Grow your business with the best corporate Instagram hashtags
Social media is a growing marketplace for all kinds of businesses, and Instagram is at the heart of it.
While consumers are often annoyed by ads on blogs or news sites, they don’t feel that way about marketing on social media. Research has found that people enjoy discovering new brands on Instagram. Not only that, but according to a recent study, 90% of people patronize businesses they follow on social media.
Here’s another statistic for you: Instagram counts more than a billion users each month. So if you’re not already marketing on the platform, you need to be.
But marketing on Instagram is more than just advertising. You can reach users organically through a strong, branded profile and a sound Instagram hashtag strategy.
The top business hashtags on Instagram
Your hashtags strategy should start with some quick research into the most popular business/corporate hashtags on Instagram. Here are a few of them:
Though you need to be aware of the most popular business hashtags, you won’t want to use all of them. For one thing, they’re all fairly saturated already—#business has 75 million posts. For another, they are pretty general, and you will likely want to get more specific. We’ll talk more about that below.
So pick a few of the hashtags on the list, or find your own. It’s easy to build off an existing list of hashtags to find less competitive ones once you know how.
Wondering how many business hashtags you should use? Although recommendations vary, some research suggests that the optimal number is 11.
How to find the best business hashtags
Let’s say you want to use a hashtag that has “business” in it, but you don’t want to compete with the 75 million posts already in the #business pool. All you have to do is type #business into the search box, and you’ll see a list of predictive suggestions in a drop-down list. Under each suggestion is the number of posts already associated with that tag.
For example, you’ll find #businessowner, with 12 million posts, #businesstips (3 million posts), #businessideas (900,000 posts), and #businessinsider (340,000 posts).
Repeat this process with a few other hashtags until you’ve found a handful that you like.
Niche down
You can go ahead and use some of the more popular hashtags, but you should also choose some with smaller ponds in which you can be the big fish.
You can easily find less competitive hashtags by incorporating your specialty in the hashtag. Just for example, you can get the 1.7 million posts in #b2b down to a manageable 500 if you use #b2bsoftware instead.
Identifying and using the best hashtags for your business doesn’t take much effort, and it’s well worth the time you put into it. So do the research, then start tagging your posts, and watch your engagement and conversions climb. You won’t regret it.
Strengthen your business with the best Instagram fitness hashtags
Instagram’s fitness community is vibrant. Whether you’re looking for healthy recipes, fitness challenges, or inspirational photos of the transformation from flab to fab, you’ll find it on Instagram.
More specifically, you’ll find it by using Instagram hashtags.
And that’s also how your potential customers will find you, so you have to know how to use hashtags to your advantage. Part of this is knowing how to use an effective Instagram hashtag strategy for your floral biz.
Top fitness hashtags you need to be using
Here are some of the most popular fitness-related hashtags on Instagram:
This is a list to get you started, but you’re going to want to fine-tune and customize it to work for your business. You may use a few of these tags, but you should also include tags that are more specific – sometimes going through the profiles that tagged the key hashtags will also help you find more relevant ones!
First of all, some of these tags have positively enormous pools—#fitness has nearly half a billion photos. Talk about being a small fish in a big pond.
Second, it’s crucial to make it easy for the people who are looking for your business to find you. So if you sell fun handmade headbands to tame sweaty hair, you can use a mix of general fitness hashtags as well as some tags to attract potential customers who are already interested in headbands. One option is #fitnessheadband.
How many fitness hashtags should you use?
If you read five articles about how many hashtags you should use on your posts, you’ll probably come away with five different answers. While Instagram allows up 30 hashtags per post, there is no official word from the platform about the best number. But there has been some research suggesting that the optimal number is 11.
How to find the best fitness hashtags
If you’re struggling to come up with great hashtags, Instagram can help. Just type a keyword into the search box, like #gym. Instagram will immediately create a list of suggestions below the box.
From #gym, which has 200 million posts, you’ll find #gymshark (9 million posts), #gymgirl (6 million posts), #gymlifestyle (2.6 million posts), and #gymworkouts (510,000 posts).
This hack makes it a snap to find less competitive hashtags that are related to popular, obvious hashtags.
With more than a billion users on Instagram each month, this is a market with an enormous amount of potential. So it’s worth putting the time into developing a powerful hashtag strategy for your business.
People want to find your business. Help them do that by using the best fitness hashtags.
Why Instagram Engagement Rates Matter Most for Small Businesses
By: Cori Widen, Product Marketing Lead at Boosted by Lightricks
Not all Instagram engagements are equally important for your business. There are a lot of different types of Instagram engagement metrics such as follows, likes, comments, video views, profile visits, etc. – but there is one Instagram engagement metric that matters most for businesses: engagement rates.
So what exactly is an Instagram engagement rate? There are a few different ways to calculate an Instagram engagement rate, but it’s essentially the amount of people who interacted with a post or account divided by the amount of people who might have seen the post. Certain industries and types of businesses might have higher engagement rates, but a general rule of thumb is that around 2-3% is a good engagement rate.
5 Reasons Why Instagram Engagement Rates Matter for Small Businesses
Out of all the Instagram metrics, engagement rates matter the most for businesses. It might seem like an extra step for your business to begin monitoring engagement rates for your Instagram account and individual posts, but there are several significant benefits to doing so.
1. Attract New Customers– Achieving a good engagement rate means your business is more likely to attract new customers. How? Users who are liking, commenting and sharing your posts are helping boost your Instagram account, which will help new customers discover your business.
