How to promote my small business on instagram

Your Small Business Instagram Marketing Strategy

Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms, especially among younger generations. The beauty of Instagram is that it’s highly visual – the focus is on images and videos rather than text posts. Facebook still dominates the game, but Instagram still holds a strong place on the global list for highest engagement.

With that many eyes on the platform, you can’t afford to ignore it. So how can you use it? We’ve got some tips for using a small business Instagram marketing strategy to take your enterprise to the next level.

1. Set Your Account Up For Success

When you’re setting up your business Instagram account, you’ll want to do it so it has the maximum marketing impact. You’ll also want to make sure prospective customers have a way to find you online with ease.

Connect your Instagram account to your other social media accounts. Adding your business’s Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, and Flickr sites to your Instagram profile can help your customers keep up with you through other social media forums. Make sure your privacy settings allow everyone to see and comment on your posts – your account isn’t going to help your business if no one can access it!

Just like your other marketing efforts, your Instagram strategy needs to be consistent with your brand. That means using the same logo, style, and tone you use everywhere else. And if your brand does something unique, make sure you share it! Maybe your brand uses only recycled materials or local produce – that’s an important part of your image and you’ll want to weave it into every aspect of your Instagram presence.

2. Share High-Quality Content

Instagram is a visual medium. People come to Instagram to see beautiful images and videos. Make the effort to make your content on Instagram stand out.

Luckily, Instagram has a user-friendly format so you can create archive quality images with the touch of a finger. Instagram provides an array of filters to shade your photos, change the contrast settings, and add other visual effects. Play around with the platform and you’ll find that there are literally hundreds of ways to customize your images. It may take a little trial and error to find what fits with your brand and works for your followers, so don’t be afraid to experiment!

Here are some things to remember as you work to create eye-catching content:

Vibrant colors stand out
High-resolution photos convey quality
Unusual, arresting, and intriguing images will capture the eye better than common ones
Short videos are a great way to show your product in action

Consider sharing content that isn’t just about your brand. That will help draw a greater viewership and make your account feel less commercial, which is a big draw for the millennials. Just remember that all of your content should be consistent with your brand – your children’s toy store shouldn’t be posting adult content.

3. Use Those Tags And Hashtags

Instagram puts the “social” in social media by allowing you to tag others in your photos. By tagging a follower or another business, you make a connection with that person and share your content with them and their followers.

Additionally, hashtags allow you to add your own content notes to your photos. Use hashtags to convey what your photo or video is about. If you run a spa and salon, you would consider using #spa, #dayofbeauty, #nailservices, or #manipedi. If a user clicks on a given hashtag, they’ll be able to see all of the posts with that hashtag. In other words, hashtags are a way to make sure your brand is part of the conversation for topics that relate to you.

A note on hashtag use – make sure they actually relate to the photo so they make sense. Some businesses post random hashtags with no connection to the visual image, which can be confusing for the audience and make the post seem spammy and inauthentic.

4. Build Your Reach

Your small business Instagram marketing strategy is all about increasing your reach, brand awareness, and brand goodwill. Whatever content you’re posting, these should be your goal and the metric you pay the most attention to. If your images and videos aren’t getting “liked” or shared, it’s time to retool your strategy.

Another key element of creating reach is engagement – you need to actively manage your account and engage with other users. Start conversations! Respond to people that comment on your posts! Show that you’re an active part of the Instagram community – that makes your brand feel more authentic and more relevant, especially for younger demographics.

You can post all you want on Instagram for free, but you also have the option to pay in order to promote your content. Depending on your budget and your target customer, this may be worth the cost. However, it’s not a requirement for building a following.

5. Share The Right Information

Your small business Instagram marketing effort is supposed to bring in customers – which means you need to let them know how to find you. Your account should include full information on how to contact you. Most importantly, include a link to your website. The Instagram audience is a much more likely to click than call. You can also include a quick professional bio so customers who stumble onto your Instagram page know exactly what your business is about and what it can offer them. Again, this is a great place to share what makes your brand special.

If you’re not sure what to write in your Instagram bio, here’s a great resource on how to write a bio that will appeal to your prospective customers.

6. Show, Don’t Tell

Since Instagram is a visual forum, use it to show your customers what your business offers. If you’re running a brewery, rather than just posting a photo of a foamy lager, show patrons that are enjoying the brew. If you’re selling hand knitted cashmere scarfs, post a video of a behind-the-scenes look showing how your scarfs are made. Make it personal and interesting – we’ve all seen enough photos of beers and scarves.

By sharing what your company does and why it’s special, you’ll show the value of your products and services to your followers. Instant branding!

7. Follow Influencers

One of the best ways to use Instagram for small business marketing is to find industry influencers. These are individuals with large followings that have the power to direct their followers toward certain brands. They’re common in the health, food, and fashion industries but you’ll find influencers for every niche. Follow them and engage with them – a brand mention from an influencer can give you a huge boost. You can also create sponsored posts with influencers. They can be pricey, but they give you a lot of reach.

A Small Business Instagram Marketing Strategy Isn’t Instant, But It’s Worth It

Instagram can be a terrific, free resource for small businesses eager to expand their social media marketing efforts. Like all marketing efforts, it’s going to take some work and time to figure out what’s best for your brand. Use our tips to start your own small business Instagram account and start racking up the followers!

50 Instagram Marketing Tips for Small Businesses in 2021

Instagram is a new marketing frontier for small businesses that has the potential to bring in many new customers in 2021 and beyond. As of July 2019, it was ranked #6 among the world’s most popular social networks, with over 1 billion users worldwide. Users love it for its strong visual focus and upbeat vibe.

The key to successfully utilizing Instagram marketing in 2021, as with other social networks, is building an engaged following and positioning yourself as part of the online community which could very quickly become your future customer base. If you are a small business owner finding yourself wondering how to do Instagram marketing, you’re in the right spot! We’ve rounded up 50 of our top Instagram tips for small business owners.

