If you’re worried that you are too late in starting Instagram Marketing, easy off your mind. It’s never too late!
Even though Instagram is about to hit the billion mark, many thousands of businesses start out on Instagram daily. The only thing that matters is that you know what you’re doing so that you can get good results.
So, to make things easier for you, here are a few tips for businesses who are just starting out on Instagram.
Signing Up:
Of course, to start Instagram marketing, you will need to sign up first. While there is no ‘correct’ way to fill out your sign up form, here are a few things to keep in mind that will help your business.
- Your profile pic should ideally be your business logo so that your brand can be easily identified.
- Your account name should also be your business name and identical to your other social media profiles.
- Your username should be your business name as well but keep in mind that you can’t put spaces in your username.
- You can put one link on your profile. Most businesses put down their website link here or they link out to their latest promo page. Do what suits you best.
- Your bio could be minimalistic as in you just put in your brand’s slogan. Or it could be a detailed story of your brand. Or you could put in your business address as well. Whatever you do, it should be attractive to your audiences.
Think Small on Hashtags:
Hashtags are what people use for searching for posts in a specific niche. For example if you search for #cats, you will end up with millions of posts on cats. But if you narrow down your hashtag to say #blackcats, there will be fewer results and the more you narrow it down, the less results you will get.
So, yes, use the broad hashtags in your posts but add in the narrow ones too so that you have a better chance of standing out.
Don’t Think of Big Numbers Just Yet:
Unless you buy Instagram followers cheap, you can’t expect to get a large number of followers in the beginning. When just starting out, you need to stick to building a small community, like a tribe.
And to do that, you will need to go to places where your target audiences hang out. And you can search for those audiences using hashtags. Go to the posts that show up start commenting and replying to comments. Follow other people, they will check you out and might follow you back.
Build a small community this way and then broaden it up as you go.
Spend Your Time Efficiently:
Yes, you need to do the above step but that doesn’t mean that you should be on Instagram scrolling down posts and engaging with them until you have to peel your eyes back. Be efficient. Make a schedule and stick to it. Take a few hours out of a day for this task and nothing more.
Same goes for posting on Instagram. Don’t post at random times of a day. Here is an Instagram activity chart by Sprout Social.
You can see here that if you post on 12AM Monday, it might be useless. But, if you were to post on 11AM Wednesday, you might get some completely different results.
Find a Narrative:
People should be able to look at your profile and instantly understand what you’re all about. If you’re selling products, find an attractive way of doing that. In fact, you could add some personality to your product photos if you share that product used in a creative way.
You can be bold with your captions and show some attitude. Or you could be more about nature and feels and all that soft stuff. The thing is, you need to be true to your brand. Once you find that zone that defines your brand, stick to it. People like consistency and it will help you in the long run.
Be Social:
Instagram marketing isn’t all about posting photos and videos and marketing them. Once you market them, there is bound to be engagement on your posts.
Don’t let that engagement go to waste!
Respond to it in an appropriate and fresh way. People don’t like robots. They want to see the human face behind the brand. They want to make a connection because it makes them feel special.
Don’t just put out generic responses. Get personal but in a casual way. Don’t be too frank, unless your brand demands it of course. All I’m saying is that don’t be a robot.