With over 500 million active daily users on Instagram, there’s no question the platform can be beneficial for your small business. Creating posts on Instagram about the products and services you are selling can help bring more sales to your business. If you use Instagram as one of your social media platforms as a small business, there are a few extra things you can do to get more eyes on your posts. Here are four things to consider when creating an Instagram post:
Tag Your Location
On Instagram, you can tag a location in every post. If you own a brick-and-mortar business, tagging your store can show people exactly where you are located. If people are on the Instagram search tab, they can search for posts in specific places. We recommend changing the location tag on different posts. For example, if Keep It Real Social is posting something, we will often tag the office location, Petoskey, or downtown Petoskey in various posts. This allows people who are not necessarily following us but maybe looking for businesses in Petoskey, MI, to see our post.
Research hashtags
Hashtags can be an excellent tool for getting more eyes on your content and even more followers. Research relevant hashtags to your post. When searching hashtags, you can search directly on the Instagram platform and see how many posts have been created with that hashtag. Try and look for hashtags that fall between 100K – 500K. These hashtags are popular but not too popular where your post will not stay on the search tag for only one second because it is being replaced by a newer post. Make sure you use hashtags that are relevant to your post. Instagram allows you to have up to 30 hashtags on a post, but it is more critical to use a few relevant hashtags instead of 30 hashtags that don’t have anything to do with your post.
Tag other accounts
If you can, try and tag other accounts in your posts. One of our clients, The Sunglass Shoppe, sells sunglasses and eyeglasses from various brands. When they do a post on Instagram promoting a specific pair of glasses, say from Maui Jim, they will also tag the Maui Jim Instagram account. Their post will then show up in the tag section of the Maui Jim Instagram account, allowing their followers to see it. Tagging other accounts when possible can get a lot more eyes on your content depending on how many followers those accounts have. Maui Jim has 156K followers, meaning there are potentially 156K new people who could see your post! Realistically we know all 156K followers won’t see it, but some definitely will!
Cross-promote on other platforms
If you have multiple social media platforms, cross-promote your content on them. Share your Instagram post on Facebook. Facebook even allows you to connect the two accounts, so you only have to post one time, and it will show up in both places. However, we find that it is better to post the same post on different platforms at different times or even days. For those followers who follow you on your multiple platforms, you give them a chance to see the same content at other times. Most people need to see something online numerous times before acting on your call to action. Posting on different platforms at different times can allow for this to happen!
With so much digital media crossing people’s desks these days, doing these four things on Instagram can help you get more eyes on your content.
Want more tips on online marketing? Sign up for our newsletter and get them sent straight to your inbox!
