According to the latest figures, there are 1.074 billion monthly active users on Instagram in 2021! If you’ve been told that your customers don’t hang out on the platform, guess again.
Also, 71% of Instagram users are under the age of 35. That means it’s a prime platform for connecting with millennials, aka the generation that has been forgoing having children and pampering their pets instead.
Instagram is an incredible tool for growing your audience and generating leads for your pet business by building a community of diehard pet parents.
6 Reasons Your Pet Business Should Be on Instagram Right Now
1. Easy to Use from Anywhere
Wondering what to do while you’re waiting in the lobby at the doctor’s office? Riding on the bus? Sitting at the dog park?
Why not hop on Instagram and engage with some accounts in your target audience? You can chat with people, make a post, create some videos…the platform is designed so that pretty much everything can be done from your phone.
2. Create Connections with Pet Parents
Part of why I love Instagram is because it’s a platform that allows your business to reach out and start conversations. In contrast to platforms like Facebook where you have to post and then wait for people to find you, on Instagram you can reach out and connect directly with your ideal followers.
You can sit back while you’re binge-watching Netflix and find new pet parents to start building relationships with.
3. It’s Easy to Target Your Local Area
Local hashtags and geotagging make finding pet parents who are physically close to your location a snap. All it takes is a quick search to find local niche hashtags like #dogsofnewyork. You can also lookup geotags for local dog parks or other areas where pet parents are likely to hang out.
4. Get Real with Stories & Reels
Instagram Stories and Instagram Reels are both content types that create a great opportunity to show your personality and showcase the less polished side of your business.
With Stories, you can upload images or videos up to 15 seconds long that will only remain on your account for 24 hours. You also have the opportunity to create story highlights that live at the top of your profile. This is a great opportunity to showcase content and information you want people to be able to access easily, like store hours and sales specials.
Reels are videos up to 30 seconds long and are designed to be entertaining, funny snapshots of your brand. This is where you can show your brand’s personality and make people fall in love with your business.
5. Your Competitors Aren’t Doing It (Well)
There are very few accounts in the pet industry right now that are doing a great job on Instagram. If your business is local, it’s even more likely that few to none in your local area are capitalizing on this opportunity. This gives you a prime opportunity to draw in customers and stand out from your competition by becoming the best pet business in your niche on Instagram.
You don’t need to post a dozen times a day or have a professional photographer working full-time to create the perfect aesthetic. Just one quality, interesting post a day and a bit of time engaging with other people’s content is an excellent strategy.
6. More Engagement than Facebook
So far I’ve been talking about why Instagram is great, but what makes it *better* than other platforms you could be spending time on?
The primary social media platform that most businesses use is Facebook, which has become a heavily “pay to play” platform. As a result, the average engagement rate on Facebook is about 0.18%. On Instagram, the average engagement rate for an account between 5,000–10,000 followers is 5.60%. Even for accounts with more than one million followers, the average engagement rate is 1.97%. That’s a HUGE difference!
I specialize in Instagram marketing over other social media platforms for a reason. It is the place. to. be.
Are you ready to start using Instagram marketing for your pet business?
Don’t Miss a Beat
Want help keeping up with the latest updates from Instagram? I’ve got you covered. I’ll be covering any new features or updates periodically so you can keep track of what’s new and how these features can be beneficial for your business.
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Have a question you’d love me to write a post about? Let me know in the comments! Or better yet, make a post in my Free Facebook Group for pet professionals who want to grow and monetize using Instagram.
