Instagram Marketing For Local Business – 8 Steps To Success

Instagram may have been originally created as a photo-sharing app for people to socialize, but it’s a successful SMM platform today. Businesses are using the platform to grow a network of followers, communicate to secure more customers and generate sales.

Currently, Instagram has over 600 million active users daily. Moreover, 90% of its users check at least one business and actively purchase products on the platform. This figure is still growing, and the platform keeps expanding, which is great news for many local brands as it provides terrific growth opportunities for advertisers and entrepreneurs.

In addition to its continuous growth, Instagram updates the app with some new features, including Local Business Pages that startups can use to add information about their business and products/services they offer and build meaningful relationships with their audiences that lead to long-term success.

8 Instagram Marketing Tactics For Local Business

On the other hand, marketing on Instagram is easier said than done. Fret not. We’ve put together 11 techniques to help your local business get started and achieve success.

Create a Business Profile

Using a business profile gives your brand a more professional look and offers even more ways for your followers and prospects to get in touch with you and learn more about the products/services your offer. Moreover, it allows you to access built-in insights to track your account performance, create Instagram ad campaigns and schedule your posts ahead of time.

Switching to a business account is pretty easy. Go to the Account Settings and choose “Switch to Business Profile”. A Facebook page is needed to set up your Instagram Business profile. Add your contact information, and you’re good to go.

A business profile won’t be complete without a compelling Instagram icon, which can be your existing business logo. You can also do a few touch-ups on your logo for variety and better aesthetic appeal. Then, add a short, interest-catching bio for your profile and your business contact details such as your email, primary location, and contact number. You can either add the link to your business website or other social media accounts for the links section.

Create Your Content Plan

Posting regularly on Instagram is vital to help build brand awareness and get your content out there. Having a content plan allows you to visualize what your post will look like, and it also allows you to plan your feed well in advance.

You want to ensure your audience or followers consistently see you. However, when curating content, make sure it matches your brand and identifies with your target audience. Once you have identified the type of content you want to share, it’s time to organize them.

This is where a content calendar comes into play. With a content calendar, you can schedule out pieces of content at the right time or day and implement a plan of action for your overall marketing approach.

Hire Instagram Growth Services

Instagram has become a more competitive place for businesses to showcase their products and services. For ordinary users, they would definitely agree, as you’ll see advertisements and influencer posts everywhere featuring all kinds of products and services. Suppose you want to stay on top of your industry. Why not consider hiring the best Instagram growth service dedicated to promoting your business around the platform?

Every Instagram growth service has methods and strategies for getting organic interactions and conversions from your audience. Therefore, it’s crucial to pick the right one aligned with your business needs and goals. Most importantly, determine which growth method they use and if it agrees with your goals. Some of the most common Instagram growth methods are:

• Follow/unfollow method
• Liking method
• Auto-comment or auto-direct message method

Participate In The Community

Participating in an Instagram community is one of the best ways to gain trust from your followers or prospects, establish your reputation, create meaningful connections and boost engagement.

The best thing about IG is that the platform already has users who share content relevant to your niche and would love to be part of what you can offer to them. These people include influencers and other local brands like yours. Join these groups, interact with their content, and participate in their conversations. Of course, always pay attention to your follower’s comments, posts, and concerns.

Repost Local Content

Reposting other content shows you care about your community. In return, you are strengthening your reputation, and those content from local users that you will feature on your page will feel grateful and look for ways to participate in your brand’s message. It’s a win-win!

However, when reposting other local content, it must be relevant to your brand, aligned with your brand voice, and permitted by the original creator.

Stop Blanket Posting

There’s nothing duller in the social media world than seeing an update from a business with similar content on different platforms. If you think repeating posting content will save you time and still give you the result you need, think again. Blanket posting just makes your business less exciting and irrelevant. If you want your followers to continue following you and engaging in your content, you better keep them entertained.

Come up with fresh and unique content. If you are repurposing a material, do it strategically. If you’re sharing pictures, make varieties of it, post with a different graphic or tweak your content a bit.

Use Localized Hashtags

Hashtags are the next thing to consider when marketing your local business on Instagram. If you want to establish your brand on the market and reach your target audience, you must focus on localized hashtags.

Localized hashtags allow your local targets to find your business and your post. So instead of using popular, generic hashtags on your photo’s caption, use the ones with a specific location. To find the best-localized hashtags, research is the key. You want to look at suggested tags, hashtags that local ‘Grammers‘ are using, and local accounts that repost images.

Geotag Your Post

Using location tags is how people find local companies. It makes stories and posts searchable. Like localized hashtags, they are crucial and can be a powerful strategy for local businesses. Furthermore, adding a geotag to your photo can boost your following, increase brand visibility and achieve as much reach as possible.

To further engage your audience through Geotagging, you must find where your customers are and see where they mention your brand. You can also promote your geotag or use geotag when running a contest.

Track & Measure Your Efforts

Whether you work with a specialist or handling your marketing on your own, measuring or tracking your Instagram marketing effectiveness must be taken seriously. You need to measure your marketing effort to analyze your ROI, make future decisions and create necessary changes.

Summary

An Instagram business account offers some analytics to make it easier for local businesses to track results. Some important factors that you need to consider when measuring success are follower growth, engagement rate, posting time, hashtag usage effectiveness, and performance of individual posts. If you’re monitoring the process from start to finish, you’ll be able to see how successful your strategies are and become an influencer albeit by accident.