Social media representation is vital in the era where visuals prevail. If a business doer has no social media pages, likely, the brand does not exist for the masses. That enterprise is in the informational Oblivion. In the meantime, its rivals track hashtag trends daily, create bright content, advertise periodically, and enjoy 1K+ comments.
Your business has all potential to become a new Instagram trend. And here is a checklist for business innovators and new entrepreneurs!
Listen, Listen, Listen to what People Say
Social media listening tools allow you to track, measure, and analyze all public mentions of your brand across the web. These insights empower you to make finer decisions, improve your marketing, and avoid potential crises. The basic tool for that purpose is Google Alerts. While that suffices for starters, pro-Instagram business doers go for more sophisticated programs. You may always compare social media monitoring software to make a more practical decision.
Research Your Business Competitors on Instagram
To get an idea of what’s working well for them, look at their most popular posts and identify any patterns. Get as many facts about them as possible to answer the following questions:
- What kind of content are they creating?
- What time of day are they posting?
- How often are they posting?
- Which hashtags are they using?
Once you understand what’s working well for them, you can incorporate some of those strategies into your social media plan. Yet, NEVER copy any content! Sure, you can get inspiration and note some novel techniques. But intellectual stealing is an atrocity in our civilized era. Plus, becoming a worse replica of the existing brand will not help your business thrive.
Create Aesthetically-Unified Content
Instagram is all about aesthetics, prettiness, and the world’s beauty. Even if your business is not about beauty, it must be visually attractive and holistic. Suppose you have a motel in a remote area. Creating content that will shine with the gold of the five-star hotel might be challenging. Still, your motel has decor! Focus on its details and prioritize them. As a result, the potential visitors know that they are not merely sleeping in a bunk bed there. They also visit your motel because there are… beautiful striped cushions! And a spacious living room with comfy armchairs and balconies with a forest ocean under them.
Edit all those pictures to make them warmer and lighter, and your motel immediately looks like an escape dream. You can also use some affordable decorations like LED strings with pictures to add more vibes. But your aesthetics can also be anything! Pink princess aesthetics? Minimalism and elegance? Maybe concrete brutalism? All of those business aesthetics solutions get a boost when your content looks holistic and unified.
Here are some $0 tools that can help you work with the visuals:
- PicsArt;
- Pixlr;
- VSCO Cam;
- BeFunky.
They all have premium options, but the free toolkit suffices 100%.
Create More Content and Wait to Post It
Creating an Instagram-likeable picture daily is troublesome. Moreover, your business needs your attention 24/7! So, if you have a free day, try creating more pretty materials for your Instagram page. Yet, please do not rush to post it! Post one picture on Monday, the second on Tuesday, and the third on Thursday. Also, remember that you need some visuals for stories! Hence, it is advisable to have a photo stash in case you need to post and cannot create content immediately.
Be Accurate with Timings
What is the wisest time to post a new pic? The answer is: that depends on your target audience. If you are aiming at 18-25 years old, then the optimal time to post is during their commute. According to Buffer’s study, the best times to post on Instagram are 2 AM, 8–9 AM, and 5 PM. The worst posting time is around 4 AM until 9 AM. The prime time to engage with your followers is from 2 AM until 4 AM.
Use Instagram Stories and Live Feeds
Another practical way to connect with your followers is by using Instagram Stories. You can use them to show the human side of your business by featuring employees, customers, or even yourself!
You can use the live feature to announce new product releases or give a speech about an industry-related topic. You can also host Q&A sessions or take your business audience behind the scenes.
Use the Appropriate Hashtags
Hashtags are a powerful way to reach engaged people who might be interested in your product or service. But using too many hashtags (more than 30) can make your caption look spammy. So, how many hashtags should you use? The optimal number is 9. And here are some sub-tips for it:
- Do not overuse common tags. Hashtags like #love, #happy, #style, and their modifications appear in millions of posts — daily. Your picture will get lost unless you are Elon Musk, who can use a random hashtag under an anime picture for fun and get 1.6B likes in one day. Using a couple of general tags to specify what you do and then adding more narrowly-focused ones is advisable.
- Add specifics. Suppose your offer is traveling services. Your next Instagram picture shows the Bran Castle in Romania. Forget the #interestingplaces and #traveling tags. At least use the #traveling_romania tag to narrow the focus down. But also mention that there is a #castle, where #dracula lived in #transylvania.
- Link the hashtag to an event. Continuing the traveling agency example, suppose you have the same Bran Castle picture, but Halloween is in two weeks. Link the pic with this popular event! And the same principle works for any other post that may have a relation to events.
Analyze Your Success and Repeat
All of the mentioned actions will bring fruit. Some of that fruit will be smaller and not as juicy as you expect. Nevertheless, that is your analysis material for pinpointing what you have done right and wrong. Let mistakes be your new tasks, try novel methods, and appear in the trends!
Final Words
Take this checklist and enjoy growing your business Instagram page! Do not forget that any business needs time, effort, and patience to grow. Still, we hope to see your posts in the trends sooner than everyone expects!
