Kelista

Kelista

Instagram Posting Made Easy – Part Two

You’ve made it to Part Two of our Instagram made easy series – congratulations!

By now, you should have set up your business account for Instagram. Hopefully, you’ve worked out the look you want and settled your Brand’s style and voice. Now what? We’re going to help you work out the…

WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, HOW

I don’t know about you but the easiest part for many people is settling on the look, feel, and branding of your Instagram page. Now that’s done, we need to dive a little deeper. We need to figure out exactly what Instagram is going to do for your business AND for your customer. To do that we are going to ask the important questions that any business should when it comes to their marketing strategy.

Who is your customer?

To answer this, ask yourself the following questions about your business:Find your Target Market.

  1. What is your customer’s gender, age, annual income?
  2. What do they do for fun?
  3. What are their passions and dislikes?
  4. Why do they need you? What life event has caused them to seek your product or service?
  5. Who in the household (or business) generally contacts you or purchases from you?

Your customer’s demographic is the first place to look when thinking about your content for Instagram. The more detailed you can be about your target market, even creating an imaginary ‘persona’, the more likely you will be posting content designed to win a sale.

What does your customer need?

Here are more questions you can ask to further narrow down how your Instagram page is going to look and function.

What is the emotional response you need your customer to have to your product or service?

Some examples of these emotions might be…

  • Inspiration
  • Empowerment
  • Relief
  • Entertained

When you figure out the emotions you want to be triggered by your content, you can then move on to answering this follow up question:

What kind of posts will help fulfil the emotional responses from the first question?

When you inspire the correct emotional response in your potential customer, you’ve started to give them what they need. This means they’re more likely to stay on your page longer and hopefully you’ll be able to encourage them to engage further. Some examples could be an inspiring quote, or a funny video, product releases or a graphic relating to your industry.

How can you give them what they need?

This is where our tips and tricks come into play. It’s time to create a posting rhythm!

Once you have thought through the types of posts you want on your feed, now is the time to create a rhythm. Try to scatter out the different ideas as evenly as possible. For example, a graphic two days in a row may not spark the interest you’re wanting.

Also, consider which of the different types of posts will work on which days. A funny video may work better on a Friday than at the beginning of the week. An inspirational quote could be great for Monday to start the week off right. Try to post something about your company every second day.

Reminder: Instagram is all about the visuals!

Think about your grid pattern

When creating your rhythm, think about what the posts will look like in a grid of 9, also known as a grid pattern. You don’t have to have an obvious pattern, (although that can be fun too) but make sure it’s all on-brand at a glance.

Format your photos

Use tools or apps to format your photos into squares. There is a tool in the backend of Instagram to help with this also.  Filters are ok too, just be sure to use the same filter each time to keep your branding consistent.

Use Hashtags

Find the best hashtags to get your target market’s attention by stepping inside their shoes for a minute. Find a post they’re engaging with and see if that particular post has used a hashtag that is relevant to your brand. Use around 5-7 hashtags per post. Following relevant hashtags and interacting with the content is another way to get their attention.

#HASHTAGS ARE GOLD!

Take the time to plan and enjoy a coffee at the same time. Now that you have all of the tools to create your schedule, get going! Take a couple of hours out of your workday to grab yourself a coffee, sit down with an excel spreadsheet, and source content for a month’s worth of posts. You won’t regret having an entire month already scheduled and you’ll be able to relax knowing you have something posting every day. 

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t continue to post organically now and then, just be sure to keep your posting to at most, three times a day. If your business has an event on a particular day, consider posting updates using Insta story. It’s a great way to have an ongoing update for your customers without blowing up their feed.

If you missed the first part of our little series, why not go back and have a read? You can also contact us at any time and we’d be more than happy to help you.

Kelista
Kelista

Kelista is one of our Content Writers at TheOnlineCo. She has the incredible capability to find the perfect 'voice' for our clients and writes blogs that reflect their unique style while covering all the content needed. She also works within our Social Media and SEO Teams.

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