Tips when using Instagram for your small business
- Be consistent
- Use your branding
- Use the Stories feature
- Plan your hashtags
- Segment your hashtags
- Invest in good visual assets
Instagram is the fastest growing social media platform today. With over 800 million monthly active users, it is one of the places to be for small businesses. But before you jump on the bandwagon, you need to know whether or not having an Instagram account will help your business. If you want to know which social media platform is the right one for your small business, check out our blog post.
Go ahead, we’ll wait.
Now if you’re sure Instagram is the way to go then good on you. In this post, we will tell you three tips when using Instagram for your small business.
Be consistent
With Instagram, you are not limited to just posting photos. You can also post things like artworks, quotes, inspirational sayings and videos. The best way to ensure that you are maximising your post on Instagram is by having consistent branding that is similar to what you have on your website and other social media channels. Use the same colours, the same fonts, the same style – and add your small business name or logo in there, even your site’s URL. If you don’t want others to copy your work, a watermark of your logo on the photo is worth doing. By doing this, your audience will immediately know your brand when they see it.
Use the Stories feature
The Stories feature on Instagram is the one that goes on top of the app and lasts only 24 hours. After that, the photos/videos go to your archive, which only you can see. If you want to keep your Stories on your Instagram account, you will need to highlight it and add it to a category you’ve created (see the picture). The categories need to be related to your small business. By using the Canva app on your phone, you can also make your Stories pretty. Again, make sure it’s consistent with your branding and contains things like your URL or logo.
Plan your hashtags
Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags per post so make sure you know what is related to your business. To do this, look at other businesses similar to yours and check out what hashtags they are using. Also, by searching for the hashtag itself, you’ll know how many posts are out there with the same hashtag. You don’t have to keep typing 30 hashtags each post too. Planning is key. Make sure you create one already and save it on your phone. That way, all you’ll need to do is copy and paste it. One more thing, double check which hashtags have been banned by Instagram. Having a banned hashtag can affect how many people you reach so it’s worth doing your research beforehand.
Kristyn is the Creative Director of 3C Digital. She is a freelance writer/journalist with over 13 years of experience in the industry both locally and internationally. She has previous experience as TV and radio broadcast journalist as well as print and online writer. Her novels, The Girl Between Two Worlds and The Girl Between Light and Dark, are out now.
