Instagram Archives | Social Speak Network

How to Master Instagram for your Business

Instagram is one of the fastest growing social media platforms and it is so important for your business to be utilizing this amazing tool!

In this blog, we will help you understand Instagram and how to master it for your business!

We will cover the following:

What Makes a Good Post
Hashtags
Strategy
Tools
Stories

About Instagram

Instagram is a social networking platform made for sharing photos and videos, you can only upload content from your smartphone or a third-party application. You can edit your profile, follow, and research via your computer, but cannot post.

Facebook owns Instagram, so, you will see some similarities. You have your profile and news feed, you can have multiple accounts, most people have a personal account and a business account.

When you post a photo or video on Instagram, it will be displayed on your profile. Your followers will then be able to see your post in their newsfeed. This also is the same for people you follow, you will be able to see their posts within your newsfeed similar to Facebook.

Instagram has a strong emphasis on mobile and visual sharing, a few things to point out with your Instagram account, links to websites do not work within the content area of the posts, most people will have a link to their website in their bio and tell their audience within the content to click on link in bio.

Instagram is all about building authentic followers and great for increasing engagement with your audience.

Let’s talk about what makes a good Instagram post and some guidelines to follow.

Instagram Posts

Now, that you have your business Instagram account all set up and you are ready to post, it is important to think about what makes a good Instagram post.

There are a few variables that go into a great Instagram account.

Here are 8 things to think of before you start posting:

1) Audience – You want to know who your target audience is and what they like. You will want to make sure you are giving them value in each post.

2) Length of post- With being able to have 2,200 characters to craft together just one Instagram post, that is a whole blog post if you think about it. When crafting together each Instagram post you want to think of the outcome for each post, you can share a blog on one Instagram post or full recipe and you will want to try shorter posts and longer posts to see what your audience prefers.

3) Call to Action – What is the outcome or goal for each Instagram post? Are you giving a tip, valuable content, asking a question and looking for sign-ups, wanting people to sign up for a product or service? What do these Call to Actions mean? Likes, comments, tags, shares, etc? You need to be clear about what those CTA (Call to Action) should be, they can be different for each post.

4) Hashtags – This is a little bit of trial and error, meaning do some research on http://hashtagify.me/ to find out the most popular hashtags that are going to be beneficial for your brand. Instagram also has an amazing internal hashtag research tool, if you open up Instagram and click on the search icon you can put in a #hashtag and see how many times it has been used. Some people say use your hashtags in your content of the post and some say put your hashtags in as a comment. We recommend both. Here’s why, if you put them in the content are people will be able to see the important words/ hashtags, then also utilize the comment area to add more, up to 30 if you would like.

5) Tag fellow followers – This is a great opportunity to gain more exposure. You want to find people that are in your tribe, power partners, cheerleaders, etc. On certain posts, you can tag your tribe for their followers to see and then in return, this helps grow your followers and helps your tribe grow theirs. It’s all about collaboration!

6) Brand – Instagram is a great platform to really allow you to show your brand. You can create images through Canva with your brand colors, fonts, and styles to make sure each image showcases your brand. A well branded Instagram account has a good flow and the images align together.

7) Schedule – When are you posting? When is it the best time for your audience to see your posts? Well, you may be surprised. According to Later the best times to post on Instagram by day of the week are:

8) Grammar – Instagram is just as important as any other social media platform, and since you are posting as your business grammar is important to pay attention to. I have found prewriting my Instagram posts either on a word doc, Google Doc or in an email, allows me to make sure I am not misspelling words and have correct punctuation. I found a tool called Grammarly this checks grammar, punctuation, and spelling. This tools has been a huge help for myself and our team!

What is a Hashtag?

An Instagram hashtag is a word or phrase comprised of letters, numbers, and/or emoji preceded by what was once referred to as the pound symbol (#). Instagram hashtags categorize content. Click on a hashtag and you’ll be able to browse posts that have been tagged with it. Attach one to your own photo or video and it will be discoverable to anyone searching the hashtag. How likely it is to be seen by other users depends on how often the hashtag is used, how popular your post is (does it already have a lot of likes and comments?), and how strong your following is. Hootsuite has a great guide to download detailing what an Instagram Hashtag is, click here to read more.

When and How to use a #Hashtag

• When you are talking about a hot topic like a keyword, example #SocialMediaTips #SocialMediaMarketing things that people are looking for.
• Look at the #Hashtags your competitors are using
• Look at what industry influencers and what #Hashtags they are using
• Anytime you post to Instagram you want to use between 3 and 30 per post
• You can insert your #Hashtags in the body of your content or also as a comment on your post
• Create brand #Hashtags #SocialSpeak #SocialSpeakNetwork
• Instagram now allows you to follow hashtags so you can keep up on the trends!
• BONUS Tip: Great tool to find #Hashtags check out Hashtagify

Three Questions to Think of:

1) What type of content do you want to share on Instagram?
What are your goals for your business Instagram account?
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2) Who is your target audience? Are they on Instagram?
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3) How will you integrate Instagram with your overall marketing plan? Are you going to promote products, workshops, events, services, tips etc?

