How to Use Instagram to Generate Organic Leads

How to Use Instagram to Generate Organic Leads

In this episode of the Social Media Marketing Podcast, I speak with Jenn Herman about using Instagram to generate organic leads.

Jenn is a co-author of Instagram For Dummies and an authority in Instagram marketing. The name of her live course is Instagram Intensive.

How to optimize your Instagram profile for lead creation is explained by Jenn. In order to maximize the likelihood that Instagram users will become leads, she also offers other strategies for optimizing Instagram content.

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Most people undoubtedly wouldn't choose Instagram as their first choice for lead generating. Jenn was informed a few years ago that lead generation on Instagram wouldn't be effective. Jenn considered accepting the challenge. Although she had always known it could be done, she had never really thought out a strategy. She made the decision to dedicate her life to proving to others that they are capable.

Instagram is extremely effective at generating high-quality visitors, which is why it works. Although Instagram doesn't drive a lot of traffic, people who follow the steps to get there—seeing the content, reading the caption, clicking the link in the bio, and finally reaching the destination—have already completed three or four steps, indicating that they actually want to be there.

When consumers complete the downloads, join your email list, sign up for webinars or registrations, and other actions, you have a higher chance of obtaining a high-quality conversion. Instagram is one of the platforms that gives you such high-level conversions.

Recently, Instagram Stories has captured our attention so much that we've forgotten that you may entice users to take actions that will lead them off-site. Kind of all of us have given up on that. We believe that we cannot increase traffic on Stories if we do not have the Swipe Up feature.

If you don't have the Swipe Up link, there are still ways to direct people to your website, profile, link in your bio, or any other location you want them to go.

Whatever your funnel looks like is where it all begins. A post on your feed or in your stories may be what you're searching for in terms of direct sales. You may want to increase the size of your email list or encourage people to attend an event. Perhaps you work for a nonprofit organization and are attempting to raise awareness. It may even help you increase the number of people who listen to your podcast. You can use Instagram to drive them to whichever lead generation platform you choose.

Your profile must first be optimized for that kind of conversion. You need to compose Instagram captions that will compel readers to respond to a call to action. For them to even read the caption, your material needs to catch their eye in the stream. Lastly, since high-engagement material might not be high-converting, you need to examine the analytics and insights contained in your Instagram posts to determine which kind of content is indeed generating conversions.

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Instagram only allows searches for names and usernames, so anything you say in your bio isn't yet searchable (though there are reports it's in development). Therefore, if your name or username doesn't contain those terms, you won't appear in searches for "Instagram expert."

Jenn's bio begins with the word "blogger," which also happens to be the category label next to her name. Jenn began as a blogger and developed her entire career around it. She rose to prominence as the leading Instagram marketing blogger globally. Because of her reputation as a writer, most of her clients come from written material. She is still primarily known as an author and blogger, followed by a speaker and consultant, despite the fact that she now produces more audio and video content.

You can use emojis and your name can be more than just your name. While some emoticons have slightly different looks depending on the operating system, both Android and iOS devices use nearly identical emojis. Emojis should ideally be used to break up words rather than completely replace them. Emojis can be easily misinterpreted, so if you're very short on characters and can locate a clear emoji to replace a word, go ahead and use it.

According to Jenn, people's bios are frequently written in marketing jargon, which makes them insufficient or erroneous. They don't know what's in there or why they typed it when they originally created their accounts.

Your bio, or 30-second elevator speech, is what most people see when they visit your profile and typically serves as their initial impression. The majority of those that peruse your bio will likely only do so on their initial visit to your authentic account. They really have no incentive to read it again after they're following you. Thus, the bio ought to be prepared with a new visitor in mind.

For the reader, it should make it obvious to them what you do, who you are, and what's in it. A call to action of some kind, such an arrow pointing down to your URL, should also be included. It should send a very clear statement about who you are to that first-time visitor. Use lingo and emoticons to express your individuality and voice.You don't have much room to do this because you only have 150 characters.

People are frequently terrible at creating their own bios, so Jenn suggests having someone else write yours. Either you want to talk about your business as you see it, not as your clients should view it, or you want to write 4,000 characters. Have a coworker, your family, friends, or workers write it for you.

Elisa from Tailwind wrote Jenn's Instagram bio. Jenn asked if Elisa may take her bio as Elisa had done a better job capturing Jenn's personality than she could have done on her own. Elisa had written up Jenn's bio for a podcast. Make sure a new audience rapidly sees the benefits of following you and taking action, like clicking on your links or action buttons.

