Are you running a business on Instagram and want to grow your following? Other options aside, have you thought about collaboration? How can Collaborations help you extend your reach to a larger audience and grow your business? In this article, we will tell you how to increase your number of followers through collaboration and try to solve every doubt about the alternative.
Find Right Influencers and Businesses to collaborate with
Have you ever thought that there could be an option other than buying followers? What about collaboration? Collaborating with some of the best and high following businesses and influencers can be a great way to attract the audience to your business. You must have heard about influencer marketing which refers to the advertising of your product by influencer. But this is a little different from that because it emphasizes creating content and together.
The first step of collaboration on Instagram is to find the right businesses that can relate to your business and services and could complement the services you lack. Before you select someone to collaborate with, you should ensure that they have your ideal customers in their audience.
Once you choose or you get an idea about who you want to collaborate with, just DM to them on Instagram. Sometimes people do not reply to the DM, this is why you can also contact them via email. Here are three ways or collaboration tools you can use to create incredible content.
1. Invite your partner to collab on your creatives instead of just tagging them
Some people do not understand the meaning of collaboration and instead of creating content together, they use their partner’s name on their post which doesn’t help much. Well people cannot be Blamed because it’s not been a long time since this feature was introduced by Instagram. This is exactly a tool which allows you to invite your partner to collaborate with you and create the content together.
If you are an entrepreneur then it is a benefit to you because previously this feature did not exist. There had been two ways to mention two accounts on post. One is by using branded content features and the other is tagging someone in the post. Tagging doesn’t help you to reach a larger audience as they can’t see your post.
But the disadvantages of these two features are not the only reason to promote collaboration. Collaboration benefits you in other ways as well. First of all, your partner’s name shows off on the top of your post. It helps people to recognize a professional account quickly and then through them they come to you. When you collaborate with someone your post also becomes part of their grid.
How to use collaboration features?
When you go to share screen there you will find an option of Tag people. When you click on it you will see the ‘invite collaborator’. Just tap on it and the collaborators will get the DM request. Now you can share your post or reel the way you normally do. As soon as the collaborator accepts the invitation, your post will be displayed in his grid. Note that you can only add one collaborator per post and both partners’ accounts will be displayed on the post. But remember that a collaborator has the privilege of stop sharing that can be helpful for time-sensitive posts.
2. Go Live on Instagram with your guests and ask followers to watch
Be careful about which collaborator you invite to your Instagram live room as only three are allowed in one go. You must keep in mind that the collaborator should have a large audience size especially with your ideal customers. It can help you reach a larger audience and grow your business. Other than this you should also ensure that the type of content your collaborator creates relates to your business or posts. People’s expectations should be fulfilled and your collaborator needs to have the creativity and provide the entertainment to keep your audience engaged and interested. But just like always a question arises how to use Instagram live room. Here is the answer.
How to use Instagram live room?
Before going live with someone on Instagram you need to set up the Instagram live room. The first step towards setting up an Instagram live room is tapping on the Plus icon shown on the Instagram homepage. When you get there you will see many options including post, reel, story, live, etc. Just click on live whenever you are ready to broadcast.
Now you can give some minutes to the title or topic of the live room and encourage the audience to watch while waiting for your guests. You can add two guests to your live room one by one. To add your guest, accept their requests to join by tapping on the camera icon.
It may not be the same as important to you but the topic of your Instagram live room matters a lot. This is why you need to select it very carefully. Here are some tips to choose the topic:
- If you are a product selling businessman then you can showcase your product live. You can tell your audience and guest your products unique story, innovations, influencers, customers overview and complementary brands. In some regions there is also a live shopping feature on Instagram by which you can add clickable product tags people can buy your products with just a tap.
- If your business is service based, you can organize panel discussions, or FAQs live. When you frequently ask questions and give their answers related to your services, people’s doubts get clear.
3. Features More Contributors in Instagram Guides
It is possible that you have never heard of Instagram guides before because it is not preferred by people. But it can be proved a great way for you to grow your business. So in simple words Instagram guides is a curated group of contents. The curator can add or delete something from this. These posts or reels you find in Instagram guides actually belong to its original page. You can go and buy the product just with a click on the post.
Some believe that guides make great sharable content. You can share these posts with your stories or via DM. You can also save a post or a product to make the purchase later or you can save it to refer to someone. The story doesn’t end here as you can also link them to your blogs and emails in order to bring people back to your profile. Guides can make good collaborations. You can add posts of multiple contributors to guides. When you do this they will get a notification.
Which Instagram guide do you prefer?
There are three categories of guides on Instagram you can create. They are basically classified on the basis of their functions.
1. Post Guides
Post Guides are simply created to save posts from your profile or add posts from other contributors and Instagram creators. By collaborating with accurate and complementary businesses, you can provide your customers with a large number of choices to entertain them.
2. Places Guides
Places guides generally refer to the curated content with location tags. You can use it to gather travel tips and recommendations about selected places for your customers. It will keep them engaged and entertained. It is not just for influencers. The businessman can also use it to suggest their local community to visit some shop or foot cart.
3. Product Guides
If you are a businessman, product guides are the best for you. It enables you to curate products in a group that people can purchase just by tapping on it and going to its original page for shopping. These guides lead to Instagram shopping. Users do not need to leave the app to purchase the content. Now you have to work on what your customers prefer or what kind of products and services they most like to save and share. This way of collaboration is a great help to increase sales and number of your followers.
