Instagram management in Lebanon

Instagram for Business: Tips to Grow Your Audience and Stand Out on Instagram

Instagram is the go-to place for over 300 million people to share their photos, videos, and stories every single day. And as Instagram has grown over recent years, that’s left many business owners and marketers with one very clear and important question:

How can we use Instagram for business?

Well today, we’d love to dive head first into that topic and share:

-    How to set up a killer Instagram profile.
-    The importance of goal setting and how to create a clear Instagram strategy.
-    How to post great content on a consistent basis.
-    Growth tips to help you build an engaged follower base.

Continue reading for our best tips on how to use Instagram for business.

Let’s jump in.


How to Enhance Your Instagram Profile?

1. Write a killer bio

It takes just two-tenths of a second for someone to form an opinion on your brand online. This means it’s incredibly important to make a great first impression with the content of your Instagram profile and bio.

Your bio deserves a lot of love as it’s likely to be one of the first things people see when they click on your profile. It will also play a key role in the actions someone decides to take once they’ve landed on your profile, too. It could entice them to follow you, scroll through some more of your content or even click the link back to your website.

A great Instagram bio should:

-    Explain a bit about you / your brand and what you do
-    Appeal to your target audience
-    Use your brand tone and voice to help you connect with your community

2. Include a link

The only place on Instagram where you can share a clickable link is your bio. This is super valuable real estate.

Here are a few of the strategies we’ve seen work:

-    Most Instagram accounts tend to use this link to drive traffic back to their homepage.
-    Others link their Instagram profile to campaign-specific landing pages or individual pieces of content.
-    Many brands also update their link regularly to drive traffic to their latest pieces of content.

3. Create an Instagram Business profile

Instagram recently announced a host of Business tools to help companies better understand their followers and grow their businesses on Instagram.

When converting to a Business profile, you’ll be able to include additional information about your business on your profile. For example, you’ll be able to add a phone number, an email address and your business’s physical address.

4. Use a recognizable profile image

When it comes to choosing a profile picture, it’s important for people to instantly recognize it when they visit your Instagram profile.

5. Set some goals

When using any marketing channel, it’s important to have goals you want to achieve. Instagram is no different. If you’re going to invest your time and money in Instagram for business, ask: “What do we want to achieve?”

Here are some common goals that brands, teams, and individuals tend to choose for their Instagram presence:

-    Showcase your products or services
-    Build your community
-    Increase awareness of your brand
-    Showcase your company culture and values
-    Advertise to potential customers
-    Increase brand loyalty
-    Share company news and updates

6. Pay attention to your color palette

Some of the most successful Instagram accounts tend to use a select color palette for their photos, helping them to create a distinct style.

Try to think about your brand colors and visual style when it comes to Instagram. How can you make your Instagram content feel aligned with your brand’s overall aesthetic and brand colors.

7. Stay consistent with fonts

Text overlays on photos and videos have become increasingly important on Instagram over the past year-or-so with many using text to add subtitles to video (for viewers with the sound off). If text plays a key role in your Instagram content, it’s important to also think about the font you’re using and how it relates to the fonts used on your website or other marketing materials.

8. Make the most of your captions

Captions are a chance to enhance your content further and there are plenty of ways brands use them. Some choose to treat captions as a place for sharing stories and micro-blogging. Others use them to add a short, snappy headline to a post. Still others use captions to ask questions and encourage replies. The possibilities are endless. What’s important is to ensure the copy is aligned with your brand.

Good to know: Instagram captions are limited to 2,200 characters, and after three lines of text they become shortened with “see more”

9. Post consistently

Consistency and publishing frequency can help your audience learn when to expect new content from you, and keeping a consistent schedule makes sure you maximize engagement without hitting any lulls or stretches without updates. Any Instagram strategy should clearly outline a target post frequency to help keep you on track.

10. Respond to comments on your posts

Responding to comments is a great way to build a strong community on Instagram. If someone takes the time to share their thoughts with you, it’s important to respond back to them and show that you’re listening.



Quick Instagram Growth Experiments:

-    Analyze your most successful posts
-    Repost Instagram content to Facebook
-    Leverage hashtags
-    Experiment with Instagram Ads
-    Share quotes that speak to your audience
-    Run contests and giveaways
-    Use Stories and Boomerang
-    Showcase your products creatively