Instagram is a hub for millions of people to posts photos, videos, and stories every single day.
Over the past few years, Instagram has also become a place for people to grow their business and audience.
If you’re new to this social media platform, here are our tips to help you set up your account and build your following.
Write An Interesting Bio
Your bio will be the first impression of your business for your audience.
It is essential to craft an eye-catching bio that includes a short description of your business.
Don’t forget to add a link at the bottom to your website.
Add a profile picture; you can use your photo, a logo, or any graphic that would represent your brand.
If you need more help on what to include, check out AdEspresso’s article How to Write The Perfect Instagram Bio For Your Business (with Examples!).
Make It An Instagram Business Account
Instagram has this cool feature where you can describe your account as a business account.
This will allow you to add details like phone number, email address, and your business’s physical address.
If you need more information on the pros and cons of a business account, Social Media College has a very informative article, The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Business Accounts, that may help you
Set Goals For Your Instagram Account
It is important to set few goals when you are marketing your brand.
Your goals may include displaying your products and services, building your audience, sharing company news and updates, advertise to customers, let your audience know about your brand and values, or increase brand loyalty.
Decide On Your Colour Theme
Many successful Instagram accounts have a visual “vibe” when people come to their feed. They carefully select photos and videos that have similar colours or tones to make the feed appealing.
Take Heather.vy’s account, for example. Her account specializes in pastry arts and food photography. Her feed is very neutral and highlights pastry. She definitely succeeds in a clean look that foodies would be attracted to.
You can use your brand colours to highlight in your photos as well.
Visualize how you want your account to look and implement accordingly.
Instagram Captions
When folks are mindlessly scrolling on Instagram they are first focused on the photos. We want to make them attractive enough to stop the scroll and see what it’s about.
The is where your caption or text description comes into play.
Some people choose to share stories or mini-blogs that tell more about their photos. This could include your products or services or how you serve your clients.
Others keep it short and to the point.
At the end of each caption, be sure to include a call to action. Meaning, what do you want your reader to do after they have read the post.
Do you want them to like, comment, or share your photo?
Should they visit a link to get more information or buy your product or service?
Whichever you choose, only post one call to action so you don’t overwhelm your audience.
Post Consistently
Consistency is the most important part of social media marketing.
If you maintain the frequency of the posts, your audience will expect new content from you.
The algorithm will also learn your posting habits and be more likely to share them organically to others in their home feed.
Some Instagram accounts post once or twice a day while others post a few times a week to their accounts.
Engage With Your Audience
When someone leaves a comment on your post, reply to them.
If some take the time to express their thoughts about your work, show that you are listening.
Also, it’s called social media for a reason – to interact with others and build relationships.
You do this by continuing the conversation both on your posts and on theirs.
Hashtags
Hashtags play a big part on Instagram. At the time of writing this article, you can use 30 hashtags to help your post get found.
Instagram users can search by hashtag to see topic-relevant posts that they are interested in reading more about.
Hootsuite has a great article called The 2020 Instagram Hashtag Guide—How to Use Them and Get Results that will help you understand them better.
You can create your own hashtags which would represent your brand or work. This way, you can make them more personalized. It also allows other Instagrammers to discover your content.
Post Stories
Do not forget to post stories on Instagram.
You can share your thoughts or a sneak peek of the environment at your workplace or around your life.
Take some time out for creating small videos or boomerangs for your stories.
Repost content from other accounts on your stories and share your thoughts about them.
You can also film behind-the-scenes content once in a while to make your audience feel part of your brand.
For the full scoop, check out Buffer’s article, Instagram Stories: The Complete Guide to Using Stories.
Conclusion
Instagram is highly popular these days to increase engagement with your audience.
If you follow these tips consistently, your brand will become more visible on Instagram.
As the algorithm learns your habits, your account will start slowly but with regular posting, commenting, sharing, and engaging on other account feeds, you will start to see your Instagram account grow.
Now that you’ve mastered using Instagram for your business, here is a round-up of tips and tricks that will help you boost engagement on your Twitter account, you’d wish you knew sooner!
