Calling all small business owners, it’s time to up your Instagram game!

Instagram has opened lots of opportunities for small business owners already and if you are not one of them, then it’s time to start taking advantage of the platform.

It’s a great platform to showcase your business and connect with people in your area and eventually scale it.

So, how to do it?

Create your Instagram account now and start getting seen. Tell your family, relatives and friends to find you in the app because probably they are just waiting for your business to pop in on the platform. Start getting follows and likes! If you already have a Facebook page, ask your followers to find you on Instagram too. Let people know, so you can start building your audience.

Your bio is so crucial for your business because this is what people get to see first on your profile and most probably what most people check out whether they want to follow you or not. So, make sure you create your bio strategically.

Don’t forget to add a short description of your business, what you do, your products and your location. Also, don’t forget to add your website in your bio or a link tree link where they can find all the relevant link for your business. This way, you are making it easy for them to find out more about your business.

To grow a quality audience, you have to make sure that your followers are your target audience. To find them on Instagram, make a list of at least your top 5 competitors and then go over their followers. Check out the profiles of these people and engage with them; like and leave a comment in at least 1 of their posts and make each comment relevant. And if you find profiles that stand out, follow them too. You don’t need to follow everyone. Spend at least 30 minutes a day doing this and you will eventually notice more and more people will find your profile and increase your following.

The goal is to get their attention so they check out your profile and eventually follow you. Because if they follow your competitors, most likely they are also interested in your content.

Identify the types of content that you can create on Instagram and what type of content you think would interest your target audience. For ideas and inspirations, again, check out your competitors’ profiles and see what type of contents they are getting the most engagement in and then replicate it to fit your business.

Whatever content you decide to create, always remember that people on Instagram want more raw contents from a business like yours. Raw contents means contents that showcase your business like behind the scenes, processes of creating your product, the people behind the business and the like. These types of contents are also great in building brand awareness and trust so people connect more to your brand.

As you may have already known, Instagram is a very visual platform. Hence, it is important that you only post high-quality images and videos.

What’s great about today’s technology though is you can take high-quality images and videos by just using your phone. All you have to make sure is that they are taken well, with good lighting, and that they are edited in a way that would look as if they are taken professionally.

Additionally, there are also lots of free photo editing apps that you can use to up your image and video editing skills.

If there’s one thing people would tell you about Instagram is that you don’t underestimate the power of these two tags.

Using hashtags and geotags can help you be seen and be more searchable by other people.

Therefore, always add relevant hashtags on every post you create and don’t forget to add geotag as well as that will boost your local SEO and people in your area will easily find you on Instagram with that too.

Get some buzz going by offering discounts, promo or doing raffles on Instagram. Make sure that you require your followers to comment, share and follow to qualify for any of these promos so you can spread your post around and get more people to join in and get to know about your brand.

Get creative on your promos so people get excited all the time.

With Instagram, you get to see all the posts that you create in your feed and so you must keep your feed cohesive. To do so, you have to follow the same brand guidelines when it comes to designing your Instagram contents.

Use the same fonts, colours, imagery and filters to all your posts so when you see them all together in your grid, they look cohesive, aesthetic and one that shows your brand visual identity.

When writing your Instagram captions, always remember to express them in your brand voice and be consistent. Your captions have to be something that your audience can relate to, something they can understand, hence you must express your brand voice but at the same time use the language of your target audience.

These tips should help you have a great start with Instagram. But just like any marketing efforts on any other social media platforms, the result will depend on how much time and effort you are willing to put in.

If you want your business to grow, Instagram is no doubt a great platform that can help you achieve that goal. So, start mastering the platform today and start using it to your advantage.