Here are 50 tips to successfully market your small business on Instagram in 2020:

1. Use a business account

When joining Instagram, you can select whether your account will be a personal account or a business account. The latter is ideal for business because it allows you to view analytics, connect your account with your Facebook page, run paid advertisements, and it makes it easier for followers to contact you. Starting off with a separate business account is crucial towards establishing your brand presence and will allow you to strategize and implement many of our Instagram marketing tips for all small businesses.

Check out this blog for everything you need to know about switching to an Instagram Business Account.

2. Fill in your bio

Instagram gives you 150 characters to tell potential followers everything they need to know about you. Use this space wisely. You can include hashtags in the bio, which can help more people find your profile. Make sure to include a link to your website.

3. Update your bio

As a small business on Instagram, it’s easy to fill in your bio and forget about it. If you haven’t updated your bio for awhile, it’s always good practice to review your Instagram bio and see if there’s any important updates that need to be made.

4. Establish your identity and look

Because Instagram is such a visual platform, the “look” of your profile matters. You want your followers to immediately associate your content with your brand. Using certain color palettes and fonts can help with this, as well as a certain style of image that’s consistent with your message.

5. See what your competitors are doing

Not sure where to start? See what other small and medium businesses like yours are up to on Instagram and draw on their ideas for inspiration. Take note of the kind of content they post, the hashtags they use, their visual language, and so on. You can also check to see how well they’re doing: how many followers do they have? How much engagement do they get on their posts? This will tell you how well their Instagram marketing strategy is working and give you ideas for things to do and not to do when planning out your own Instagram marketing strategy.

6. Create content pillars

Now that you’ve done your Instagram marketing research, there is one more step before you can begin planning your content. A key Instagram tip for your small business, is to create content pillars. Create a few themes for the types of content you plan to post about as part of your 2020 Instagram marketing strategy as a guide when scheduling your content.

7. Plan your content

Once you’ve created your content pillars, it’s time to decide what content you want to post and to be strategic about it: plan what you’re going to post at least on a weekly basis, if not for several weeks at a time.

8. Use hashtags strategically

Hashtags are one of Instagram’s most important features for businesses. They make it possible for people who don’t follow you to discover your content. Research has shown that using 7 or 30 hashtags per post performs best, but that it varies depending on how many followers you have. Instagram recently added a feature allowing you to see how many people found your post through the hashtags. This can help you measure how effective your hashtags are at generating engagement. Don’t underestimate #hashtag strategy as a really powerful Instagram marketing tip for small businesses! Check out this blog for 7 quick tips to building an Instagram hashtag strategy.

9. Put hashtags in the comments section

Now that you know one of our top Instagram tips for a small business is to use hashtags strategically, there is one more tip you should test out. In order to keep your Instagram captions clean and easy to read, we recommend placing all of your hashtags as the first comment immediately after posting.

Here’s a post from @boosted_social that has the relevant hashtags placed in the first comment:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Boosted (@boosted_social)

10. Test out new hashtags frequently

Last but not least, we can’t talk about the importance of including hashtags without sharing how important it is to test out new hashtags frequently. Create several lists of hashtags you like to use and periodically test out using different hashtags. Be sure to keep note of which posts and hashtags perform best to get the most out of this Instagram tip!

11. Use line breaks in long Instagram captions

If you have a long Instagram caption you need to use line breaks to make it easier for your customers to read the caption. If your small business has been using Instagram for a long time already, you might already know that inserting spaces in the Instagram app can actually be really difficult. The easiest way to create line breaks in your Instagram captions is by using symbols between the lines.

12. Embrace Instagram Stories

The Stories feature on Instagram has been making a huge splash and can definitely help a small business Instagram page. Stories appear at the top of followers’ feeds, which makes them stand out — and they’re a lot more dynamic than regular feed posts, with tons of cool features. You can post multiple Stories a day without cluttering up your followers’ feeds. Stories should be an integral part of your Instagram marketing strategy.

Check out this post for more insights on Instagram Stories.

13. Use video

Instagram isn’t just for stills! Videos are more engaging and fun, and you have multiple ways to post them on Instagram. Clips of up to 1 minute can be shared on the feed, 15-second clips can be strung together on Stories, and there’s even IGTV, the new feature that allows you to post videos of up to 10 minutes in length. Check out this blog for tips on how to create video content for Instagram, even if you’re just getting started.

You can also try out Boosted to create videos for Instagram – fast! Here’s a Father’s Day template from the app that you could customize for your brand:

14. Don’t be shy about direct messages

Direct messaging is more intimate than public discussion and may be considered more invasive. However, there are cases where it’s appropriate and can help your small business market on Instagram by building better relationships with your customers. For example, if someone writes a post or comment praising your business, sending a DM to thank them is a nice personal gesture. On the flip side, if someone says something negative or posts a negative review, moving the conversation to DM helps keep it out of the public eye and shows the customer that you’re taking their concerns seriously. Learn more about how to use Instagram direct messages here.

15. Actively engage with other users’ content

If you really want a strong presence on Instagram in 2021, you need to do more than simply post your own content. Interacting with other people’s posts and comments shows you are sincerely interested in your and not just trying to get their business.

16. Respond to comments

One of the most important tips for a small business learning how to do Instagram marketing is to always respond to comments. Don’t make the mistake of simply posting and forgetting about your post. Be sure to always respond to comments on your posts – your customers will appreciate the response and it shows that you care.

17. Engage actively

An Instagram business tip that is important for companies and influencers of all sizes is to actively engage with other Instagram accounts. Follow interesting accounts, like and comment on other people’s posts. The more they see you in their notifications, the more often they will think of you. And the more your customers are thinking of you, the more your small business will grow on and off of Instagram.

18. Encourage engagement with questions

The next level of engagement is posting content that encourages your followers to engage. For example, ask your followers to answer a question about themselves, or to tag another user who they think needs to see your message.

