Instagram is massive, Instagram is competitive, Instagram is fun. When used right it can be a very useful tool for business to get you out there, get you noticed and reach heaps of potential customers.
Here at Staffordshire Catering, we have been using Instagram for a few months but our account is gaining momentum and growing nicely. There are plenty of online tutorials and articles describing how to market your account but lots of them are filled with unrealistic and over complicated instructions I am going to share with you all the tips and tricks I have learned to effectively market your Instagram in a professional way.
Grow Organically
By this I mainly mean don't spam your followers with endless uploads all hours of the day, keep it down to two posts per day at max! Don't sell out and go after just follower numbers. You want valuable followers that mean something to your business or account. Having large amounts of bots and fake accounts will not help you out in the long run. Following people too fast will just get you automatically banned, especially if your account is new so just take it steady and be patient.
Hashtag Your Posts
This allows people to find you when they are searching on Instagram, if you're hoping to gain followers within a certain location then you can always hashtag that location on your pictures. Don't litter your pics with endless hashtag's though, try and stick between three and five per post. You can always post your hashtags within the comments of your picture which helps make you look more spontaneous and sincere.
Post Attention Grabbing Content
Get your account noticed by posting compelling images that draw people in. Videos are a great tool too, they are much more likely to get clicked on. If you are posting images with text on, write your text out on a piece of paper and take a picture of that instead, this is more likely to get noticed.
Pick Your Time
Choose the time of the day to post and to follow people. The shelf life of a post is around four hours before it is washed away by other content on most people's news feeds so post during busy periods and not during the middle of the night. This just means you have to find the time to post during the day.
Be Social
It's social media, so be social. Reply to the comments you get from people or else they'll go elsewhere. Engage your interactions and nurture them and they may become your social stars. Social stars are the people who regularly interact with you and are a valuable tool to help you engage more people. Like other peoples pictures as this dies the same. People want likes, it makes them look more popular so they are more likely to follow someone that they think will regularly like their pictures.
Share Your Instagram
If your account is new then use your other social media platforms to advertise your account. Have a permanent link on your website, Facebook page and your Twitter. You can even put a link on your business cards too! Once you have gained these followers then your account becomes a powerful marketing tool. If you have friends with well-established accounts and lots of followers then ask them to do a shout out for you, they could screenshot your profile and post it on their account.
Learn from Your Account
Experiment yourself and learn about which content works best for you, which time of the day people engage you the most and which hashtags are the most rewarding.
Our Instagram is Far from Perfect but for a new account it is growing quite nicely, the more you use it the more confident you'll be and the more you'll learn. Check out our account by clicking the Instagram logo below.
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