You have 150 characters for your bio. You should aim for a long-form paragraph, which consists of roughly five lines of text. However, a long, drawn-out paragraph is usually not what you want because it is difficult to read and not visually appealing. Jenn suggests using brief, distinct bullet points with a charming emoji that corresponds to the subject of each line at the beginning.

It can be difficult to include line breaks in your bio. In iOS, the return key is a little more hidden, while Android users have easy access to it. You can draft your bio on your phone and then copy and paste it into the note. The crucial aspect is that a space cannot be the final character. To hit return, you must backspace all the way up to the final letter, number, or punctuation mark.

Additionally, an emoji cannot be the last character on the line. When you hit return after doing that, it doesn't count. Make sure that the final character consists of a single character or a single punctuation mark.

Additionally, Jenn suggests paying closer attention to what is above and below. Make sure the opening line or bullet point provides the most succinct and apparent explanation of what your firm does. One of Jenn's bullets is a mom to a mini-fashionista. People would, however, assume her profile was about children's fashion if it had been the first item. She wouldn't be considered an Instagram guru by them.

Make sure your true business purpose is described in detail in the first bullet point. Then inject more personality—more of the quirky, enjoyable element that sets your business apart—into the following bullet points.

The URL that appears beneath your bio is extremely significant since it's the only high-quality clickable link you have on Instagram. This should travel precisely where you want them to go. You wish to direct them to a real place.

Many use a site like Linktr.ee, which generates a landing page with several links listed. Jenn suggests creating a dedicated landing page on your own website, free of any sidebars, pop-ups, or other distractions, and using that page to essentially replicate a multi-link environment much to Linktr.ee.

Since you now control that traffic, you can utilize it to retarget users with advertisements, so you can have three, four, or five specific links there. You can see their direction by looking at your Google analytics. To effectively manage your lead generation, you need to be aware of which individuals landed on this page via Instagram.

After that, where did they go? Is there a higher number of clicks on webinar registration pages than on eBook download pages? Are more people clicking on the details of your courses than visiting your blogs? You can more effectively target your audience by tracking the whereabouts and duration of visitors to your site with the use of your own landing page.

This landing page should ideally be slightly hidden so that it isn't accessible from a public URL that you would use elsewhere. If it's publicly accessible on your website, it might still be discovered through a Google search or another place; still, you usually want to reduce the chance of any kind of cross-contamination so you can measure those statistics more precisely. Additionally, that URL should only be used on Instagram.

Jenn's, for example, is jennstrends.com/Instagramlinks, which directs them to a special landing page with six clickable pictures. She suggests keeping the number of alternatives on your website to a maximum of five or six because consumers are less likely to click through if they have to scroll too far. "Welcome to Jenn's Trends!" reads the heading of Jenn's website. I'm so happy that you decided to learn more after seeing my Instagram post. She is highlighting in particular that you are coming from Instagram, which adds a personal touch to the user experience.

Instagram action buttons may be present in your profile if you are a creator or business user. According to Jenn, these are more helpful for closing deals than for generating leads.

The four default action buttons are Call, Text, Email, and Directions. However, business profiles now include more options—many of which are connected to external tools—such as Book Now, Buy Tickets, and others.

If you already have an Eventbrite account and utilize Eventbrite to sell tickets, you may attach that button through Eventbrite to visualize this. In fact, if someone wants to purchase tickets for your event, they can do so right from your Instagram profile by clicking the Buy Tickets button, which will take them to the Eventbrite website where they can finish the transaction.

You still have to rely on the link in your bio, call to action, and format to direct users to that landing page if you're using Instagram for list-building or other lead generation purposes. The action buttons are geared more toward one-on-one interactions.

Your post captions should be your next focus after building your profile, as they direct viewers to the link in your bio.

You need to start your Instagram caption with something very powerful. As you go through Instagram, you first see the image or video, followed by the username, one or two lines, and more information. There are just two lines of text remaining in the caption, including the username due to its truncation. Since there isn't a preview option, you'll have to rely on your experience to determine when the caption will end.

Visitors won't click to read your caption if your opening statement is some meaningless, rambling gibberish that doesn't inspire them, which means they won't see your call to action. That's the reason you need a really powerful opening. You have to grab their interest from the first, whether you write five words or twenty.

