Instagram for Business
Are you using Instagram for business?
If you are then what you’ll see in this article will be completely different from anything you’ve ever read or been taught in the past.
Specifically, we’re going to share some free Instagram strategies that have helped us build out one of our businesses to over 5000 Instagram followers in just a few short months.
Also, we’ll reveal 4 key strategies that are getting us over 250 likes per post, and those numbers are growing by the day.
While the numbers here may not seem outstanding, the strategies that we’re using are creating fast growth in regards to followers, leads, and engagement from our new Instagram for business account.
Instagram for Business Strategies
Recently, we started adding in additional social media channels (Instagram and Snapchat) to our business.
Our testing has shown that based on the business, some social media outlets are better than others.
Here are 4 Instagram for business strategies that will get you more:
- Followers
- Engagement
- Leads
If you want to build your business using Instagram then tart implementing these strategies today!
Instagram Followers:
When we started this new Instagram account a few months ago the first thing we focused on was a strategy to get followers.
The first step we took was to use the search feature on Instagram and focus on looking for people and/or hashtags within our niche.
For example if you are building out a health and wellness Instagram for business account you may want to search things like #healthylifestyle #getfit #eatinghealthy #weightloss, etc….
This also goes for searching for people who are using keywords within their Instagram name. An example would be if you are building a Paleo page you may want to search under the people tab on Instagram Paleo and see what users come up with that keyword.
Once you find those account you should start to follow those accounts by simply clicking the follow button on their profile.
There are some automated tools you can use to get more Instagram followers but be careful with these tools.
We recommend a tool called “Instagress”.
When you set “Instagress” up, make sure you set up the account to run as though a human is manually performing all the activities.
(Instagress explains all of this within their platform)
I only recommend using Instagress for followers and not for the automated comments.
Nothing is worse that setting up a generic comment and it not making sense on the random post Instagress chooses to put that comment on.
Finally, consider letting your Facebook followers, email newsletter, Twitter followers, etc. know that you are on Instagram and invite them over to your Instagram page to follow you.
Instagram Posting:
I don’t use an automated Instagram for business posting program. You certainly can but I find it easier to just simply focus on posting 1 -2 images per day. One in the morning and one in the afternoon.
A lot of our content we actually find from other Instagram accounts, Pinterest accounts, Facebook pages within our marketing niche. Now if you have your own branded images by all means use those.
We simply just find images that are colorful, meaningful and are within our marketing niche.
With each image we post some text or even ask a question along with 4-5 different hashtags within our niche. It’s important to use popular hashtags.
A great resource for finding out if your hashtag is popular or to find other popular hashtags around your keyword is to use Hashtagify.me. You can also find top influencers on Instagram for your keyword.
For example if you were to search CrossFit you could find the top influencers on Instagram for CrossFit.
Instagram Engagement:
There are several ways to increase you engagement on Instagram. A few strategies that we use are to find the popular Instagram accounts within our niche and look at their photos. If they have over 75 likes on their images on a regular basis start commenting and liking their photos to get on their radar.
You can also send direct messages to different Instagram accounts and influencers letting them know you really enjoying their message and posts on their Instagram account.
Also when another Instagram account comments on your photos always reply back.
Finally if you want more engagement on your Instagram account be sure to post high quality images with vibrant colors that would appeal to your followers. It’s all about posting things that pertain to your marketing niche.
Instagram Leads:
In the beginning and still to this day we are really focusing on building a loyal following and an engaged community on our Instagram account. We want to add value to our followers and not their value in the beginning.
Many marketers get this backwards. Most when using Instagram for business jump on Instagram and start out asking for their followers to check out their link in their bio. When you don’t build that relationship and trust first you aren’t going to have much success and getting your followers to opt in to your lead magnet. This is why it is so important to focus on building relationships and trust first.
By the way….this is the only place you can add a clickable link, is within your bio. Therefore for obvious reasons this is where you would put your lead magnet.
Once you have that relationship and trust built with your followers you can direct your followers from time to time to check out your link in your bio and this is where you will start seeing traction in your business when it comes to generating leads.
An example would be if you had an ebook, a webinar or a blog post you wanted to promote you would either cut a short video to add to your Instagram feed or add a photo that had a call to action either in the video or in the text to check out the link in your bio for more information.
What Now?
Now that you know some of our basic strategies we use to build our Instagram accounts you’re ready to dive into a few of our more detailed strategies.
CLICK HERE NOW To Check Out Our Online Profit Team Member’s Instagram Cheat Sheet
