How to use Instagram for business

With over a billion users around the world, Instagram is a great way to reach a diverse audience. Whether you work B2C or B2B, it provides plenty of potential to increase brand awareness and grow your business. However, it still remains somewhat of an underused platform in the business community, with many people unsure of how to go about successfully building a presence on the site. In this post, we go over some basic tips to get you started (or improve your game) on Instagram. These tips can be applied to both business and personal brands.

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1.????Start with a good bio and profile picture

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The Instagram bio gives you 150 characters to explain who you are and what you do. Use this wisely: make sure you include your brand name, your purpose and, if applicable, your location. Currently, you can only add one link to your bio. This could be a link to your website or you can use an app such as Linktree, which allows you to add one link which then opens to a page containing a list of other links. This way you can direct people to your website, your other social media, your email signup etc. For the profile picture, it’s often helpful to use the same one across social media platforms. This could be your company logo or a photo that has previously been posted on your feed that was well received. Remember the profile picture is very small, so avoid anything overly detailed.

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2.????Instagram is primarily a visual platform

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Each social media site has a different focus and it’s important that your content is appropriate to the platform. Twitter is great for short texts, YouTube is best for longform video. Instagram started as an app to share photos, although short videos have become increasingly popular in recent years. Whilst you can use Instagram to share text-based content, it is generally worth putting in some effort to make it visually appealing. Apps such as Canva can allow you to easily create beautiful Instagram posts, and you can use the same template repeatedly. If you’re comfortable on camera, it is often worth filming a video of yourself sharing the information you want to post rather than sharing it in written form. You can also use a mixture of the two.

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3.????Batch produce content

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Trying to produce Instagram posts one by one is a (needlessly) time consuming process. Instead, seek to produce a larger amount of content in one go, and schedule it to be released over a few weeks (you can uses apps such as Hootsuite to help with scheduling). For example, if you are a Personal Trainer, you could take a picture or short video of yourself demonstrating 30 different exercises. The hour it takes to get those pictures would then provide daily content for a full month. You can think of your content in themed groups: in the personal training example you don’t need to immediately think of 30 exercises (and then another 30 every month), rather you can think of six exercise categories: arms, legs, back, chest, cardio, stretching, then create 5 pieces of content for each category, and space them out over the month. Don’t overthink your content – “done is better than perfect.” Aim to post as soon as you can, and you will get better over time. Your first posts do not have to be groundbreakingly amazing.

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4.????Write good captions

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Whilst Instagram is primarily a visual platform, it’s great to back up your posts with good captions. Avoid using captions to sell in every post. People are likely looking at your content to be entertained or educated. Nobody is watching a TV channel that only shows adverts 24 hours a day, and people are unlikely to follow your Instagram account if all you do is post explicit advertisements for your brand (unless they’re already huge fans of the brand to begin with). Including a question in your captions can help engage your audience, and encourage them to post their answers in the comment section. Questions should be related to your post, but could include things like:

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‘What’s your favourite…?’

‘What’s the best gift you’ve ever received?’

‘What … do you struggle with the most?’

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5.????Be consistent

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Everyone says the secret to social media is to post consistently, but what does this actually mean? In an ideal world, we’d all be posting top notch content three times a day but for many of us that isn’t realistic. As a general rule, it’s great to post more often but if you can’t commit to that, don’t sweat it! It is far better to post two or three times a week every week than to post everyday for a fortnight then go silent for six months. Create a schedule you can stick to, and batch produce content so you know you are covered for the next few weeks. When it comes to quality vs quantity, seek to find a balance. Posting terrible stuff everyday that serves no purpose isn’t going to help you or your audience. Likewise, Instagram is not an art gallery – you do not need to spend hours crafting the perfect image for each post. Just make sure your posts are of a reasonably good quality and helpful to your audience, then make a schedule to post as often as you realistically can.

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6.????Use stories and reels

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Instagram stories and reels should not be ignored when using Instagram for business. Stories have more reach than individual posts, and the Instagram algorithm currently shows strong preference for reels, or short videos. It’s ideal to post stories 4-5 times a day, spread throughout the day. This may seem to be a lot, but generally stories can be more informal than your main posts: a quick picture from behind the scenes or a snap of a new product are great examples. You can also repost stories from other people, meaning you can post content from customers who have mentioned you or from news stories related to your brand etc. To start with, it can be helpful to use stories to post any simple images or videos that you take during the day that are related to your brand. For example, if you use Instagram to promote a food-based business, you could post pictures of your own meals or of interesting ingredients you find in the supermarket etc.

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7.????Engage

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Social media is supposed to be social (the clue is in the name). Whilst you should avoid following people in the hopes they’ll follow back, it’s great to use Instagram to follow accounts appropriate to your own niche, and to engage with them through leaving likes and comments on their posts. This will help you to build visibility: people tend to notice when the same accounts repeatedly interact with them. Further, make sure to engage with your own followers. Answer any questions they post in the comments or send via Direct Message. It’s a good practice to try responding to all comments (at least whilst your following is manageable), and provide a personalised response rather than the same answer to everyone.

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8.????Be conscious of how people view your Instagram page

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People will primarily view Instagram on their phones, on a relatively small screen. Make sure to avoid small text that would be difficult to read. Likewise, most viewers watch videos with the sound off, so try including subtitles if you post ‘spoken-word’ videos.

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Instagram is a tremendously powerful platform with enormous potential for growing a business or personal brand.?Using these tips can help you get started and begin developing a following.

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Apps/websites mentioned:

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Canva: https://www.canva.com/

Hootsuite: https://www.hootsuite.com/en-gb

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/

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Any questions or tips of your own? Let me know in the comments below.