Instagram! The go-to social media platform for foodies, bloggers, and small businesses is a treasure trove in reaching followers that love your brand. It seems easy, doesn’t it? You take a photo, add a filter (not one of those strange ones), write a caption, and there you go! But for businesses, crafting the perfect Instagram post needs to meet several needs – we outline just how to do it.
1. Individuality & Branding – Create Your Own Voice
With the number of Instagram users, both personal and businesses accounts tend to suffer from one fundamental issue – the lack of individuality.
Due to its popularity, many businesses rush to Instagram to incorporate it into their digital marketing strategy and expand their reach to a new audience. But in the excitement, they fail to outline what makes them significantly different. This provides you with a fantastic opportunity to pinpoint what sets your business apart from your competitors. Unfortunately, only you know this answer!
If you’re confident in what makes your business special, you now need to determine how you will showcase your business as a brand. Thankfully, we have the perfect article to help you brand your business on Instagram (Insert hyperlink to article).
2. Add Value for Your Followers
Having set up your business account on Instagram, you may think that all you need to do now is advertise your products and services. This ‘build it and they will come attitude doesn’t work! Period! Many businesses fall foul of this mistake and it’s incredibly detrimental as you attempt to build your brand and following.
At this point you may be thinking, ‘I have a great product, but why can’t I market it?’ This identifies an issue that should be addressed immediately. The focus shouldn’t be that you have a great product, it should rather outline how it will be of value to your customers.
Let’s use this as an example. You have a small business that sells handmade wooden furniture. You find a picture that elevates a certain piece of furniture and decides to slap on a price tag in the caption. DON’T DO THIS! Instead, craft a story of how it enhances a space due to its design and handcrafted finish. Whatever your product is, ensure that you create value through story and relevance.
3. Finetune Your Message
Most people adore Instagram because of all the amazing images and visuals. However, in a turn of events, Instagram has a maximum character count of 2200! Practically enough to write your own biography! Yet with so many characters to use, your primary message should be told immediately.
The sole reason for this is that Instagram shows the first 125 characters of a caption before you need to click ‘see more’ to read the entire caption. If you don’t provide a compelling reason for your followers to read further, they will instantly swipe up and all your hard work will have been done in vain.
If you’re wondering what information you need to include in the first 125 characters, focus on including the most relevant details that may entice your followers to read on further. These details can include an enticing hook or question that your audience must answer as well as some form of call-to-action.
PRO TIP: Leave other details such as hashtags, mentions, and other supportive information for the main portion of the caption.
4. Include a Compelling Call-To-Action
Call-to-actions (CTA’s) have become one of the most fickle aspects of marketing in any industry. Why would you need to ask someone to buy your product? If they want it, won’t they buy it themselves? Such questions may have been commonplace several years ago, but the mounting evidence suggests when you have a clear call-to-action, your conversion percentages absolutely skyrocket.
A compelling call-to-action doesn’t necessarily ask a prospective customer to buy the product on the spot. CTA’s as the name suggests, inspires a reader to act by clicking, ‘learn more’, ‘read here’, ‘get this’, and ‘sign up’. Each of these short phrases is designed to move a prospective customer into the next step of the buying phase.
It may feel necessary to think of clever CTA’s but ultimately this wastes time and effort that could be used elsewhere. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel – stick to CTA’s that encourage your followers to take a certain action. That’s all it needs to do! Give your followers a REAL reason to take the next step and the call-to-action will do the rest.
5. Engage with Your Followers
Social media has the word ‘social’ for a reason! You need to engage and communicate with your followers! This is yet another reason to avoid simply ‘advertising’ a product. Generating engagement with your followers is often one-sided as it requires you as a business to ask questions to receive feedback.
In an Instagram post, ask your followers questions related to your products, services. What would they like to see your brand do? What products have your customers been craving? Such open-ended questions require thoughtful answers which are more effective than plain close-ended questions that provide ‘yes and ‘no’ answers.
Your niche will often determine the type of content and information that you post on Instagram but when you foster engagement, ensure that you remain friendly, professional, and transparent with each of your followers.
Enhancing Your Reputation on Instagram
The challenge of growing your following on Instagram is something that all small businesses face. Most industries have a particular niche that’s already dominated by a popular brand, but people are craving more than just a product. Anyone can sell a product but very few people care if their product is providing real value.
Grammedit understands this and it’s why we are the first reputation management platform that’s designed specifically for ‘@’ businesses. Through the comprehensive platform, small businesses such as yours can enhance their authority within the industry thanks to the star rating program – enabling followers to gain incredible insight into your brand and product.
The Additional Benefits of Grammedit
Enhancing your reputation and stature among your followers is sensational. But how would you like to go one step further and become the go-to business in your niche? We know that’s a yes! By partnering with Grammedit today, you can expect to receive these additional benefits to make your mark on Instagram and beyond.
- Greater brand recognition.
- Facilitates greater communication between you and buyers
- Accurate and detailed analytics.
- Increase in site traffic.
- Attracts a larger, dedicated following on social media – especially Instagram.
- Consistent flow of prospective customers.
- Greater authority within your niche – a result from the review and star rating process.
- VIP access to the first flexible ecommerce platform for social media (coming soon).
Final Thoughts
Instagram remains an image-based platform. For businesses, it has become vital to include further details that enhance a product/service and explain how to purchase it. However, every business is different. Every business is selling a product or service that they believe can bring them success immediately and in the future. But that’s where you come in.
Align your business identity, branding, and social media with the core belief of putting your followers and customers first. Ensure this is communicated in your Instagram posts which will in turn help create meaningful relationships that make a real difference, in the real world.
How do you use Instagram to market your business? What mistakes have you made and how did you resolve them? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
