If you’ve been to Sun and Co., you know how obsessed we are with the concept of skillsharing! Every week we get together to decide on three hot topics that people would like to learn more about, and there’s always someone in the house willing to teach and share their knowledge… for free! Our community is full of smart, diverse, kickass individuals with so much knowledge on such a variety of topics, that it would be a shame not to share with everyone!
That’s why we are starting a series to share the most popular skillshares that happen in the house. First up is our own Sienna, sharing her wisdom on Instagram Marketing strategies to build your own brand. Let’s dig in!
How To Grow Your Brand On Instagram
Whether we want to believe it or not, Instagram is one of the most used social media platforms with over 500 million people using it each day. If you have a business or brand that has been thinking about starting to use the platform for business growth or looking to scale your current presence, you’re in the right place.
60% of users seek out and discover products and brands through the platform and 75% of Instagram users actually engage with websites after looking at a brand’s post. It’s a great way to directly get people onto your site or email list through social media.
There are four main pillars to consider when it comes to tackling Instagram growth without feeling a sense of overwhelm or if you don’t know where to start. Let’s get into it.
Find Your Focus — Content
One of the most common struggles that brands have when looking to start posting consistently on Instagram is asking yourself…
What should I post?
Of course, content is one of the most important things and you should ask yourself a couple of questions.
What is it that you want your brand to be known for?
Why do your ideal customers use Instagram as a platform? What are they searching for and looking to find?
Once you’re able to gain clarity on that, you should come up with 3-5 pillars of what type of content you want to be posting and brainstorm potential topics for each pillar.
Once you’re able to find your focus on what people are looking to you for on Instagram, then it will make your next step much easier.
Plan With Purpose — Create
One of the biggest secrets of people who need to create social content to scale their brand awareness is batch creating and planning with purpose. It’s quite easy to get caught up on social media when you go to post but the best way to handle it is by planning ahead.
When you create a content calendar, it will allow for you to sit down in one take and plan out anything from a week to a month of content.
Start off simple with an excel doc with the following details:
Date/Time of Post
Category
Photo
Caption
Then once it’s time to schedule them, there are tons of free resources to schedule social media like Buffer and Planoly (a personal favorite).
Share Your Story — Captions
With over 95 million posts daily on Instagram, one of the best ways to make sure that you’re reaching and keeping the right audience is by mastering your captions through sharing your story.
This doesn’t mean taking a dear diary approach to the platform but it does mean that you’re giving engaging content that cuts through the noise. Whether you’re choosing to share knowledge, tips, tricks or shared experience… remember that while the photos are what draws people to your account, your captions are what keeps them around.
So, always ask yourself… how am I providing value for the people that I want to be reaching?
Reach The Right People — Hashtags
Hashtags aren’t just a buzzword but instead, your secret to growing your Instagram account and getting yourself in front of the right people.
The secret to search for hashtags that your ideal customer would be using and or/searching for.
A good place to start? Head to your competition and see what hashtags they are using. Then, inside of the app… you can click the hashtag and look at the top posts. Odds are, the people who show up at the top of those posts are using other hashtags that are related.
Create a few lists of hashtags (you can use up to 30) that are relevant to your 3 pillars and be consistent. The more often you use a hashtag, the higher chance you have of showing up as a top choice.
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to IG marketing but it’s a good place to start!