Consider that first line as the headline of a fantastic blog post, email header, or anything else that will genuinely pique their interest. Employ capital letters and emojis to grab their attention, make a big remark, pose a question, or do anything else that will compel them to click further. They will now read the caption.

Include a call to action in the caption, such as requesting that they click the link in your bio. To make that extremely obvious call to action stand out, you can surround it with emojis, type it in capital letters, or make it stand out.

Although Instagram doesn't track clickthrough rates, its algorithm does see increased clicking as a good thing and rewards it by elevating the ranking of your content. Although we can't see it, it's an engagement metric. Even though you may have people viewing every one of your captions, you won't know that they've done anything with it if they don't like it or don't respond.

Understanding the goal of your content and your target audience is crucial.

Jenn creates a lot of instructional content, and she always begins with the words "BREAKING NEWS" or "INSTAGRAM NEWS" in capital letters to let people know right away that this is something they should know. She occasionally uses symbols of fire or stars.

Commence your post like a postage stamp, wrote one of Jenn's co-authors. What she meant by it piqued people's interest, and they clicked. She said, "Stick to one thing until you get there," and then she talked about the phenomenon known as shiny-object syndrome.

The post was intriguing since people first didn't understand its meaning, even though it had nothing to do with a postal stamp. Instead, it was the author's metaphor for drawing readers in. To find out where she was taking that tale, many clicked on it. It inspired curiosity among people.

Occasionally, the source and the image will determine this. Even if the photo doesn't really interest you, you're more likely to read the description if it's from the local news station because you know it's a news topic and you want to find out if it applies to you. However, there are certain users that you follow just for their attractive photos; in fact, you might not even read the captions because you are so drawn to the images.

In a similar vein, you must understand the goal of your material if you hope to influence your audience to do certain actions. You must begin teaching them gradually by employing shorter captions if they are not accustomed to your excellent caption writing or your use of calls to action. Use short ones only. Avoid including a call to action in each and every post. To grab their attention and entice them to click more, start with something humorous or entertaining. Give it a minimum of 34 weeks to develop this. People will click more frequently once they become acclimated to it, so you may start making more calls to action.

The most well-known call to action that is universally understood is "Click the link in my bio." Even if it seems obvious, everyone has an innate understanding of how to get there.

Tanya, a friend of Jenn's, writes incredibly lengthy captions, but when she adds, "Click on the link in my bio," at the bottom, she really repeats her username. It becomes more clickable—basically tagging herself—instead of requiring the user to scroll all the way back up in the caption to return.

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Although the word count for captions isn't specified, they can only contain 2,200 characters. That's a lengthy scroll that's perfect for microblogging. Just make sure there are no spaces at the end and don't use an emoji as the final character. Line breaks function the same way as in the bio. When you hit the return key while writing something with the emoji in it, it seems fine; however, for some reason, the return is removed as soon as you hit Publish. As long as there isn't a space at the end, those returns do function if you prepare your caption in a Google or Word document then copy and paste it.

How can we capture their interest? The hardest part is that. A crowded, ever-changing Instagram feed is being scrolled through by users. Your material must halt their scrolling.

Jenn always advises against using her account as an example; this is contrary to her advice because her account often consists of a photo of herself with text overlayed on it. In reality, she dislikes when people use text on Instagram photos. However, in her situation, from an educational standpoint, people stop right away and act on that post as soon as they see her photo with a text overlay that reads, New Feature, Breaking News, or Instagram Update. That's how a lot of her content appears, and it really increases engagement and conversions for her.

Jenn recently wrote a post titled "Wait!" Give up! This is absurd! Using her signature typeface and color scheme, along with an image of her raising her hand. She was urging them to stop, plain and simple. An offer for the BC Stack, a unique, time-limited sale on a range of marketing products, was included in the post. A lot of people interacted with this post. The post was focused on conversions. Clicks were the intended outcome; engagement and likes were not the goals.

All we aim to do with content is grab people's attention. Maybe it's minimalist design, or maybe it means striking colors. It's simpler to swipe past a photo that is extremely busy, with plenty of colors and distractions. It will stand out on the feed and draw attention aesthetically if you have a really subdued white and gray background with a stunning splash of yellow.

Jenn has seen advertisements that use solid-colored walls next to, example, blue walls, with the focal point subtly positioned in front of the striking hue. With the white backdrop, the text, and all these other busy images, it will significantly alter what users see in the feed. Thus minimalism is feasible. According to Jenn, items with distinct color patterns—typically blue—capture people's attention more effectively.

