, which gives an excellent first impression on your brand. The good news is you don’t need to be a professional photographer to be able to take good photos. Don’t have an expensive DSLR camera? Use a smartphone, most of them today come with superior cameras. The trick is to know how to make the most out of whatever tools you have.

How to take good photos for Instagram:

1. Find the light.
2. Shoot early in the morning or late in the afternoon.
3. Take close-up pictures.
4. Use props.
5. Compose it and frame well.
6. Keep a steady hand when snapping a photo.

Now that you know how to take a good photo, you should strategize what your content will be about. Ask yourself this: Does your content add value?

To ensure that it does, create content that is informational, educational or helps to solve a particular problem. For example, if you are managing an account for an interior design firm, share DIY tips on decorating a kids room on a budget. Or if you are maintaining a travel agency’s page, post a carousel of stylish small hotels that cost under $100 per night.

There are many ways to share not just good images, but also those that come with valuable information. It increases the probability that your content gets shared on other accounts and platforms, which gives your brand better visibility to potential Instagram followers.

3) Write descriptive captions

There is no ideal way to write captions. It can be short and sweet or long and descriptive. Either way, the writing style of your caption should reflect your brand identity. Write in an active voice while being neither too formal nor too casual. But most importantly, be authentic.

Where necessary, include questions in your captions to prompt engagement. The higher the engagement, the more likely will your post appear in Instagram’s coveted Explore page. If you want to get more Instagram followers, the Explore page is the place you want your post to appear.

4) Reply to comments promptly

As a general rule, you should reply to comments as soon as possible. Being responsive on a social media page is an integral part of community management. It helps to build a connection by showing that you care about your followers.

An Instagram account that quickly and actively responds to comments will often invite more replies to their future posts. And this is what is known as the rule of reciprocity. The basic premise is simple; if someone responds to you, then you will be more likely to respond to them in the future.

Replying to comments is also another way of increasing engagement, which sends positive signals to Instagram. The more comments your post has, the more engagement Instagram sees. Once the algorithm picks up on a post that has high engagement, it increases the potential for the post appearing in the Explore page.

5) Tag your posts with popular Instagram hashtags

Hashtags are the best way to get organic reach on Instagram. You can include clickable hashtags in your profile bio section and up to 30 hashtags in your photo’s caption and Instagram stories. Once your post is tagged with a hashtag, it will appear in the list of hashtags alongside other content that carries the same hashtag.

Before deciding on what hashtags to use, you should identify trending or high-volume hashtags to leverage on the hashtag’s popularity. To do this, use Keyword Tool for Instagram to search for popular hashtags that you can use.

How to find Instagram hashtags

1. Go to Keyword Tool, select Instagram
2. Type in a term or topic related to your post in the search bar
3. The tool will then show you a list of posts on Instagram that have the corresponding hashtags.
4. Select the hashtags you want
5. Go to the “Copy / Export all” at the bottom right corner
6. Click “Copy,” and paste to Instagram

Instagram has now allowed its users to follow hashtags, which has effectively increased the potential reach of a hashtag’s pool of photos to a broader audience. If you want your brand to be visible to people who haven’t followed your page, make the most out of Instagram hashtags.

6) Post during peak/active hours

Posting good content and using popular hashtags will not be as effective if you post on Instagram when there are fewer people online. To maximize the visibility of your brand, you should upload your post during peak or active hours. These hours usually corresponds to your local timezone.

To increase the potential of higher reach, go to Insights on your Instagram Business page settings. Click Audience and scroll to the bottom. Under Followers, it will show you the average times based on hours and days when your followers are on Instagram.

Use these data to match with the daily behaviors of your audience in your local timezone. For example, if you are managing a food services page, the best times to post are most likely before the start of a workday (before 9 am), during lunch (around 12-1 pm), and towards the end of the working day (after 5 pm).

Note: There is no right or wrong time to post. Engagement volume also differs between industries and countries.

7) Post on Instagram Stories frequently

Instagram Stories is fun, easy to use, and creates another funnel for brands to reach a wider audience. And it’s no surprise that this feature has fast become a favorite function for millions of users, including outpacing the growth of Snapchat‘s users. As of June 2018, Instagram Stories has twice the number of Snapchat daily users.

Once you have posted an Instagram Story, it will appear:

• On your profile: A colorful ring will appear around your profile picture, and people can tap it to see your story. Photos and videos from your story don’t appear on your profile grid.
• At the top of Feed: Your profile picture will appear in a row at the top of your followers’ Feeds, and they can tap it to see your story.
• In Feed next to posts you share: When you share a post, a colorful ring will appear around your profile picture in Feed. People can tap it to see your story.

Stories shared by public accounts may appear in Search & Explore. If you’ve added a hashtag, location or location-based sticker to your story, it may also appear on hashtag or location pages.

There is incredible potential for brands to increase their organic reach through Stories. Social Bakers conducted a study on over 1,000 brands and found that 20% of their impressions came from Stories. It is a significant amount, especially seeing that organic reach on social media platforms has decreased over the years.

8) Repost content from other accounts

Creating original content should be the main focus of your Instagram account, but there is a lot to benefit from reposting content from other accounts.

Be wary, though. You should avoid reposting copyrighted photos or videos, and always seek permission from the original poster before reposting them to your account. Practicing proper etiquette on Instagram can go a long way.

Reposting content from another account, or UGC (User Generated Content), is another way to build a relationship with current followers or reach out to users who are not following you on Instagram.

User-generated content is 76% more trustworthy than branded advertising, and it’s also an excellent strategy for filling your Instagram content with great content for free.

9) Work with influencers on Instagram

Influencer marketing can be an incredibly effective way to increase the reach of your Instagram page to a much bigger audience. If you have a budget to spare or products to give away, it will be worthwhile.

There is a wide variety of influencers operating in different niches with varying numbers of followers. You can create an outreach list and approach them directly or use the help of an app like Influential or engage with influencer marketing agencies (which often will cost you more).

If you are a brand that sells a product, offer it for free to an influencer in exchange for a post. For example, a high-end hairdressing studio can provide a famous fashion influencer a free haircut in return for an Instagram post.

Provide something of value – time, shares, product, or money – and add influencer marketing to your arsenal.

As you can see, there are many ways to grow your Instagram followers count. There is no single, best path to Instagram success, but instead relies on a combination of different methods. Managing and growing your community organically often needs a long-term effort. Be patient, be authentic, and utilize these tips and tricks to get more Instagram followers the right way.

The post The Ultimate Guide to Growing your Instagram Followers appeared first on Keyword Tool Blog: How to Find Great Keywords.