2. Conduct Market Research– Monitoring engagement rates can also be a very easy way to conduct some basic market research to really understand your customers and their interests better. Check out your Instagram posts with the highest engagement rates to understand which types of content and topics are the most interesting to your customers and keep these topics in mind when creating your social media content calendar.
3. Prioritize Social Media Efforts– By measuring Instagram engagement rates and understanding what types of content and posts typically perform best, you will be able to better prioritize your social media efforts. For example, if your Instagram videos are getting the best engagement rates, you’ll know that you should be creating more video content.
4. Provide Credibility– It is detrimental for a business to only care about a high follower count, while not working to maintain a good engagement rate. Customers pay attention to these things – if a business has a lot of followers but not many people are commenting and liking their posts, customers might wonder if they have fake followers. Maintaining a good Instagram engagement rate will help make your business more credible to customers.
5. Increase Sales– So how exactly does your Instagram engagement rate affect sales? When customers love your social media content and engage with it frequently, this can help increase sales in two ways. First, by engaging frequently with your content, your business will be top of mind for your customers. Secondly, having high-quality social media content that users love helps customers trust that your products and services are high-quality as well and they will be more likely to purchase from your business.
Which Instagram Metrics Matter (and Don’t Matter) For Businesses
Besides engagement rate, the second most important Instagram engagement metric might just be video views. Instagram posts with videos generate twice the engagement of static photo posts on Instagram (Hubspot). Creating high-quality marketing videos is much easier than you might think! Check out the Boosted app for ready-to-go video templates to help you create custom Instagram videos in 3 minutes or less.
And finally, when it comes to an Instagram metric that doesn’t really matter that much to businesses, you might be surprised! A lot of people think follower count matters most to their business, but it really isn’t that important. Yes, you will want to continue to grow your community over time but it’s actually better to grow your follower count slowly and maintain a high engagement rate. In fact, if your business has a lot of followers who aren’t super engaged, this will hurt your engagement rate and your account won’t be viewed as often.
The Takeaway: There are so many different types of Instagram engagements but not all engagements are equally important to your business. Prioritize a high engagement rate on Instagram to help your business understand your customers better, connect with new customers more often and most importantly – make more sales!
Cori Widen is the Product Marketing Lead at Boosted by Lightricks. She has been leading product marketing campaigns and doing qualitative market research in the tech industry for 10 years.
When properly planned and implemented, marketing on TikTok can be wildly successful, especially for makeup artists! Makeup artists’ highly visual nature make them the ideal brand to use TikTok for their marketing strategy!
By looking at famous TikTok-ers, like Jai Mariah, or Vanessa from @cutcreaser – who currently has well over 2.6 million likes – it’s easy to see why mastering the ins and outs of TikTok can be a worthy investment. One of the most important tools to succeed on TikTok is by utilizing TikTok hashtags.
Below, we’ll go over the best Tikok hashtag strategies to help your TikTok videos reach larger audiences than ever before.
Best Hashtag Strategies for Makeup Artists
Although it’s great to include popular hashtags on your videos, there should be more to your TikTok hashtag strategy than simply using the most popular hashtags.
In fact, if you’re always using the same popular hashtags, especially repetitively on all of your posts, you can actually damage your chances of reaching a wider audience! Consistently using the same popular hashtags can cause the algorithm to flag your content as spammy.
Therefore, it’s important only to use hashtags when they are actually relevant and descriptive of your content.
With that in mind, there are a couple of other ways to use hashtags as part of your brand or marketing team’s overall strategy.
For instance, branded hashtags are a great way to make your brand memorable and easy to search for, while also categorizing all of your content into the same place. Branded hashtags are simply hashtags that directly reflect your brand, voice, products, or services.
So, for example, if you’re a makeup artist name Mindy, you might use a branded hashtag, such as #MakeupByMindy. This way, if a TikTok user were to click on the hashtag #MakeupByMindy, they’d be brought to a collection of any video that used this same tag.
Alternatively, you can also use branded hashtags as part of a hashtag challenge, which can be a great way to stir up some hype and excitement about your makeup brand. A hashtag challenge consists of a brand launching a marketing campaign, where they encourage their customers to make short TikTok videos about its products, branding them with the predetermined branded hashtag.
Above all else, it’s important to get creative with your use of hashtags. Switch up the hashtags you’re using often, use hashtags that are current and relevant, and always use a combination of popular and brand-specific hashtags as part of your overall TikTok marketing strategy.
While there are many different reasons to use TikTok hashtags, the most important thing is that you do, in fact, use them.
Not only will they help you sort and categorize your digital marketing, but they’ll also help you increase your brand’s reach and stir up hype at the same time.
Below, we’ve compiled a quick list of some of the best hashtags to use as a makeup artist:
An Instagram business category is the category that a business can list itself as in their Instagram bio. There are over 1,500 different Instagram categories that a business can choose from: everything from fast-food restaurants to architectural designer has a category on Instagram. You cannot choose a business category for a personal account, so if you want to select a business category, you will have to create or convert to a business account.
Why Are Instagram Business Categories Important?
Instagram business categories are important because they help people to find your business. They do this by telling Instagram’s search algorithm to display your business when people search for businesses in your niche and area. For example, if you have an Italian restaurant in Pasadena, then your business category should say Italian restaurant and your location should be marked as Pasadena, California as well.
It is important to be as specific as you can when you are choosing your Instagram business category. This is because the more specific you are, the easier it will be for your customers to find. For example, as an Italian restaurant, you should choose the category “Italian Restaurant,” as opposed to “Restaurant.” Need more convincing? Check out why you should switch to an Instagram business account here.
