Instagram offers huge benefits to small businesses when their profile is properly managed and engaged with potential customers. If you’re using Instagram to market your business, you’ll need a clear Instagram marketing strategy. According to Instagram’s recent research, 81 percent of users say the platform enhances their product and service experiments. You don’t want to miss out on a large number of clients just because you aren’t engaged on social media. Continue reading for ideas on how to make the most out of your Instagram account as a small business.
1. Set up your Profile
Take a look at your Instagram profile once you’ve set it up as a business account. New features and settings are updated on a regular basis, sometimes without notification. Update the business categories, hours, location(s), a contact method, and add any service or product catalogs, among other basic essential business profile things to consider. Check that your profile features, such as your bio and profile photo, are relevant to your current branding.
2. Optimize Bio and Profile
Social media managers have been creative with how to make the most of Instagram’s single link box. It’s become common to refer to your “link in bio” in posts and to use this link to direct people to a landing page that has both original content and perpetual links to your most important product and service pages.
The landing page strategy is for you, if your brand shares links have the connectivity you want to provide to customers, has multiple offerings, or all of the above. Small businesses should share the most important information with clients via a link in their bio, just as you would set up your profile with essential business information.
3. Geotag Your Posts
When posting from your local business’s physical location, include the name of the location. You can go back and modify previous posts if you didn’t do so when you first posted.
What is the purpose of geotagging? Instagram collects all of the posts tagged with that area and categorizes them as top or recent. Customer images are mixed in with your brand photos. The top-right “View Information” link takes you to information about the tagged business. All of this helps to brand awareness and assists, clients, in analyzing your company. Are you blank for what to order at a restaurant? Simply look through the most recent photos to discover what people are recommending.
4. Use Highlights to showcase What your Business is all about
Instagram’s Stories Highlights feature allows you to post much more information about your business. Highlights let you collect those Stories into an easy source of great content by displaying them on your profile after they would normally disappear. So they’ll be shown above your grid, start with the basics, such as:
About: Several posts about your values, hours, and brand.
Highlights or locations: If you have more than one place, explain about each one and provide photographs from each one.
Customer reviews or social media comments about your Products: Repost customer feed postings or make a picture that displays reviews from other sources.
FAQs: Share information that is frequently requested by customers. You’ll gain time when responding to consumers because you can then redirect them to this Highlight.
Features of the product/service: Present a specific one or of each product or service. Some things are simply too big to fit into a single post.
5. Pay attention to Captions
The first line of your caption is what attracts people’s attention and determines whether they continue reading. You should double-check the rest of your caption after paying attention to the first line. With Instagram’s latest addition of keyword search, what you write in your caption is more important than ever. You used to be able to be adorable or styled with your words, and while you can still do so, you should make sure you include words that you want others to connect you with. This could include your brand and product names, as well as broad terms related to your business category, similar to basic keyword research.
6. Use Instagram Live Constantly
When marketing managers and business owners found themselves working from home but still wanted to communicate with customers on a personal level, going Live for brands became increasingly popular from 2020.
Instagram Live has a lot of advantages. One of the most important is that followers are reminded when an account they follow goes live. This real-time communication is essential, especially if you want to stand out on the network. Here are a few ideas to get you started on Live:
Go behind the scenes: Take a look behind the scenes by giving a presentation of your workspace or showcasing a creative process. You should begin with anything that the customer does not have public access to.
Run a Q&A: Instagram has a Q&A tool that changes the story post to match the associated sticker if you use it. Live Q&As can be like asking me anything or related to specific products.
Organize an interview: Share the live stream with another account. Having a guest on the Live allows you to do an on-the-spot interview with them or offer them the opportunity to speak over something they’re passionate about.
Showcase a product or service: Is it more effective to present rather than speak about your product or service? Use Live to go over things in more depth. Your viewers will also give you suggestions on what they wish to see if comments are permitted.
7. Host a Giveaway
Hosting a giveaway is one of the best ways to grow your Instagram account naturally. Free services are something that people enjoy even more than great sales. Depending on how you structure the giveaway, you might be able to get more post engagement. Add requirements such as saving a post, commenting on a post, or sharing it with a friend in addition to asking people to follow your account.
Small businesses will benefit from Instagram contests. You can also collaborate with other small businesses with a similar target audience to increase brand exposure. Of course, this strategy should not be your only social media strategy. Beyond offering prizes, give your potential fans further reasons to stick around.
8. Personal Messaging
Creating that connection between you and your customer is indeed a factor in social growth, which takes time. Personal messaging is a great way to do this.
Customers primarily chose social media as a customer service medium. In addition to being their favorite method of contacting brands, 47 percent of customers believe that a brand’s timely response is a major differentiator that will lead them to choose them over competitors. Increasing your DM usage does not mean that you must just respond. You should also interact with the customer on their own feed and also in their posts.
As your Instagram DM usage grows, you’ll need a way to keep track of all the messages. Use a workflow to manage your Instagram DMs so you can spend more time responding to consumers.
9. Track your Analytics
It’s worth repeating what other experts have said: keep an eye on your Instagram stats. Your tactics will fail if you don’t have statistics to back up your intuitive feeling of satisfaction. You should also be conscious of the differences between impressions, reach, and other network-specific metrics. Examine your Instagram analytics for further information on what’s working and where you might make improvements.
