Instagram can be ideal for promoting your small business and connecting with potential customers. But it can be a nightmare to navigate, not to mention trying to handle the pesky algorithm! So, to help you out, here are some small business Instagram tips which I use when posting to Instagram on behalf of my clients. These tips will help you play to the algorithm and should get you more engagement, which is what it's all about.
Small business Instagram tips
- Put up a new story daily (at least Monday-Friday).
- Post at least three times a week.
- If you're scheduling content, use Meta Business Suite or Facebook Creator Studio rather than any of the other scheduling tools.
- Post at the times recommended by the tools above. If you select "Schedule", you will see an "Optimal times" button. Click on that, and it will suggest the best day and time to post.
- Reels, reels, reels. The grid is getting no attention, so post at least one reel a week.
- Also, share your reel as a story.
- Caption your reel as you would with a normal post.
- If you're using Canva to create a reel, download each frame separately and then upload them one at a time instead of uploading the full reel as a video.
- Use at least 11 relevant hashtags - one of these should always be your location. It helps to have 11 standard hashtags that you always use and then add to them depending on the content of the post.
- Tag the location on each post.
- When creating a story, try to include a location tag, a mention and a gif.
- If someone tags you in a story, share it to your stories.
- Make as much use of the Instagram tools as you can in your posts. Instagram will reward you for it, so get creative with gifs, effects etc.!
- On stories, put clickable buttons to the bottom right - for someone holding their phone in their right hand, that position makes it easy for them to click.
- Follow relevant hashtags and then like and comment on posts with those hashtags.
- Emojis are four times more likely to generate a response than text, so make use of emojis 😊
- After sharing a post, spend around 15 minutes engaging on the platform.
- Always respond to comments on your posts.
I hope you find these tips useful. Happy Instagramming!