Instagram is incredible and growing ever more in popularity. The only trouble with a platform that pushes over 1 billion active users, is making sure your posts are found by people who are interested in what you have to say (or sell) – needles and haystacks come to mind so our top Instagram tips are here to help!
The days of adding a few random hashtags to a post are well and truly over – it’s becoming much more of a science. So you have to have a strategy.
Here are my top Instagram for business tips.
1. Clearly communicate what it is you do
Set up your profile properly. Use a great profile image, make sure your Instagram handle instantly conveys what you do, and don’t forget to include your website URL!
Write a good bio. Aim to show a little personality rather than being too bland and corporate. Try to mix in a few key phrases that could help anyone looking for the kinds of product or service you offer.
2. Give your posts a unique and distinctive look
Instagram is a very visual platform, so make it work to your advantage. Using the same signature filter and maintaining the same style of photography will give your posts a consistent style, which helps to make them instantly recognisable.
Whenever possible, try to echo your brand’s visual identity – adopting the same colours, fonts and image style used on your website – so that the experience of your brand is consistent from one communication channel to another.
3. Get active on your accounts!
Liking posts in a random way isn’t likely to achieve a great deal. But if you do your research, you can make likes work really well for your business.
Take a good look at what your competitors are up to on Instagram – and more importantly, check out who is commenting on their posts. They are probably your target market. So, it makes sense to engage with and follow them.
This way, you’ll start to build an audience that is actively interested in what your business has to offer.
4. Hashtags are Instagram’s flyers
Hashtags help people navigate through millions of posts to find what’s relevant or of interest to them. Research has shown that using 10+ hashtags is good, but don’t go too mad beyond that – too many look a bit spammy, and less is more definitely applies here!.
It’s well worth analysing successful Instagram accounts, especially competitors that have a lot of traction. Learn from how they are using hashtags and emulate/adapt what they are doing for your own purposes. Make sure the hashtags you choose are relevant for your business and the audience you are trying to reach.
You may not get it right straight away, but if you can find hashtags that are both popular and pertinent to your business, you’ll get instant access to an engaged audience. Some hashtags have seen virtual forums growing up around them – niche communities that will be interested in you.
5. Use special hashtags intuitively
I’d recommend choosing a few special hashtags to encourage a bigger following. For instance:
- #L4L means ‘like for like’ – ie if you like me, I’ll reciprocate and like your posts
- #follow and #followme are an obvious and transparent request
6. Caption your images and videos
And inject a bit of personality. By this, I don’t mean posting a picture of what you ate for dinner last night! Every post should be relevant to your business, and you need to find ways of adding value to your posts. So think about what comment you can add that will encourage people to like and repost it. Growth can happen incredibly quickly if your followers feel they have something to gain from following your account.
7. Quality control is important
Make sure your pictures look amazing. Be ruthless – edit them, dismiss anything that looks poor or is blurred from camera shake. Keep things simple and shoot directly from your smartphone for ease of posting.
8. Use layout and angles
The Instagram Layout app (for iPhone or Android) is really good for creating interesting montages, especially if you want to post a sequence of images or show a step-by-step guide. Canva is a great free tool that you can use to create your own cool Instagram Stories.
9. Find the movers and shakers in your area
Try to identify who on Instagram is a key influence in your niche market. Explore how you might work with them to improve your own Instagram visibility.
10. Track what’s working
Google Analytics will show what traffic and conversion you’re getting from Instagram. If you have an Instagram Business Account you have the added bonus of Instagram Insights, which shows how effective your posts are and help to produce your own unique top Instagram tips for yourself.
Other tools to consider are Socialbakers, Sprout Social, Union Metrics and squarelovin.