How to List an Instagram Category
When you are setting up your business account on Instagram, you will be automatically asked to choose a business category. When you are prompted to answer this question, make sure that you choose the most accurate answer possible. After you finish the steps to complete your business account setup on Instagram, the business category will automatically be displayed beneath your business name in your Instagram bio.
How to Change Your IG Business Category
Many businesses end up changing their business category either because they found a different category that they thought was more appropriate for their business or because they changed their business model. If you find yourself in a similar situation and want to change your business category, then you can change it quite easily. All that you have to do to change your business category on Instagram is log in to your Instagram business account, click “Edit Profile,” scroll down to the business category section, and select a new business category.
List of Most Popular Instagram Business Categories:
For the full list of all 1500 categories, click here. And below are the most popular categories:
Advertising/Marketing
Agriculture
Arts and Entertainment
Automotive, Aircraft and Boat
Beauty, Cosmetic and Personal Care
Commercial and Industrial
Education
Finance
Food and Beverage
Hotel and Lodging
Legal
Local Service
Media/News Company
Medical and Health
Non-Government Organization
Nonprofit Organization
Public and Government Services
Real Estate
Science, Technology and Engineering
Shopping and Retail
Sports and Recreation
Travel and Transportation
Armed Forces
Charity Organization
Community Service
Country Club / Clubhouse
Environmental Conservation Organization
Labor Union
Private Members Club
Religious Organization
Social Club
Sorority and Fraternity
Sports Club
Youth Organization
Art
Book and Magazine
Music
Show
TV and Movies
ATM
Campus Building
City Infrastructure
Landmark and Historical Places
Locality
Meeting Room
Outdoor Recreation
Public Toilet
Religious Place of Worship
Residence
Brand
Cause
Just for Fun
Public Figure
Model
Writer
Final Thoughts:
If you want your business to thrive and be successful on Instagram, then it is critical that you have a business category listed in your bio and that this category is chosen wisely. The more accurate and specific that your business category is, the better. Having a very specific business category can help you stand out from your competitors. So, choose wisely!
Instagram Polls: The Complete Guide for Small Businesses
What is an Instagram Poll?
An Instagram poll is a poll that you can post to your Instagram Story to allow your followers to vote on various topics. For example, a poll could be created to ask followers which product they like better, A or B. The great thing about Instagram polls is that they are completely customizable – you can use them to ask your followers their opinions on just about anything!
What are the Benefits of Instagram Polls?
Instagram polls allow you to view real-time data that is highly relevant for your business. It allows you to better understand your customers and to get feedback from them extremely quickly. You can then use the data from Instagram polls to make smarter business decisions. Everything from product design to marketing can benefit from Instagram polls.
Another key benefit of Instagram polls is that many followers find them entertaining and enjoy participating in them. After all, who doesn’t like having their opinion heard? Polls are also highly shareable and if you create polls that are interesting enough to your followers, there is a good chance that they will share them!
Essentially, Instagram polls not only help you to get extremely valuable feedback from your customers, but they also help to generate attention for your brand and keep your followers and customers engaged. For all of these reasons, your business should be using Instagram polls regularly if you are not already doing so.
How to Use Instagram Polls
The first thing that you need to know about Instagram polls is that they are only available to use through Instagram Stories. So, you are going to have to create an Instagram Story if you would like to use Instagram polls. Don’t know how to create an Instagram Story? We got you covered with this Instagram Story ultimate guide. And while you’re at it, make sure to check out our complete guide for Instagram business categories.
Here is how to create an Instagram poll step-by-step:
Step 1. Create a Story Post
For your Story post, you can use a photo, text or video for your background. However, if you are going to use a photo for your Story post, then you should try to make the image as relevant as possible for the poll. You do not want to use a random photo because that will confuse your audience. You should apply any filters, text, emojis, or doodles before you post the poll. But, make sure that you leave some room in the post for the poll.
Step 2. Add a Poll to Your Story Post
To do this, you click on the sticker icon at the top of the story screen. The sticker icon is the square with the face. Once you have clicked on the sticker icon, click on the poll sticker option. After you have clicked on the poll sticker option, you will be given a choice to add your question and a “Yes/No” poll box will appear. You will then be given the chance to type in your question. You can choose any question that you want to ask. Just make sure that it is appropriate for your audience and complies with all Instagram rules. If you don’t want the responses to be “Yes/No” you can tap on the boxes and write in any responses you want. So, for example, if you want your followers to choose between a red product and a blue product, then you can write “Red/Blue” in the answer boxes.
Step 3. Position Your Poll
Once the poll sticker is created, you will have to position it on your story post. You should pick a spot where it fits and looks good. You can move the poll to any area of the screen and you can pinch it to make it smaller or larger, just like you can do with any other sticker. You want to make sure that the poll sticker is large enough to read comfortably, but not so large that it blocks out the rest of your post. This is especially true if you are using a high-quality image that is relevant for your poll – you want your audience to be able to see the image too. So, make sure to choose a position for your poll and then move on to the next step.
Step 4. Share Your Story and Poll
After you have completed the first three steps, the next step is to share your Story with the poll! You do this by adding it to your Stories. Once you have posted your Story with the poll, viewers will be able to see the post and respond to the poll question. If your followers have never seen an Instagram poll before, then they may even be given a prompt that explains to them what it is when they click on it. Hopefully, once your Story and poll are live, a lot of your followers will share the poll and give their answers. If they do this, then you can get a lot of valuable data from your poll.
Step 5. Enable Push Notifications
Make sure that your push notifications are enabled for Instagram on your phone. This way, you will be able to get a notification when someone votes on your poll. Doing this will enable you to get real-time data on the polls. This is especially helpful if you need the data quickly. For example, if you are struggling to make a business decision that needs to be made ASAP and if you want to hear from your customers before you make the decision.
