Instagram for business - what you should know

Can you promote your business with images? If so Instagram maybe a great platform for you. If you find it tough to come up with ideas it may just mean you need some inspiration. I suggest the first you do is signup (personal account) then search under the #hashtags you are most likely to be promoted through and see what results you would get i.e. how many other people are using those #hashtags. This will give you an idea of what, where and how to use Instagram for your business.

You can then connect your Facebook business page to your Instagram account and get started.

So, what is a #hashtag?

A word or phrase preceded by a hash sign (#), used on social media websites and applications, especially Instagram and Twitter, to identify messages on a specific topic.

#hashtags have a presence of their own. For example I live in Wellington, New Zealand. So one of the first #hashtags I would consider looking at are my local tags #wellington #newzealand and with a little research I would discover that #wellingtonnz is a very well used tag. If I post on Instagram and used these tags people also posting using these tags are likely to look through the feed for #wellingtonnz, they can even follow this #hashtag so any posts under this tag are promoted in their personal feed - objective find posts that are relevant (in this case local).

You can use #hashtags for all searchs e.g. The #digitalmarketing is one for me as it is relevant to what I do and it has 5.4 million posts. So when I have a relevant post where I use this tag I have the potential to hit quite a few people, building followers, likes and maybe, just maybe a sale.

Facebook & Instagram

Well, just in case you did not know, Instagram is owned by Facebook and is the number two social platform in the world for Business to Consumer marketing. Facebook is number one and by a long way. Instagram allows you to push you post from Instagram to your Facebook page, but Facebook does not allow you to this unless you are buying paid advertising. My advice do neither. Each platform has differences and to maximise your reach and message you need to posts different things using the rules that apply to each platform.

Making Instagram work

Build a great profile, include a great photo and in your details add your website address maybe your Facebook messaging system address or email and a bio that is clean and clear so people know who you are and what you are about.

It probably goes without saying, but if you want to offer a better, more attractive, cleaner feed for your followers, you’ll need to start with better pictures in the first place. Your ‘Wall’ tells alot about you to potential followers make sure you have great images with consistent quality e.g. if you use a filter for your images make it the same one.

FYI: Your wall is the block of pictures people see when they first check you out on Instagram.

Learning how to great photos using your phone is important, so is getting a phone that is capable of taking great photos.

Building your audience

When you start out you need to build your audience and the best way is to connect with people on Instagram who are interested in the same things you are promoting. This is critical no matter what marketing you produce. You might create the most beautiful Instagram content in the world, but if it doesn’t appeal to your target buyer, what’s the point?

Don’t talk at people, talk to them. It’s all about them your posts should be about the audience not you. Take this approach and you are going to be ahead of 95% of Instagrammers today.

Be consistent and persistance, two to three posts per week of high quality will work much better than bombing the market with posts every second hour. Also, don’t go missing make sure you plan your posts and you do post on a regular basis.

Check out your Business insights

To track whether you are getting things right you should look at your insights. You don’t necessarily want millions of people following you from around the world if you only provide local services or products. You maybe more interested how many people in your region are engaged with you.

As we mentioned Facebook owns Instagram, and they’ve introduced a similar ‘Insights’ tool to help ‘Insta’ Users.

The tool offers some interesting insights into the people following and interacting with your account. 

• Impressions: How many times your content was viewed

• Reach: Total number of unique accounts that viewed a piece of content

• Website clicks: How many clicks the link in your business profile has received

• Follower activity: How often your followers are on Instagram daily

• Video views: How often your video content has been viewed

• Saves: How many people have saved your posts

Insights also includes demographic information, so you can see where your followers come from, their age, and their gender.

With this, you’ll have plenty of information about your existing Instagram audience. 

I hope you found this helpful. If you would like to hear about more digital marketing tips please join my message system on Facebook here https://m.me/tonycuttingdigital

I’ll let you know when I post my next blog and you may even go into a draw to win some FREE 1:1 training either Face to face or via Zoom.

Happy Posting

Tony C
Personal Coach / Digital Marketing Specialist
e. hello@tonycuttingdigital.co.nz
m. https://m.me/tonycuttingdigital
w. tonycuttingdigital.com

CONTENT IS KING

Everyone wants to be on the first page of Google, right?

By a conservative estimate, studies suggest that the first page of the search results receives 75% of web traffic. You need to be on that first page to be visible to new customers. The only problem? Ranking isn’t easy.

Google uses a complex algorithm of 200 ranking factors – and perhaps even more that we don’t know about – to sort through everything that the internet has to offer. Some of these ranking factors are out of your control; you can’t make your domain age faster, after all. Those sorts of things can make it difficult to compete for visibility with larger, more established companies.

You can compete with the big boys, however, if you can develop better content than them. Google even lists content as the first thing for a webmaster to focus on when creating a Google-friendly site: to provide “high-quality content on your pages.”

What works best?

Audiences Want Video Content - Mobiles are dictating rankings.

In 2016, Search Engine Land reported that over 60 percent of all internet searches come from mobile devices. That number has continued to increase since. Google and other search engines are aware of this and have adjusted their algorithms accordingly.

So what exactly does this mean? It means search results are tilting to favor content that’s easily consumable on mobile devices. Do you know what outperforms all other forms of content on mobile?

Video.

If you want to rank in the search results, your content must be easily digestible on a mobile platform and fit the needs of a mobile user. If someone’s sitting at a desktop computer, they are generally more willing to read long-form articles or watch a long video. On mobile? Information needs to be quick, concise and cut to the point.

Videos are a perfect solution. And get this – videos can also increase your conversions on landing pages by up to 80%. Why not increase your sales while you’re at it?

The massive advantage.

Companies are quick to get into content marketing or SEO, but slow to create videos. And that’s precisely why creating video footage makes it easy to out-value the competition.

Tony Cutting Digital has been exploring different types of video solutions for the past three years. We can produce video directly ourselves or use a partner if the ideal solution requires something a little different to what we normally work with.

Either way once your video is ready we are the experts in New Zealand for getting your video out there.

Great Images

If video sounds too hard then make sure you include a great image. A gallery of great images will likely perform better then just one. However, remember your content needs to tell a story and the images need to add something to that story. Social media is about engagement, building relationships with your followers and converting these relationships with meaningful content that shows you are a trustworthy provider of whatever good and services you sell.

- Tony Cutting

M 021 911 722
E. hello@tonycuttingdigital.co.nz

Message Me. https://m.me/tonycuttingdigital