19. Use Stories to post interactive content

On Stories, you can do even more with this: use the emoji slider, quizzes, questions, and chats to get your followers actively interacting with your content. It’s always been important to create engaging content but with the rise of popularity of Stories, it is more important than ever to use stories to post interactive content as part of your 2021 Instagram marketing strategy.

Check out this blog to discover 3 things that might be negatively impacting your Story engagement – as well as how to fix each one.

20. Add calls to action wherever you can

This next tip isn’t only a great Instagram marketing tip for a small business, it’s also an important sales tip. It’s key to make it as easy as possible for your followers to move to the next stage of the sales funnel. Be straightforward and tell them what you’d like them to do next, such as clicking the link in your bio to learn more.

21. Post at peak times

Posting your content at times of highest traffic means you’re likely to get more engagement and interest. How do you know when is the best time to post? It varies, according to the nuances of your specific audience, and the best way to know the ideal time to post is to experiment and see what works best. Sprout Social conducted an experiment like this and found that the best times to post on Instagram were on Wednesdays at 11 a.m. and Friday between 10–11 a.m.

22. Collaborate with influencers and small businesses

When you collaborate with other businesses and influencers on social media, everybody wins. Having another Instagrammer review your product, run a competition with you, take over your account, or work with you to create joint content exposes you to a wider audience and can be lots of fun to launch!

23. Use paid ads

Even with all the above efforts, it can be a challenge for small businesses to reach new audiences organically on Instagram. A little paid advertising can go a long way. Instagram ads allow you to target very specific audiences, increasing your exposure to the people most likely to be interested in what you have to offer. This generates excellent conversion rates and often proves a good investment.

24. Craft unique content for Instagram

It makes life a lot easier to reuse the same content across all social networks, but this will get boring for people who follow you on multiple platforms. Furthermore, if they engage with that content on Twitter or Facebook, they probably won’t engage with the same thing on Instagram. You can still reuse content, but change it up a little: add a unique caption or alter the image a bit. And every so often, try to post something that’s exclusive to Instagram.

Instagram Story templates are a great way to create content that’s unique for IG – here’s everything you need to know about them.

25. Repost content with proper credit

While it’s great to create unique, high-quality content yourself for Instagram, as a small business you might not always have time to create content just for Instagram. A great Instagram marketing tip for small businesses especially is to repost content you like from other accounts, with proper credit of course. This not only helps solve the dilemma of what to post but this always helps you get on the original creator’s radar and they will appreciate the shout-out. Who knows, they might even repost your Instagram post and give your small business a shout-out too!

26. Offer exclusive discounts to Instagram followers

Nothing will make potential clients want to follow your Instagram account more than exclusive offers and discounts. Not only are unique offers likely to bring in new followers, they will also entice loyal followers from other platforms to follow you on Instagram, too — and that’s good news for your profile, because loyal followers who are already familiar with your brand are more likely to engage with your content.

27. Focus some of your content on your location

Especially if your business depends on a local market, put yourself on the map! Post photos of your daily life, your engagement with the local community, and recognizable local landmarks — and be sure to include some local hashtags. This will strengthen your brand image as a contributor to your immediate area. Check out this blog for Instagram marketing tips on how to reach local customers on Instagram as a small business.

28. Geotag your posts

Another powerful way to increase your Instagram small business’s connection with the local area is to tag your location in your feed posts and Stories. Geotagging will ensure that your content shows up in the results when people are searching for content from your area. To geotag a feed post, add your location on the caption editor page; to geotag a Story, use the location sticker.

29. Find potential customers by their location

Not only should you be geo-tagging your own content, but you should be finding potential customers through geo-tagged locations. Look up posts tagged in your city, tags for local businesses nearby or similar to yours and engage with those posts. Interact with content by location to strategically build Instagram follow base and find people who are most likely to become a future customer.

30. Up your photography game

The higher-quality your images are, the more professional your Instagram profile will look… and you don’t need to be a professional photographer to produce captivating images. Most smartphones have excellent cameras — and with just a little basic photography know-how, you can make your photos look amazing. Do a little research or consider taking a class to learn about the basics: lighting, composition, and so on. It’ll make a big difference. Another thing that will take your images up a level is learning to use a photo editor. You can use the native filters and editing capabilities on Instagram, or you can try your hand with something a little more sophisticated, like Photofox. Check out this Instagram Story Dimensions & Resolution Guide to ensure that all of the photos you add to your Stories are a perfect fit for your Instagram business page.

31. Craft compelling copy

Engaging copy in your photo captions and bio is no less important than high-quality images. If nothing else, double (and triple!) check your text before posting to ensure that you don’t have any embarrassing typos or grammar mistakes.

32. Use Highlights

The Highlights feature allows you to select collections of Stories to display right on your profile page. They’re a great way to showcase what your business is all about, and to get more mileage on the excellent content you produce for your Stories.

33. Announce new posts in your Stories

While we are talking about ways to use Stories to market your small business on Instagram, don’t forget to alway announce a new post on your Instagram feed in your Stories. Some of your customers might watch all of your Stories but may not see all of your Instagram posts in their feed. By sharing a new post on your Instagram Story, it’s an easy Instagram marketing tip for a small business to increase engagement on a post. Learn how to share a post from feed to your Instagram Story here.

34. Give shout-outs

While we are on the topic of shout-outs, one of our favorite and unique Instagram marketing tips for a small business to test out in 2021 is giving shout-outs to fellow small businesses. When you give a shout-out on Instagram it’s key to properly tag the accounts. Learn how to tag a small business on Instagram here.

35. Post about current events

Maybe one of the top Instagram marketing tips for 2021 is to post about current events. Traditionally, brands might have decided to not ‘get political’ but now it’s key to take a stance and post about current events as part of your 2021 Instagram marketing strategy – whether you are a big brand or a small business.

