16 Tips to Maximize Instagram for Small Businesses in 2023 (2023)

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Instagram is a wonderful place to start any kind of small business with millions of users, even if you just started your own.

Instagram for small businesses provides all the necessary tools for growth. That means it allows you to:

• Reach your target group
• generate sales
• increase brand awareness
• Build a trusted brand image
• Interact with customers
• Get creative with your company presentation

But how do you get the most out of using Instagram for your small business?

Here are 16 pro tips to help you maximize growth:

16 professional Instagram tips for small businesses

1. Product teaser post

When you launch a new product, make sure your audience knows about it. You can show some thumbnails or fully reveal the product; both are great ways to gain followers for future purchases.

You can warm up your followers with product teasers at any stage of product development. Publish moments from team meetings or parts of final products ready to launch, such as: B. Packaging.

With the launch day and time coming up, make sure to include the details in the post and let your followers know how to buy it.

Here are some great product previews from Puma and Kylie Cosmetics:

(Video) Instagram Marketing For Small Business (2023 UPDATE)

Yes, these are big players, but you can use the same approach for your small business.

2. Use sponsored ads

after aMessageThe reach of the ads on Instagram published in July 2021 is 100 million users and is therefore larger than in the previous quarter.

Such impressive growth makes Instagram ads a powerful tool to grow your small business on the platform.

It offers precise targeting and thus introduces your brand to the audience that is likely to be interested in it.

With aInstagram business account, you can run your campaigns in different formats such as photos, videos and carousels. You can also use Stories to create and run Instagram ads for your small business.

To help you master running Instagram ads, check out ourGuide to paid advertising on Instagram.

3. Use an organic Instagram growth service

Improving your business presence on Instagram takes time and effort, but there are helpful solutions to speed up this process: Instagram growth services.

Essentially, such services recommend your business to potential followers based on your competitors, niches, and other target points. Due to AI-supported techniques, deep learning methods andactivation functionsusers receive relevant recommendations from the search.

With Instagram growth platforms, you can:

• Increase the number of followers
• Enter recommendation feed faster
• increase engagement
• Win new customers and more sales

For example,treatedYou can grow your Instagram account organically and quickly using the self-developed artificial intelligence technology.

The service gets closer to your target audience, then you gain new followers who become potential customers. You can focus on your brand, content and other Instagram contentSmall Business Strategiesas your notoriety and following grow.

When choosing oneInstagram growth service, avoid using platforms that employ bad practices such as spam, creation of bots, etc. It can only harm your Instagram account.

4. Create interactive stories

Instagram storiesThey may not be the perfect high quality photos or videos to match your account aesthetic. But while they're simple and easy to create, stories need to be engaging and encourage interaction between the brand and the audience.

Here are some ideas to make your stories more fun and engaging:

• Create boomerangs
• Tag followers or partners
• Use the voting tag
• Paste links
• add the
• Use the countdown tag

While some of these make the story compelling, others evoke reactions and start a conversation with the audience.

Here are some examples of how small businesses (ShoreMaster, Stan's Donuts & Coffee) are using Instagram Stories features to connect with audiences:

For a small business on Instagram, creating something simple but attractive can be enough. At the same time, you probably need some knowledge of Pixlr, Canva, and others.graphic design softwareto create images.

5. Add a link to your bio

In an online business, everything should be easy for the customer. They don't have to struggle when they look for ways to buy your product.

Then the link in the bio comes to the rescue. After you finish yourSetting up the Shopify storeand let him livelink it to your profileto make your website easily accessible.

You can also paste it into post titles, but the links are not clickable, nor should they be copied.

6. Create unique hashtags

Hashtags are a real power when it comes to Instagram for a small business and you need to make the most of them to get a wider reach. But in addition to usingthe most popular hashtags in your industry, a unique branded hashtag will take your Instagram game to the next level.

Use a slogan that fits your brand or make one up to create a hashtag. It will increase brand awareness among your followers' audience. Free advertising!

Here are some Wizz Air (#IAmWizzTraveller) and Harveys (#happyharveys) branded hashtags that followers love to use:

Also, a unique hashtag helps build a community around your brand by sharing the same values ​​or interests.

7. Republish people who use your product

Encouraging your followers to create content for you to post is good for your small business on Instagram. By supporting your customers' content designed for your brand by featuring it in your feed, you can create a constant stream of user-generated content for your profile. Also, don't forget to give credit to the author by tagging them.

Such a repost will also increase your account activity (along with your followers), act as a vote of confidence for potential customers, and add a human touch to your small business Instagram account.

Mac Cosmetics loves adding followers to their account:

8. Post at the right time

When your audience is most active on the app, the post increases its chances of showing up in your feed and getting engagement.

In general, it's best to post between the hours of 6am and 10am, Monday through Thursday. M. IT IS T. While Sunday is still an offline day for most people.

You have to understand that not every small business on Instagram has an ideal time to post. It largely depends on the industry and activity of your followers. For example, Wednesday afternoon is arguably the best time for retail.

Check out our guide to learn more about itbest time to post on instagramfor every industry.

9. Show behind the scenes of your brand

Perfect images of end products are great, but audiences love to see the people behind a brand. So make sure you incorporate moments from your brand's life on Instagram for your small business.

