8 Simple Steps to Catapult Your Business on Instagram (feat. Nicka Wolny)

The power of Instagram in promoting your business is huge. Many people will find you on Instagram because a majority of people use their mobile phones. Instagram grew up on mobile phones, so the ubiquity of mobile phones gives you the opportunity to share your content with potential customers. Why would someone use a platform like Instagram for business? Isn’t it for adolescent selfie-taking kids showing off their locations? Instagram has grown into much more than just selfies and photo sharing. The average business owner on Instagram stands to join thousands of businesses who are promoting products and services. More than 40 percent of all U.S. companies with more than 100 employees are utilizing Instagram. According to Hootsuite engagement on Instagram is 10 times higher than Facebook and 54 times higher than Pinterest and 84 times higher than Twitter. 

Steps to Building Your Business on Instagram

1.       Know Your Audience

2.       Great Content

3.       Focus on You

4.       Have a Consistent Theme

5.       Post Regularly

6.       Use Live Streaming

7.       Optimize with Hashtags

8.       Promote Your IG Profile

Know Your Audience

Knowing your audience is paramount in establishing a niche and pinpointing your market’s needs. If you are a carpet cleaning business you will want to ask yourself, what type of carpet cleaning will you focus on? Will you be doing commercial, residential? If you are doing commercial are you going to be doing buildings, theaters, small businesses? If you are doing residential, will you be doing small houses, large houses, houses with pets, mobile homes, local or statewide? The more specific you can get the better your chances for success and the easier it will be to build or scale your business.

Great Content

Know the content you want to produce and try to make it look and sound as good as possible. The better the content the more likely people will find you credible and worth looking at. Your decision to use colors, filters, images, or videos is up to you. If you create something, make sure that it coincides with your audience. Take your time when producing content. Sometimes the more thought out content tends to be the best. Be reasonable with how much time you want to put into your content and if you find that there is some benefit to taking more time than others that do what makes the most sense. Consider your resources and utilize them to the best of your abilities. 

Focus on You

Many businesses will look at others and try to copy them. They are worried that they don’t have enough followers, and how is it that they have so many and we don’t. What are they doing that we are not doing and how can we do what they are doing? Focus on you and your business. Keep producing great content that works for your business and does not worry so much about what others are doing. If you remain consistent with your content you will start to see changes in your following and maybe even featured on others. 

Have A Consistent Theme

Once you have your profile set up and you are working on your content you want to make sure that your content is consistent. Your theme could be anything from headshots to consulting but keep the theme the same. Do not start talking about headshots and detract with how the government doesn’t do enough. Keeping the theme consistent corroborates your expertise in your niche market. 

Post Regularly

Now that you have your audience, great content focused on your business, and a great theme, you want to maintain regular posts. This will keep your profile fresh and lets people who are following you know that you are not only consistent with your posts but with your business as well. There can be situations where followers will leave if there isn’t consistent content.

Use Live Streaming

Using live streaming usually puts you at the top of the list and allows for people who are not following you to view your feed. This is similar to Facebook Live and YouTube Live. Instagram Live allows you to interact with your audience to help with branding and finding potential clients. With just over 700 million users, this is an opportunity to engage with followers and meet people from around the world. 

Optimize Your Post with Hashtags

What are hashtags? Hashtags are what Instagram uses to hone in on your industry. So if you are a photographer, you can use #photography to find new clients or showcase your work. You can get even more specific by using the hashtag #headshotphotography or #headshotphoto. These niche hashtags allow the business to niche their hashtags for the right audience. Location hashtags are important as well. Let us say you are in a city or town where you want to showcase your work. Using a hashtag that represents your town or city may provide opportunities to find new clients or be discovered. This also falls in line with events, or holidays. Use hashtag.com/">https://all-hashtag.com/ to find some great hashtags to use in promoting your business.

Promote Your Instagram Profile

Promoting your Instagram profile is important because it gives you additional visibility. Whether you are paying for it or just adding them to your business cards, giving people the opportunity to stay in content with you is a powerful tool when selling or promoting your products or service. There approximately 15 million business profiles on Instagram and advertising on Instagram is an option for companies that can afford it. This often helps your business grow in exposure and generate traffic to your website. Just to give you some perspective, approximately 60 percent of people discover new products and 75 percent take action after being inspired by a post.

Nick WolnyM  713-703-9765  E nick@nickwolny.com W  www.nickwolny.comPast TV appearances: www.nickwolny.com/mediaEntrepreneur.com articles: https://www.entrepreneur.com/author/nick-wolny