When it introduced business accounts back in 2016, Instagram showed commitment to brands and business to drive better business leads, and generate more traffic for businesses, by offering meaningful interactions between the potential customers and businesses.

But it is up to businesses to capitalize on this opportunity if they are to go beyond just a few likes and follows here and there on their Instagram pages.

1. Running Ad Campaigns

It is now possible to run ad campaigns on Instagram to attract followers and leads to make Instagram a legitimate business tool geared to get customers, especially millennials.

You can run an ad campaign on your Instagram business account and make it easier for yourself to get leads. These are no different than organic posts “on the surface,” other than being clickable and thus a tool to redirect people to your website.

The Instagram ads are a uniquely simple way to make your brand grow and for you to generate leads and clicks to your desired landing page on your website.

The user who views your Instagram ad will be able to click through on the ad and be taken to a landing page of your choice. The chances to click through are also increased with the help of a call-to-action called “learn more” or “see more” at the bottom of the ad. This will help you to increase your ad’s click-through rate as well.

Instagram ads are using Facebook Ads on the backend. This enables you to target a certain type of user of your choosing. You can choose different options such as age, education level, location, interests and hobbies, marital status, gender, their buying behaviors, job titles and more.

This specific targeting allows you to save up on money by not showing the Instagram ads to people who are not part of your target market. This way you aren’t bothering people who are not interested in watching your ads, letting them maintain their privacy. A win-win if you ask us.

You can start off with as little as $5 a day and let your campaign run a while (a week or 10 days) to get substantial results to see if it is working for you in getting you the sales you want.

2. The Swipe Up/ See More Story

Organic posts are not linkable so you won’t have much luck linking your products over there. But you may try your luck on Instagram organic stories if your account is verified. Organic stories become linkable on Instagram and if you’re a verified brand, it is not that difficult to become verified.

Plus, having a lot of followers isn’t a requirement to be verified. Verified Instagram accounts can easily link stories so that more people can click through. They simply get a little arrow or icon at the bottom of their story that allows people viewing the story to swipe up and see more of what the brand is offering.

When the user swipes up, the linked story takes the user to the web page that has been linked by the brand for more information or a new purchase.