Using the Poll Data
Ideally, you will get all the data that you need from the poll within the first 24-48 hours. If you have never used an Instagram poll before, you might be surprised at how clear the results are. However, even though polls oftentimes show one answer being the clear winner, sometimes the results are more even.
Instagram Story and poll data are extremely easy to use and understand. All that you have to do is look at the final results of the poll and see which answer won. Then you can take that feedback and use it to influence the business decision that you were trying to make. For example, if you set up an Instagram poll and asked customers if they preferred product A or product B, and if the results showed that they preferred product B, then you can focus a larger percentage of your marketing dollars promoting product B.
Other Helpful Tips
One great way to boost poll engagement is to create polls around topics that are trending. For example, if there is a big sports game coming up, you can create a poll around the sports game. People tend to get very excited and enthusiastic about hot trending topics, so you might be able to increase the amount of poll responses by making the polls about those topics.
Another thing that can increase poll engagement is if you use an emoji slider for your polls. In other words, if you let your poll participants respond to the poll with emojis, this can help to boost engagement. This is because many people like to use emojis on Instagram and would prefer to answer with an emoji as to a word.
Conclusion
Instagram polls are a win/win. You win by getting extremely valuable data from your followers and by creating higher levels of engagement. Your customers win by getting enjoyment from being able to give their opinions on things that interest them. Instagram polls are a great marketing tool and they can help you to get a much better understanding of the opinions of your followers and customers. If you have never tried using Instagram polls before, then you should give it a shot and see how you like the results. Many companies are very happy with the results that they get and continue using Instagram polls indefinitely.
50 Instagram Marketing Tips for Small Businesses in 2021
Instagram is a new marketing frontier for small businesses that has the potential to bring in many new customers in 2021 and beyond. As of July 2019, it was ranked #6 among the world’s most popular social networks, with over 1 billion users worldwide. Users love it for its strong visual focus and upbeat vibe.
The key to successfully utilizing Instagram marketing in 2021, as with other social networks, is building an engaged following and positioning yourself as part of the online community which could very quickly become your future customer base. If you are a small business owner finding yourself wondering how to do Instagram marketing, you’re in the right spot! We’ve rounded up 50 of our top Instagram tips for small business owners.
Here are 50 tips to successfully market your small business on Instagram in 2020:
1. Use a business account
When joining Instagram, you can select whether your account will be a personal account or a business account. The latter is ideal for business because it allows you to view analytics, connect your account with your Facebook page, run paid advertisements, and it makes it easier for followers to contact you. Starting off with a separate business account is crucial towards establishing your brand presence and will allow you to strategize and implement many of our Instagram marketing tips for all small businesses.
Check out this blog for everything you need to know about switching to an Instagram Business Account.
2. Fill in your bio
Instagram gives you 150 characters to tell potential followers everything they need to know about you. Use this space wisely. You can include hashtags in the bio, which can help more people find your profile. Make sure to include a link to your website.
3. Update your bio
As a small business on Instagram, it’s easy to fill in your bio and forget about it. If you haven’t updated your bio for awhile, it’s always good practice to review your Instagram bio and see if there’s any important updates that need to be made.
4. Establish your identity and look
Because Instagram is such a visual platform, the “look” of your profile matters. You want your followers to immediately associate your content with your brand. Using certain color palettes and fonts can help with this, as well as a certain style of image that’s consistent with your message.
5. See what your competitors are doing
Not sure where to start? See what other small and medium businesses like yours are up to on Instagram and draw on their ideas for inspiration. Take note of the kind of content they post, the hashtags they use, their visual language, and so on. You can also check to see how well they’re doing: how many followers do they have? How much engagement do they get on their posts? This will tell you how well their Instagram marketing strategy is working and give you ideas for things to do and not to do when planning out your own Instagram marketing strategy.
6. Create content pillars
Now that you’ve done your Instagram marketing research, there is one more step before you can begin planning your content. A key Instagram tip for your small business, is to create content pillars. Create a few themes for the types of content you plan to post about as part of your 2020 Instagram marketing strategy as a guide when scheduling your content.
7. Plan your content
Once you’ve created your content pillars, it’s time to decide what content you want to post and to be strategic about it: plan what you’re going to post at least on a weekly basis, if not for several weeks at a time.
8. Use hashtags strategically
Hashtags are one of Instagram’s most important features for businesses. They make it possible for people who don’t follow you to discover your content. Research has shown that using 7 or 30 hashtags per post performs best, but that it varies depending on how many followers you have. Instagram recently added a feature allowing you to see how many people found your post through the hashtags. This can help you measure how effective your hashtags are at generating engagement. Don’t underestimate #hashtag strategy as a really powerful Instagram marketing tip for small businesses! Check out this blog for 7 quick tips to building an Instagram hashtag strategy.
9. Put hashtags in the comments section
Now that you know one of our top Instagram tips for a small business is to use hashtags strategically, there is one more tip you should test out. In order to keep your Instagram captions clean and easy to read, we recommend placing all of your hashtags as the first comment immediately after posting.
Here’s a post from @boosted_social that has the relevant hashtags placed in the first comment:
Last but not least, we can’t talk about the importance of including hashtags without sharing how important it is to test out new hashtags frequently. Create several lists of hashtags you like to use and periodically test out using different hashtags. Be sure to keep note of which posts and hashtags perform best to get the most out of this Instagram tip!
