Instagram Tips for Businesses in 2018

In my latest blog I would like to give away 4 tips to enhancing your Instagram to build an authentic following of the perfect audience for your business.

1. Imagery – The Importance of Good Assets

Firstly, if you want to build a really authentic brand on Instagram, the first thing you want to do is get your imagery right!  Take your time when doing this, try different types of photos, angles, videos etc. The aim here is to capture the attention of your perfect audience while they are scrolling through their feed. By having really great imagery you stand more of a chance of stopping people while they scroll. On average, you have a 1.2 second window to grab someone’s attention while they are ‘snacking’ on content. So, keep this in mind when you are uploading posts. It is also important that your photos show the personality of the business, and represent your business.

 

If you’re a service-based business, upload some behind the scenes videos or imagery to give your audience an insight into what it takes to provide your service. Remember to add personality. Share content that shows people what’s happening in the office, show photos of your team lunch party… show the faces behind the brand. Introduce your audience to the people behind the business that are making things happen.

If you’re a product-based business, think about your product photography. Get creative, add a bit of scenery in the background to make it interesting. The great thing is that most of us have access to incredible cameras on our smart phones, so there’s no excuses for not providing great, eye-catching content. If you have access to an SLR and photo editing software like Lightroom, even better! Instagram is highly saturated with businesses now, so your imagery is the key to really standing out.

2. Engage with Your Perfect Customer

The next step on Instagram is to engage with the sort of people that you would love to follow your business and who do things that would be of interest to you. You can also follow people who have a large following of the types of people that may also be interested in your product or service.

For example, if you’re an art gallery and you see a profile that frequents other art galleries, engage with them. Tell them how beautiful the artworks on their profile are, bring up the fact that you might have something in common. Start a conversation with them. This way, once you start a conversation it is more than likely that they will check out your profile, and if they like what they see, they are going to follow you.

3. Use #Hashtags

The next thing to think about is how to build a following with the types of people you want the attention of, who may not necessarily know you exist. This is where hashtags come in. Now, it is important to note that the key here is finding the hashtag that is most relevant to your business. This takes a little bit of research…

All you need to do is go on Instagram, go to the tags, type in the hashtag that you want to look up, click tags, and you can see what things are trending for that tag.

So, it could be #contemporaryart, it could be #modernart, it could be #business, it could be #entrepreneur, it could be #digitalmarketing, whatever it might be, have a look. This way you can see the types and number of posts that are using that same hashtag, and make sure that the hashtag is being used and not something that you’ve made up that no one is going to search for. The only time you should be making up hashtags is if you need to start a trend or you’ve got something unique, such as an event that you want people to start following, i.e. #smithwedding or #australianopen2018. You can also build a hashtag around your brand, i.e. #menacegroupmarketing

Next, it is important to know that it isn’t about the quantity of hashtags, but rather the quality or relevance. Instagram is owned by Facebook and Facebook want relevancy to maximise customer experience when using the platform. This means that if you’re using 20+ hashtags on your contemporary art post and tagging things like #justinbeibe just to be seen, you are going to get penalised for this. The Instagram algorithm will actually push your post further down the feed which will reduce the likelihood that anyone will see it.

4. Location, Location, Location!

Finally, tag the locations of your posts so your audience can follow you on your journey. If you’re travelling, if your art’s on show somewhere or if you’re at a team dinner, tag the location, venue or restaurant that you’re at. If you’re at a restaurant, mention them in your post, and thank them for looking after you. Acknowledge the places that you are at.

 

This is a really great way to get engagement happening on your page. Through locations, this is another way people can find your page. This also means that people within the locations that you tag can easily find you which helps build a local following.  

 

I hope these tips help, and I look forward to finding you on Instagram!