9 Secrets to Success on Instagram for Small Business Owners

Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash

Do you own a small business and are looking for clever, simple, and effective ways to boost growth? Then, you should look at social media marketing. In particular, you might want to consider promoting your brand on Instagram.

Summary

1. Start a Business Account

2. Draw up a Plan

3. Define Your Audience and Goals

4. Create Awesome Content

5. Post Regularly

6. Craft a Compelling Brand Presentation

7. Connect with Influencers

8. Know What Metrics to Track

9. Be Ready to Experiment

Why? In 2021, this social media platform has over one billion users worldwide. Millennials, in particular, love to share content and get inspiration from Instagram. And, considering the great buying power that Millennials hold, you should start using this platform to reach out to them.

But how do you go about succeeding as a small business in a crowd of Instagram-savvy competitors? Just read our nine best-kept Instagram secrets in this guide.

1. Start a Business Account

It may sound pretty obvious, but the first step you’ll need to take is create a business account. This should be separate from your personal account (if you have one) as it should exclusively focus on promoting your brand and reaching out to potential customers.

Start by downloading the Instagram app for iOS, Android, or Windows. Then, launch the app and click “Sign up”. Here, simply follow the guided steps that will explain how to create a business account from scratch.

2. Draw up a Plan

Photo by Firmbee.com on Unsplash

Well done – you’re in. Now, you need to put on your strategic hat and come up with a plan. How do you intend to use Instagram? Which specific products or services are you considering promoting on this platform, and do you need any help with that?

Try to build what looks like a business plan – only with a social media focus. Remember to include whether you might need to consult with a specialist agency to create or post content, or give you other smart marketing advice.

It might be useful to follow the SMART strategy, when creating your plan. You want your business goals to be:

• Specific

• Measurable

• Attainable

• Relevant

• Timely

For example, instead of writing something generic like “Sell lots of products”, try to be as specific as you can, with something along the lines of “Close at least XX sales within the first quarter”.

Similarly, you’ll want your goals to be realistic and achievable, even though you should accept that it may take some time.

3. Define Your Audience and Goals

Photo by Melanie Deziel on Unsplash

As we said earlier, more than one billion people around the world use Instagram these days. This, though, shouldn’t mean that you are going to want to reach every single one of them.

Not only would this be impossible, but it also wouldn’t benefit your brand. The wisest thing to do is to narrow down your audience to those exact categories of people that are going to show a real interest in your brand.

This can depend on what type of products or services you offer, as well as your brand identity, tone of voice, and positioning. Zooming into the specific audience you want to address is going to help enormously with content creation and publication.

4. Create Awesome Content

Photo by Damian Zaleski on Unsplash

This is one of the most important bits: to be able to stand out as a fresh, attractive, and memorable brand, you need content that is catchy, persuasive, and imaginative.

If you wonder what this type of content looks like on Instagram, you might want to check out some of your most successful competitors. Do they write long or short captions? What type of images do they post, and how often? In addition to images and multi-image postings do not be afraid to try out videos as well as Instagram Stories and Instagram Reels.

Then, you can have a go at crafting some posts yourself. Feeling a bit unsure, or lacking the necessary creative drive? Feel free to reach out to a content marketing expert for insight and practical support.

5. Post Regularly

Photo by Roman Bozhko on Unsplash

Now that you have a business account, a plan, and some great content, you are only one step away from another milestone: posting online. You can’t just let your content sit idle for ages – you need to get it out there fast, if you want to stay ahead of more Instagram-savvy rivals.

Don’t have time to post frequently? Worried that you might simply forget when you are supposed to publish something? The easiest and most efficient solution for you is to schedule your posts with social media management tool like Hookle.

This is a clever and easy way to ensure that you never miss out on any opportunities just because you forgot about sharing great content to your Instagram channel.

6. Craft a Compelling Brand Presentation

Photo by Leon on Unsplash

Your Instagram bio and image are the two main things that users see about your brand. For this reason, you’ll want to make them as appealing, engaging, and informative as possible.

Choose a brand description that’s simple, concise, but perfectly conveys what you are all about. Complete it with either an image of your logo, or one of your best products.

Looking for some inspiration? A good idea is to check what other brands in your industry are doing. Of course, don’t steal from them, but simply find a compelling way to tell your own story and communicate your own values like other successful companies are doing.

7. Connect with Influencers

Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe on Unsplash

Another great idea to boost your visibility on Instagram is collaborate with like-minded individuals. These can be both other businesses, or so-called influencers.

Influencers are people who leverage social media to provide opinions, advice, and, ultimately, inspire and influence other users. When connecting with influencers, you’ll want them to be somewhat interested in your brand.

For example, if you are selling beauty products, it wouldn’t make sense to ask a food blogger to collaborate with you. Find someone relatively well-known (and respected) within your specific niche, and you’ll soon see some pretty impressive results.

8. Know What Metrics to Track

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

Once you have been posting for a while, you can begin to track some metrics. This is an essential step, as it allows you to better understand what you are doing right (or wrong), how to fix any missteps, and whether you should tweak anything within your process.

Some of the most important metrics that you are going to track should be:

• User engagement: based on likes, comments, and shares, you can measure both engagement and amplification rates.

• Brand Awareness: this metric includes your follower growth rate, the accounts that you have reached, and the impressions that your posts have made.

• Customer-related: these are based on how your followers behave on your Instagram page, and on areas such as repeat customers and customer retention rates.

• Conversion: this metric looks at how many leads became actual customers by analyzing click-through and bounce rates.

9. Be Ready to Experiment

Photo by Zac Durant on Unsplash

Being a successful small business on Instagram is not a quick achievement. For this reason, you should be patient and be prepared to abandon your original plan (or at least some of its parts) and start from scratch at any time.

Don’t let this discourage you, though. View it as a way for you to better understand your brand, your business goals, and your challenges, so you can start over stronger and more efficient than before.

Need a hand with boosting your social media presence as a small business owner? Take a look of Hookle - your personal social media assistant app or book a demo with us today, and our team will be happy to help you!