5 Ways Small Businesses Can Stand Out On Instagram
We’re all aware that the land of social media is a very crowded place. While this provides numerous benefits for businesses, it does make it challenging to be noticed among the many accounts fighting for attention.
This challenge can be heightened considerably if you are a small business trying to compete against well known larger organisations who have already established loyal customers and followers.
But fear not! Here are our 5 tips to help you ace your Instagram game to ensure you stand out from the crowd.
1. Perfect your profile
Your profile is the first impression your visitors will get of your business. Firstly, your profile photo needs to represent you as a business, be memorable, clear and easily visible. This is what people will see away from your page when they are scrolling their discover page when someone likes, follows or shares your content.
Secondly, your bio needs to explain what you are as a business, what you stand for and what you can offer them as a customer/follower. This is also the only place you can add a direct link on Instagram, so if you want to redirect visitors to another page whether it be your website, a specific product, a blog page and so on.. This is where it needs to be!
2. Use Hashtags!
Hashtags are a great way to gain more likes and reach new followers. Hashtagging allows you to be found by people who are searching that hashtag, and you might be exactly what they are looking for meaning you’ll instantly bag yourself a new customer!
Creating your own hashtag is also a great branding tool for small businesses, it allows you to reach your followers and encourages them to use the hashtag - meaning your hashtag will be posted across various platforms which will increase engagement!
3. Use stories and Geo-tags!
If you haven’t started using stories on Instagram yet, you need to! With the number of Instagram users growing by the day, it can be really challenging to stand out by just your posts alone.
Stories really allow you to boost sales by promoting your products and engaging/ increasing your following. They offer a unique way to showcase your products in a different light, show new products and offer special discounts that will not only entice people to follow but will continuously remind potential customers of you which will give them that boost to go out and purchase! Check out our blog post on how to nail your Instagram stories here for more tips and tricks! Check out our blog post on how to nail your Instagram stories as a small business for more tips and tricks!
Similarly, Geotags allow new customers to reach you, often people search geotags on Instagram to find what to do in that area or the best things available. Geotagging your city as opposed to your smaller town will allow you to reach a larger amount of people, and hopefully attract them to you. It’s also handy to let potential customers know where you are located to make them finding you a walk in the park - you’re basically giving them no excuses to walk away from buying!
4. Engage with other users
Follow, like, share and comment on other users content! Not only are people reciprocal and will most likely repay the favour, but it gets your name out there so you are appearing on more people’s feeds, increasing awareness! It’s also a good way of building relationships which may come in handy in the future!
5. Look the part
You would of most likely heard people talking about the aesthetics or ‘theme’ of their feed, and this is something that shouldn’t be ignored when mastering the act of Instagram.
Accounts with a coherent theme with some sort of structure look a lot nicer, and are therefore more likely to be followed. Create your theme, nail the lighting, choose the right filters, and make your feed look amazing! Read our blog post on improving the look of your Instagram feed for more in depth tips.
Let us know how you get on! We’d love to hear from you!
Got any questions? Don’t hesitate to comment them below or DM me on Instagram - @lucyhitchcock_ @sassydigital