Client PortalInstagram for Business Tips: How to Start Your Business Profile the Smart Way
If you’re living, breathing and have a smart phone, you’ve surely heard of Instagram. The mobile photo-sharing app and social network created in 2010 has recently embraced businesses wholeheartedly. If you’re looking to join the 200,000 businesses that already have a picture sharing account, you’ve come to the right place.
In this article, we dive right into Instagram for Business Tips and show you how to start your new profile on the hottest social media platform.
Instagram for Business Tips: Getting Started
Why Use Instagram for Business?
Before jumping into the steps to create your new Instagram business profile, we want to share the demographics and key statistics with you. Before venturing into a new social media platform, you need to make sure that your desired target market is cruising the site.
- • 400 Million Monthly Active Users
- • 40 Billion Photos Shared to Date
- • 75 Million Instagram Users Per Day
- • 3.5 Billion Likes Per Day
- • 80 Million Photos Uploaded Per Day
- • 20% of Internet Users Use Instagram
- • 51% of Instagram Users Are Male
- • 49% of Instagram Users Are Female
- • 16% Average Monthly Follower Growth
- • 25.6% of U.S. Instagram Users Are Between Ages 25 and 34
- • 22.9% of U.S. Instagram Users Are Between Ages 18 and 24
Do you like these numbers? If so, continue reading our 5 steps to creating your new Instagram Business Profile the smart way. Keep in mind, when other social sites like Facebook and Twitter first started, they were consumed by the younger generation as well. Might as well get a head start if your target market is slightly older than the demographics listed above.
Step 1: Create a Simple Marketing Goal
Before starting any marketing campaign, you first have to lay out your detailed goals. Basically, figure out what you want your new Instagram profile to do for your business. Whether you’re trying to build brand awareness, increase sales or broaden your reach, you need to decide how you want to use the photo-sharing site.
For this section, we are borrowing some popular social media marketing goal examples from our article, How to Develop a Social Media Marketing Plan.
- • I want to grow my social media followers
- • I want to build brand awareness
- • I want to drive more traffic to my blog
- • I want to host a niche community
- • I want to convert more visitors to customers
- • I want to be seen as an expert
- • I want to get more referrals from my network
- • I want to harvest more emails for future marketing
- • I want to foster interaction and communication
After deciding on a marketing goal, you can then continue to build your page with that goal at the forefront of your mind. To read our full article detailing how to create a solid social media marketing plan, click here.
Step 2: Define Your Brand
Now that you have a purpose in mind, it’s time to align your current brand with your new Instagram Business Page. Branding defined is, “The process involved in creating a unique name and image for a product in the consumers’ mind, mainly through advertising campaigns with a consistent theme. Branding aims to establish a significant and differentiated presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customers.”
If you already have your brand and image clearly defined, take the time to translate it onto your new business profile. If you need help defining your brand for your Instagram account, start answering these key questions. When answering the questions, try to imagine that your company is a person. This will give you creative opportunities to really humanize your brand.
- • If my company was a person, what characteristics or traits would I have? Am I dependable, fun, energetic, systematic, helpful, exciting…?
- • What do I believe in? What are my missions and goals in life? Why am I alive and what are my core purposes?
- • What makes me different from others? What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses?
- • What type of tone or voice do I want to send into the world? Funny, professional, casual, expert, trendy, creative…?
- • What do I stand for? Do I support certain activities, charities or organizations? What am I passionate about?
- • Who are my friends (aka my customers) and what characteristics do they have? Why do they like me? Why do they need me?
- • If I were a color, what color(s) would I be? What is my fashion or image style?
See, if you start looking at your company as a person, you’re able to really define your brand. When you define your brand very clearly, your customers can get to know your company and in turn, like or follow your company. Take these answers and build a brand to work with on Instagram and other online platforms.
Step 3: Brainstorm Image Campaigns
Instagram is all about visual storytelling. And so, our Instagram for Business Tips will surround building your personal story. To effectively build content in the frame of storytelling, you first must decide on the story you want to tell.
If you want to inspire your followers to buy your product, make sure you build an image campaign that surrounds the product in a creative way. For an inspiration angle, take a look at BuzzFeed’s blog, The 15 Most Mesmerizing Pottery Videos On Instagram, for ideas on how to build your story around an inspiring product.
If you want to excite your followers to try your product, share action packed photos and videos of what they can expect to feel with your service. GoPro’s Instagram account is a great source to get inspiring ideas on how to evoke adventurous emotions from your market.
If you want to showcase a desired lifestyle that your product or service promises, take a look at these 15 brands on Instagram that range from food lovers to fashionistas. You want to share photos and videos that place your followers into your world. Show them why you’re the answer to their prayers.
Step 4: Post with Purpose
Like with all social media marketing plans, you want to post regularly and consistently. That being said, you want all of your posts to serve a specific purpose. Follow the goals you set out above and place your calls to actions in your photo and video descriptions.
Take advantage of the tagging features and tag locations you reference when applicable. You also want to tag people who are in your photo or video in order to share with their followers as well. If you don’t hashtag, it’s #TimeToStart. Using hashtags allows you to group your posts together and you will also be able to reach a new market with similar interests.
Whether you’re creating a photo contest (worked out well for Netflix with nearly 1.7 million entries) or sharing beautiful photo coupons (like The Krazy Coupon Lady), reward your followers when you can.
Step 5: Interact and Connect
Last but not least, start discovering other profiles on Instagram and like, follow and share. Be a contributor in the Instagram community and scratch some profiles’ backs so they can scratch yours. Engage with comments and you will start to build a leadership and expert voice in your desired market.
You also want to connect your Facebook and Instagram account for optimal reach. There are even plugins for your website to showcase your Instagram photos and videos to your current audience.
Lights, Camera, Action! It’s time to test out these Instagram for Business Tips!
It’s time to put these Instagram for Business Tipsto the test. Create your beautifully branded and goal-oriented profile to share your business’s story with the world. Here at A Courteous Communications, we’re all about networking socially. Head on over to our Facebook Page and post your new Instagram profile on our wall to show us how you did.
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