36. Keep an eye out for trends

This is another point where staying engaged with your followers and watching competitors and influencers comes in handy: there are trends in social media, and staying on top of them will keep your brand hot and relevant. Whether it’s a certain meme, a hashtag campaign, or specific types of content, adding your brand’s voice to the conversation can do a lot for your small business.

37. Organize a giveaway

Yes, giveaways are still a great Instagram marketing tip in 2021! Giveaways are a tried-and-true method of growing your following and increasing engagement. You can offer a free product, service, or coupon to be selected at random from users who follow your instructions. Asking them to tag a friend to enter the contest will help increase your exposure.

38. Monitor your following and keep tabs on your small business analytics

For small businesses just learning how to do Instagram marketing, you might not know where to start when looking at your small business’ Instagram analytics. To start, Instagram provides insights on your stats in the Insights page for Instagram business profiles — and you can learn a lot from watching them methodically. It will help you see what strategies are most effective: what kind of content creates the most engagement, optimal timing for posting new content, and lots more.

39. Follow new accounts

We already touched on following new Instagram accounts and engaging with them but this Instagram marketing tip deserves a bit more detailed explanation of why your small business should incorporate this Instagram growth tip as part of your marketing strategy going forward. Following new accounts helps you connect with more potential customers and puts you on the radar – often times people will follow you back right away and if not, they might follow you back after you like and comment on their content regularly.

40. Periodically unfollow accounts

And while we are talking about why you should follow new accounts, it’s also important for your small business to unfollow Instagram accounts periodically. This doesn’t need to be part of your small business marketing strategy everyday but this is something that you should do on a monthly basis. Go through your followers and unfollow any accounts that you do not engage with on a regular basis. In 2021, Instagram released a new feature called ‘least interacted with’ which makes this Instagram marketing tip extremely easy to do!

41. Use Instagram ‘save’ feature to save content you love

Did you know you can save content on Instagram similar to Pinterest? Use the Instagram ‘save’ feature to save content that you love, either as inspiration or content that you would like to repost eventually. Learn everything you need to know about Instagram Saves here.

42. Ask people to save your content for algorithm boost

One interesting 2021 Instagram marketing tip is to encourage your followers to save your content. It’s been said that content that has been saved is viewed as more valuable to the Instagram algorithm. So one way to give your small business a marketing boost on Instagram in 2021 is to ask your followers to save your content. Even better if you turn this into a giveaway!

43. Feature your Instagram account on your website

Is your small business already doing this super easy Instagram marketing tip? If not, be sure to make it easy for your customers to find your Instagram account on your website. This is a super simple Instagram marketing tip for small businesses to grow their Instagram followers.

44. Post important updates often

One reason people choose to follow a small business on Instagram is to get regular updates about your business. For example, have you changed your store hours? Are you hosting a sale? These are all things your customers need to know and it’s important to post about these updates when you are posting about your small business on Instagram.

45. Give sneak peeks

One of the easiest Instagram tips for a small business to market their products is to give their Instagram followers a sneak peek. Whether it’s an exclusive sneak peek of a new product or a tour of your work space, your followers will enjoy seeing a behind-the-scenes glimpse of your company and they will have another reason to keep following you.

46. Post consistently

For anyone just learning how to do Instagram marketing, our number one Instagram marketing tip in 2021 is to post consistently. Posting regularly and consistently helps keep your followers engaged and ensures your content will continue to show up in your customer’s Instagram feeds.

47. Dedicate a set time for social media every day

A great way to ensure your small business is able to keep up with your 2021 Instagram marketing plan is to set aside a dedicated time each day to work on social media. Whether you use this time to post on Instagram, respond to comments or create content for your small business to post on Instagram, it will be easier to post consistently if it’s part of your daily schedule.

48. Interact with stories

It’s very easy to respond with quick emojis to others Instagram stories. Easy way to interact frequently and stay top of mind with your customers. This lets them know you are watching their stories and you care about what they post.

49. Build relationships with influencers

As a small business you might not have the budget to pay for influencers as part of your 2021 Instagram marketing but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t build relationships with them. Find local influencers and engage with their content frequently. After you’ve built a relationship with them through their comment section, DMs and stories you could ask them if it would be okay to send them a free sample.

50. Have fun!

And last but not least, don’t forget to have fun with it! Yes, there can be a lot of work involved when utilizing Instagram to market your small business but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to have fun while doing it! If you aren’t having fun posting about your small business on Instagram anymore, maybe you can try to change up your schedule to still post consistently but less often. Or maybe it’s time to hire someone to help out with some of the social media marketing tasks so you can only focus on the Instagram marketing strategies that you do enjoy.

Check out some advanced Instagram marketing strategies & tips for small businesses:

9 Common Instagram Caption Mistakes That Tank Engagement: If you’re a small biz struggling to meet your engagement goals on IG, captions just might be the culprit. Learn about 9 caption mistakes that may be preventing your posts from reaching their full engagement potential.
Why You Should Leave Your Instagram Comment Pods ASAP: If you’re a small biz using an IG Comment Pod in order to increase engagement – learn why this strategy is likely doing you more harm than good.
3 Easy Ways to Create Video Content for Instagram — Even If You Know Nothing About Video: Discover 3 super simple ways to get started making video content for IG – regardless of your experience level.
4 Ways to Get More Engagement on Your Instagram Stories — Today: Small business owners can learn some ways to increase true, organic engagement with their IG pages via Stories.
3 Ways to Measure Your Brand’s ROI on Instagram: Small businesses have to stretch a dollar in order to succeed on social media – this guide will show SMB owners who to measure their Instagram ROI to ensure they are getting full value.
7 Quick Tips to Build an Instagram Hashtag Strategy: Instagram hashtags are arguably more important to biz owners than casual users. Learn some IG hashtag tips to help build your IG business page.
4 Instagram Story Features You Aren’t Using — But Should Be: Thought you knew everything about IG Stories? Here are 4 features which can definitely help.
3 Things Killing Your Instagram Story Engagement and How to Fix Them: Is your IG Story performance currently subpar? If you have higher expectations for your IG Stories, read this guide to see 3 likely issues, and how you can fix them.
How to Reach Customers on Instagram When You’re a Local Business: Local business owners definitely can utilize Instagram to garner new business, read how in our new customer local business IG guide.

