I’ve always loved Instagram and this year I started using it for business and I’ve been delighted with the results.
As a business owner Instagram can feel daunting, another network to manage and this one needs lots of photos. In this post I’m going to look at the steps you can take to become memorable, consistent and how to measure success.
Watch below for my quick tips for small businesses using Instagram
1. Choose a style
If you want to be remembered you need to have a consistent style on your Instagram account. Build a style guide for your visual content so it appears consistent both on your Instagram accounts and across all your social media and digital channels.
Decide on a look and feel you want for your page. Do you want saturated bright colours or a more muted look. Choose filters that you will use on all your photos that will deliver this look.
2. Decide what type of followers you want to attract
It’s easy to get carried away when you start out on Instagram. You want to get followers quickly and if you are like me you’ll start following everyone back. The problem with this is your feed will soon fill up with irrelevant content.
To prevent this from happening create a customer persona for the type of person you want to follow you and seek them out on Instagram. Search for hashtags that relate to them or locations they may frequent.
When you find them, follow them, interact with them and look at who they follow that may also fit into your target market.
3. Interact
Instagram is a great place to showcase your own content but it’s not going to work for you unless you interact with people. Liking posts from other users is great but you can’t beat a good comment.
Set yourself a daily interaction goal. Commit to leaving at least one good comment on a photo every day.
4. Drive traffic
You might not think it but you can drive traffic to your website from Instagram. The problem of course is that unless you use advertising you have to encourage people to click the link in your bio.
I recently experimented with this and advertising to see if people would actually click and I was surprised to find out that yes, they did.
5. Convert to a business account
As soon as you can, convert your account to a business account. If you want to measure success you can’t just rely on stats like the number of followers or likes you have.
Business accounts give you more in-depth information about your followers, link clicks, interactions and more. This is indispensable information. Find out more about converting to a business account here.
6. Have a schedule
Although there are apps that will remind you to post there is currently no direct scheduling to Instagram. You should still have a posting schedule for your business, this means you’ll plan and post content consistently.
Take some time to map out a rough content plan with the sort of content you will post each day of the week. For example I post an inspirational quote on Monday and Friday and Quick tip videos on Wednesday and Friday.
7. Be creative
The more photos you take the better you will get. Look at tools and apps that can enhance your photos. I’ve shared some of my favourites here before but always be on the lookout for new creative tools you can use. My current favourite is Prisma.
8. Don’t forget to measure
Keep an eye on key statistics. How much traffic are you driving to your site? How many relevant followers do you have? What kind of photos drive the most engagement?
Most of all enjoy yourself. Instagram is a wonderful network where you can reach out and make new connections.
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