How To Grow Your Small Business On Instagram

In 2021 social media is the number one way to market to a wide audience and therefore many businesses have created an account to help grow their business. Instagram is a major platform for businesses as it not only has one billion monthly active users but it also supports advertisements and the latest way to market, through influencers. Although setting up an account is fairly straightforward, making an account that will help your business grow can be a challenge therefore we have created a list of stages that you can use on your Instagram account to help your business grow.

Have An Optimised Bio

One of the first things you will need to do when setting up an Instagram account is creating a bio. For your business account, you want to make sure your bio clearly represents your business. 

By using keywords in your bio that is based around your field, you are making it more likely for someone that is looking for the products or services you provide to find you.

For example, if your business is a bakery in London, you ideally would put something in your bio that states it is the “best bakery in London” this then allows people who are searching the gram for a great vegan restaurant to have more chances of finding your account. 

You can add a link to your website in your bio which usually is where businesses make their sales, so encouraging people in your bio to click the link to visit your website is also key as it can boost your sales. 

Essentially your bio should almost act as an advertisement for your business so that when people find your page, they want to stay, engage and hopefully make a purchase.

Post “Instagrammable” Content

Instagram is picture based and therefore the quality of uploads over the years have increased drastically. You may have heard of “instagrammable” content before and if not, you most likely have seen it! “Instagrammable” content are posts that are aesthetically pleasing and essentially create a pretty, enticing looking feed. 

Creating content to post on your Instagram that fits in the Instagram aesthetic will attract more followers. This is because the content is the type of content a large majority of people on Instagram want to see and therefore will take interest in your business. 

You may be wondering how to create an aesthetically pleasing feed for your Instagram and the basis of it is making sure you have high-quality images and having a good branding plan.
For further information on how to create an aesthetically pleasing Instagram, check out our previous blog.

Start Making Instagram Stories, Reels And Live Videos

Not only can you post onto your feed but you can also create live videos, post stories and reels. 

A live video is pretty self-explanatory, it’s a feature on Instagram whereby you can start a live video that all your followers can watch and interact with. These are a great way to get to know your followers in real-time. Potentially showing what happens behind the scenes of your business or asking your customers/clients questions are great ways to use live videos to benefit your business. 

Instagram stories are a feature whereby you can add a post that will only last 24 hours on your page rather than forever. There are tons of features that you can add to your Instagram stories like questions and answers, polls, quizzes and many more. Instagram stories are a great way to encourage your audience to engage with your page and make it fun for your followers. You can see who has viewed your story which can be useful to see who is engaging with your content and if you have at least 10,000 followers you can add a swipe up link to your story whereby you direct your viewers to a website through any links. 

Reels are 15 – 30 second videos that you can create and post. There is a dedicated reels section on everyone’s Instagram account whereby a viewer can scroll through all the videos. Reels also have a section on the Instagram explore page whereby if it gets featured on there, a much wider range of people will view it. These reels have tools where you can add text, music and even add special effects. For businesses, reels are a great way to create short clips that promote their services/products. For example a wedding cake company could post a sped-up video of the process of making a cake, showing the viewers the hard work put in and the fabulous end result. 

Consistent Posting Schedule 

Without posting on Instagram, you will not grow your followers which grows your business. This is why not only posting but posting CONSISTENTLY is vital as you want to increase the number of followers and engagement your account receives as possible. 

By creating a regular posting schedule you will be able to organize your posts as well as familiarize your followers with your content. Posting on Instagram stories ideally should be a daily occurrence as it shows your followers that your account is active and the business is serious. Posting main posts to your feed should occur at least once a week to show that you are keeping engaged and adding value to your followers.

Without posting consistently it will be impossible to grow your business via Instagram.

Use Industry Hashtags (#)

On Instagram, you can use hashtags in your captions. These hashtags can then be clicked and will lead the person to a whole feed of posts from different people who have also used that hashtag. People can also search for hashtags too.

Using hashtags that are related to the industry you are in can be very useful as anyone who has searched for that specific word will be able to scroll through all the posts that have used that hashtag, making it more likely for your account to show. An example would be if you are a wedding dressmaker and you make a post with the caption #weddingdress, anyone who is looking for wedding dresses via Instagram is a lot more likely to come across that specific post, leading them to your page. 

Be careful not to overuse hashtags though. This is because when a post has a load of hashtags it can become cluttered and irrelevant. Instead, find your industry top ten hashtags that gain the most views and add them to your posts, making sure they are always relevant to your business. 

By following these steps your Instagram has a much higher chance of growing. The main thing you will gain from having a successful business on Instagram is brand awareness, which ultimately leads to business growth. In 2021 having a successful business Instagram is key for growing your business, so refer back to this guide every time you need a boost of inspiration.