Back to the basics: Quick Instagram intro guides & tips for small business owners

When is the Best Time to Post Videos on Instagram? Did you know there are certain, ideal times on when you should upload your IG videos? Check out the best times/day to post IG videos!
Video Format for Instagram: Your Questions Answered: IG videos have their own sizes and dimensions – make sure your business video fits IG specifications.
Instagram Video Length: How Long Can My Instagram Video Be? There is a magic number for how long your IG video should be; every small business owner wants to know the ideal Instagram video length – check it out here.
How to View Instagram Stories Without Anyone Knowing: You may want to view an IG Story without anyone knowing. Whether its a competing local business or you just want to remain anonymous, we will show you how.
Can Users See When You Screenshot Instagram Stories? Many users will screenshot Stories, but who finds out about this? We break down the rules in our guide.
How to Add Music to Instagram Stories: IG Stories can benefit tremendously from music, especially if it’s a small business promo video.
How to Add Links to Instagram Stories: Does your business have a website or products to sell? Adding links to Instagram Stories is an underrated IG marketing tip for small business owners.
How to Delete an Instagram Story: If you uploaded an IG Story by accident, of it is no longer relevant to your business page, make sure you know how to delete it fast.
How to Tag Someone on Your Instagram Story: Tagging popular users and dedicated fan is an underrated marketing strategy for small business IG pages – learn how to do it here.
New: Add Multiple Photos to Your Stories with Instagram’s New Layout Feature: Adding more than one photo to your IG Story is now easy to do and a great way to catch the eye of potential new customers for your local business
Instagram Story Questions: Asking a question on your IG Story is a great way to engage with users and help familiarize them with your business. This post shows you how to ask question on a Story, how to answer them, and more.
Instagram Story Dimensions & Resolution Guide: Everything from IG Story aspect ratio, dimensions, resolution, and format, as well as adjusting dimensions and converting files – this technical guide for your IG Story formatting will help ensure that your IG business page shines through on a professional level!
Instagram Story Games: A Guide: Whether you use Create Mode or game-like Stories, you can now begin to replicate what would be categorized as IG Story games, which could be a big hit with generating more engagement from your brand audience!
Instagram Story GIFs: A Guide: Adding GIFs to your Instagram Stories is a great way to make your IG business page more fun and engaging – learn how to add GIFs with our simple guide.
How to Get Verified on Instagram: A Step by Step Guide: Learn how to get that coveted blue check next to your IG account name – and why it’s so important.
Instagram Polls: The Complete Guide: Learn how to utilize polls to engage your Instagram audience and drive more business via user engagement.
Instagram Business Categories Guide: Make sure you understand all of the Instagram business categories and the implications of each.

How to promote a business on Instagram and where to start

Our article will help you learn how to promote a business account on Instagram* from scratch: about different methods of promotion, how to use them for business and measure effectiveness.

How to promote a business on Instagram* using gray methods

I will say right away: Instagram* algorithms are struggling with gray methods of promotion - there is always a risk of account blocking. In addition, they are essentially useless: fake subscribers and activity will not bring real benefits to the business, but even harm. nine0003

If you have a lot of followers, but they do not respond to your posts, the social network algorithms will stop suggesting your content in the feed of real followers - Instagram* will consider that your posts are not interesting. And with bursts of inflated activity, it is difficult to see true statistics. It is important in order to make timely changes to the promotion strategy and increase business efficiency.

But you need to talk about gray methods at least in order to know what it is when they are offered to you. nine0003

Mass following and mass liking . Mass following is an automatic mass subscription to Instagram users * and the issuance of likes. This is done by special services according to the settings specified by the user. The calculation is that the user will be interested in your account and subscribe in response. Such promotion is not safe for the account - Instagram* prohibits the use of third-party services, so you can easily get banned. They can be banned, for example, for exceeding the limits on likes and comments. You should not expect fantastic results from mass liking and mass following - it is better to use them in combination with other methods, if you still decide that you need it. nine0003

Examples of services: Instaplus.pro, SocialKit, SMM Code.

Ruble offers . A quick alternative to mass following is buying offers. You place an ad on the exchange about the purchase of real users, set the cost and wait for the result. The price per subscriber is on average 1-2 rubles, but the minus of the method is that new subscribers are not the target audience. Yes, the figure of 10,000 subscribers will flaunt in the profile header, but these people do not need your products and services. They will not be interested in brand news, like posts, and even more so buy, which means they will promote the brand page. This will not increase activity in the account, and real users will doubt whether it is worth trusting a brand with inflated followers. nine0003

Examples of exchanges : LikeMe, Bosslike, VkTarget.

Comment spam . Spam - automatic distribution of comments according to the specified settings: hashtags, geotags or a collected list of target users. Users are skeptical about spam, but in this way you can send news about discounts in your account or praise readers' photos on your own and for free. The task is to draw the attention of the user so that he looks at your profile and stays with you. nine0003 How to start promoting a business on Instagram* Examples of spam that does not bother the user

How to promote a business on Instagram* using white methods

Targeted advertising on Instagram* . Targeted ads can only be run by business account holders. You can connect a business profile via Facebook*, and if you haven't done it yet, we recommend that you fix this shortcoming - then you will be able to view account statistics and run ads via Instagram* or Facebook*. Statistics show the number of impressions, reach, and other indicators of publications on the page. There is also useful information about subscribers: gender, age, geography. nine0003

Targeted advertising allows you to show advertising posts in the Instagram feed* and in Stories. You can choose the parameters of the audience to which the advertisement will be shown: gender, age, interests, location. For step-by-step instructions for self-targeting from scratch, read our article "How to run official advertising on Instagram *". Targeted advertising is not free, but it is much safer to promote a brand page on a social network.