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When thinking of your strategy and goals, here are some things you want to think of:

Increased brand awareness
Show your company personality and team
Increase customer engagement and loyalty
Showcase products and services
Promote events or workshops
Share company or industry news
Build a more engaged community
Connect with influencers
Drive sales through traffic to website

Tools for Instagram

The tools are improving all the time for Instagram, the best way to post your content is manually through your tablet or mobile. There are third-party apps like Hootsuite, Buffer, and Later that you can put your posts into their system and then it will give you a push notification on your device when it is time to post to Instagram. This helps you schedule your posts out and easily post them to your account.

Here are a few tools we have found to make the Instagram strategy easier:

Trello – This lets you work more collaboratively and get more done. Trello’s boards, lists, and cards enable you to organize and prioritize your projects in a fun, flexible and rewarding way. You can create your posts in Trello for Instagram, upload your image and content using bullet points, emojis and spacing, the formatting will stay the same when you copy and paste it to Instagram.

Canva – Easily create beautiful designs + documents. Use Canvas drag-and-drop feature and professional layouts to design
consistently stunning graphics. Design eye-grabbing social media graphics, and more with thousands of beautiful layouts. In Canva you can also add your brand fonts and colors.

Buffer – Buffer for Instagram The easiest way to plan, track, and amplify your Instagram marketing. While Buffer can’t do the posting for you, we’re here at every step. As you may know, Instagram does not allow outside apps to post directly to Instagram. With Buffer’s Instagram support, you can create an Instagram reminder in the web or mobile app, and when it’s time to post, Buffer will send a notification to your phone that loads your photo into Instagram with your prewritten caption saved to your phone’s clipboard, ready to be pasted.

Hootsuite -Now you can schedule your Instagram posts and engage your followers with Hootsuite. Hootsuite lets you do more with Instagram. Schedule your Instagram posts Save time—and keep your social presence active—by easily scheduling your Instagram posts in advance. Monitor your brand, your competitors, and keywords to get the full picture of your space. Share the workload and have your Team Members post photos and reply to comments. Use a single dashboard Schedule and publish content directly to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ all at once, and engage with your followers across your social networks.

Later – Plan all your visual content from photos to videos Organize weekly and monthly visual content at a glance across social channels. Plan in calendar view Preview posts as they’ll actually appear. Schedule across platforms Queue up Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Optimize your workflow with Media library, Sync up from your computer, Drive & Dropbox. Organize all your media with labels and keep them all – Bulk upload to save time, Sync photos and videos from a desktop, Drive, or Dropbox. Label & organize your media, index visual gems for future reference with Labels. Work like a dream team brings creative minds together in Groups.

LinkTree – Linktree is a free tool for optimizing your Instagram traffic, whether you’re a blogger, an artist or run a content platform. You’ll get one bio link to house all the content you’re driving followers too. Let your content live longer than the feed.

Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories is a feature that lets users post photos and videos that vanish after 24 hours.

Here are 4 tips for great Instagram Stories:

1) Special Offers – Create a special offer just for your Instagram audience. If you have a special service or event you can create a code for a discount that ONLY your Instagram followers will be able to get and that offer will ONLY last for 24 hours. You can post a coupon or a teaser image to get the hype up before you post your story with some of the details, then give the code or discount in the Instagram Story video! Remember to give a direct link where they can redeem that discount!

2) Highlight a Creative Process – Show something in the process, maybe design, sketch, graphics, product. People LOVE to see how things are being made. If you are a home stager you can show before and after, decluttering. If you make jewelry you can show the creative process of how your items are made. This can also include a sneak peek to new items or new services.

3) Behind the Scenes – Since Instagram stories are temporary this is a great opportunity to show behind the scenes. Helping out in the community, setting up events, interviewing customers, giving tips on different processes that help you. Bringing that human feel to your brand. Similar to #2 as in highlighting something, but this type of video would be more focused around you as a business owner.

4) Instagram takeover – This is something you would do later on in the game, once you have developed a strong following and a good group of power partners. Instagram story takeovers are quick and easy, also a fun way to grow your followers. You exchange login information with a power partner or someone that can compliment your business and you do an Instagram story from their account! It lasts for a 24 hour period, the videos only stay up for 24 hours as well. This draws special attention from your followers. It shows your partnerships with other businesses and helps build that support and community.

Tip: When putting together an Instagram Story make sure you are adding VALUE! You can also add in #Hashtags, Links, Stickers and more! Have FUN with it!