Behind the Scenes (BTS) may include but is not limited to:

• product development process
• The ups and downs of the brand
• The history of your company
• Life stories of your employees
• mishaps and funny moments
• Ad/Content Creation Process

Such content certainly increases transparency and helps to connect with the audience. It will also give you some great ideas to add to your content plan.

10. Collaborate with influencers

Working with influencers gives your brand more exposure, increases sales andbrand awareness. This partnership starts with finding influencers in your niche.

So how do you choose an influencer to work with?

Discover influencers based on their customer personas and relevance to their and related industries. Follow them, start building connections and relationships first and foremost.

However, in terms of Instagram for a small business, working with influencers can be expensive. If you're on a budget, you can:

• Let a potential influencer know about your business by giving them a small gift, a special offer to make connections.
• Suggest an exchange (exchange your goods/discounts for promotions)
• Turn your customers into brand promoters
• Micro Influencer Search
• Create new influencers yourself (find people who have their own relevant audience and offer them a partnership)

It's important to have diverse influencers and to understand that this type of collaboration takes time. Finally, you can look for influencers with more followers — the bigger the audience, the more potential followers, buyers, and engagement you'll get.

11. Create special offers for your followers

Discounts are great, but exclusive sales are better. Are you there?electronic commerceor not, find a way to offer offers only available to your followers.

This can be promo codes like Thirty Years provides in their posts or free shipping like Dezi's account:

Not only can special offers increase sales, but they can also increase account activity as followers may want to share the offer with friends and family.

Don't forget to emphasize the urgency and uniqueness of the deal with words like "limited", "followers only", etc.

12. Talk to your audience

Use every possible avenue to keep the conversation going with your audience.direct messages, comments under your followers' posts/posts and stories introducing your brand - these are just some of the places where you can start a conversation with your followers and leverage their followersbusiness on Instagram.

Harness the power of Instagram live. it's a great opportunitycommunicate with your audience, show the people behind your brand. Vertical videos are on the rise today andonly 6% of peopleprefer horizontal content when it comes to video posts on social media. Over 90% of users appreciate vertical videos. Luckily, if your video is already recorded horizontally, you can use avideo editorto scale your video to vertical.

Or start involving your audience in product development by asking for their input on materials, designs and basically everything. This will also give you an idea of ​​what is in demand.

Two-way communication shortens distances, builds a trusted brand image, and keeps your account activity active. All of these are beneficial for small businesses to practice on Instagram.

13. Plan your content

Being consistent is one of the most important rules for a successful and growing small business Instagram. And planning your content is the only way to stay consistent.

Think about different types of content that you will include in your content plan. Of course, most need to showcase their products, but it can consist of something fun and slightly off-topic from time to time.

For example, there are many ways to create an #OnThisDay post: it can be dedicated to your brand story, world history, or an event celebrated on the day of your post.

Here is Nintendo's example:

Also, do not skip holidays or special days. Plan something special for occasions like Christmas, holidays or anniversaries. Here is an example of OrriDesigns, a handmade jewelry. The owner has prepared a "spooky" sale for Halloween:

With a content plan, you're never unprepared on release day. With simple notes, documents or spreadsheets, you can collect and constantly review the dates, posts, descriptions. Alternatively, you can submit planning applications orTimeline-Tools, many of which are free and convenient to use.

14. Add geolocation to your posts

Geotagging your posts gives you the opportunity to reach a wider audience of interest to you.

Depending on your industry, select relevant locations or locations where people might be interested in your product or service and add that location to your post.

Make sure to geotag your older posts that aren't geotagged.

However, stay away from big cities and other huge areas as they are usually tagged a lot and your post may get lost among the others.

15. Create guides

Instagram-Guidesenable the creation of an article-type publication. The editorial format differentiates it from your profile posts, allowing you to offer a variety of content to your audience.

You can use guides to dig deeper into your product or service, show the story and the people behind your brand.

Lush Cosmetics uses instructions for thisPresent your products, make recommendations on which products to buy for different purposes, and suggest which products to give away, including:

Guides do not need to appear as frequently as the main publications; They're more of an optional piece of content, but a valuable practice on Instagram for a small business.

16. Use calls to action

Make full use of the space in Instagram post captions with CTA. There are many ways to do this, it depends on the purpose.

Post a question below your post to encourage people to leave comments with their answers or opinions on it. Or post a carousel of photos and ask which one they like best. This will increase users' time on your profile and activity on your account.

Another type of CTA is to direct the audience to your website, for example by getting them to click on your website link in the bio.

You can also ask your followers to tag their friends or share your post with someone who might find it useful or relevant. Experiment with CTAs and see how they impact your small business Instagram profile.

End

There are so many things you can do with Instagram for your small business. From brief previews of upcoming product launches in Stories to full ad campaigns via a built-in ad manager, the app has a lot to offer.

Feel free to try the tips listed to find the Instagram features that work best for growing your small business.

Author's biography

Dmytro Zaichenko is a marketing specialist at Coupler.io, a data integration service that helpsexport Trello data,Slack, HubSpot, Shopify and other popular platforms. He has over 6 years of content creation experience. In addition to writing, he is passionate about networking and the NBA.