Best Instagram Marketing Tactics for An Early Stage Business Do you think that Instagram is just a photo sharing platform? If you think so then it's time to change your mindset. Explore how Instagram can help your brand.

Instagram has proven to be one of the most popular social media platforms in just 8 years, With over 8 million registered business accounts, Instagram is helping a lot of small and big businesses in the brand building and generating sales.

Most of the people think that Instagram is just for sharing images and videos but what helps the brands in the process is how they convey their stories through the photos.

To explore more and know how Instagram marketing can help early-stage startups and businesses, Entrepreneur Media talked to a few professional.

The first person that we talked to is Lulu Raghavan, Managing Director and Senior Brand Strategist at Landor. "Instagram is a brilliant tool to build relationships with your brand community. Whether you are B2B or B2C, as long as your strategic intent for this channel is aligned with what your brand stands for, you can make Instagram work for you," believes Raghavan.

Sell Stories, not Products
Having a huge list of followers on Instagram isn't enough for selling, you need to be a part of the community if want to sell your products. First, engage people and then sell. Engage through photos and a great behind story or a video that tell about your brand values. "Never blatantly sell or push products. Invest in photos and videos with good production values. It makes a huge difference," says Raghavan.

Post as per the Needs of Your Targeted Audience
You must have started your business with some specific group of people in your mind and so you need to posts around the needs of those people only. These people are more likely to buy from you if your product sets into their needs. Be specific about what your brand sells and how is it going to improve their lives or lifestyles. "Post on topics your targeted audience cares the most about," says Raghavan.
The next expert that we consulted is Jigna Shah, Founder and CEO of REVE' Fashions. According to Shah "Instagram has created its own salient ecosystem to make your message reach to a serious audience,"

Personalized Branding Works Better than Sponsored Ads
After the huge Facebook update that made the organic reach tending to almost zero, marketers and entrepreneurs are searching for the platforms that are still good for organic reach. Instagram has proved to be one of the best platforms who still focuses on organic reach more than sponsored ads. With an early stage business, entrepreneurs need to have a great hold on their budgets and that is why Instagram can be of great help when it comes to budget-friendly marketing. Leverage the full potential of Instagram's organic reach and create posts based on your brand's vision and mission. This will help you in boosting your brand's reputation in the industry. "Personalized branding is more powerful than sponsored ads in Instagram. Instagram works better for Branding then Marketing, " believes Shah.
The third and the last professional that we spoke to is Manish Dudharejia, Founder and CEO of E2M Solutions Inc.

Leverage Stories
None is unaware of the fact that Instagram stories are one of the best features of the platform. But do know you that you can also use it for your brand promotion? Posting stories can help you unleash the full potential of the platform for your business. Through stories, your photos and videos get more engagements rates than the normal picture or video posts. "Snapchat truly ushered in a phenomenon with Stories. Now that the concept has spread to Instagram, brands can use stories as a marketing tool to gain more visibility, diversify creative direction, stay at the forefront of people's minds and encourage user-generated content in real time," says Dudharejia.

Getting Live
Another powerful feature on Instagram is the going live on the platform. When you get live on the platform, your audience gets a notification about it, this feature allows you to interact more with your audience and give your relationship a human touch. ""Going Live' has been a social media marketing buzzword for a couple years now. This tactic has a number of advantages. Most notably, it gives brands the opportunity to express their messaging in a candid light that is more relatable. This function has proven to be a game changer on most of the major social outlets. If you haven't experimented with it yet, it's time to do so," says Dudharejia.