Time to get started! Just remember these things:
1. Take advantage of free Instagram tools we mentioned in this ebook.
2. Cross promote Instagram posts as much as possible.
3. Keep your audience in mind when posting, you don’t want to overwhelm them.
4. Engage with your followers, like and comment on others posts also take time to share posts.
5. Use Hashtags

As you can see there is a lot to managing your Instagram account, it’s all about being clear and consistent. This platform is great to build authentic relationships and really grow your sales funnel.

If you need help managing your Instagram and are ready to take it up a notch schedule your FREE 30-minute consultation today

March 25, 2019/by Amber Irwin

Instagram, Social Media, Social Speak

Using Instagram Story Tools to Engage your Viewers

Instagram is by far my favorite social media outlet. I shamelessly could sit there for hours following tags, searching for new wellness accounts to follow, and seeing what people are up to. But the thing that always grabs my attention are the Instagram Stories. To me, they are by far the most engaging and intriguing part of Instagram.

Instagram Stories are a huge viewer engagement opportunity. They add a personal level that truly grabs your followers’ attention.

Involving your Audience

There are so many tools you can use on Instagram Stories to make your audience feel like they are a part of your journey or your daily life. Here are the top engaging tools that you can use to engage your viewers:

Poll
Ask me a Question
Countdowns
Swipe Up

Each of these tools either ask for an action step from your followers such as responding with a question of their own or giving you their opinion, or they encourage your followers to check back for the post/event that the countdown was for.

Poll

Poll is by far, my personal favorite when following stories. It gives me a chance to feel involved in the person’s post. Polls are great for hearing what your viewers want to see. Use polls to give options to them and see what they are interested in listening to. This will encourage them to continue following you and checking in for the content they feel they had a say in. As health professionals, there are so many topics to talk about so see what information is being asked for.

Ask a Question

This is a great tool for health and wellness companies. Most people that are interested in health have questions and if they are following you, they are interested in what you have to say. A trend right now for fitness/health professionals is a Q&A session via IG Stories using the “ask a question” feature. Set up a time to have your followers ask questions, post their questions in your stories and address their questions during the videos. This involves the person asking the question and gives your viewers answers to questions they may have as well. During these sessions, utilize hashtags and tags to increase engagement and give the viewers something to follow up on after your session is complete. You can also create the label for the question meaning you can dictate what direction you want the questions to go. This will keep the conversation and videos you make focused on your specialties.

Countdowns

The Countdown feature can be great for creating excitement for an upcoming event, product release, or follow up post. Blogs are great to use countdowns for as well. It creates a buzz about your content and with the help of another feature (see below), you can have the follow up post lead directly to your blog.

Swipe Up

This can be one of the most useful and easy features in terms of marketing. The Swipe Up feature is used to take a viewer directly to a site that you would like them to see. You can increase website traffic, send your viewers directly to a post you want to highlight, or for healthcare professionals, send viewers to a scheduling system to get started utilizing your business. Consumers want easy ways to find information and we love social media. The Swipe Up feature address both of these aspects. Please note that to utilize the “Swipe Up” feature, you must have a minimum number of 10,000 on your business account.

Using Stories to Increase Website Traffic

By utilizing these features, you engage your viewers, give them a voice, provide information, and direct them to the next step. These features create an interactive environment and spike curiosity in your business. It may start just as another Instagram account for them to follow, but, if you keep providing top information that is sought after and provide an engaging environment, those followers may become future clients.

February 19, 2019/by Amanda Anderson

Instagram, Social Media, Social Speak

6 Reasons You NEED to be Using Instagram Stories for Business

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6 Reasons You NEED to be Using Instagram Stories for Business

Instagram stories are where it’s at! Instagram is putting a lot of focus on stories, and always adding new things to them to help make them, even more, user-friendly.

In this blog, we will be discussing 6 reasons WHY you should be using Instagram Stories to market your business.

If you didn’t know already Instagram is owned by Facebook, which means their algorithm is going to be similar, the more you use their bells and whistle they offer the higher they rank you. Along with the more people engage in your posts they will see your posts more if you have common interest etc. Before the stories and posts would show up in chronological order, NOT anymore. Most social media platforms are following a similar algorithm to Facebooks. They like to think they know who you are, based on interests, likes and engagement so they want to show you the stories and posts they think you will most like. Sometimes, it is crazy how spot-on they can be!

So let’s dive in . . .

#1 – Top of Mind – That is KEY!

We feel like one of the biggest reasons to use Instagram Stories is to be top of mind. It is the first thing people see when they open up their app. Once they see you once up there they are going to be looking for you even more. With Instagram Stories you can give value and keep your tribe coming back for more! The stories only stay up for 24 hours so it is a great way to increase engagement and get your message across. You want to keep your stories relevant and catchy!