11. Use line breaks in long Instagram captions
If you have a long Instagram caption you need to use line breaks to make it easier for your customers to read the caption. If your small business has been using Instagram for a long time already, you might already know that inserting spaces in the Instagram app can actually be really difficult. The easiest way to create line breaks in your Instagram captions is by using symbols between the lines.
12. Embrace Instagram Stories
The Stories feature on Instagram has been making a huge splash and can definitely help a small business Instagram page. Stories appear at the top of followers’ feeds, which makes them stand out — and they’re a lot more dynamic than regular feed posts, with tons of cool features. You can post multiple Stories a day without cluttering up your followers’ feeds. Stories should be an integral part of your Instagram marketing strategy.
Check out this post for more insights on Instagram Stories.
13. Use video
Instagram isn’t just for stills! Videos are more engaging and fun, and you have multiple ways to post them on Instagram. Clips of up to 1 minute can be shared on the feed, 15-second clips can be strung together on Stories, and there’s even IGTV, the new feature that allows you to post videos of up to 10 minutes in length. Check out this blog for tips on how to create video content for Instagram, even if you’re just getting started.
You can also try out Boosted to create videos for Instagram – fast! Here’s a Father’s Day template from the app that you could customize for your brand:
14. Don’t be shy about direct messages
Direct messaging is more intimate than public discussion and may be considered more invasive. However, there are cases where it’s appropriate and can help your small business market on Instagram by building better relationships with your customers. For example, if someone writes a post or comment praising your business, sending a DM to thank them is a nice personal gesture. On the flip side, if someone says something negative or posts a negative review, moving the conversation to DM helps keep it out of the public eye and shows the customer that you’re taking their concerns seriously. Learn more about how to use Instagram direct messages here.
15. Actively engage with other users’ content
If you really want a strong presence on Instagram in 2021, you need to do more than simply post your own content. Interacting with other people’s posts and comments shows you are sincerely interested in your and not just trying to get their business.
16. Respond to comments
One of the most important tips for a small business learning how to do Instagram marketing is to always respond to comments. Don’t make the mistake of simply posting and forgetting about your post. Be sure to always respond to comments on your posts – your customers will appreciate the response and it shows that you care.
17. Engage actively
An Instagram business tip that is important for companies and influencers of all sizes is to actively engage with other Instagram accounts. Follow interesting accounts, like and comment on other people’s posts. The more they see you in their notifications, the more often they will think of you. And the more your customers are thinking of you, the more your small business will grow on and off of Instagram.
18. Encourage engagement with questions
The next level of engagement is posting content that encourages your followers to engage. For example, ask your followers to answer a question about themselves, or to tag another user who they think needs to see your message.
19. Use Stories to post interactive content
On Stories, you can do even more with this: use the emoji slider, quizzes, questions, and chats to get your followers actively interacting with your content. It’s always been important to create engaging content but with the rise of popularity of Stories, it is more important than ever to use stories to post interactive content as part of your 2021 Instagram marketing strategy.
Check out this blog to discover 3 things that might be negatively impacting your Story engagement – as well as how to fix each one.
20. Add calls to action wherever you can
This next tip isn’t only a great Instagram marketing tip for a small business, it’s also an important sales tip. It’s key to make it as easy as possible for your followers to move to the next stage of the sales funnel. Be straightforward and tell them what you’d like them to do next, such as clicking the link in your bio to learn more.
21. Post at peak times
Posting your content at times of highest traffic means you’re likely to get more engagement and interest. How do you know when is the best time to post? It varies, according to the nuances of your specific audience, and the best way to know the ideal time to post is to experiment and see what works best. Sprout Social conducted an experiment like this and found that the best times to post on Instagram were on Wednesdays at 11 a.m. and Friday between 10–11 a.m.
22. Collaborate with influencers and small businesses
When you collaborate with other businesses and influencers on social media, everybody wins. Having another Instagrammer review your product, run a competition with you, take over your account, or work with you to create joint content exposes you to a wider audience and can be lots of fun to launch!
23. Use paid ads
Even with all the above efforts, it can be a challenge for small businesses to reach new audiences organically on Instagram. A little paid advertising can go a long way. Instagram ads allow you to target very specific audiences, increasing your exposure to the people most likely to be interested in what you have to offer. This generates excellent conversion rates and often proves a good investment.
24. Craft unique content for Instagram
It makes life a lot easier to reuse the same content across all social networks, but this will get boring for people who follow you on multiple platforms. Furthermore, if they engage with that content on Twitter or Facebook, they probably won’t engage with the same thing on Instagram. You can still reuse content, but change it up a little: add a unique caption or alter the image a bit. And every so often, try to post something that’s exclusive to Instagram.
Instagram Story templates are a great way to create content that’s unique for IG – here’s everything you need to know about them.
25. Repost content with proper credit
While it’s great to create unique, high-quality content yourself for Instagram, as a small business you might not always have time to create content just for Instagram. A great Instagram marketing tip for small businesses especially is to repost content you like from other accounts, with proper credit of course. This not only helps solve the dilemma of what to post but this always helps you get on the original creator’s radar and they will appreciate the shout-out. Who knows, they might even repost your Instagram post and give your small business a shout-out too!
26. Offer exclusive discounts to Instagram followers
Nothing will make potential clients want to follow your Instagram account more than exclusive offers and discounts. Not only are unique offers likely to bring in new followers, they will also entice loyal followers from other platforms to follow you on Instagram, too — and that’s good news for your profile, because loyal followers who are already familiar with your brand are more likely to engage with your content.
27. Focus some of your content on your location
Especially if your business depends on a local market, put yourself on the map! Post photos of your daily life, your engagement with the local community, and recognizable local landmarks — and be sure to include some local hashtags. This will strengthen your brand image as a contributor to your immediate area. Check out this blog for Instagram marketing tips on how to reach local customers on Instagram as a small business.
