How To Use Instagram For Business (Beginner's Guide To Getting Comfortable On Instagram)
It can be really hard to navigate through Instagram, especially if you haven't done it before as a business owner. You're not a consumer anymore going on to Instagram to mindlessly scroll, you are a business owner using Instagram as a business tool. And that's a huge mindset shift. Today we're going to work through getting you comfortable with using Instagram so you can promote your business with ease.
My name is Megan and I help business owners go from confused to confident on social media. I help you create a loyal community, get quality clients, and build a more profitable business.
So number one is the navigation of Instagram. When you first open your app you're going to be taken to your home screen and this is where you'll see all the content from primarily people that you follow. The next tab over on the bottom is the explore tab and this is where you'll see content primarily from people that you don't follow. This is also tuned into what you find interesting so what you see here is what Instagram believes you to be interested in as a whole. I personally have a business and a personal account so it's very interesting to see where I spend my time on both these accounts and how it reflects in my explore page so my business account has a lot of motivational quotes and other business owners promoting their business, where my personal page has a lot of food posts recipes so where you spend your time on Instagram will reflect here and be showing you what Instagram thinks you want to see more of. The next tab over is the plus sign and this is what you'll press to start creating content, and we'll go into that in a little bit. The next tab over is your reals tab. And this is different from your home feed because only reels are going to be shown to you here which is short form video content and again it will be people who you are primarily not following. And then the final tab at the end, this is your profile. So everything is displayed here about you how many people you're following, how many people are following you, your bio, your links, your highlights, your posts, everything is right here. This is also the page that you will access your insights, store your drafts, and look at your saved posts.
And speaking of your profile, that is the next thing we're going to go through is setting that up correctly. To edit everything on your profile you want to go to that edit profile button that is below your bio and through there you'll be able to make all of these changes. Your profile picture should be a photo of you where you are looking straight at the camera looking very professional maybe you have a little bit of your branding in there but you want to make sure people can see who you are and that is because your face is very memorable. A lot of people like having their logo there as well and I think that's up to personal preference. I believe that having your face there is a little bit more impactful because it is more memorable but some people don't want to have that there and that's totally fine too. Underneath your profile picture will be your header and I always make sure to tell my clients that you should be putting your name here and your profession. And the reason why you want to do this is because one you want to have your name there so people know who to address when they do reach out to you, and two, your industry or your profession is going to be what is searchable on social media so having that in your header is really important. Below your header is your industry and basically what you want to do here is choose what's closest to what you do and what you provide. Obviously every profession is not listed here so just pick what most closely matches what you do. In addition to what you choose, this will be what determines the amount of music you have access to on Instagram. Because of copyright issues people like nonprofits probably won't have access to all the music that other business owners have because Instagram doesn't want to run into any issues there. Below your industry is your bio. And this is what you want to answer in that small amount of space: you want to say I help blank do blank so that they can blank. And then once you finish that sentence, you also want to include a call to action which is basically telling your audience what to do once they see your profile. So if they like what they see they want to work with you, you're telling them what the next step of your sales funnel is. So for example, you could could say you have a freebie in the link provided below, you could just say check out my website for my services or my products, or you could feature a recent webinar or public speaking event you've been in and it's a replay they can watch. Whatever is going to get people to be more invested in who you are what you do and how they can buy from you. Make sure to include the correct link that corresponds with your call to action or possibly multiple links, and then check to make sure they're working properly.
Next we're going to go through the different types of content you can make on Instagram. What I like doing so everything is laid out in front of me is going to my profile page and then pressing the plus sign in the top right hand corner and this will give you all of your options in one spot. The ones I'm going to go over today are stories, reels, posts, and live videos. They all have their own benefits so it's important to know the difference between all of these. So first stories. Stories only last for 24 hours on Instagram which seems like why would I even post that right but stories are really good for showing behind the scenes of your business and connecting with your audience. People go on to Instagram to connect with other people so being able to have a type of content that encourages interaction and engagement is really important. So what you do is you would press story, you want to either take a photo in the moment or you can upload a photo from your camera roll, then the fun part is adding text, you can draw on it, you can add effects, you can add other photos, you can add gifs, you can add polls, quizzes, question stickers, and try to have it show off your personality. This type of content has the least amount of pressure to make it perfect and is more laidback because it does go away in 24 hours and it's a way to again connect with people rather than trying to educate them or sell them on something all the time. Once you post your story it will show up as a ring around your profile picture and that's how you know it has posted. To view other people's stories you'll have to go back to your homepage and there will be stories all along the top indicated by the circles around their profile pictures. The next piece of content I'm going over is reels. These are short form videos that are vertical and a 16x9 ratio that show up in the reels tab and the home tab. These videos can be under 90 seconds but the best performing ones are usually at least under 30 seconds. The purpose of these reels are to reach new people, new audiences, and show them who you are, what your business is, and hopefully get them to follow you. There's a ton of reels out there to watch for inspiration but generally for your business you want it to be either educational, inspirational, calling out your ideal client, or personal. These topics can overlap, like something can be inspirational and personal or it could be educational while also calling out your ideal client. You'll notice that on your your profile once you post a reel it will come up with an extra reel tab where you can just separate your own content out by everything versus just reels. This isn't very essential for you to do, however when you do go to the reel side that is how you will access your reel drafts so that's pretty important to note. Once you post your reel this will stay on your profile forever, so even though stories and reels can be both videos and people can get confused between the two, the main difference is there's a completely different audience that is seeing each of these and two, stories go away and reels do not.
Next we're going to go through just regular posts. This should be the easiest type of content to actually get up onto Instagram so I'm going to walk you through that really quickly. Basically a post is just one single photo or several of them to make a carousel post. If there's only one photo, it's a regular post. If there's multiple, it's a carousel post. The possibilities for what you can post are endless here you can do photos, you can do graphics, but you do have to know that these are primarily shown to people who already follow you so you won't be reaching the same audience as your reels would. However they are similar to reels because they are staying on your profile forever once they're posted. Lastly we're going to go through live videos. These are going to show up for other people in the same place as your story would by showing a ring around your profile picture except there's a little live tab that shows up at the bottom as well. Live videos are how you can have a long form piece of content on Instagram. Since reels are under 90 seconds, this is the only way to really get anything longer on Instagram. The pros of going live are people can come on and ask you questions as you're actually speaking to them and it gives them access to you in a way that no other type of content does. The scary part about lives are that you can't undo anything or edit anything out but that also is what makes it more real and authentic. I try and tell my clients for their first reel to come prepared with frequently asked questions they get so they can't run out of things to talk about or they can bring someone onto their live with them so they have someone to have a conversation with so it doesn't feel like they're just talking to you know a blank phone. To see how well your posts and reels and stories are doing, you're going to want to press the three bars at the top right hand side of your profile and then go to insights. This is where you'll be able to see overall engagement, follower count, but I do recommend checking them at least once a week to kind of see where you're at and how to set goals for the future. Now that you know all the different parts of Instagram, the different types of content, start following people who would be good clients for you, and practice liking commenting and sharing posts, and then start posting content of your own. A lot of my clients come to me with a lot of fear of posting and showing their face, but I promise the more you practice the easier it gets. If you're struggling coming up with some ideas for what to post I do have a free 40 content ideas just for you so make sure you grab that today. And if you feel like you need some help along the way, use this link to come on and chat with me and tell me about your business and your goals and I can tell you how I can further support you from there.
Thank you so much guys, I will see you in the next post!
