7 Instagram Tips To Grow Your Business • Devin Zarda

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I had a conversation with a group of friends about using your Instagram profile successfully in your business. Lots of people are choosing to use Instagram as their main social platform instead of others due to the strongly visual component. There is less complaining, less ads, and you have more control over what you want to see. So, we compiled this list of Instagram tips to help you grow your business.

Use quality photos.

This one seems common sense, but it’s an area we can all grow in. Good photos will stop the scroll. Isn’t that what we want to accomplish? Make sure your photos are well-lit, use the Rule of Thirds, and aren’t overly cluttered. Depending on what you sell, it might make sense for you to hire a professional photographer to take a bunch of photos. Just make sure you have the licensing to use the photographs in your advertising. I use A Color Story to edit my photos. HERE is a link to the app.

Show your personality.

Your goal is to stop the scroll. If you can stop the scroll, you have a greater chance of getting the like, follow, and comment. What’s an easy way to stop the scroll? Show your personality! Of all of these Instagram tips, this is the one that I can’t tell you how to do. What I mean is that I can’t tell you what parts of your personality you should be showing. You know your personality, so make sure you are amplifying it for your posts. If you want people to come to you for humor, play that up! Want to be known as helpful? Give out those tips freely!

Switch your account to a business account.

This is the easiest of all of these Instagram tips. Under the Settings, you can switch your account from personal to business. Why do you want to do this? It allows you to see all kinds of analytics! You can find out how many people saw your post, where they found you from, and when they are the most active. You can also post to a business page from your Instagram account.

Post consistently.

I know, this seems like common sense, but it’s one of the biggest issues I see. You start making ground. People are following you, Instagram sees you as putting forward valuable content, and then they ghost their community. You have now lost all of that traction you had gained. You probably lost followers in your break. If you are worried about posting consistently, there are two different programs you can use to schedule AND post for you. These programs are Planoly and Tailwind. I prefer Tailwind because it helps provide you with times that people are on Instagram and hashtags that will help you gain traction. It can be accessed online or in an app.

Maximize the real estate on your profile

You have very limited space on your profile. Make sure you’re utilizing it as best as you can. You have two seconds and two clicks to get a person where you want them. But, with Instagram, you only have one clickable link on your profile, so how do you decide where to send them? I recommend sending them to a site where you can create a tree. This one link will then send them to a landing page where they can decide where they want to go. Linktr.ee and campsite.bio both are great examples of this. Within two clicks, you can direct your future customer where ever you would like them to go, like your blog, Facebook group or page, or replicated website.

Use your hashtags strategically.

This one is the meatiest of our Instagram tips. You could spend HOURS working on this! Do you know how many hashtags you can use on one post? 30. You should try to use as many of those hashtags to drive people to your post. Hashtags are searchable, and now you can follow hashtags, too. So, how do you decide which hashtags to use? You need to have a good mix of three categories: generic, specific, and custom. Do you know the most common hashtag? It’s #love. Everyone loves something. On the hashtags that get a lot of use, the feed moves very quickly. So, the chances of someone finding your picture aren’t the best. Make sure you’re using hashtags that your ideal customer would be looking at. Would they want to look at the summer fashion trends? Use hashtags that they will either use or be looking at. And research your hashtags. Some hashtags have been banned, so make sure you’re not using them. Your post won’t get the traction you want then. And honestly, it’s crazy things that have been banned too, like #desk.

Engage on hashtags.

Remember how we were just talking about using hashtags that your ideal client will be using? You can help draw their attention to you by engaging on those hashtags. Go to the top 9 posts for a specific hashtag and give each one of them a like and a comment. But don’t just throw a heart on there or say something generic. Truly engage with these people. Comments like “Girl! I hear you! It’s a miracle if I shower before noon, too!” will get you noticed a lot quicker than “Nice!” Be sincere. You’re working on building that relationship, right?