Benefits of targeted advertising:

Quick setup if you're good at it, of course. Click the button under the publication, specify the target parameters and launch. You can set up targeting yourself, but it will take longer than if you entrust the matter to specialists.
You control the coverage of advertising and its cost. The higher the percentage of the audience to which the ad is shown, the higher the cost.
Detailed statistics . Analyzing the received data will help you understand the results of the campaign and launch the next one with more precise settings. nine0048
Choose your audience . You can segment your audience by gender, age, location, interests, even behavior.

Advertising account on Facebook*

Seeding advertising from bloggers . Together with other promotion methods, you can use opinion leaders and buy ads from them. Many people trust the opinions of those they follow on Instagram*, and these ads often look like honest reviews. Bloggers can be searched for through recommendations, manually through Instagram search*, and on special exchanges like Epicstars and Getblogger. A convenient tool for finding influencers is the Livedune service. It searches for bloggers according to given characteristics and analyzes their social networks. nine0003

Step-by-step action plan when choosing a blogger:

Select accounts with similar topics.
Check his account statistics (via Livedune or Epicdetect) or request screenshots with reach and impressions from the blogger. Caution, beware of screenshots where the numbers are drawn in Photoshop.
Examine the ratio of actions and subscribers. The optimal ratio is 10-15% of likes from the number of subscribers.
Look at the relevance of comments. A bunch of emoticons and the same type of comments? Most likely, the comments are bought or cheated through activity chats, where a company of novice bloggers exchange activities in each other's accounts. nine0048

Gamification . The gamification method helps to bring new subscribers - draws, contests, marathons and other activities.

Give away a valuable prize among followers for their subscription or repost mentioning your account.
Think of an educational or gaming marathon - a community of subscribers united by the goal of learning something or coping with a problem. You can teach users to write stories, take care of their health, apply makeup, or grant their wishes. Become a marathon organizer yourself or join other organizers as a sponsor. They will tell the participants of the marathon about you, and you will present valuable prizes. nine0048

Sample marathons

Subscribers only promotions . Subscriber-only promotion for a limited time, attracting new users and increasing the engagement of existing ones. An exclusive sale using urgency and FOMO marketing tactics. FOMO (Fear Of Mussing Out) - the fear of missing out. It's a psychological trigger, a missed opportunity syndrome that many consumers can't quite resist.

Launch a countdown sticker in your stories - it will hurry up those who are a little hesitant about signing up to participate. More:

Show that the product is popular . A growing number of people who have already bought a product will show a potential client that the product is actively sold, which means that it will be useful to him.
Show how much product is left in stock . Or places in a marathon, or prizes for a subscription. Scarcity is another incentive to subscribe to a closed profile or purchase a product that may soon disappear.
Emphasize opportunities that may be missed . Focus on the possibility of missing out on a great offer.

If the target audience for the promotion is chosen correctly and the campaign runs smoothly, such a sale can significantly increase the number of your subscribers.

Mutual PR. How to promote a business on Instagram* for free? For example.

Selling cool coffee makers? Find a brand that offers coffee. Agree on mutual posts, promotions or live broadcasts. This can bring a new audience to both you and your partner. nine0003

Of course, you shouldn't interact with direct competitors in this way - attract businesses from an adjacent niche to cooperation.

Hashtags . Don't forget about them - this is a good way to show your content on Instagram * for user requests in search.

Some tips:

Create your own hashtag. Share your branded unique hashtag with your community. When people use your product or enter a contest, they tag their posts with your hashtag. Such posts are seen by friends of the participants and, perhaps, the content can encourage them to join. nine0003

Follow the current hashtags . Hashtags don't have to be brand related. There are holidays, high-profile events, popular TV shows. Don't spam with irrelevant hashtags, but if you have a suitable image, use relevant hashtags.

Think of things people like to make or buy . Whenever possible, use popular hashtags on Instagram*, such as #food, #shoes, #cats. But keep in mind that content with popular hashtags does not remain in the top for long. nine0003

Make your account public if you rely on hashtags. Private accounts have their advantages, but privacy limits the effectiveness of hashtags. If you have a closed account with 50 followers, only those 50 people will see your posts. If the account is public, hundreds and thousands of people will be able to find the post.

How to measure the effectiveness of promotion

The effectiveness of any activity must be measured. Think in advance how you will track the effectiveness of advertising channels and provide conditions for this:

If an ad takes a user to a website or lead collection form, test the form on all possible devices and browsers.
Are you collecting applications in direct? Be prepared to process incoming requests promptly.
Bought an ad from a blogger? Track comments after the post is published and answer questions from the audience.

Performance indicators . They are thought out in advance, depending on the initial goals and objectives of the advertising campaign. If you want to increase audience reach, the number of subscribers and improve audience engagement, then consider the following indicators:

Audience coverage.
The number of subscribers, the number of unsubscribes.
Audience growth rate: number of subscriptions / number of unsubscribes * 100%.
The level of attractiveness of the post or account as a whole: likes / followers * 100%.
Engagement rate: number of actions of followers/number of followers * 100%.

If it is important to evaluate traffic and conversions, arm yourself with the following metrics:

Website traffic from social networks, if you have web analytics systems set up.
CTR (click through rate): Divide the number of clicks on the link by the number of impressions of the post and multiply by 100. site transitions.
Number of leads and CPL (price per lead): Divide the amount of advertising costs by the number of leads from the channel.

How to draw the right conclusions from the received figures, read the article "How to evaluate the effectiveness of advertising on Instagram*: metrics and tools". nine0003

To summarize

It is impossible to say unequivocally which method of promotion is better. It all depends on the business area, goals and promotion, and the current situation: the quality of the product, the relevance and quality of the content, the budget for promotion.

