Getting Started with Instagram
An interview with Instagram. Let’s get into all those questions every new Instagram user is asking. While Instagram can seem overwhelming to begin with once you’ve got the basics covered it’s all actually quite simple. Setting up and runing an Instagram account for business is something you can do yourself and can even be a lot of fun. Over one billion people use Instagram and over 700 million of them are active monthly users. So if you’re not using Instagram for business you need to jump on that train, today. Learning to use Instagram effectively can literally translate into dollars for you!
Get in on the Instagram lingo
1. What’s my bio?
Your bio is just your profile. Instagram use differe
nt language to Facebook, your profile is called your bio and your friends are called your followers. So when you see the phrase link in bio this just means go visit my profile and click the link I want you to click. This link is usually a direct link to your website, online shop or anywhere else you want to send your following.
The first step to setting up your Instagram account is to optimize your bio, this means select a username, add your website, choose a profile picture and write your ‘bio’. Introduce yourself in a way that represents both your business and who you are as a human! Make sure you link your Facebook page to your Instagram. This is very easy to do just go to Settings. Then if you haven’t already switch your account to a business account – this will come in handy for analytics.
Tip: If you want to share more than one link on your Instagram bio check out Linktree. Linktree allows you to add more than one link in your bio (which is awesome) and it’s totally free. Linktree
Action: Set up Instagram account for business, write bio, choose profile pic or logo & add Linktree link.
2. What should I post?
Instagram is like Google but with pictures and videos. Which makes it the perfect platform to share images and videos that relate to your business. We refer to this as your content. When it comes to creating your content you want to be thinking about creating ‘engagement’. Engagement is when people take action on or from your posts like commenting, re-posting or tagging friends. Your ultimate goal is for your content to inspire people, engage or educate your audience. You want your audience to visit your ‘bio’ and ‘click the link in bio’ and take an action. This could be shopping at your online store or booking a service with you. You can have a lot of fun creating a content strategy and making use of all of the Instagram features like IGTV, My Story & Story Highlights – I’ll get into these in a little bit.
Content Ideas
- Your products or services
- Using your products or services
- Clients using your products or services
- Video demonstrations or tutorials – IGTV is perfect for this!
- Quotes/memes that align with your business
- Behind the scenes – of your business
- Behind the scenes – of you!
- Stories and testimonials
- Tips/tricks/hacks that relate to your industry
Planning
Creating weeks or months of content at a time not only helps you to stay consistent but it also helps you create a strategy for your marketing. This can seem like a lot of work initially, however this is what it takes to build your brand awareness on Instagram. Building a strategy will also help you determine what content you want to post in your feed and what content you want to post on stories or IGTV (Instagram Television). There are many apps you can use to help you plan and schedule your content and if you read my last blog post you would know that I am a huge fan of PLANN
Tip: I would recommend to post at least once if not twice daily to begin with to create a nice flow of consistency. Generally I find the the best time of day to post is between 5:30pm & 8:30pm.
Action: Create a content calendar and strategy. Follow other people in your niche for ideas and inspiration.
Review & Analytics
If you have set up your Instagram as a business account you can view all of your analytics. This is seriously awesome and will help you to produce better content. You can view which posts create the most engagement, how many people each post reached, how many people viewed your profile and so on. Instagram will give you this feedback on not just your posts but your stories as well. This is the best kind of feedback you can get.
3. What’s a #hashtag and how do I use them?
Users search for what they’re looking for on Instagram with a hashtag, for example #nutribeauty or #nutribeautycommunity – even multiple words become one hashtag. You want to use hashtags that are relevant to your industry but not too broad. For example #beauty brings up over 3M posts compared to #centralcoastbeauty that brings up around 2k. You can currently add up to 30 hashtags per post and 10 per story. Hashtags can be good and bad though. Make sure you’re not using a banned or spammy hashtag because Instagram won’t show your content to anyone if you do. Check out ighashtags and search for hashtags it’s great!
#Hashtag Tips
- Think like your clients. What are they looking for?
- Use hastgags within your niche and local to you
- Don’t generalise. Get specific with your hashtags
- 10 is a good number of hashtags to use
- Save hashtags – you can do this on your notes or using an app like PLANN
- Create a few of your own – you can even get your clients using them
- Put your hashtags in your comments
4. Who should I follow and how do I get followers?
Obviously you want to start out by following people you know, your friends, family and current clients. Again you want to search within your niche and follow others who inspire you and your business. I’m kind of funny like that, I don’t really have a strategy when it comes to who I follow. Basically if I like what they’re posting I’ll follow them! I like my feed to inspire me, if it’s not inspiring, I generally don’t want to see it. I’ll probably regret writing that but whilst I’m all for social media growth I believe it can be done organically!
Collaborate
Collaborating with local businesses or businesses that support your niche can be a great way to increase followers. You see this all the time on Instagram with competitions. For example if you partner with 3 or 4 other businesses and do a combined giveaway. This will put your Instagram in front of other audiences and then usually with these giveaways you request that entrants need to follow all 4 accounts to go in the draw. Does that make sense? I think I’ve just inspired myself to do some local collaboration!
Tip: If you collaborate with accounts that have a good following there is potential to increase the number of your followers quite quickly. Just remember to continue to post great engaging content to keep them a fellow follower.
Action: Find businesses to collaborate with and set up a competition/giveaway.
5. Instagram Story & IGTV?
Instagram Story
Instagram Story is my favourite! It’s like snapchat but for Instagram. You can post images and videos here that will disappear after 24 hours – unless you add them to a story highlight on your account. This feature is amazing because you can literally create stories that you want your audience to follow. For example I’ve named one of my highlights Squad and it’s a bit of a behind-the-scenes peak of how much fun we have in the team here at Nutri Beauty.
So whilst your daily post may not appear in the feed to every single person who follows you, people LOVE to watch Instagram stories and when you watch ones ‘My Story’ it automatically plays the next story. If your stories are engaging and fun this could prompt someone to visit your profile (sorry bio!) and check out your stuff. You can also make use of story features like polls, quiz, GIFS and so much more.
IGTV
IGTV is different to story because it allows you to post longer, more in-depth videos for your followers. This is the first video platform to actually embrace vertical video, unlike YouTube. IGTV even has it’s own separate app. Creating longer videos can help you to engage more with your followers by giving them more valuable content. I know many like to use IGTV for tutorials, trainings, recipes or interviews. IGTV is your tool to get noticed!
Tip: Instagram keep an archive of all your stories (I think for about one year) so you can go back through your archives and add past stories to highlights.
Tip #2: What kind of valuable content can you share on IGTV related to your industry?
Action: Get onto Instagram Story – pronto, it’s super fun and kind of addictive! Get filming and get IGTV working for your business!
Conclusion
Getting started on Instagram doesn’t have to be complicated. Running your social media account for business is something you can do yourself and can be a lot of fun too. All it takes is a bit of planning and consistency. Set up your Instagram account and follow my tips on writing your bio. Find you niche and collaborate with others that are either local or relate to your niche. If you can create months or even weeks of content in advance you’ll save yourself time and headaches! Using your analytics will even help you to create better future content. Last but not least remember to use hashtags the right way and embrace all of the features on Instagram including Stories & IGTV.
Until next time,
Get Social Girl,
Danielle xx
