Three Top Tips for Building an Instagram Following for Your Small Business

Social media is fundamental to creating brand awareness, sales and attracting customers and clients, but when you’re starting from scratch it can be challenging. I look at the best way to start building a social media following, as a small business.

Planning

Make sure you have clear goal about what you want to achieve from your platforms. Use content planning systems and scheduling tools to plan ahead of time. Ask your followers what they want to see from you and incorporate this into your monthly strategy. Try to plan at least a month in advance, this gives you time to edit and add to your schedule, without the time pressure of doing it daily. Either use online scheduling systems (I love Planoly for my own content planning) or physical content planners – these can be great for getting your ideas from your head and on to the page.

Video

Short form video content isn’t going anywhere and to make sure you don’t get left behind you can’t be camera shy. I know it’s easier said than done, but it really will benefit your business and your social strategy. Platforms such as Instagram favour video content (especially content uploaded organically to that specific platform). Video content is the best way of gaining organic growth as it allows potential customers to see the person behind the business. Putting a face to a brand means you connect on a more human level with your audience/customers/potential clients. Instagram Stories and Reels are easily digestible portions of content that can help you connect with your audience quickly and with purpose.

Engagement

There are two different parts to engagement, specifically on Instagram. Firstly, using Instagram Stories to engage with your audience is helpful in building your personal brand. Use Instagram stories as a way of “FaceTiming” your followers and showing them the persona behind the account, communicating with them like you would a friend. Using polls and Q&A sessions can also be a great way of getting feedback from your audience, you’ll be able to gauge an idea of the type of people who are following you and what they want from your platform.

 The second part to using Instagram as an engaging platform is to comment, share and like content from other accounts similar to your own. Not only can you use this to network and to collaborate with similar businesses to your own, but you will start to build a supportive community, which is invaluable as a small business owner.

If you would like to grow your Instagram following for your small business, contact laura.socialbutterflymedia@gmail.com and let’s have a chat!