If you're a brand or business looking to get started on Instagram, don't worry, you're not too late. However, as a brand, you don't just want to open an account. There are a few details you want to sort out before you tell your existing fans that you are now on Instagram. We'll cover these things now.
1. What will your bio say?
Your bio is one of the first things your potential followers will see. In a nutshell, you want to grab their attention and persuade them to follow you. Everyone's biography is different because they are written in correlation with the tone of their brand.
In a few words, you can describe who you are, what you do, and your skills. If you want your bio to stand out, use a few emojis, add some white space, and include your branded hashtag, if you have one. If you create content like YouTube videos or blog posts, you can mention it in your bio. Here is an example:
You should also use keywords. Later in this Instagram bios post, "Using keywords will not improve your Instagram search ability … but it will give your account more focus and will help you connect with your subscribers who want to interact with your content. ”
2. What are you going to use for your profile picture?
Businesses usually use their logos, but you are a personal brand, you want to choose an image that goes with your brand. Whether your photo is funny or you're just smiling, you want it to look professional. Louise Myers, visual social media expert, says: to show your face, choose a clean background and have good lighting.
3. Which link will you use?
One of the main reasons you are on Instagram is to promote your brand or business. You have a goal outside of that, for example, getting more readers to your blog, selling more products on your Etsy, or getting customers to your business website.
Add a link under your bio to the page you want to direct your followers to. You can direct them to your website, specific content every time you download something new, or LinkTree, where you can link to multiple links.
4. What type of content will you download?
The type of content you download is plentiful. You want to start with what correlates with your brand, but as you gain more followers you want to adjust the content. Do less of what doesn't and more of what earns you more likes and comments. (Having a company profile can help identify this.)
Here are some examples of what you can download:
1. Product images
2. Promotion positions
3. Tweets
4. Photos of you taking action
5. Selfies
6. Inspirational quotes
7. Extracts from YouTube videos
8. Personal photos
5. Who is your ideal follower?
If you're an established business or brand, you probably already know who your ideal customer is. Since you know who they are so well, now you just want to answer Instagram related questions. Here are some questions you can answer:
The next point is also about the questions you need to answer about your client.
6. How often will you download? What time?
At first, you don't know how often or what time to upload, so you'll have to choose for yourself. You can do this according to Instagram research, but there are plenty of case studies revealing different times, so no one is really sure. But, for now, pick one and go for it. It is recommended that you post at least twice a day, but you can post up to three or four posts (no more than that). Avoid posting just once a day.
After you've been using a program for a while, analyze your data and adjust it. The first few months are spent experimenting with the time and amount of content you put online. Ultimately, once you've determined when you're receiving the most engagement and interaction, stick to that timeline.
7. What hashtags will you use?
Hashtags are how you are found on Instagram. This is another thing that you want to experience. You should have an idea of what hashtags to include in your post, but they will change as you discover more of your followers. Which hashtags get you the most likes and comments, and which ones can you do without?
The amount of hashtags you use is also a hotly debated topic among Instagram users. Some suggest you use the thirty, others proclaim that the sweet spot is fifteen or even less than ten. Then there is the placement. You can include a few hashtags in your caption itself, after your caption (with lots of white space or a few bullets for spacing in between), or you can add them in your comments immediately after posting. .
Again, it’s all about experimentation.
8. How will you involve your community?
There are different ways to engage your community. You can either ask questions in your caption and tell your followers to respond in the comments, or ask them to leave a 'yes' or a 'no' or even an emoji if they agree. Another thing people do is ask their followers to share their post with someone who really needs it, or to share it with their story.
In your Instagram Stories, you can host live questions and answers or use the Instagram stickers to interact: the question sticker, the survey sticker, or the emoji slider sticker. It's a good idea to do them all, but not at the same time.
Professional advice *
Open a business account instead of a personal profile. With a business profile, you get access to analytics like what times your subscribers are, where they're coming from, your most popular content, and more.