We've been advised not to use excessive text on images in Facebook advertisements, at least, but it doesn't seem like Instagram has any rules like that.

Instagram uses Facebook's advertising systems, therefore text cannot still take up more than 20% of the photos in an advertisement. Apart from the fact that most Instagram users prefer not to see text on photographs, there doesn't seem to be any detrimental effects on organic content. They seek visually appealing content, such as beautiful images and movies.

A graphic with a banner, a ton of text, a date, an hour, directions, and all these elements is probably not going to work on Instagram since it is simply too busy and cluttered, and it doesn't appear Instagram-worthy. People don't want to see that on the platform.

It is not appropriate for each and every post on any platform to be promotional in nature. Not everything is meant to be sold. It all actually depends on where your material that is action-oriented falls.

You may choose to use minimal text on the image itself in those postings if 60% of your content consists of fluffy engagement-type content and 40% are calls to action. Even Jenn's generally resemble Instagram News when you look at them. Just enough text is included to draw attention away from the image itself without taking away from it.

Alternatively, you may share an original picture of yourself with no words that would make people pause; for example, a photo of you pulling a strange face with the caption, Do you know why I'm doing this weird face? Since I'm quite eager to share something with you Your excessiveness draws their attention to the photo. It will now be tied in with the caption, but you won't reveal it just yet. Users will be compelled to click more in order to understand your excitement.

Instagram image carousels weren't Jenn's first passion, but they are now. Swiping left and right was confusing back then because most people didn't fully get the notion. However, carousels on Instagram are now re-displaying if users ignore them the first time they come up on their feed.

Instagram will now re-show you a post with two or more photographs or videos if you don't react to the first one when you see it in your feed—that is, if you don't click on it and instead scroll past it. Instagram's algorithm selects the next image to display to you based on your own algorithmic engagement, making the post appear to be different.

Increased exposure opportunities result from this, since you can re-show your initial image to anyone who may not have liked it. It resembles a mini split test. Regretfully, Instagram doesn't presently provide us with the analytics of the most popular photographs.

While Jenn used to advise including a small arrow to let users who didn't see the dots beneath a post with several images know that there was more to view, she now believes that most users are familiar with the feature and can swipe independently. Swipe Right was once commonly utilized in captions, but today it only takes up unnecessary space. Even if they don't like it or leave a remark, the system is ranking that material for them if they swipe or otherwise interact with those photographs.

Great video, however according to Jenn, it doesn't get any special attention in the feed. Instagram's algorithm treats photographs and videos in exactly the same way.

The choice is your audience's. Fans of Jenn are aware that she doesn't make videos. She believes that if she uploaded a video, it would go viral. However, certain podcasters or individuals whose fan bases revolve around audio and video content are probably going to do better. Videos can be up to one minute in length, which allows you to include a call to action and provide information about the lead magnet, the benefits of signing up, what people will get from attending the event, etc.

Additionally, IGTV plays a significant role in connecting to lead generation. A one-minute teaser of an IGTV video appears in the feed. If they would like to continue viewing after the preview, they can visit IGTV.

Anybody can include a link in the caption of an IGTV video, even if you don't have a Swipe Up link on your stories. You can add any link to any account on IGTV, and you can include up to 30 hashtags in the description of your videos on the platform. They must proceed though, since it won't appear until they go to IGTV.

To entice viewers to visit IGTV and watch the entire video, you need to craft a captivating opening minute. Once they reach IGTV, they will just need to watch for a short while longer, so you may hold their attention for a minute and a half or a minute and fifteen seconds. Additionally, IGTV now features a clickable link for your call to action in the description, which reads, "Make sure you open the description of this video and click on the link."

To be clear, the text from the IGTV video will appear as the caption on the Instagram preview. Simply put, the link isn't clickable in the preview; once they switch to the IGTV tab and start viewing, it may be clicked.

For maximizing screen real estate, square or vertical images with a 4:3 aspect ratio work well. Videos and pictures with a horizontal landscape are bad because you lose space at the top and bottom. Since square photos are optimized for the platform, they make the most of the available space. Slightly taller than wide, vertical 4:3think portrait mode takes up a little more space in the feed and is therefore more likely to draw attention. There's more room for you to scroll by. It is now more important than ever for them to pause and address that image.

