Abstract

Social media provides a big platform for those who want to buy and sell their products via virtual communication. Instagram, as the biggest social media platform has grown into an effective weapon for online marketing. It helps businesses to engage their target audience, boost brand awareness and increase sales uniquely. This conference paper explores the role of Instagram in online marketing strategies by examining Instagram’s features, best practices and case studies of top brands such as ‘Nike’ in Instagram to show how effective it is as a marketing tool to maximize marketing impact for the business. For instance, using hashtag strategies to incorporate high-quality visuals in Instagram’s shopping, ads, stories, and live videos can be crucial to any productive Instagram marketing strategy.  

Social media has become a very popular way to communicate in our modern digital age. It has been highly valued and widely used by businesses, groups, organizations, consumers, communities, and forums because it interacts and participates in various ways. According to Dwivedi, Yogesh K, and Colleagues (2015), ‘‘social media has proven itself as a low-cost information exchange platform that anyone and everyone can use to learn, teach, share, create, market, advertise, and improve on the main idea being spread’’ (p. 290). This includes consumers, businesses, organizations, governments, and other entities. Due to its quick and simple accessibility, the Internet has become the newest and most innovative way to market through different social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and others. Social media marketing uses social media platforms to advertise products and services. It has a wider public reach than conventional marketing strategies. Among the various social media platforms, Instagram is a free application for sharing photos that allow its users to take photos and further share them on social networking services. Instagram usage is becoming a bigger part of business and brand marketing strategies because Instagram allows businesses to interact with their target audience through visual content like photos, videos, and stories, which is a key component of social media marketing. Businesses can use Instagram’s features, including influencer marketing, hashtags, and geotags, to raise their brand’s visibility, interaction, and sales. Instagram is a well-liked medium for companies of all sizes to advertise their goods or services and cultivate a following thanks to it’s over a billion active users. Serafineli, E, believes that ‘‘Instagram is considered an ideal platform for social media marketing in particular for its capacity to enhance user engagement’’ (2018, p. 106).   Instagram as a crucial tool for online marketing provides companies with a place to graphically display their goods and services. With its substantial user base of active users, Instagram provides companies with a huge potential audience that they can connect with using a variety of marketing techniques. 

Instagram is a useful tool for connecting with prospective consumers because of its features and best practices, which enable businesses to target particular demographics, interests, and behaviours. In general, Instagram’s widespread use and wide range of features make it a crucial platform for companies seeking to build a strong online presence and connect with their target audience through a variety of techniques. ‘‘Research also suggests that Instagram users seem to be well aware of advertising on Instagram’’ (Chen 2018; Djafarova and Trofimenko 2019; Johnson, Potocki, and Veldhuis 2019; Van Dam and Van Reijmersdal 2019 as cited in Sophie C Boerman & Celine M, Muller,2022, p. 7).This essay examines the various features, best practices, and case studies of Instagram’s top brand ‘Nike’ to find out how it is used in online marketing strategies. It shows how Instagram can be a useful marketing tool that can increase the influence of a company’s marketing initiatives. For instance, key elements of any effective Instagram marketing strategy can include the use of hashtag strategies and incorporating premium visuals for various brands into Instagram’s shopping, advertising, stories and live videos.

 Instagram has a large user base because it is simple to use and allows for the attractive sharing of photographs and videos. Tuten, T L and Soloman MR believe that ‘‘Marketers have many possible techniques to promote goods, services, ideas, place and people’’ (2017). Due to its quick, effective, and efficient online marketing strategies, Instagram has huge advantages for a range of user groups, including business organization communities. Instagram’s features are essential in helping customers discover their desired brand or information and complete transactions. Due to its most used features, Instagram has become one of the top venues for marketing products that benefit people. Some of the best Instagram features for marketers that support enhancing their web presence to keep up their businesses are reels, videos, stories, mention and hashtag, Instagram shops, live videos etc. Reels are a key feature for Instagram content promotion. The short video gives viewers an attractive image. Reels enable its users to increase brand awareness, engagement, and discoverability to draw in new audiences. As an evergreen Instagram feature, video offers opportunities to introduce the brand culture, and build trust with customers and followers.

According to Alvi, RNH and Yana R D ‘‘Instagram’s new feature, namely Insta Story, can help sellers to interact with potential consumers directly. Insta story is a feature that allows users to take photos, and videos, add effects and layers and add them to the Instagram Feed.’’ (2021, pg274). Instagram’s story feature is extremely useful for helping sellers comprehend what customers want. Instagram Stories can be used as a tool for collaboration with various companies’ brands and individuals. Also, the most popular Instagram sticker features are mentions and hashtags. Businesses use the hashtag to ride the wave of popularity and expand their visibility and audience. Additionally, mentioning others permits tagging specific individuals with similar interests on their stories, and mentioned individuals are able to reshare the story on their own stories. which contributes to boosting business awareness. Moreover, Instagram Shop is also an important feature that enables businesses to set up an online shop where customers can purchase products. It is a useful addition to an online marketing plan because it raises brand awareness, encourages traffic, and engages customers, which boosts income and sales. Overall, Instagram’s various features are crucial for promoting marketing on the platform because they let companies show off their goods, reach a larger audience, and connect with customers in interesting and entertaining ways. Even if someone is a new company in the market, Instagram can help them to grow online. Its features can help them to build brand recognition or even increase sales.