Why is it important to stay top of mind? In today’s digital world people are being bombarded with thousands of different things daily, think of all the things you see on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, not to mention emails, texts, and good old fashion phone calls! If you are not consistent with your online marketing and sticking to a strict schedule you will get lost in the shuffle.

Each time you are posting a story you are giving your brand exposure, you are climbing the favorite list for your target market, and that’s what it is all about . . . being someones favorite, right?!?! Well, it kind of is with social media. People will start to notice that you are posting a story more regularly and that each story you are posting they are liking, they are engaging. They are excited to see what you have in store for them next!

#2 – Create a Strategy and Theme

People love when you are using all the components of Instagram. It’s important to keep your content fresh, get creative with it. Have a story that is a series of quick videos, images, a special offer, funny images. Get creative! One exciting way to use Instagram stories is to start creating a theme with them. Write down 10-15 different ideas for stories, be strategic about them. Maybe they are 10 tips and each story has 2-3 different components to it, like a static image with title, then short video and then call-to-action. you do this for 10 different stories each have your brand color, logo, and a video of you to build your brand.

Stories are real-time, so this is a great tool for your strategy. Stories tend to build engagement and help reach your target audience.

Think of using stories when you are at:
* Live Events
* Networking Groups
* Speaking Engagements
* Behind the Scenes
* Live Sale

Here is an example of what an AMAZING story would be, Forbes had an AARP event and they put together such a good story. They had branded images for each section of the event, such as Learn, Connect, and Health. They tied in still photos, branded photos, and videos of the event. They also branded the hashtags #DisruptAging. You can see in the first photo there are 15 little white lines, that means there are 15 slides to that story. You can have A LOT of images and videos to one story!

#3 – Let Your Creative Side Show

Instagram Stories are easy, quick and fun! It only takes a couple steps to get up your masterpiece. You can also share those stories on your Facebook page! I want to share a video with you that will show you how to create branded Instagram Templates. I know that everyone loves a pretty Instagram account when their images are all color coded, they have the same look and feel to them. It attracts people more to your feed. Well, why wouldn’t you do the same thing with Instagram Stories? We use Canva to create our brand templates:

Even though Instagram stories are made to be quick and easy you still want them to look good. By working ahead and creating your templates with Canva you are getting ahead of the game like we have said in previous posts, it is so important to be always working ahead. Create a “Story” list, what topics do you want to cover? Create the images ahead of time and save them on your phone, then you have them and can pop them right into Instagram.

#4 – Set Your Standards High

When people come to your Instagram account you want them to think . . . “Wow, they do an amazing job!” Your photos are all branded and you are giving amazing value, your engagement is high, and your stories are great! The only problem with doing stories is they ONLY stay up for 24 hours. Your photos and videos you post to your feed stay forever. That is where step #2 came in with the strategy and theme, once you have these stories and they are offering the value you can highlight them in your profile.

If your story is promoting a special offer like a one-time deal, or talking about an upcoming event that doesn’t repeat on a weekly or monthly basis, those stories are a good story to just leave in “story-land” and let them disappear in 24 hours. They stories like the 10 tips, stories about your products or services, the stories that give that value, those are the ones we want to highlight.

In this video below we will show you how to highlight a story and keep your brand consistent:

#5 – Adding Value to Your Business Profile

Think of your Instagram account as a mini website, people are going to Instagram all the time to research new products, services, and places before they buy. You want to make sure your business profile stands out. When people come to your profile they see who you are as a brand. What you do, who you are, why you do what you do. When you just put static posts up to your feed they may get lost with the new algorithm, they may not be seen as much as they should, especially if you have lower engagement. By using stories it allows you to keep bumping up in that algorithm, it’s like Instagram is giving you kudos for doing a job well done. You can’t just put a story up once, you have to be consistent. Some brands are putting stories up every day with multiple images and videos. Since you can ONLY have 1 story per 24 hours, each time you add an image or video to your story within those 24-hours it will go to the same story but then you can highlight the images you want from that story to certain highlighted storyboards.

Here are a few examples of brands that have gone above and beyond with Instagram:

#6- Connect with Your Tribe

If you build it they will come… Feild of dreams. You are building your brand to give value to your tribe, you want to give them just enough to keep bringing them back. With over 800 million people engaging in stories each and every day it is so important to use stories to engage with your audience. Get creative and maybe do a live story, have people ask questions and you can answer them with a live story.

There are two ways you can think of your stories:
1) Oh they only last 24 hours so it doesn’t matter on quality, they are quick and fast stories just to get something up every day

OR . . . .

2) Think of your stories as an opportunity to connect. Your stories can be providing value to your audience then you highlight that story. You will have a mix of stories the themed ones with your templates you created and then the live stories, behind the scenes and event stories, which are still important to have, remember it is your brand you are dealing it.

You want a brand that is raw, authentic and transparent! People want to do business with people they know, like and trust! Go to a deeper level with your Instagram account, get to know your audience.

