How to Market on Instagram

how to market on instagram With the release of my Instagram Planner I wanted to give you a few basic tips on how to market on Instagram.

While I have been using Instagram and helping clients with it for a while now, I actually only opened my own Instagram profile at the start of 2020. This is because, as you all know, social media takes a lot of time and effort, and being a one-person business, I simply don’t have that much time to spend on it. But for those of you who do, here are some tips of mine to make it work better for your business.

Table of Contents

Create a Descriptive Instagram Name

The first mistake so many businesses make is not creating a descriptive Instagram name. I don’t mean username, which should be your business name, but your name. For example, my Instagram “username” is attention.getting, but my “name” below (the line in bold) gives insight as to what my business is about.

The reason I did this is because this line gets seen whenever you show up in someone’s followers’ list. It acts like an ad telling people what your business is all about, so make it descriptive to peak people’s curiosity.

Write a Descriptive Instagram Bio

You only have 140 characters, so be concise and accurately describe either your business, or the type of content your followers will see should they decide to follow you. Point form is a good idea. You can use emojis, but don’t overdo it or you will look like a 11-year old girl.

Links In Your Profile

I come across so many Instagram profiles that do not link to back to their business. Since you cannot link within a post, it is so important to link here. You can use an app like linktr.ee because you can then use this as a launchpad to give people several links of yours – from your shop to a blog to a blog post. It is only $5 a month.

Follow People Who Follow Your Competitors

An easy way to find sales leads is to start by following people who follow your competitors. Obviously, if they like their products and services, they might like yours too.

Add URL to Post Images

Again, since Instagram does not allow you to link directly from your post, it is a good idea to try and include your url on your post images. It also helps if someone comes upon your image in a search, they then know where to find you.

Engage with Comments

Search on Instagram using a # and the word you think is relevant to your customers i.e. #bride. Then like the post and leave a short but nice comment. It will get their attention.

Use the DM

Direct Messaging (or DM) is a way to reach out to people who have followed you, and thank them for following by giving them a special offer. Who doesn’t love a special offer? But just once, don’t keep bothering them.

Use “Suggestions for You”

In the right side bar Instagram will give you suggestions of who to follow. I advise following anyone who looks like they could be a potential customer and indicates that they are new to Instagram. Reason being, new people are more likely to follow you back.

Throw Branding Rules Out the Window

I never normally say this as a marketer, but social media is a different animal. If all of your posts use the same background, colors and fonts, (because you are trying to create brand awareness) the problem is that they will become white noise to your followers. In other words, your followers are going to swipe past it in their feed because it looks familiar, so they think they have already read it. Change up your look up to keep people interested.