5 Steps To Building Your Instagram Strategy
So how do you actually create an Instagram strategy for your business?
I'm going to teach you the five steps to creating a successful Instagram strategy so you can start posting with confidence.
Make sure to read until the end because the fifth step is what actually makes business owners money on Instagram.
My name is Megan and I teach business owners to go from confused to confident on Instagram. I help my clients build a loyal community, get quality consistent clients, and make their business more profitable.
The first step is knowing exactly who your client or customer is the more clear you are in who you're trying to help the better your content will be to actually reach them on Instagram a great exercise to see if you actually know who your ideal client or customer is on Instagram is by taking out a piece of paper and a pen and writing down everything you know about them their age, their location, their gender, their hobbies, interests, aspirations, and routines. Make this as detailed as you possibly can because it's only going to help you when you go to create content and build your strategy from that now that you know exactly who you're talking to.
Let's move into step two, which is building your foundation on Instagram and that starts with your first impression.
Something I always tell my clients and in my course the Instagram Pro bootcamp is that attention spans are really short and first impressions are everything on social media.
So make sure you're consistently doing an audit of your profile this includes your profile picture, your header, your industry, your bio, your call to action, your location, the link in your bio, your highlights, and your content ratios.
So first, your profile picture which should be a photo of you that accurately represents your business.
So if you are more of a funny personality and you have a really fun business maybe you can be making a silly face but if you do something more serious then get a professional headshot taken for your profile picture.
Your header should include your name and exactly what you do.
Your industry is actually chosen from the list that Instagram gives you so just choose what's closest and most accurate to what you do.
In your bio you want to answer the question of who you are who you help and what you help them achieve.
Your call to action should prompt the viewer to do something after reading your bio an example of this would be download my freebie, go to my website, follow me, click the link in my bio, so on and so forth.
You do want to add a location if you have a storefront but if you don't have any limitations to location or who you can work with because your business is online, then you don't even have to worry about that.
Your highlights should include all the necessary information for a new follower to know when they visit your profile for the first time so an example of this could be your testimonials or case studies that you have, how they can work with you, and your mission statement/what you stand for.
Your ratio of content really depends on your ideal viewer what they enjoy seeing but you do want to make sure you have a good mix of all different types of content.
You can look to other accounts for inspiration but make sure you're really showing who you are and who you specifically help.
Some profiles will be more quirky and some will be more professional and corporate. It really depends on what your industry is and who you're trying to actually help.
Once your profile looks good we have to make sure you're creating the right type of content for your viewer.
So you know who they are best. What kind of content do they enjoy viewing? Do they like videos or pictures better? Do they like things that are funny or things that are more corporate feeling? Do they like longer form content or shorter form content?
These are all things to think about when you go to create content. Remember that everything is trial and error in the beginning so if you're posting a mix of regular images and reels and people are really responding to Reels, increase the ratio of reels compared to normal photos on Instagram.
If you already know what type of content your ideal viewer likes seeing leave a comment below I'd love to see what type of content you guys are making.
Moving on to step four, you're going to be creating a plan that fits your schedule. A lot of people ask me when's the best time to post an Instagram? Does it matter when I post on Instagram?
And the answer is: it does matter. But the most important part about Instagram is that it fits into your schedule and it's something you can see yourself doing long term.
Another question I commonly get is quality versus quantity. Does it matter if my content is few and far between but really well done or should I be posting more even if it's not as great of content.
In my opinion, that's not the question to be asking. It's all about what you can fit into your own schedule.
If you go out there and you say 'I'm gonna post twice a day every single day' but you only have 30 minutes to create content every week, there's no way you can realistically fit that in.
So instead, if in that 30 minutes you can make three posts then you're going to be posting three times a week. While that might not feel like enough right now, the better you get at creating content, the more you see the momentum pick up in Instagram, you'll be able to spend more time creating content and you'll be faster at it. So find exactly what you can actually make work realistically for your schedule every single week or even every other week and then just stick to that and stay consistent!
I promise you'll see more growth than you ever thought you could if you just stick to your routine and stay consistent rather than these ups and downs of content creation.
This leads me into step five, which is positioning yourself as an expert on Instagram and making sales.
So you might be thinking 'Megan how do I position myself as an expert I just started taking Instagram seriously?' well it starts with showing up confidently as yourself.
Something that sets you apart from all of your competition is that you are you and no one else can take that from you.
You started your business for a reason you're marketing on Instagram for a reason and you have clients for a reason. So be confident in what you know.
Another way to do this is to prove that you actually care about your audience. Do this by providing educational content, replying to all comments and questions you're getting thoroughly, and really taking the time to build relationships with your followers.
This is where sales comes in. Once you start building these relationships with your leads they will go from being cold (having never seen you before) to warm (having conversations with you getting to know everything that you do, building trust with you) and then eventually being a hot lead turning into a client or customer.
Something to think about when you're on Instagram engaging is what's going to actually be a smart engagement for the use of my time. I'm all about being as efficient as possible on Instagram. Going through my feed and just scrolling and liking random photos isn't really going to build any communication between me and my loyal followers.
So instead of just liking post, I will comment something thoughtful (not just one word) or I will react to stories more often and end up DMing people more often as well.
Let me tell you: those one-on-one conversations in direct messages is key to making more sales.
If you are ready to take Instagram more seriously for your business I would love to hop on a call with you and have a chat and see if you would be a good fit for my course the Instagram Pro Bootcamp and the link for that is below this! Thanks for reading!
