What the experts say about Instagram
Are you new to Instagram or have you been enjoying it for a while? Either way congrats for getting interested in this awesome and incredibly popular platform.
Just like all the social media platforms, there is best practice – grab a cuppa, read through the things you should be doing on Instagram. Yes, this is me (Kelly) writing this blog but you will find many people saying similar things about Instagram. I will cut all the fluff and get straight to the point for you. Of course, if you are hoping to outsource your social media or you would like some help – just ask.
Don’t expect
- It is important that you don’t expect to gain hundreds of thousands of followers overnight.
- This takes time, and don’t even think about buying followers, Instagram is onto the people that do that and they are getting banned.
- Unless you are a celebrity of some form gaining followers take a decent amount of time and a decent amount of posts.
- It takes work, commitment, and great content over time for your followers to find you.
- Remember to engage with accounts you follow, build a community
Don’t follow and unfollow
- There is a very annoying tactic of people who follow your account hoping that you follow back and then they unfollow. Either way, they unfollow so they are just wasting their time and possibly yours too.
- Do follow accounts that you are genuinely interested in and even accounts that may be interested in you – the best way to gain followers is through using the right hashtags (more on that later).
Be visual
- Instagram is all visual, it is meant to be a platform of wonderful imagery to consume and enjoy. So through these images, you can follow people and stay up to date with what they are doing. Not just people either, there are plenty of animal accounts to choose from.
A theme
- Have some type of method to the madness that is Instagram. Create a theme for your Instagram page and try to be as consistent as possible in sticking to this theme.
- For example – My Sassy Business uses mostly red across all the posts on Instagram.
HASHTAGS
- You must use them and you must use them well – It is not hard either as Instagram helps you by prompting options and showing how many times it has been used.
- People surf different hashtags to find new content and new accounts to follow – now do you see why they are important.
- You can include up to 30 with your post but 20 seems to be a magic number.
- Try it for yourself – search some of the hashtags you think you should use and see how popular they are and if your content aligns well.
- Consider having your own hashtag that relates to your business too.
Tagging
- It may be relevant to your business to tag another business on the image. This is a great way of notifying them about your post.
- Taking can also be for selling products as you can link it to your Facebook shop of products.
Stories
- Stories are probably the most dynamic aspect of Instagram
- You can posts images, videos and much more
- People are often viewing stories as opposed to scrolling through their feed so make sure you use them
If you need any help with marketing your small business, get in touch.
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