28. Geotag your posts
Another powerful way to increase your Instagram small business’s connection with the local area is to tag your location in your feed posts and Stories. Geotagging will ensure that your content shows up in the results when people are searching for content from your area. To geotag a feed post, add your location on the caption editor page; to geotag a Story, use the location sticker.
29. Find potential customers by their location
Not only should you be geo-tagging your own content, but you should be finding potential customers through geo-tagged locations. Look up posts tagged in your city, tags for local businesses nearby or similar to yours and engage with those posts. Interact with content by location to strategically build Instagram follow base and find people who are most likely to become a future customer.
30. Up your photography game
The higher-quality your images are, the more professional your Instagram profile will look… and you don’t need to be a professional photographer to produce captivating images. Most smartphones have excellent cameras — and with just a little basic photography know-how, you can make your photos look amazing. Do a little research or consider taking a class to learn about the basics: lighting, composition, and so on. It’ll make a big difference. Another thing that will take your images up a level is learning to use a photo editor. You can use the native filters and editing capabilities on Instagram, or you can try your hand with something a little more sophisticated, like Photofox. Check out this Instagram Story Dimensions & Resolution Guide to ensure that all of the photos you add to your Stories are a perfect fit for your Instagram business page.
31. Craft compelling copy
Engaging copy in your photo captions and bio is no less important than high-quality images. If nothing else, double (and triple!) check your text before posting to ensure that you don’t have any embarrassing typos or grammar mistakes.
32. Use Highlights
The Highlights feature allows you to select collections of Stories to display right on your profile page. They’re a great way to showcase what your business is all about, and to get more mileage on the excellent content you produce for your Stories.
33. Announce new posts in your Stories
While we are talking about ways to use Stories to market your small business on Instagram, don’t forget to alway announce a new post on your Instagram feed in your Stories. Some of your customers might watch all of your Stories but may not see all of your Instagram posts in their feed. By sharing a new post on your Instagram Story, it’s an easy Instagram marketing tip for a small business to increase engagement on a post. Learn how to share a post from feed to your Instagram Story here.
34. Give shout-outs
While we are on the topic of shout-outs, one of our favorite and unique Instagram marketing tips for a small business to test out in 2021 is giving shout-outs to fellow small businesses. When you give a shout-out on Instagram it’s key to properly tag the accounts. Learn how to tag a small business on Instagram here.
35. Post about current events
Maybe one of the top Instagram marketing tips for 2021 is to post about current events. Traditionally, brands might have decided to not ‘get political’ but now it’s key to take a stance and post about current events as part of your 2021 Instagram marketing strategy – whether you are a big brand or a small business.
36. Keep an eye out for trends
This is another point where staying engaged with your followers and watching competitors and influencers comes in handy: there are trends in social media, and staying on top of them will keep your brand hot and relevant. Whether it’s a certain meme, a hashtag campaign, or specific types of content, adding your brand’s voice to the conversation can do a lot for your small business.
37. Organize a giveaway
Yes, giveaways are still a great Instagram marketing tip in 2021! Giveaways are a tried-and-true method of growing your following and increasing engagement. You can offer a free product, service, or coupon to be selected at random from users who follow your instructions. Asking them to tag a friend to enter the contest will help increase your exposure.
38. Monitor your following and keep tabs on your small business analytics
For small businesses just learning how to do Instagram marketing, you might not know where to start when looking at your small business’ Instagram analytics. To start, Instagram provides insights on your stats in the Insights page for Instagram business profiles — and you can learn a lot from watching them methodically. It will help you see what strategies are most effective: what kind of content creates the most engagement, optimal timing for posting new content, and lots more.
39. Follow new accounts
We already touched on following new Instagram accounts and engaging with them but this Instagram marketing tip deserves a bit more detailed explanation of why your small business should incorporate this Instagram growth tip as part of your marketing strategy going forward. Following new accounts helps you connect with more potential customers and puts you on the radar – often times people will follow you back right away and if not, they might follow you back after you like and comment on their content regularly.
40. Periodically unfollow accounts
And while we are talking about why you should follow new accounts, it’s also important for your small business to unfollow Instagram accounts periodically. This doesn’t need to be part of your small business marketing strategy everyday but this is something that you should do on a monthly basis. Go through your followers and unfollow any accounts that you do not engage with on a regular basis. In 2021, Instagram released a new feature called ‘least interacted with’ which makes this Instagram marketing tip extremely easy to do!
41. Use Instagram ‘save’ feature to save content you love
Did you know you can save content on Instagram similar to Pinterest? Use the Instagram ‘save’ feature to save content that you love, either as inspiration or content that you would like to repost eventually. Learn everything you need to know about Instagram Saves here.
42. Ask people to save your content for algorithm boost
One interesting 2021 Instagram marketing tip is to encourage your followers to save your content. It’s been said that content that has been saved is viewed as more valuable to the Instagram algorithm. So one way to give your small business a marketing boost on Instagram in 2021 is to ask your followers to save your content. Even better if you turn this into a giveaway!
43. Feature your Instagram account on your website
Is your small business already doing this super easy Instagram marketing tip? If not, be sure to make it easy for your customers to find your Instagram account on your website. This is a super simple Instagram marketing tip for small businesses to grow their Instagram followers.
44. Post important updates often
One reason people choose to follow a small business on Instagram is to get regular updates about your business. For example, have you changed your store hours? Are you hosting a sale? These are all things your customers need to know and it’s important to post about these updates when you are posting about your small business on Instagram.