People can find your website through a story sequence, but you still need to get them there. At the conclusion of your sequence, you can say, "Click on the link in my bio and tag your handle," if you don't have the Swipe Up link. Users can just click the links in your narrative rather than having to return to your profile in this manner.

On occasion, Jenn will add a clickable tag to her narrative profile, make it smaller, and then place a GIF sticker directly over the tag with the text "Click Here." They only notice the sticker; they don't even see the username hidden beneath it. And because the tagged username is hidden when users click on that sticker, it now functions as a hyperlink sticker.

A Word About Dark Mode: Jenn cautions that if you've been creating photos to stand out against a white background, you now also need to think about how your content appears against a black background due to the growing popularity of dark mode on both Android and iOS devices. Make sure the photographs you create in black and white have a fair amount of contrast between the black and white.

You can observe if there's a change in that involvement if you're truly observing this. There is a split demography because while everybody can utilize dark mode, not everyone will. Certain users have their browsers set to automatically switch to dark mode at specific times of the day, so they may see two different versions of the same content in one day.

Photoshop or another design program can be used to obtain a visual representation of your content. Just quickly assess how it works on a dark backdrop if you have specific brand colors or an aesthetic in mind. It may look nicer, it may not really make a big difference, but it's something to consider.

To view your data and analytics, click the three-line button menu in the upper corner if you have a company or creator profile (as opposed to a personal one).

The Content tab is the first one, and it displays your feed posts with Stories underneath. To view all of the archived content you have ever submitted to Instagram since creating a business profile, select the See All option under the Content tab. You can now arrange the content in a different way. It starts off with a specific sort at the top, like "Showing all content for engagement in the last year." After selecting a filter by content type, you may arrange it according to engagement, likes, follows, comments, clicks, websites, and other criteria.

You have a two-year search window. Jenn often looks at a year's worth of data but you can also look at periods as small as 7 days. Your most engaged posts will be sorted if you want to search by engagement.

You are able to recognize patterns.Perhaps whenever you take a picture with your dog in it, you get really good engagement. You might discover, however, that your most clicked-up posts feature a picture of you rather than your dog when you modify that measure to sort for top-performing posts based on clicks over the previous year.

Clicks on your website are the most important factor to consider if you want to generate leads.Not just engagement but also conversions are what you should be able to identify. Naturally, you want your articles to be highly engaging because that will keep your material relevant and ranked highly in the feed, increasing the likelihood that people will see your conversion-focused content. You're going to lose reach and interest if everything is conversion-based. However, you want to know what's more likely to produce those outcomes, grab their attention, and prompt them to take that next action in terms of conversions.

When making a post with the intention of inspiring readers to take action, check the analytics to make sure you're producing the appropriate content and descriptions. Run some A/B experiments. Try various captions for your contest or campaign and check your metrics to see which generated more clicks during the campaign's duration.the opening line, the duration of the caption, and the call to actionYou can now view these statistics. The next time you launch a campaign, you can begin to identify the specific elements that will yield superior outcomes.

As of right now, analytics are only accessible via phone. If you're tracking something like follower growth, you should make sure you check your metrics on the same day every week as the current data is only available for the last seven days (generic metrics are available for up to two years). Utilizing an external application, such a dashboard management tool, will enable you to view metrics on your desktop and examine various data points.

Instagram has revealed Threads, a brand-new app. It's a stand-alone app from Instagram that is specifically designed for direct chats with your closest pals. With Threads, you can share images, videos, and even tales with your Instagram close friends list while maintaining privacy and speed. The public feed does not exist. Only private conversation is used.

Similar to Facebook Messenger for Instagram is Threads. You respond to stories on a conversation thread, which is why it's called Threads. If you just wish to get notifications about a specific Instagram conversation thread involving specific users, you can disable notifications for this app and enable them for the Instagram app instead.

Moreover, Threads keeps all of your direct messages in the official Instagram app, which just raises the bar. Instead of using Instagram itself—where you can become sidetracked by stories, the feed, or the search—you can use this app to access direct messages exclusively. With this app, you can message any of your direct messages—not just those marked as close friends. All of your direct messages appear in the triple-line hamburger menu when you navigate to the settings.

Although it has a few extra features, such as status updates and many threads, it is generally quite straightforward and efficient. With this app, you may quickly and effortlessly switch between Instagram accounts, enable DM notifications, and stay away from the other features of your account without getting overwhelmed.

For iOS and Android, Threads for Instagram is available for free.

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