 Businesses can successfully market their goods and services, draw new fans, and establish a strong online presence on Instagram by utilizing online marketing techniques like consistent branding, the use of high-quality visuals, and collaboration with influencers. These are Instagram’s best practices. Businesses can also assess the success of their online marketing campaigns and change their approach as necessary by tracking metrics like engagement and conversions. Online marketing is a key component of Instagram’s best practices for companies wishing to succeed on the network. Because Instagram is primarily a visual platform, using high-quality images and videos is a must. This helps to present the goods and services in their best potential light. In comparison to other social media platforms, Instagram has much stronger graphic marketing. High-quality images have the power to divert readers’ focus from text-based content. ‘‘It has been found that consumers tend to focus on the image before the text’’ (Kroeber, R, 1984, Rositer 1982 as cited in Li, X, T., Leng, H..K.,&Yi Xian, P.P . 2019, pg. 328). Having high-quality visuals is considered a best practice on Instagram and is crucial for effective marketing strategies on the platform since people tend to focus more on pictures than text. When the visuals are of high quality, they can grab people’s attention, which can lead to increased sales and products.   

According to Jurisova V, ‘‘Instagram is very attractive for brands because of its visual nature. Through the visual content, Instagram offers the possibility to contact different costumers, to set them apart to become apparent, to build relations with potential or existing costumers, and at the same time to make a branding’’ (2020, p. 120). Also, Online marketing greatly benefits from maintaining consistency in branding or product on Instagram. A business can build a strong and recognizable brand identity by employing the same visual language, tone, and messaging throughout its Instagram posts, stories and other features. This can make it simpler for prospective customers to recognize and remember the brand, which can help to improve brand awareness and customer loyalty. Furthermore, consistent branding might help in establishing trust with followers and prospective clients by demonstrating the brand’s professionalism and trustworthiness. Additionally, by maintaining brand consistency on Instagram, a brand can develop a seamless and cohesive user experience where all posts and stories seem to be linked through the use of hashtags and mentions and be a part of an overall narrative. As a result, conversions and purchases may be boosted along with brand recall and engagement. Therefore, it is essential for businesses to prioritize brand consistency as a key component of their Instagram marketing strategy. In addition, by collaborating with influencers, businesses can take advantage of their reach, engagement, and influence to market their products and services to an audience that is also highly targeted and engaged. Influencer partnerships can also promote a brand, boost proof of authenticity, and produce user-generated content that can be reused on an Instagram account or other marketing platforms. In order to effectively market their brand online to Instagram’s highly engaged user base, businesses should collaborate with influencers. 

‘‘Through the use of Instagram, fashion brands become associated with positive brand attributes, and consumers become aware of the company; this is how brand loyalty can be created to drive repeated sales for a business’’ (Alexis, R, J & Seong E, L 2022 p. 100). The top fashion brands on Instagram such as Lauren Conrad, Nike, Forever 21, and Christian Louboutin, are known for their significant followings and successful business models. These companies have successfully used Instagram’s excellent visuals, brand consistency, influencer collaborations, and other features to increase awareness of their brands among their target audiences. Nike in particular has proven to play a major part in online marketing strategy, which has contributed to its success in the market. According to Strugatz, R ‘‘Nike has logged 1.7 million followers’’ (2013, p. 2). Nike is a prime example of an effective online marketing strategy on Instagram. With the help of Instagram’s features and best practices, it stands out from other leading brands, gaining a significant following and an influential position in the market. It has developed a solid Instagram marketing strategy that combines a number of strategies to successfully connect with its target audience. The company consistently puts on its profile high-quality images that are representative of its identity and collaborates with relevant influencers to increase its audience and gain followers’ trust. Nike makes use of Instagram’s advertising tools in addition to this to reach audiences with relevant content and raise brand recognition. Finally, the company interacts with followers by sharing user-generated content, responding to messages and comments, and running contests. Nike has developed a thorough online marketing strategy that has greatly contributed to its success on Instagram by implementing all of these strategies in an integrated manner.

Due to its high engagement rate and quality visual nature, Instagram has emerged as a crucial tool for contemporary marketing strategies and has become an important marketing platform. Instagram has become a popular marketing tool for numerous products and brands to attain a high level of success in their business by utilizing its various features and best practices. Online marketing strategies heavily rely on Instagram’s major features, including Reels, Stories, Hashtags, and Live Videos. Businesses can use reels to make interesting shortform video material that creatively highlights their products or services. Businesses can share exclusive promotions, behind-the-scenes looks, and user-generated material by using stories. They can also connect with users who are interested in their field by using hashtags to improve their discoverability. Live videos offer businesses an opportunity to interact with the audience in real time, hold Q&A sessions, and promote goods or services. Businesses can improve their reach, engagement, and conversion rates in their online marketing strategy by making efficient use of these features. Considering that Instagram is a visual-focused tool, the use of high-quality visually appealing and eye-catching images, videos, and graphics is essential to stand out in the platform’s highly competitive environment. High-quality images not only appear aesthetically pleasing and professional, but they also help in building a company’s reputation and brand identity. So, posting high-quality images may expand the visibility and impact of a company’s posts. This may result in more followers, more interaction, and ultimately more sales. For instance, Nike one of the top fashion brands effectively utilized Instagram’s features and best practices in online marketing to achieve success. This is the result of Nike’s reliance on key features such as hashtags, stories, live videos, maintaining a strong brand identity, and utilizing reels. Overall, the Role and importance of Instagram in online marketing are set to evolve even further and businesses or brands need to stay ahead of the curve. High-quality videos are required to stick out on the platform, where video content will continue to be a key trend. Emerging technologies like augmented reality and virtual reality present new possibilities for businesses to develop immersive experiences. Businesses need to experiment with new features and give priority to engaging content that connects with their audience if they want to thrive on Instagram. The younger generation can successfully use Instagram as an effective online marketing tool by taking advantage of its value and features.

 

 

 

                                                                                       References

 

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