45. Give sneak peeks
One of the easiest Instagram tips for a small business to market their products is to give their Instagram followers a sneak peek. Whether it’s an exclusive sneak peek of a new product or a tour of your work space, your followers will enjoy seeing a behind-the-scenes glimpse of your company and they will have another reason to keep following you.
46. Post consistently
For anyone just learning how to do Instagram marketing, our number one Instagram marketing tip in 2021 is to post consistently. Posting regularly and consistently helps keep your followers engaged and ensures your content will continue to show up in your customer’s Instagram feeds.
47. Dedicate a set time for social media every day
A great way to ensure your small business is able to keep up with your 2021 Instagram marketing plan is to set aside a dedicated time each day to work on social media. Whether you use this time to post on Instagram, respond to comments or create content for your small business to post on Instagram, it will be easier to post consistently if it’s part of your daily schedule.
48. Interact with stories
It’s very easy to respond with quick emojis to others Instagram stories. Easy way to interact frequently and stay top of mind with your customers. This lets them know you are watching their stories and you care about what they post.
49. Build relationships with influencers
As a small business you might not have the budget to pay for influencers as part of your 2021 Instagram marketing but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t build relationships with them. Find local influencers and engage with their content frequently. After you’ve built a relationship with them through their comment section, DMs and stories you could ask them if it would be okay to send them a free sample.
50. Have fun!
And last but not least, don’t forget to have fun with it! Yes, there can be a lot of work involved when utilizing Instagram to market your small business but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to have fun while doing it! If you aren’t having fun posting about your small business on Instagram anymore, maybe you can try to change up your schedule to still post consistently but less often. Or maybe it’s time to hire someone to help out with some of the social media marketing tasks so you can only focus on the Instagram marketing strategies that you do enjoy.
Check out some advanced Instagram marketing strategies & tips for small businesses:
9 Common Instagram Caption Mistakes That Tank Engagement: If you’re a small biz struggling to meet your engagement goals on IG, captions just might be the culprit. Learn about 9 caption mistakes that may be preventing your posts from reaching their full engagement potential.
3 Ways to Measure Your Brand’s ROI on Instagram: Small businesses have to stretch a dollar in order to succeed on social media – this guide will show SMB owners who to measure their Instagram ROI to ensure they are getting full value.
How to View Instagram Stories Without Anyone Knowing: You may want to view an IG Story without anyone knowing. Whether its a competing local business or you just want to remain anonymous, we will show you how.
How to Add Links to Instagram Stories: Does your business have a website or products to sell? Adding links to Instagram Stories is an underrated IG marketing tip for small business owners.
How to Delete an Instagram Story: If you uploaded an IG Story by accident, of it is no longer relevant to your business page, make sure you know how to delete it fast.
How to Tag Someone on Your Instagram Story: Tagging popular users and dedicated fan is an underrated marketing strategy for small business IG pages – learn how to do it here.
Instagram Story Questions: Asking a question on your IG Story is a great way to engage with users and help familiarize them with your business. This post shows you how to ask question on a Story, how to answer them, and more.
Instagram Story Dimensions & Resolution Guide: Everything from IG Story aspect ratio, dimensions, resolution, and format, as well as adjusting dimensions and converting files – this technical guide for your IG Story formatting will help ensure that your IG business page shines through on a professional level!
Instagram Story Games: A Guide: Whether you use Create Mode or game-like Stories, you can now begin to replicate what would be categorized as IG Story games, which could be a big hit with generating more engagement from your brand audience!
Instagram Story GIFs: A Guide: Adding GIFs to your Instagram Stories is a great way to make your IG business page more fun and engaging – learn how to add GIFs with our simple guide.
By: Cori Widen, Product Marketing Lead at Boosted by Lightricks
In 2020, customers are looking for brands they can trust – which means that building a positive reputation with potential customers is more important than ever for businesses. And social media is the perfect tool for companies to connect with customers and build brand loyalty.
Why is building trust with potential customers on social media so important? According to research from Accenture, two-thirds of customers would rather purchase a product/service from a business that aligns with their own values and will actually avoid companies who don’t.
Building trust with customers on social media isn’t going to happen overnight – it’s something your business will need to always think about and work on. But once you’ve built trust with your customers, they’ll be more engaged, loyal and supportive of your business.
1. Create Quality Content
It’s always important for businesses to post high-quality content on social media. This is the first step to building trust with potential customers for several reasons.
Firstly, how are customers supposed to trust a business if their social media posts are full of grammatical and/or spelling errors? Or if a company’s feed is full of images that are low quality or blurry? Beyond having clean, professional photos and well-written social captions, quality content needs to actually be helpful and valuable to your customers.
In order to create quality content and build trust through social media posts, it’s essential to understand your customer’s pain points first. Then, focus on creating content that answers their questions, provides value and starts a conversation. Here’s some inspiration from brand, web and content designer @lindscholz:
You might already know that sharing customer testimonials are a great social media tactic to increase engagement, but did you know it’s also an effective way to build trust with potential customers? Encourage your current customers to post about their experiences with your business and reshare their posts. Sharing customer testimonials will help build more trust with your customers than just talking about your business yourself. In fact, 91% of consumers aged 18-34 trust customer reviews as much as they would trust their friends’ recommendations. Not only do consumers today highly value testimonials – they also are more likely to trust brands who share user-generated content with 90% of shoppers saying UGC directly impacts their purchasing decisions.
