Recently, I was speaking with a reader of this blog about Instagram. They were surprised that so few of their Instagram followers converted into Kickstarter backers.
I can understand the frustration. You work super hard to build up a social media following so that you can leverage that following when the time comes.
It’s also annoying, because there are big media success stories like this campaign which raised nearly $50,000 solely from Instagram marketing.
What are they doing right that you’re wrong?
Let’s dive into that answer!
1. Use Instagram’s Business Analytics
If you haven’t already, I’d recommend making your Instagram account into a business account. The main difference between a personal account and a business account is that you’ll gain access to Instagram Insights and more features.
I converted my CrowdCrux Instagram account into a business account. Here’s what it looks like.
From this screen, you can see that I now have a contact button, where people can send me a message when they discover my profile on Instagram.
I also have a stats bar, which I can click to gain more insights about how my profile and posts are doing.
Finally, there are some core other components to every profile, which I’ll be discussing later.
- The URL in your profile.
- The name of your profile and the text above the URL.
- Your Story, which functions like SnapChat stories.
- Your profile image and the rest of the images in your profile.
Now, comes the really cool part. When you make your account a business account, you get access to Instagram Insights.
Using these insights, I gain valuable information like:
- The reach for my posts, and how that varies from last week.
- The number of profile views that I got last week.
- The number of people that clicked the link in my bio.
- The time of day that followers are active.
- My top posts, and how many impressions they got.
In addition, I can look at Insights for specific posts. I’ll show you an example below.
I posted this Instagram video pretty recently, which teases the YouTube video I put out, which goes through my Crowdfunding Advice for Entrepreneurs and Startups.
The video got 680 impressions (total times seen), 507 reach (unique views), 91 engagements (likes/comments), and 183 total views (watched for 3 seconds or more).
You can also look at the Insights for your entire profile’s fanbase, as I’ll show you below.
As you can see, my audience is comprised of 62% men and 38% women…hey ladies ;). The most dominant age range is between 25-34, or millennials.
I also added an extra 100 followers last week! This is great, considering I haven’t been focusing on Instagram too much, aside from some basic tactics.
What’s even more interesting is to take a sneak peak at the locations where my followers are coming from.
I’m writing this article on Friday. You can see that on Friday, my best time to post for the maximum visibility would be at 4 PM.
Considering that many of my followers are in NYC, where I live, I could always consider hosting a “launch party” if I was launching a Kickstarter campaign. Followers would be more likely to be able to make it, because it would be hosted in NYC!
This is a wealth of information that Instagram gives you, for free. Take advantage of it. It can also inform your marketing efforts on other platforms.
2. Use the Right Call To Action
I’ve gotten lots of question on KickstarterForum, from my readers, and I’ve even noticed this question asked a lot around the web, particularly on Campus.
For example, here is a question from Campus.
How do you get people to TAKE ACTION!?
First of all, you need the right call to action, and there should only be ONE call to action for every Instagram post. Sometimes, the purpose of this call to action will be relationship building or engagement. Other times, you want to get your followers to do something, like check out your campaign.
If you want to convert your Instagram followers into customers or Kickstarter backers, here’s the formula… are you ready?
Get them on your email list!
Use the link in your bio to offer a lead magnet that will make people want to give you their email address. Offer value to your followers. Don’t just expect them to subscribe (though some will).
There are also other ways to grow your email list.
Once you launch your campaign, you can change that link in your bio from the lead magnet to your actual campaign.
If you’re wondering, “what’s a lead magnet?” you’re not alone. I had no clue what this was when I first got started online. Examples of lead magnets include:
- Giveaways
- Access to exclusive content
- Training or information
- Invitation to an event
- Discounts, etc.
Once you have them on your email list, you will be communicating through better converting sales channel and you’ll be able to share more of your story.
4. Leverage Instagram Influencers
In my podcast interview with the Koala Hoodie team, they shared how they used Instagram influencers to drive interest in their product. In fact, they got a lot of influencers to wear their product, as you can see below.
Not only does this expand the reach and mindshare of the product, but it also adds credibility to the campaign. This team also doubled down on the influence of these Instagrammers by gaining testimonials, as you can see below.
Your goal is to gain awareness and convert that awareness into backers or customers. Part of that conversion process is getting over key hurdles like, “why are you credible?” or “is this product actually good?”
The more that you can subtly address those questions with your marketing and testimonials, the better. It will make the buying or backing decision a no-brainer.
5. Magnify Your Results With Instagram Tools
Krystine recently wrote a great article on some of the tools out there that you can use to make Instagram marketing much simpler.
I love tools, but I’m more of a mindset guy. I want to know how I can use tools to take away the headache of key activities, like posting photos on Instagram.
As you know if you’ve written me an email, I’m a busy guy. Haha, I’m working on being more organized. However, ironically, I’m very organized when it comes to core business-related tasks.
I believe that the #1 reason people fail to see results in most areas of their life is a lack of consistency over an extended duration of time.
It’s actually not your or my fault that we lack consistency. We’re trained in our society to seek out the quick result, or the quick win. Disciplined action over a long duration is quite rare.
That’s why I automate consistency, using a tool like Buffer.
Buffer allows me to pre-schedule all of the posts that I make on Instagram. I can have one post go out every day for a month, or one post go out every week. I can also set the times that these posts go out.
I’ll show you what this looks like below.
After you pre-schedule your post, you can just sit back and relax. When it’s time, you’ll get a notification on the Buffer app saying that you have a new post to share. You just open the app, hit share, and boom, it’s posted to Instagram.
Hopefully, in the future, Instagram will also allow 3rd party apps to share on your behalf, but for now, you must manually do it.
6. Build a Relationship with Instagram Stories
Online marketing is all about relationships. I’m a huge psychology nerd. If you’ve never heard of the mere exposure effect, it’s stated as, “A psychological phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them. In social psychology, this effect is sometimes called the familiarity principle.” – Wikipedia.
That’s why, despite the fact that you’ve never met me in person, you might have a sense of who I am, what I’m about, what my values are, and you might even like me!
I work hard to be consistent with the value I bring to my audience. The more that you see my face, listen to my voice, or read my writing, the more you tend to like me.
One way that you can sneak into the minds and hearts of your followers is to post more Instagram stories!
I’m not the most popular guy out there, but when I deliver value or entertainment with my stories, I can get to know more of the CrowdCrux community. It strengthens the relationship. You’ll also get crucial engagement data. I’ll show you an example below.
That’s not the most flattering mug. I was just doing this story on my couch. I was teasing a new YouTube video I put out, and also offering some free advice.
The story was completely unplanned, but it got some views (50 people) and maintained a core base of attention of about 20 people.
In other articles, I’ve stressed the importance of putting your story and the story of your product out there. It’s a very powerful marketing strategy to get the press to write about you and to connect emotionally with backers.
Don’t be afraid to record an Instagram story! People don’t care what you look like. Just try to have decent lighting and speak up. Be confident.
You can also invite people to message you who are watching to your story to further increase your engagement with your followers.
Conclusion
I hope that you find some of my advice to be helpful. Feel free to leave any questions down below and I’ll get to them as soon as I can. For more advice, I recommend signing up for my newsletter below or joining my Kickstarter course here.
