Instagram is really a lovely place to be. I always say it’s like Facebook’s fun and carefree younger sibling or like that friend who you always look forward to seeing because they only see the positive in all situations.
Instagram is like that friend you can’t wait to see again because they’re so dang positive.
Social media is such a fantastic opportunity to share your company and brand with the world. It’s your chance for your company to have some personality while building brand awareness, increasing sales and engaging with customers. But you spend so much time working “in” your business that it’s sometimes difficult to get to the working “on” your business side of things.
Here are 3 useful tips that can be used by anyone to immediately get some traction on Instagram and to start creating engaging content that will grab the attention of the people who want and need your product or service:
- Set Some Goals!
- Know Your Customer
- Check Out the Competition!
BONUS TIP: Follow Up with your customers, every, single, time.
Let’s break down these tips so that you can get started upping your Instagram game.
Set Some Goals: It’s really hard to have a focused strategy when you don’t know what you’re hoping to achieve. Sit down with your team (or just your cat if you happen to be a one-person team like me) and hash out what you want to achieve, build or generate with your Instagram page.
Some popular goals are increasing brand awareness, creating a fan base that know and love you, and increasing the quality of sales.
There are an infinite number of goals that you can set but having these goals written down is the first step towards building an effective Instagram strategy.
Know Your Customer: Who buys from you? How old are they? What is their income level? Level of education?
All of the answers to these questions provide you with valuable insight that can help shape your Instagram experience.
If you know that you’re selling mostly to men, aged 40-55, who have some post-secondary education and who are mostly living in rural areas and love to fish, this can help guide you to make decisions about your content that will resonate with your audience and create a higher level of recognition, engagement and eventually sales.
Check Out the Competition: What is your industry? Who are the leaders in your industry when it comes to Instagram? What types of posts are they doing? Where are they getting a lot of engagement? What are they doing that gets less engagement, or turns people off?
I’m not endorsing stealing other people’s posts and passing them off as your own. What I’m encouraging is doing some research into what works and what doesn’t.
If your competition gets high levels of engagement when they focus on employee features, then perhaps you should consider highlighting the unique stories of your employees. See what types of content are successful and focus on creating more of that type of post but with your own spin on it.
BONUS TIP – Follow up with your customers every, single, time: I can’t stress the importance of this enough. When you’re putting in so much effort to get your brand noticed by customers and one of those customers engages with you on any of your social media channels, you need to follow-up with them as soon as you possibly can. Social networks are at their very core, a place to be social and meet, chat and engage with other people.
If you were in front of a customer and they asked you a question, you would never just walk away without acknowledging them or answering their question. That would be silly.
It’s also silly on social media. Keep in mind that there is a real, live customer on the other end of that comment and be sure to respond professionally and in a timely manner.
Instagram is the most positive, lively and engaging social media platform out there. If your business is not on Instagram or is not using Instagram to its full potential follow the tips above to immediately get yourself pointed in the right direction.
Need help upping your Instagram game? Send me a quick message and I’d be happy to answer any questions you might have!
Cheers!
S
Sara Dorken Communications 