Bonus . . . Topics you can do Instagram Stories On:

Your Goals
Showcase your products and/or services
FAQ – answer those questions your audience has asked
Exclusive Offers and Deals
Ask for people to sign-up for a Newsletter
Behind the scenes
Family Life
Repurpose Blogs
Testimonials and Interviews
Recipes
Podcasts
Events
Trends

Spruce up Your Stories

Like I said, in the beginning, use the bells and whistles that Instagram offers the #hashtag stickers, location, dates, emojis, filters etc. Try out the different options they offer the Type, Live, Normal, Boomerang, Focus, Superzoom, Rewind, Hands-Free, and Stop-Motion. These are all cool ways to be creative with your brand. The markup capabilities they have to allow you to create eye-catching images that stick out!

Take advantage of tagging people in your stories as well. Once you reach 10,000 followers you can also add a link to your stories! I think by using Instagram stories it gives your brand more freedom.
Instagram is always adding new features, remember to check them out. Here is what they are offering now:

Weather
The current time
Holidays
Days of the week
Location tags
Funny hats and sunglasses
Emojis

What do all the Features Mean in Instagram Stories:

Text – Text is an option where you can tap to type, Instagram has4 different templates you can choose from as far as Modern, Neon, Typewriter, Stong. You can then tap the small circle color icon on the bottom lefthand corner to choose a different color.
Live – The live option is pretty obvious you are about to go LIVE on Instagram! You can have it in selfie mode or turn it around. Pretty plain Vanilla here.
Normal – You can upload a picture or video, also add filters to the pictures you take.
Boomerang – You can now access the “Boomerang” app through Instagram Stories, this is in a way making your own gif. If you take a picture of a high-five or walking your dog, yoga pose, etc it will have that quick segment play over and over.
Focus – This is the NEWEST Instagram story feature. This option allows you to focuses on a subject’s face while blurring the rest of the photo’s background, this helps create that professional look. Great for selfies or products, yup, you can use this feature for front and rear facing camera modes.
Superzoom – This allows you to ZOOM super close up to an object and then is shows that process of moving closer.
Rewind – This plays your story from back to front
Hands-Free – This is great if you are doing a quick video and you don’t want your phone moving because your hand is shaking. You are still holding your phone, but you don’t have to keep holding the button, you can just tap it. It is also fun to try out the filters!
Stop-Motion – Stop Motion allows you to take a series of photos, but you cannot edit them. Once you’re done snapping photos, you tap “done” to see your story-editing tools like stickers and text. From there, you can post the stop-motion GIF to your story.

Wrap-Up

As you can see there are many options and features to try out with Instagram Stories, you can get lost in the creativity alone with these stories. Have fun with it and take your brand to the next level! We would love to hear what stories have worked best for you and which stories you have highlighted! We invite you to follow us on our Instagram account, we ALWAYS follow everyone back that follows us!

We also invite you to check out our FREE Resource page, we offer a ton of checklists to make sure your social media profiles are always at 100%. There is also an Instagram Caption Checklist that can help you craft together those eye-catchy captions to attract your target audience.

Cheers to your Instagram success!

Interested in learning more? Take a look at these articles:

Instagram Insights

Step up your Instagram Game – What makes a good image (or feed)?

Pinterest for your Business

April 13, 2018/by Amber Irwin

Instagram, Membership Only, Social Media

Instagram Insights

Let’s talk Insights! If you are anything like me, you could care less about the analytics right? They are just numbers, what do they mean? I have always loved numbers, but analytics not so much. If you put those numbers and stats into a pretty infographic, then I am all over it! Since I have been a social media manager for almost 10 years, I have had to find that LOVE for analytics and be able to explain them in such a way where our clients get it! With Instagram busness profile, their insights ROCK! I get it! I would say it’s a mix of pretty pictures and hardcore data. I love the way it compiles the information to make it easy and understandable for you to read.

When Instagram Insights came out, I was not sure how much I trusted them. I remember when Facebook Insights were out and some of that data was wack! I mean for a few of our clients, it just didn’t make sense or even add up. I always said take Facebook Insights with a grain of salt. Now, with that being said they have come a long way and I think they learned a lot, so they were able to implement more pros into the Instagram Insights.

Instagram Insights:

These insights collect data for you that will help you learn more about your followers and audience. We started our Social Speak Network Instagram not even a year ago and we have some awesome insights to who our audience is, what days and times they are looking at our account, where they are located and much, much more!

Overview

First things first, you have to have a business Instagram account o get these AWESOME analytics. When you log into your account, on the top righthand corner you will see 4 lines, click there and this will take you to your insights.

From there the first thing you will see if your overview: this is going to show you your incease or decrease of followers from the week before and the reach from the week before. You want these number to always be in the +, if you see a – negatice or decrease we need to take a further look. Below your weekly numbers you then see your actions meaning how many people liked your posts that week. We had +19 actions in the past week. So, with all the posts we put up we had +19 actions meaning people liked our posts or made a comment.

