Instagram: Let's Get Down to Business
Oh Instagram! This wonderful place you can go and see images of your friends, their children, their food (everyone knows a food poster), their coffee, and of course your favorite shops and businesses.I absolutely love Instagram!It was all innocent fun and games until I started my business.In my personal account it was easy. I had all my friends from high school and college, and they would like the pictures of my kids or whatever my husband and I were up to and I wouldn’t even notice the “like count” or how many followers I had. Now the “likes” were of epic importance and my follower count, well let’s say my husband would love to go a day or two without me mentioning how many I have or how many I’ve picked up (or lost).Then Instagram became a place of confusion and stress.I had to come up with a plan of attack. A way for me to manage and use Instagram to market my store and get a client base and pick up followers. I have found that doing these five things my audience is starting to grow and more importantly I am leading people back to my store every day:
1. Content
Decide on a story or theme you want to convey. Look at Instagram as a way to get your brand across to those who are following and looking at your images. You want them to have a great understanding of who you are and what you’re business is about. You should try to switch things up a bit, and not just post things that are about your store or business directly. You can find inspirational quotes or funny e-cards, so that the audience stays interested. For example if you are a mom blog you can do a funny post having to do with being a mom, or a quote about coffee.
2. Consistency
You have to be consistent in two ways. First, consistent with your message as I mentioned above. You want to make your brand strong with consistent messages and images. Second, you have to post often. Often is at least once a day, but not more than 4 or 5. If you don’t post, your audience won’t hear from you, and if you fill their feed with post after post they may become annoyed. Think of it as your posts are a little reminder to them that you’re there, so you want to make them throughout the day. Also your followers “liking” your post is another way for their friends to find you and will lead you to more chances to pick up more followers.
3. Engage
You want your followers to know there is a person behind the Instagram. You can engage in a few ways: following people you think are your target audience or demographic, commenting on other pages, and replying to comments made on your pictures. People love to be followed on Instagram, so going around every now and then and following people you feel fit your demo is an easy way to pick up new followers. Also engaging with them by commenting and replying is a great way to make them feel seen and heard, and again each interaction leads to their friends seeing it on their feed and possibly following you. Make connections.
4. Be Authentic
People can always tell when you aren’t being yourself. Don’t try to be someone you’re not. It will make everything else that much harder. This applies to the kind of content you are sharing. Be yourself, and your followers will come.
5. Hashtags
These are extremely important. Outside of the friends of your followers, hashtags are the single best way to find new followers. Hashtags is a way for Instagram to assort all of the pictures being posted worldwide. Everyone who uses a specific hashtag will have their pictures posted with all others who used that hashtag. Meaning if you want to look for #love you can search for that hashtag and see everyone on Instagram who has posted a picture and used the hashtag #love. Look around and search for trending hashtags that pertain to your blog or business, and make sure you use it when you post a picture. For example I own a baby and children’s store so I typically use things like #kidstyle or #igkids because people using Instagram to find stores will search for these hashtags and hopefully find me. There is no limit on the number of hashtags you can use, so don’t be scared go crazy!There you have it. These five tips have helped me grow my audience. It continues to grow. The more followers you have the easier it becomes. Instagram doesn’t have to be so scary for business. If we use it the right way it can be a great resource for us to reach our audience and connect.#instagram #mompreneur #willweeversleepagain
Do you have tips for small businesses on Instagram? Let's hear them! Share in the comments below.