Do not forget about the content plan and regular posting. People who subscribe to a brand page expect regular, interesting content. Use tools that make your job easier, like SMMplanner, an automatic posting service. In one application, you can set up a calendar of posts, edit photos, videos and stories, view post analytics, work with a team, and much more. The service helps to use your time much more efficiently. Register here - you will have 14 days of access to the professional plan instead of the standard week. This time is enough to evaluate all the possibilities of the tool, and then make a choice. nine0003

It is important to remember that promotion on Instagram* is not the only marketing tool in social networks, but it can introduce a huge audience to your product - you should definitely not ignore it. Good luck in your endeavors!

The article has been updated. First post: October 19, 2018

How to start an Instagram business from scratch and get real results - Marketing on vc.ru

Writing about the promotion of social networks is a thankless task. And not because there are now more experts than customers - just the speed with which the platforms roll out updates kills all romance.

127 968 views

And everything would be fine, I would work quietly further, but somewhere between the analysis of the next account and communication with a marketer on Facebook (by the way, were you also offered such a unique opportunity?) I realized one important thing. The problem of most entrepreneurs is in a fragmented picture. nine0003

They read bloggers, brand articles, watch free webinars, save posts with snippets of information, and test everything they see. Pieces, without understanding the basics, without a system.

And yes, tests are good. But strategies need to be tested - concepts and tools within the framework of these strategies, and not just the next "finds" of information gypsies.

Therefore, here I share a step-by-step launch and promotion system. Everything is as it is.

Developments went through fire, water and a couple of dozens of trials in real businesses. They will come in handy for entrepreneurs who are just entering Instagram, and for those who have already managed to screw up with bots, cheats and masslooking. nine0003

In general, I will write briefly and to the point. Get comfortable. And if anyone needs it later, extended information can be taken in PDF.

Strategy

Everything always starts with a strategy, even shopping. What can we say about business?!

But!

Before the strategy, you must have a clear understanding of the audience (oh my bastard, I wrote this) and defined promotion goals. With goals, I'm sure everything is clear, but with people it's harder. Businesses need to find those who will willingly leave their money with them. But is the one who pays always the initiator of the purchase? nine0003

Does a big and busy politician himself choose gifts for his ladies? Or is he looking for a place for dinner? And does mommy overwhelmed with duties look out for handmade gliders herself?

No.

Wives, girlfriends or even helpers come to the politician with their requests; to mom - the daughter comes and points her finger at the account in which you need to order something.

Therefore, before defining your audience, ask yourself a couple of questions:

Who pays for your product or service. nine0048
Who makes the purchase decision.
Who influences the choice and to what extent.

And now the strategy

It should grow on the overall marketing strategy and be tightly tied to the sales plan.

There are three basic scenarios that you can promote on Instagram today, adjusting any of them to fit your reality.

Development of a full-fledged blog, a community of people with the same interests

These are always accounts with a useful component. Regular posting and high-quality content are important here - tons of unique photos and engaging texts - to keep the interest of the existing audience and attract new subscribers. Focus on organic reach and all the perks that go with it.

The option, you understand, is not simple and definitely not cheap.

Creating a showcase - posting if necessary

When there is something to say, something to show and something to share. In this version, the focus is not on the community, but on a quick result. nine0003

We put ads on each post and control the volume of traffic, coverage, recognition, interactions, responses to invitations, sales, and so on.

The strategy is suitable for businesses that simply have nothing to write blogs about - developers, sales of special equipment, transportation - or those who do not have a budget for a constant stream of content.

Combined version

You keep a blog, gather an interested audience around it and put some publications into advertising to enhance the effect. Here are the results of content boosting we received in a travel blog about Italy:

RK for involvement even for a couple of bucks gives excellent results Marina Velitchenko

OK, we have chosen a strategy, created a business account, let's move on to the settings.

Preparing page

In Instagram, the system is important.

The system is the parts that work together in a large mechanism.

Therefore, everything influences the process and the final result of promotion.

Normal design, competent filling of information, use of all the tools that Instagram offers - pinned stories, TV, marks, branded content, and more.

All page elements should match in style with adjacent objects and send readers a magical vibe, just kidding - should clearly present the business. Be understandable and pleasing to the eye for a specific audience.

We all like to watch beautiful accounts, and even more so to buy from a business that has not stinted on a normal brand packaging. Personally, I just love the @petroglyph_water page. nine0003

Conciseness, naturalness and "wild" atmosphere permeate every element - from a brief description of the page to the style of photo processing and truly live content.

Two short sentences in a header, but how catchy

When not just pink and blue presets from the network, but normal author's processing of photos in the same style

I will not describe how to correctly fill in the account description or set tags here - everything is in the document. But let's talk about content and its design. nine0003

Content

Promotion does not happen without a thoughtful content plan. Even if you or your copywriter are truly brilliant, there will come a time—in a month or three—when the ideas run out, the showcase products run out, and you still need to go on air regularly.

For these purposes, they are working on a strategic content plan. Not just a set of ideas from the Internet, but a sales system through text. Make a plan at least a month in advance. Ideally, three to six months. How to do it correctly, I already wrote on vc.ru. nine0003

What to publish

Many things. Who needs ideas - a lot of ideas - for content, write to me, I'll give you huge collections. But the main thing is that all these posts should be positive. As Anketologist reports in one of the latest studies, Russians have already formed their own feed and are accustomed to its appearance and effect. They see and want to see more positive things.

I would venture to suggest that people have enough problems and "pains" that someone is already pressing on in everyday life. In social networks, they want to relax. Give them that opportunity. nine0003

How often to post

It is not so important with what frequency, the main thing is with the same frequency. Every day, every three days... if once a week, then strictly once a week, on the same day. It is important. Failures in posting are fixed by algorithms and reduce organic reach.