Discovery

Ok, let’s discover something new! This area is all about discovery, just like it says. It is going to tell you where your post was seen and how many people it reached. This shows your reach and impressions. Your reach is the number of accounts you reached this week. Impressions are the number of times the media you created this week were seen. Your posts are discovered in particular places within Instagram such as a user’s home feed, a search someone did, your profile, your location or location tag and/or a hashtag you had used.

Demographics

This is where it gets exciting! You really get to see who your audience is. I love how Instagram has put together these insights.

The demographics on Instagram insights are great, they tell you the % of men and women that are engaging in your brand, the top locations, age range (which is key) also a HUGE nugget of information here is the days and times that people are engaging. So Monday early mornings may be one of your biggest days, whereas maybe Thursdays between 11-2 are not very good. You can play around with this and see what weeks, days, and times are best for you and your brand. Then create your strategy around those days and times to be sure to give that value back to your audience.

YAY, we have shown you all about Instagram Insights, now what do you do?

Download our Instagram Insights Tracker by clicking HERE

March 26, 2018/by Amber Irwin

Instagram, Membership Only, Social Media, Video

Instagram Stories

All aboard! It’s time to jump on the Instagram Stories Train. Did you know that Instagram Stories has over 800 million people that use this feature??? WOW! That is amazing. Below is a video that talks about the best ways to use Instagram Stories for your business.

Some tips to remember:

Have a plan for your stories – what are your goals when creating your stories
Use all the features that Instagram offers you, the stickers, colors, text, selfie sticker, location, as you use more of these options Instagram will push your story to more places
Try out the different features of stories to mix it up with Type, Live, Normal Picture or Video, Boomerang, Superzoom, Rewind, Hands-Free, and Stop-Motion
Build your brand through Instagram Stories
Stories only last for 24hours – be sure to share to Facebook Stories and as IG posts
Videos for Instagram Stories can be 15 seconds

Topics for Instagram Stories:

Talk about products or services you offer
FAQ
Being an expert in your field
Exclusive offers for your Instagram Followers
Signing up for FREE offer or newsletter
Behind the Scenes
Testimonials
Contests
New Blogs
Recipes
Podcasts

We would love to hear about your Instagram Stories Successes!

March 22, 2018/by Amber Irwin

Blog, Growth Prompts, Instagram, Membership Only, Social Media

Step up your Instagram Game – What makes a good image (or feed)?

We have the basics set for Instagram, but now it is time to step up your game and create a cohesive strategy for your images and your Instagram feed. I wish I could say do X for a beautiful Instagram photo every time, but unfortunately, it all depends on your brand and the sentiment or feeling you are trying to evoke with your images.

In this post I’ll be exploring some of the ways to create an Instagram feed that you can be proud of! And, guess what? It all comes down to the images you plan to post.

Step 1: Make a List of the 3-5 things you/your business brand LOVES.

Common themes may be nature, organization, people, community, animals, sketches, etc. Think about what sentiment or feeling you get from these or that your brand wants to communicate.

Then think about the visual elements you are drawn to as they also relate to the sentiment of your brand.

For example, if you are a business coach and you value bringing clarity into your client’s lives and one of the things you are passionate about is organization, what other ways can you visually display this? What about crisp shadows and light filtering through architecture, or clean and clutter free office spaces.

Maybe your office values authenticity and personality. Would behind the scenes photos of office dogs capture a sense of playfulness?

In this stage, just brainstorm all the different types of things that encapsulate your brand, your passions, and the sentiment your want to convey.

Step 2: Find your color theme

By now you should have your brand colors selected, but if you don’t, that’s okay. Your Instagram can take on a slightly different color theme than your other marketing, as long as you are consistent.

To create a cohesive look for your Instagram photos, you need to always be thinking about the colors you are capturing in your images.

Which 2-3 colors do you want to bring into your color palette? I often enjoy feeds that are either vibrant with greens and colors found in nature or feeds that are crisp with whites and pops of color here and there. As you create your own ideas around colors, take a look at what some other popular accounts are doing below.

Once you have these colors, make sure to space them throughout your Instagram feed so you don’t have multiple photos in a row with the same color present.

Step 3: Use the same filter

One of my business partners is a photographer who emphasizes the need to edit photos before applying any filter. Personally, I think that is too much work for the average Instagram user, but I do agree that you should always be applying the same 1-2 filters in your posts so they all work well together.

However, as you you are taking the photos, pay attention to the natural light and backgrounds of your photos. Just being aware of what else is around can help you find consistency.

Step 4: Zoom in!

Sometimes on Instagram we try to pull too much into our images. Let’s say you are taking a picture of your office space for Instagram. Rather than trying to capture everything in one photo, zoom in on a single element. Not only will this make it easier to post more images of your office space, but you also will have a more visually appealing photo.

