Here are eight marketing tips to help you reach a new set of boba tea-loving customers.
Did you know that there are over 1.16 billion monthly Instagram active users? Furthermore, daily users spend around eight minutes on the platform. Not to mention the large number of Instagram influencers with a significant number of followers. These statistics prove that building your boba tea shop on Instagram will give excellent results.
However, you need to know how to use the platform and post the right kind of content to stay engaging and relevant to your target audience. Sometimes, these can be pretty challenging, especially if you think your posts are not getting any likes or comments.
So, for today’s article, we will share some helpful Instagram marketing tactics. Here are eight tips on how to effectively grow your boba tea shop on Instagram:
1. Make sure to use the business profile.
2. Utilize Instagram Insights.
3. Avoid over-posting.
4. Post teasers of new drinks or snacks.
5. Run sponsored ads.
6. Consider partnering with influencers
7. Post on Instagram Stories.
8. Share user-generated content.
#1 Make sure to use the business profile.
Before actually starting with a marketing plan on Instagram, you have to make sure that you are using the business account for your boba tea shop. If you aren’t yet, switching this profile is easy. Go to the settings and simply click on “Switch to Business Profile.”
Having a business profile allows your followers to click on your contact button to directly get in touch with you on your account, similar to having a Contact Us page on your website.
#2 Utilize Instagram Insights.
The Instagram business profile gives brands access to Insights, the platform’s analytics tools where you can find and reach statistics of posts. This free tool also allows you to view the breakdown of more specific statistics like engagement data, follower demographics, and other information on your followers like gender, age, location, and their active hours. You can also get specific insights on your weekly posts like how many impressions they earned in that particular period and find out your top posts.
With that said, this feature is worth using to easily understand how your followers interact with your posts. You can then base your marketing strategy on the statistics for better results on engagement and hopefully generate more leads.
#3 Avoid over-posting.
Over-posting on Instagram will definitely turn off your followers. They will unfollow if all they see on their feed is your posts. What you need to do instead is to post in a consistent manner and to post during peak hours and days when your followers are online. Generally, however, the best times to post on Instagram, according to recent studies, are the following:
Best day: Thursday
Best Times:
- 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM on Thursdays
- 11:00 AM on Wednesdays
- 10:00 AM on Fridays
If you want to consistently post on the other days of the week, check Instagram Insights to see when your followers are most active. This data is still more important than the data from recent studies presented above, as they are quite too general and not industry-specific.
#4 Post teasers of new drinks or snacks.
Instagram is the perfect platform for advertising products, and if done correctly, you can get new customers and make them loyal ones without scaring them off. An excellent way to do this is by posting product teasers.
Thankfully, product teasers work better than regular ads do. They are not annoying or pushy and instead stir excitement and anticipation without trying too hard. Teasers work well with any industry, and as for boba tea businesses, you can tease your limited-edition drinks or that new set of syrup flavors you just bought from the boba supply store with appealing photos or short fun videos.
#5 Run sponsored ads.
Running ads is still a great way to promote your products. And as mentioned earlier, Instagram is a good place for ads. Just like Facebook, Instagram allows brands to control exactly how much budget they want to spend and for how many days they want to run the ads.
You also have the choice to run one sponsored ad or multiple ones using the carousel ad feature. Sponsored ads allow your boba tea business to be visible to other users who do not follow your account yet but are interested in boba tea drinks and snacks. This is because you can target the right audience by setting the right demographics. Furthermore, you can turn high-performing existing posts into sponsored ads. If these posts are a hit among your existing followers, there's a huge chance they will be a hit among potential new followers too.
#6 Consider partnering with influencers.
Influencer marketing is one of the fastest ways to reach potential customers. More and more people purchase products based on what they see on their social media feeds, especially from influential personalities they follow. So, if you partner with an influencer with a known love for food and drinks, you can get your boba tea business right in front of potential customers.
The first thing to do is look for influencers who do food and drink reviews. They can also be content creators that focus on mukbang videos. And when you build relationships with them, you can successfully and consistently build brand awareness with a new audience, thanks to their followers.
#7 Post on Instagram Stories.
Aside from posting on your feed, consider posting on Instagram Stories to successfully generate leads. Similar to Snapchat Stories, Instagram Stories come in a slideshow format and are only live for 24 hours. There are so many benefits of Instagram Stories for brands. For one, IG Stories are displayed at the top of follower timelines, which means your account is already visible to them without them having to scroll down.
You can also use IG Stories to share behind-the-scenes content that may not be as visually appealing as your regular feed posts. You can share how your staff creates limited-edition drinks or how you prepare your best-selling snacks. Stories allow brands to be more authentic, transparent, personal, and laid-back, as opposed to the regular posts where each aim to look visually appealing or follow a certain color palette. You can also use stickers, filters, text, or edit images and videos to provide followers with fun visuals.
#8 Share user-generated content.
Once you build a following and an engaged audience, there’s a big chance that they are posting photos of your boba tea drinks and snacks and tagging you. When this happens, make sure to repost their pictures and tag them back. This type of content is called user-generated content.
New followers or those who just discovered your Instagram account will be able to trust your business quicker, as opposed to seeing content exclusively posted by you. These potential customers would see how other people enjoyed your food and drinks, and they'll be encouraged to give them a try. Also, if you do this regularly, your other followers will be eager to post your products and tag you, hoping you'd feature their photos on your newsfeed or Stories too.
The Takeaways
Instagram has definitely dominated the social media world with over a billion monthly active users, so it’s a no-brainer that brands must be active on the platform too. Although marketing food and beverage products is not too difficult as they are considered essential goods, knowing how to connect to your social media audience is crucial to building and strengthening an Instagram following.
So, make sure to use the Business Profile instead of the regular one to access the free analytics tools of the platform called Insights. Base your Instagram marketing plan on the data, especially the statistics on your current followers. Take note of the most active times to make sure they are online when you post new content.
Stir your followers’ excitement and anticipation by posting product teasers, and run sponsored ads from time to time to reach a new set of followers. Consider partnering with an influencer to further maximize your business’ exposure.
To show a more laid-back side of your brand, post behind-the-scenes content on Instagram Stories and make use of the features like stickers, polls, and more.
Finally, thank your customers by sharing user-generated content. Not only with this strategy make these lucky customers happy, but it will also expand your audience reach and encourage other followers to post photos of your products too.
Good luck with building your boba tea shop or food business on Instagram!
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