Vancouver-based @bia_skincare recently shared the following customer testimonial:
If you are a business, you are likely already providing some level of customer service through your social media platforms. Consumers today expect to be able to easily communicate with businesses and social media provides your company with a valuable way to answer their questions and interact with customers. Provide the best customer service possible by responding quickly, building an open dialogue and offering personalized solutions. If you try to go above and beyond, especially for unhappy customers, they will appreciate your helpfulness and trust your business more than ever.
4. Get Behind the Camera
It’s easier for customers to trust a business when they know exactly who they’re buying from, so don’t be afraid to get behind the camera more often. Nothing is more personable than videos – show yourself on video to create a deeper connection and build more trust with potential customers. Share about yourself, your products or offer some helpful advice. Not sure where to start with video content? It’s easy to create high-quality marketing videos with Boosted’s easy-to-use templates and free stock video library.
Showing your customers that your brand values align with theirs is possibly the most important step for businesses to build trust. Brand values are more than just a mission statement – your brand values help define your business’ personality and let your customers know more about your purpose, besides just making sales.
Don’t be afraid to post on social media about the social causes you are passionate about and how your business supports those values. Did you know 78% of consumers want companies to address important social justice issues and 87% of people stated they would purchase a product based on a business’ brand values?
Building trust through social media has never been so important. And it’s not a quick and easy thing to do – but if your business takes the time to really connect in an authentic and transparent way, you’ll see many benefits from the trust your customers have in you.
Cori Widen is the Product Marketing Lead at Boosted by Lightricks. She has been leading product marketing campaigns and doing qualitative market research in the tech industry for 10 years.
7 Secrets For Entrepreneurs to Get The Most Out of Instagram Stories
By: Cori Widen, Product Marketing Lead at Boosted by Lightricks
Once you get the hang of it, Instagram Stories is an easy (and fun!) feature to help grow your business – but are you getting the most out of your Instagram Stories? We’ve rounded up 9 Instagram Story secrets that every entrepreneur should be aware of to give your Instagram Stories a design boost, increase social media reach and ultimately drive more sales. Keep reading to learn all about the latest Instagram Story updates, secret social media tips, engaging content ideas and more.
1.Check Out The New Font Options If you’ve ever wished Instagram Stories had a few more design options you are in luck! They’ve recently rolled out several new, beautiful font options. Make sure you’ve downloaded the latest Instagram app update to see the new Instagram fonts and give your Instagram Stories a design boost. If your Instagram account has access to the new fonts, you’ll see ten font options at the bottom once you’ve started typing your text. Not sure where to start with fonts? Here’s ‘5 Ways to Make Your Instagram Stories Stand Out’.
2. Use Fun Elements Like Music Possibly the easiest way to give your Instagram Stories an immediate boost of personality is to use fun features like music! Instagram offers a huge selection of songs to perfectly fit with all of your Instagram Stories. Tip: If the original audio isn’t great quality in a Story, simply turn ‘sound off’ and add in music to instantly improve your Instagram Stories. Need some more cool Instagram Story content ideas? Check out this article ‘50 Engaging Instagram Story Ideas for Your Brand’.
3. Promote Your Own Content Often Want to drive more sales for your business? Start promoting yourself more! Every time you post on Instagram, share your own post to your Instagram Stories and encourage your followers to check out your latest post and engage with your content. Tip: You can also re-share old posts you’ve posted in your timeline that are still relevant. This will help boost your engagement rates and help you re-purpose high-quality content. Want to revamp your Instagram content? You’ll want to check out our ‘21 Ideas to Revamp Your Social Media for 2021’.
4. Repost Customer Content Not only should you be posting your own Instagram posts to your Stories… you should also be featuring your followers’ content as well! Any customer sharing a photo or review of your product or services should get a shout-out. Reposting your followers’ content lets them know you see their posts and tells them you appreciate their support. Also, when your followers see how often you repost their shout-outs, odds are you’ll start to see a lot more posts about your business! Tip: Want to increase DM’s from your customers to drive sales? Here’s ‘8 Easy Ways to Get More Instagram DMs From Customers’.
5. Add Cute GIFs Okay so you might already be using GIFs in your Instagram Stories but have you discovered the secret to finding the best ones yet? Yes, there is a little trick the most savvy entrepreneurs use to give their social media a quick upgrade. Instead of searching by a term like ‘happy’ or ‘funny’ to find a GIF, try searching the name of a designer who creates GIFs to find all of their best ones. Check out this blog post for tips to find cute GIFs and this blog post to find unique GIFs on Instagram Stories.
6. Create Story Highlights Okay, so you might be sick of hearing how important it is to use Instagram Story Highlights but we’re including this Instagram strategy again because it’s one of the best ways to ensure you are getting the most out of Instagram Stories for your business. Instagram Story Highlights offers your business a prime location to feature all of your most important and best quality content for your followers to easily access. Read next: ‘How to Use Instagram Story Highlights Strategically as a Small Business Owner’.
7. Use Hidden Hashtags We all know how important it is to use hashtags on Instagram posts to increase the reach of your posts but did you know this strategy also applies to Stories? We saved our very favorite Instagram Story secret for entrepreneurs for very last. You can use all of the same hashtags you would use on your Instagram posts on Stories without anyone knowing. Insert hidden hashtags into all of your Instagram Stories by typing out your hashtags, reducing the font size then make the font the same color as the background OR simply hide them behind a GIF or photo.
Instagram Stories can already be a powerful tool to help entrepreneurs grow their business. However, with these secret tips, content ideas and growth strategies in hand, we know your business will get even more out of Instagram Stories than ever before!
Cori Widen is the Product Marketing Lead at Boosted by Lightricks. She has been leading product marketing campaigns and doing qualitative market research in the tech industry for 10 years.