Sometimes I find that taking multiple photos at once can help keep the lighting consistent. So, pick a morning before your day gets busy and spend 30 minutes just taking photographs of small details within your office.

You aren’t going to publishing these all at once, but the simple zoomed in elements can provide a nice break within your Instagram feed.

Step 5: Always crop the same

Rather than trying to include both square and rectangular photos in your feed, it often is easier just to always crop your photos to square. There are some beautiful feeds which combine different photo orientations for a very playful feed, but for most of us, square works best.

Step 6: Create templates for any image with text overlay

We love utilizing Canva to create templates for any of those images where we share a quote or are announcing a sale, etc. Canva makes it easy to create that square image, incorporate your colors, and utilize your brand fonts.

Take a moment to think about what types of images you may want to use that will need a font overlay and how you would like the image to be displayed. Then, jump into canva and make a few variations of your designs that use different combinations of your brand colors. Below is an example for one of our clients.

Step 7: Don’t plan one image at a time, look at your entire Instagram feed

As you are compiling your posts for Instagram, I always recommend looking at how everything flows together. Apps like Later and the Preview App make it easy to visualize your entire Instagram feed rather than only one photo at a time.

Some common elements to consider are:

Tile Grid Layouts

Diagonal Grid Layouts

Row by row

Lines
Puzzles

As you can see, these take planning and sometimes if you are in a pinch, it is easier just to remember to rotate through your topics, your colors, and the various design elements of your photos 🙂

Step 8: Above all else, high quality photos win

As I’m sure you guessed, you always want to make sure you are using high quality photos for your Instagram feed. Some tips to remember as you are taking pictures:

If you use your phone for your images, the back camera is higher quality.
If you repost an image, use a reposting app rather than a screenshot. Better yet, reach out to the original photographer and ask if you can have the original photo to republish (and tag them in).
Quickly ‘enhance’ your photo on your phone with the built in photo editor.
Take multiple shots of the same item to ensure you use the one that is the most infocus with the best lighting.
The best times of day to take advantage of natural light are the mornings and the late afternoon. Here, the sun is still strong, but you won’t have such harsh shadows or bright spots in your images.

That’s it! Have fun with your Instagram photos and try to view your entire feed as an ever changing piece of art rather than each block as an individual element.

Please note, all images of Instagram Feeds are taken from The Preview App.

March 20, 2018/by Caitlin McDonald

Instagram, Membership Only, Social Media

Instagram Content Calendar

Now, that you have your Instagram Business account set up, and ready to rock and roll, right? We have spoken about the importance of having the business Instagram account, all the data it gives you and how it can help you define your target market. So, what now? It’s time to start posting! Before you just jump right into posting anything, it’s important to have a plan. What topics do you want to talk about on Instagram, what’s the story you want to tell? What value do you want to give your audience?

A couple resources:Content Calendar from videoLink to 2018 Holidays and HashtagsYou now know what you will be talking about each day, you can start looking for images on Pixabay or Pexels or even better take your own. Have the topic, image and post put together, you can even put the hashtags you want to use in each post. There are a few tools that we love to use to organize your Instagram posts:

These all help you organize your Instagram posts. Hootsuite, Buffer and Later, you can actually schedule your posts to your business Instagram account. Although this is great on time-management, we still highly recommend posting manually. If you are posting 7 days a week maybe you can schedule 3-4 posts per week and manually post the others. You still want to engage with your audience, follow people, comment and share posts. It can be easy to get comfortable with these awesome scheduling tools you forget that Instagram is a 2-way street.

March 16, 2018/by admin

Instagram, Membership Only, Social Media, Video

How to convert your Instagram into a Business account

If you have set up an Instagram account and have not yet converted it over to a business account, don’t wait any longer! You are missing out on a TON of data! There are not a lot of differences between your personal Instagram and Business Instagram as far as looks go, BUT the key to the business Instagram is that you get to really know who your audience is. The insights of your business account will really let you know who is engaging with your brand. It will tell you age, gender, location and more!

By switching to a business account you will have the ability to:
* Run ads and promotions
* Link to your Facebook business page, Twitter, and Tumblr accounts
* View Insights

March 9, 2018/by Amber Irwin

Growth Prompts, Instagram, Membership Only, Social Media

Instagram: An Introduction to Instagram for your Business (Plus Download)

Who doesn’t love Instagram?

Beautiful images, user friendly, frequently updated, but is it something you can actually use for your business?

YES!

Instagram is a power marketing tool that can transform your ability to connect with your market online. It is the platform where you can showcase your personality, but also connect with other businesses and consumers on a professional level.

