Instagram is ideal for businesses but optimising your profile can take a lot of patience and several lots of tweaking. Companies nowadays rely on Instagram as part of their social media strategy but if you want to unlock Instagram’s potential it’s important to create an Instagram profile that successfully captures the attention of your ideal target audience.
Copper Square has outlined tips below to optimise your Instagram profile to drive meaningful business outcomes.
Set Up the account correctly
You need to make it as easy as possible for people to find and interact with your Instagram profile. The first step is to select a great @username – otherwise known as a “handle.” Using a handle that is simple, easily recognised and searchable is key. Alongside your username, you need to add your full business name to the “Name” section of your Instagram profile.
Your profile picture immediately draws the attention of every person who visits your Instagram profile. Remember that your profile picture shows up next to every comment you make both on your profile and others, so make sure it is representative of your brand and looks sharp.
Instagram Bio
After viewing your profile picture many users will read your bio. At just 150 characters, you need to make sure you have punchy social media copy within that character limit to get your message across effectively so use them wisely.
Insider Tip – Your Instagram shouldn’t be about your business. It should be about your customers and what you can do for them. Keep things simple and effective by just summarising what you do and how it benefits the user. Then include a call-to-action.
Create a Call-to-Action
A call-to-action – also known as CTA – should urge visitors to take a specific action which moves them further along the buyer’s journey.
Examples include:
- Call us now!
- Subscribe to get more free insights!
- Buy now
- Download our freebie here
In instances where you offer an expensive product or service, people will likely want to learn more about this before purchasing so a great CTA would be for them to sign up to your mailing list and download a free guide.
Create a Strong Brand Aesthetic
On Instagram, looks matter and first impressions count. Remember, this is a social network based entirely on visual content. Your Instagram aesthetic should strongly represent your overall brand, as this is your first chance to make a lasting impression on any would-be follower.
When developing your brand aesthetic, think about your target audience. What style of imagery will resonate with them most? How do you want to make them feel? Also, what are your brand colours? The idea behind this is that you want people to recognise your business just by looking at the photos.
Posting “Saveable” Content
Create content that encourages your audience to save. This “Saveable content” is the content the audience will want to revisit after some time. Instagram saves button also increases engagement along with comments and shares sections.
Carousel posts with some valuable tips and information increase the number of saves so that the audience can revisit the post when they need the tips.
Use Instagram Stories Highlights
If you have not used Instagram Stories Highlights yet, you are missing out. By using Story Highlights to promote, educate, and engage users you can showcase:
- Product sneak peeks
- Product variants
- Upcoming releases
- Culture or team
Engage with other accounts
Engagement creates engagement, this is the basic rule of Instagram. By interacting with other accounts, you can optimise your account. The quality and quantity of engagement on Instagram depends on the investment of time on similar accounts.
To discover a similar type of account use the following strategies:
- Check Instagram’s recommendations of content of your choice, or by category via the magnifying glass icon at the bottom of your page.
- Find accounts that appear by searching keywords. Enter them into the search bar followed by selecting ‘People’. Search more for specific keywords for the most relevant matches.
- Enter a hashtag into the search bar, to get alternative hashtags and content that is relevant.
Include relevant hashtags.
These will bring you more eyeballs from people searching and using the discover portion of Instagram. Conduct hashtag research and find 5-10 relevant hashtags that you can place in the comments section below your photo. Change them up and monitor which works best for your content.
It’s also possible to follow hashtags on Instagram. By following the top hashtags that you’ve researched you will be able to see which type(s) of content frequently get featured on that hashtag’s feed/story. This can help you finetune your content to get more exposure and engagement.
Always add a location tag.
If you want people to be able to discover your photo when they search Instagram, adding a location is essential. People will then see your photos in the area you’ve tagged them in, opening you up to a new audience that is interested in the location tag.
Change your profile to a “business profile”
Switching your Instagram profile from a personal account to a business account will unlock several powerful features for you/your brand to take advantage of.
- You will receive call-to-action buttons allowing customers to easily contact your business.
- You will get access to the analytics–by far the most valuable. Analytics will let you know where your followers are from, what time they are online, and what types of content perform the best.
- You get access to ads within Instagram; so if you want to do some paid promo, it’s easy and accessible. you do this by going to Settings–>Switch to Business Profile–>Select the Facebook page you’d like to associate it with.
In conclusion …
Developing a fully optimised Instagram profile that is capable of engaging audiences will require an organised plan of attack and plenty of patience. Being able to measure performance and being willing to make changes in reaction to the numbers will put you well ahead of the competition.
Follow Copper Square over on Instagram for all the must-have ways to grow your Instagram profile successfully.
Check out my upcoming workshop with Ards Business Hub “Instagram For Business: A Mini Masterclass“
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Why you need a social media strategy if you want to grow your business
