10 Tips to a Successful Instagram Strategy for Small or Start-up Businesses
There is so much conflicting and often false information and advice online around Instagram and how to use it as a business, so we thought we’d write a blog with our tried and tested (rumour-free!) tips.
Whether you are selling your own products or service or promoting someone else’s, social media has never been so important to a company’s marketing strategy.
Here are our top tips….
1. Profile image/logo
Ensure you have a strong profile picture or logo.
There are lots of apps available that you can use to create logos or better still contact Charlotte here at Greenbank Marketing to help you with your branding and logo design.
2. Create a set of branding rules
Choose the colours, fonts and image style you will use on your account. This will ensure a consistent feel to your grid making you instantly recognisable when a follower sees your posts. Again, Charlotte on our team can help you with this as part of her branding services.
3. Optimise your bio
This is your sales pitch!
Instagram allows you 150 characters to tell potential followers and customers everything they need to know about you.
If your business targets local people, ensure you mention the location of your business in your profile name and handle (Instagram allows you 30 characters).
Businesses evolve over time ~ don’t be afraid to update the wording as your business grows.
Ensure you also include a link to your website too.
4. Swap to an Instagram Business Account
A business account gives you some very useful information in the “Insight” section to help you analyse what content is working for your audience, who they are and where they are.
It’s simple to swap and if you struggle, find yourself a YouTube video to help guide you.
5. Share great high-quality imagery
You don’t need a fancy camera – phones come with brilliant cameras these days but if you have a fantastic camera and you know how to use it, do make use it!
If you don’t and can afford it, perhaps consider using a photographer who specialises in taking photos within your industry.
But! If like most small businesses starting out, you can’t afford that extra cost, a phone really will do the job in the short term.
Just be sure to only share high-resolution images as the algorithm favours those over blurry low-resolution photos.
6. Create a content strategy!
Your Instagram feed should be informative whilst telling the story of your brand.
A feed full of promotions is also going to put people off.
Does your content match what you have put in your bio?
Does your feed look on brand?
Are you using a variety of content types on Instagram that either educate, entertain, or inspire your audience?
What are your key messages?
Are you resharing user-generated content?
What are your competitors up to?
Have these questions in mind when planning your posts.
Alternatively, this is something Greenbank Marketing can create for you as part of our Social Media Strategy service.
7. Choose your post timing carefully
Timing is everything!
Consider when your target audience are most likely to be online.
If you are selling to other businesses, posting during working hours is likely going to be a better time than posting in the evening.
If you’re target market are busy mums, then posting later in the evenings once the kids are in bed might be the best time.
Experiment and see what works. Once you’ve found the sweet spot then try to stick to those timings as the algorithm loves consistency!
8. Develop a hashtag strategy
Instagram allows you to use up to 30 hashtags on a post and there are all sorts of rumours flying about saying you should only use “this or that” number of hashtags. None of it is based on fact, just romour.
Hashtags work differently for everyone.
Beyonce uses no hashtags!
Our advice is to experiment with the number of hashtags over a period of time, just make sure they are relevant to what you are posting and don’t use the same hashtags repeatedly.
Also, remember not to go over 30 as your caption will disappear!
Consider using a hashtag tool like Flick to analyse the hashtags you are using and which you are ranking for.
9. Always include a CTA in your caption
Call To Action.
What does this mean?
This is where you give the reader of your post a reason to comment. You could do this by asking a question, or perhaps making a statement in your caption that you know people will relate to.
This is where the Instagram algorithm plays its part! Chances are you’ll have heard the word ‘algorithm’ mentioned recently. For the benefit of those that don’t know what that is let us explain.
The Instagram algorithm is a complex set of rules and factors that Instagram uses to determine what posts show up in your feed and in what order.
Up until 2016, the post shown in your feed were shown in chronological order, so users just saw the most recent posts. Now Instagram is more like Facebook and uses an algorithm to determine what content people will be interested in seeing in their feed.
The algorithm determines how ‘good’ a piece of content is by taking into consideration factors like the number of likes, comments and shares it gets.
If a piece of content is deemed to be good based on its engagement, then it will be shown to more users.
If you can draw people in to comment and in turn spend more time engaging with your post, then the algorithm will determine that it is good quality content and in turn show your post to more people.
10. Engaging on your account
A post has a small window (we always respond within the first hour of posting) to gain engagement and push it up the algorithm ranking.
As mentioned in point 7, the more engagement a post or story gets once it’s posted, the higher it stays in the ranking and the more people are likely to be shown it in their feed.
It is also more likely to show on the search page for potential new followers.
Responding to all comments is also key from a customer service point of view.
A potential new customer visiting the page might be put off if it sees you aren’t interacting with your customers.
BONUS! Engaging with other Instagram accounts
Ever noticed that your friends and family’s posts show up in your feed first? That’s because you engage with them more frequently, liking and commenting on their posts. Equally, your posts will be doing the same in their feed.
It works outside friends and family too!
It’s key that you engage with other Instagram accounts relevant to your business.
Leave well-thought-out comments on their posts and not only will your posts be more likely to show in their feed but chances are they will reciprocate on your page by commenting on your posts. This in turn helps the engagement level of your post, helping it in its quest to please the Instagram algorithm!
So those are our top 10 tips to Instagram success!
If you are already practising all these tips but still aren’t getting the result you are looking for then perhaps consider one of our ‘Social Media Audits‘ where we will offer you recommendations on how you can improve your social media efforts.
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