In the past, I used to tell businesses that if they needed to cut one network from their marketing, it should be Instagram. Now it is one of the first networks I recommend. Whereas we used to never see traffic from Instagram, businesses are now being flooded with clicks from their profiles. Additionally, Instagram is now the network where businesses are seeing the most engagement. If increasing engagement and brand recognition is one of your goals for social media, how could you not have your businesses account already set up?

Below I’ve put together some steps for you to ensure a successful Instagram strategy for your business.

Step 1: Convert your Instagram Account to a Business Account

As a business account you have access to analytics and you can also share content directly to a Facebook Business Page rather than only your personal profile. You also gain the ability to add Click to Call button or other buttons in your profile.

Some highlights of the Instagram Analytics include:

Profile Views
Top Posts
Engagement Metrics

The steps to make this change are straight forward. Click to edit your profile settings and click the option called “Switch to Business Profile.” From here you are all set to get rocking and rolling with Instagram for business marketing.

Step 2: Have a Game-plan and Stick to It

We recently were working with a business that had just created its Instagram account and after a month they were ready to give up. Growing your network on Instagram takes time, just like any other social media network. However, it does grow fairly quickly!

This client was upset they were only at 90 followers in 20 days, and I explained to them that the strategy we followed of “following your complementary businesses followers” took time. Sure enough, a month later the business was up to 400 followers.

Having a game-plan is more than just how to grow your network. You also need to create a game-plan for the types of posts you are going to be publishing. I find it easiest to create a calendar of must-post items and then filling in the rest with consistent topics.

If you are a chef, you can consistently share recipes, if you support a cause, you can consistently post about the cause. Just make sure if you post 3 times per day for a week that you then don’t jump to posting only once per week as your followers will forget you even existed.

This brings us to this week’s Action Item!

What topics can you post about on Instagram? Please download this sheet of 100 Instagram post topics you can integrate into your Instagram strategy!

Download List Here

Step 3: Align your Images with your Brand

As you are posting images, you want to make sure they have a similar look, feel, and tone. You don’t always have to include your brand colors, but if you do use fonts on images or color blocks, make sure they are aligned with the content viewers will see elsewhere.

To keep your images consistent, try to use only a few filters on instagram. These filters will help make images appear as though they were shot in the same light and will help to increase brand recognition.

Additionally, you can use apps like Canva to create templates for your images. This way any image that has a text overlay uses the same colors and fonts.

Step 4: Include a Call to Action in your Bio

Rather than just saying what your business is about on your Instagram bio, also add a call to action. We love using Linktr.ee in our profiles to add a menu of links that people can click to learn more.

A non-profit, or example, could add links to their programs, donate pages, and events on Linktr.ee whereas an ecommerce store could use the space to highlight specific products, blog posts, and sales.

This functionality can greatly increase the effectiveness of your Instagram Marketing.

Step 5: Gain Exposure with Hashtags

Make sure that as you are writing your post you are also using hashtags.

We use Hashtagify.me to search for related hashtags and often have a database of hashtags for different types of posts that we can copy and paste.

Also, look out for banned hashtags. Instagram does a great job penalizing accounts that are using derogatory hashtags, however sometimes these are legitimate for businesses to actually use. Let’s say you are a dog walker, #dogsofinstagram may seem like an appropriate hashtag. Unfortunately, because of other connotations, it is on the banned keyword list!

Good luck and have fun on Instagram! Showcase a behind the scenes look at your business and try to fully connect with your followers!

Other resources:

Using Trello to Manage Instagram

Canva to Create Images

Engaging Posts on Instagram

March 6, 2018/by Caitlin McDonald

Apps, Business Resource, Instagram, Membership Only, Social Media, Tutorials

Using Trello to Manage Instagram Marketing

Working your Instagram strategy can be timely and overwhelming for most business owners. This download covers our tested process to easily write Instagram Posts and Share them to Instagram.

Our team uses this strategy to manage hundreds of Instagram posts per month and it will truly transform your ability create a successful Instagram Community.

Apps We Use:

Trello – Trello.com
Canva – Canva.com
Instagram

The Normal Process for Instagram Management:

The typically process followed for businesses managing Instagram goes like this:

Take photo on phone or email image from computer to yourself to save to phone
Open Instagram and find image that was saved to photo roll
Adjust filters
Add description
Think of potential Hashtags you could use, have spelling autocorrect turn hashtags into 2+ words, give up after 2-3 hashtags have been added
Forget to add a location
Click post and start randomly following people
30 minutes later realize you are still on Instagram and running late for a meeting

The purpose of establishing a process for managing social media is to ensure that you can actually spend your energy on the core aspects of your business.

What you Should be Doing for Instagram Management

Rather than trying to type and create Instagram posts on your phone, we recommend pre-writing and creating posts utilizing apps and tools to make the process easier and more streamlined.

It all starts on Trello.

You can download the Entire Guide as a PDF Here.

December 8, 2017/by Caitlin McDonald