5 Effective Instagram Marketing Tips For Small Businesses

Social media has its detractors because it has the ability to cause isolation and is extremely addictive. But there are pros and cons to this approach, just as there are to any other in today’s society.

Connections between businesses and customers, in particular, are made easier through social media than they would be in person. It allows companies to appear more human, and the results seem promising. According to data from Instagram in October 2019, at least 90% of users are following a company.

Instagram is a vital platform for expanding your online business, and you don’t have to buy into the influencer craze to make it work for you. Here are six Instagram marketing recommendations from business owners and advertising experts to get you off to a good start.

Keep things in-house, but don’t be scared to delegate

Practise Everywhere’s co-founder, Suzie Mills, and the owners of Honest Soul Yoga in Texas and Virginia looked into hiring a third party to handle their social media profiles. The tailored strategy failed to deliver the desired results.

If you’re looking to save money, you might want to see if there are any social media whizzes working for you already. Mills’ co-founder Julia Lopez advises allowing a select group of employees to manage the company’s Instagram account.

The employees who are most familiar with your company and brand should be the ones to manage your Instagram, she advises.

Make a strategy

It’s crucial for busy small company owners to plan out content and time to publish Instagram posts in advance.

“Knowing what days I will post versus what days I just share to my Story are so vital,” said Dominique Lenaye, owner of Itty Bitty Bookstore in Stoughton, Wisconsin, via email. Instagram Stories, in contrast to regular postings, are deleted after 24 hours. To keep track of their schedule and communicate more effectively, Lopez and Mills import Instagram images and captions into a Google calendar.

Fort Collins, Colorado’s Cohere Coworking creator Angel Kwiatkowski recommends that other entrepreneurs “photograph everything relentlessly.” This will save you the trouble of coming up with material, or relying too heavily on promotional material. In order to avoid the latter, Chelsea Huddleston, the marketing director of ELEV8 Climbing and Fitness in Traverse City, Michigan, maintains a 60/40 split between photo and promotional posts on the gym’s Instagram account.

Give your employees and clients some of the limelight

Don’t be scared to hand off the reins and focus on your team and your clients when you’re at a loss for words. Lopez recommends taking the first step by keeping tabs on your staff. They may already “share things that are aligned with the business” on Instagram if they share your enthusiasm for the brand. In that situation, you can just republish their useful articles, giving them proper attribution.

Also, check out the content that includes mentions of your company. Sharing happy customer experiences (particularly on Stories) is a great way to promote your business and express appreciation to your clientele.

Make use of the functionalities that make the most sense for your company

Instagram offers a wealth of opportunities for marketing your business, but not every strategy will be right for you.

I don’t think it’s smart to post multiple times a day on Instagram, as Lopez suggests. She continues by saying that is where narratives prove useful. Use Instagram Stories to update your followers on your day without flooding their feeds. Incorporating user-generated content like polls and inquiries helps you learn more about your followers and the services they value most.

Frisco, Texas business owner Maria Romo of The Brow Shaping Queen believes that identifying specific businesses is more natural than using hashtags. She argues that tagging other organisations increases your exposure because those companies are more likely to re-share your content.

Delegate tasks to your apps

There is a plethora of tools designed specifically for small businesses that may streamline virtually every facet of running a company, including social networking.

While Huddleston utilises Canva Pro templates, Lenaye uses the free Instagram scheduling app Planoly to maintain order on her company’s account. Studio A Staging owner and Baltimore resident Aimee Breeden uses Adobe Lightroom for her picture editing needs. Apps like Unfold provide users with free post and Story layouts.