The foreign exchange (Forex) market is dynamic. It is constantly evolving and growing, with millions of people entering the market every year. As an affiliate marketer in this space, it’s crucial to stay ahead of the curve by utilising effective marketing strategies to reach your audience and grow your business.
One of the most effective platforms for this type of marketing is Instagram. With over a billion active users, the social media platform provides a unique opportunity to connect with potential customers and build a loyal following.
Setting Up Your Instagram Account for Success
Instagram is a popular platform, especially for the youngest generation. According to the 2023 Instagram Trend Report, nearly 75% of Gen Z intends to use social media, and Instagram, specifically, to make money in 2023. This implies that more people will keep joining the platform, either to generate income or to consume media from other creators.
As such, clever Forex affiliates can leverage this trend to grow their business. But the question is, how do they do it?
There are many strategies to make Instagram boost your Forex affiliate business; one of them is setting up your account for success. What does this mean? Well, it means optimising your profile to make it clear and easy for potential customers to find and engage with your content. You can achieve this objective using the following steps:
Creating a Business Account: If you haven’t already, create an Instagram business account. The account will enable you to access valuable insights and analytics that can help you understand your audience. Business accounts also come with tools to track your content’s performance.
- Optimising Your Profile and Bio: An optimised profile is complete (i.e., ticks all the boxes as defined by the platform, including account details, address, etc.) and professional-looking. It helps to choose a relevant and memorable username that users will love. Also, write a clear and concise bio that includes your niche and what your account is all about. Lastly, and most importantly, include a link to your website or landing page.
- Create a Consistent Visual Theme: Instagram is a media consumption platform where users who win have a recognisable brand and theme. Thus, you’ll be ahead of the curve if you choose a profile picture that’s on-brand and recognisable. In addition, you should develop a consistent visual theme for your content, including colours, fonts, and graphic elements.
- Exploit Instagram Stories and Highlights: Instagram Stories are a great way to engage with your audience and share content that doesn’t necessarily fit into your main feed. So, use them consistently to bolster your content game. Use the Stories feature to keep your audience busy as you develop more long-form videos and eye-catching photos. On the other hand, the Highlights feature allows you to curate and organise your stories. This way, they can be easily accessed by new followers or potential customers. Therefore, use the feature as a targeting tool to grow your audience.
- Optimising your account creates a strong foundation for your Instagram marketing efforts. It will help potential customers find you and engage with your content. Ultimately, it will lead to increased traffic to your website (you should create one if not there) and more conversions.
Formulate A Winning Content Strategy
With the account set up and optimised, the next step is to come up with a content strategy that will not only attract fresh eyes to your profile but also keep the existing followers close. One way to achieve this objective is by creating and sharing quality content. You can reach the best results by following these steps:
Step 1: Identify and understand your target audience
Instagram, like any other social media platform, has users with unique likes and preferences. Some are on Instagram to stay updated with the latest celebrity gossip, while others seek information. Your followers follow you because you provide information that they find useful. But do you know the specific details of their preferences?
Instagram provides tools that business account owners can leverage to peek into the finer details of their audience. For example, the analytical tools allow the account owners to know the age, interests, and location of the audience, as well as their content consumption habits. With this knowledge, you can create relevant Forex content, boosting engagement.
Step 2: Share relevant and engaging content
Once you’ve identified your target audience, the next step is to create and share relevant and engaging content. For example, suppose you learn that most of your audience is Middle Eastern Gen Xers interested in the EURUSD market. You should create content (i.e., short videos, interesting visuals (charts), interesting headlines, etc.) that resonates with their interests. Most importantly, ensure to post regularly and use hashtags to increase your reach.
Step 3: Make use of Instagram’s unique features, like Stories and Highlights
We explained earlier that Instagram Stories and Highlights are an excellent strategy for optimising your profile. Well, these features are also useful when sharing content. For example, the Stories feature allows you to create short and more personal, and interactive content. The stories you share can be behind-the-scenes content, make announcements, or ask questions. Additionally, Stories can be used to promote your partnerships with Forex brokers and drive conversions.
Leverage Instagram Ads
With 2 billion monthly active users, Instagram is a massive community. While this means marketers like you have a unique opportunity to reach many people easily, it also implies that competition is tough. Thus, affiliate marketers who rely on basic tools and features may never reach their engagement goals.
Fortunately, Instagram provides the means to get ahead of the competition through ads. While organic reach is still important, Instagram ads enable businesses to reach a larger audience and increase conversions. Here is how you can leverage this feature to boost your affiliate business.
First, get familiar with the feature. If you’ve used Instagram before, you might have realised that the ads are of different types. They include:
- Photos: These are the most common type of Instagram ads. They appear in users’ feeds and can be single images or a carousel of images. In addition, businesses can include a call-to-action button to drive more engagement.
- Videos: Instagram allows video ads up to 60 seconds long. You can post them in your Instagram Stories or on your feed then they appear in other users’ feeds.
- Carousel Ads: Carousels are typically a collection of photos, videos, or both and are scrollable. Users can swipe through the content, making it a great way to showcase multiple products or features.
- Story Ads: These appear in between users’ Instagram Stories. They can be photos or videos and are full-screen. Also, you can include a call-to-action button to
- Collection Ads: This category of ads is more like powered-up carousel ads. They feature multiple products (photos and videos) like carousels but showcase as many items as possible in a mobile-friendly way. Also, they allow users to purchase products directly from the ad without leaving the Instagram app. They are a great way to showcase products and encourage impulse purchases.
How Do You Create an Instagram Ad?
Follow these steps to customise your Forex affiliate content into powerful Instagram adverts.
Step 1: Define Your Objectives
Sit down and brainstorm about the ultimate goal of the content strategy before thinking about the actual ad. For example, you could say that the campaign seeks to increase traffic to your website, promote a new product, or generate leads.
Step 2: Choose Your Target Audience
This step should be easy because you have already optimised your account to attract a specific type of follower. Alternatively, you could use Instagram’s targeting options, including location, interests, behaviours, demographics, etc. Ensure that the ultimate consumer of the ad is most likely to show interest in your message.
Step 3: Come Up with a Budget Estimate
You can set a daily or lifetime budget for the ad campaign. Typically, the platform optimises the business’s budget to reach the target audience and maximise the results.
Step 4: Create Your Ad
Select the appropriate ad type and draft a design. You can use Instagram’s ad creation tool, online tools or engage a designer for a more professional design. It helps to include a call-to-action button and a clear message that will resonate with your target audience.
Step 5: Review and Launch Your Ad
If the ad design passes your evaluation, review it one last time and then launch it. Instagram will begin showing your ad to your target audience immediately. You can monitor the results using the platform’s analytics tools.
How Do You Know the Ad Campaign Is Successful?
Monitoring the ad is the surest way to know how the campaign is doing. Instagram provides several analytics tools specifically for this task. The tools provide metrics such as reach, impressions, engagement, and click-through rate.
Use this data to optimise your ad campaign and make adjustments as needed. For example, if you’re not seeing the engagement you were hoping for, try adjusting your targeting or the design of your ad.