Y - uniqueness of posts

And their naturalness. Real product photos sell better than polished stock photos. Galleries get less coverage, videos, on the contrary, get more coverage and charge live emotions, which is always good for business. nine0003

And unpacking videos from customers show the result even cooler, because they combine both social proof and motion, which our attention clings to more readily.

But all this must be unique, like the content on the sites, in order to be properly indexed and get more impressions.

Visually

In brand style. Filters, of course, can be used, but this is already out of date. Endless tapes also sunk into ... somewhere very far away. nine0003

Now the trend is block design - publication of 9-12 photos from one photoset or location. I found the most beautiful example of this concept from @brunellocucinelli_brand.

You can play with color and shape, you can shoot your product on one - preferably inactive - background, as here:

You can get confused with the design, take multi-layered photos, alternate near, far and macro shots, or you can just make a neat look of a classic checkerboard. And you can never go wrong with light colors:

If this is very difficult, long, unbearable, order a set of neutral templates from the designer. It's not expensive, but it helps out when there are not enough product photos.

Optimization

In social networks, these are hashtags. The same search queries and keywords by which new subscribers will find you. Instagram is one of two social networks where these tags work to their full potential.

Would you like to see how it works? I give screenshots of the current project with a statue of literally a couple of previous weeks. nine0003

Want to be even tougher? The same 500-600 subscribers, and this is the buzz:

Geotagging

Here, too, everything is extremely simple - they work, and not bad. It is important to mark not cities or countries, but specific locations: maternity hospitals, art schools for children's goods; cigar clubs, expensive restaurants and country resorts for a luxury shoe manufacturer.

Aim consciously and you will be happy.

But Instagram notifies restaurant owners about marks. Vasya tagged the men's club in his Stories, a notification about Vasya arrived on the club's account. nine0003

Good way to track your audience, collect user generated content and even find advertising partners.

Stories

Instagram Stories. Why do you need them if you sell pizza ovens? Not everything is so simple here - Stories have ceased to be a toy for children and lifestyle bloggers, they are constantly turning into ... turning ... into a powerful marketing tool - Stories are viewed by more than 500 million users a day.

In the summer of 2018 it was 400 million, and in the fall of 2017 it was about 300 million, in 2016 it was 250 million. The pace is reactive, right?!

Let's see how they help you:

What to do with it all

Play . Now it is in trend. Screenshots of predictions, rebuses with emoticons, mazes, chains of questions with stickers - all this appeals to the audience and algorithms.
Telling stories . Literally. Stories are used for multi-page storytelling - such a consistent story on several spreads. You can write about anything in the storytelling format. nine0410
Put active links on goods or other social networks. The feature is also available for accounts with less than 10,000 followers. If you confirm your page with documents - get a blue checkmark - you can put links even with 20 subscribers. This works for brands as well as people.
Run long advertisements . You can now start targeting from the Facebook account for Instagram Stories on videos 60-120 seconds long, instead of 15, as it was before. nine0048

Promotion

Promotion methods directly depend on the business goals. What do you want from social networks - recognition, subscribers, traffic to other resources, sales? What? Decided? Then choose from the list.

Paid and effective methods: targeting (works especially well by geo), bloggers, advertising in public, mailings in direct (a mini analogue of email marketing), native advertising on websites, in articles, in videos - everywhere, where the hands and imagination will reach. nine0048
Free , but slow options: optimized profile header, beautifully designed page, normal content, tags - hashtags, geotags, name tags - post relinking, external links to an Instagram account, cross-posting, guerrilla marketing, commenting, liking and following (preferably in manual mode), networking, contests, mutual PR and joint promotions.
Gray and frankly toxic methods of developing a subscription base: giveaways - they are also star contests with expensive gifts and a bunch of sponsors - activity chats, like-times, etc. d.

Useful resources

I left the full list of services in the document, here I will quickly go through the most useful ones. I’ll tell you about the little-known ones in more detail, so that you understand what to expect from them.

Microlendings

To group contacts and business cards if there is no site: Mssg.me, Taplink, Linkin.bio. Or a direct link to WhatsApp: https://wa.me/[your number].

In addition, a whole WhatsApp ecosystem is now developing, where you can assemble a convenient landing page, connect a bot and completely forget about other sites. nine0003

Official delayed posting

Facebook Creator Studio or Boompublic - Content can be purchased from creators. Business sets the price. There is a convenient editor, a calendar for planning, cross-posting to all social networks and, most importantly, safe posting on Instagram.

Crossposting

Content reposts from Instagram to other social networks are limited, so onemorepost.ru helps a lot. It knows how to distribute even old posts in auto mode to VKontakte groups, to most popular social networks and instant messengers. nine0003

Moderation

This is a pain for every SMM manager, and even more so for a businessman who manages social networks himself and often misses important questions in the comments. It is advisable to use the official Pages mobile app from Facebook, but it also often loses comments. There is a legal alternative.

Morecom.ru - collects and does not lose comments, sends them to VKontakte or Telegram. Works officially, approved by Facebook to use the Graph API.

The bot helps answer questions directly from Telegram, the answers fall exactly into the original comment thread, and do not fly apart. You can work with a team and multiple accounts. nine0003

There are extended statistics on the page and search by comments - by phrase, nickname, tags. Soon they promise push notifications and binding to Slack. Our sales team is very helpful.

Analytics

Livedune is the only Russian-speaking Instagram partner in the niche, and the most adequate in terms of price and features.

For target

Deep links or spacers to open ads directly in the Instagram app - as much as some colleagues may protest against these assistants, I recommend using urlgeni.us. Why am I there - Facebook marketers recommend! nine0003

Audience parsers

There is no way without them now. Pepper.ninja or InstaParserPro are good but expensive.

SERM - online reputation management

YouScan, Brand Analytics will show what was said about you, even if it has been removed.

Marketing base

Without the basics of doing business, no promotion will be successful, so here is a link to a free business development program.