How Small Businesses Can Win on Instagram

It’s 2022 and your business page on Instagram is collecting dust. But does your social media presence, or lack thereof, really make a difference? It’s great to have, but not essential, right?

Not being on social media or leaving your account stale is diminishing your chances of honing your identity as a successful entrepreneur. We believe Instagram is a great platform for small businesses to make it big. 

As a small business owner, you are inundated with responsibilities, so you may have your Instagram account low on your list of tasks, or you just aren’t sure how to approach getting your small business noticed on a platform with over one billion monthly active users.

The extensive reach of the platform is why Instagram is the single most crucial way of increasing brand awareness in 2022. And those that are putting in the work to create attractive Instagram feeds, post authentic stories, and respond to DM inquiries are already seeing results.

Get your small business discovered on Instagram

There are proven ways to set up your account and profile to make it easy for potential followers to find you. Let’s go over some basics you might have missed.

Optimize your profile

You might not be new to Instagram, but it doesn’t hurt to do the initial setup. Create a catchy Insta handle that lets users know exactly what your product or service is, upload an eye-catching, branded profile picture, and write a bio that lets visitors know right away what to expect from your brand and why they should follow you.

Make the most of the strongest link 

Instagram only has one place to input a link to an outside page. You can make the most of this with the link-in-bio option, like today.page. Keep on updating the link to feature your best-selling items and key landing pages to get the most out of this feature. The more you drive people to your link in bio through your Instagram Stories, the more likely you are to get hits on your website. 

Geotagging all the way! 

Whenever you add a new post, make sure to always tag the location of your small business. This will not only help new customers to reach your brick and mortar address if you have one, but also aids Instagram in sorting posts by location in searches. Instagram will automatically take all the relevant posts and sort them into top and recent. 

Highlight your business with story highlights  

This is one of the most creative tools that business owners and influencers are making use of. Story highlights are one of the first things you see when you visit a profile and a well-crafted and organized story highlights section could attract some potential clients’ eyes. 

For instance, beauty brands can sort all their different products into various highlights like “skin”, “hair”, “eyes”, and “lips”. Try to stick to a common theme and branded highlight covers for a polished and organized look.   

Save posts and save yourself from unhappy customers 

When users save your posts, the Instagram algorithm boosts your content, leading to more views. By keeping track of saves as an engagement metric, you can see how well-loved a post is by your following.  

You could also use this feature to save posts and make collections like competitors, unhappy customers, and goals—anything you want to return to . Create a fans collection to keep track of people who have used or mentioned your product, so can follow up on user-generated content. 

Just tap on the collections and view whichever one you want to view later. What an easy way to do some research and development for your small business, all while casually scrolling on the gram! 

Photo by Omkar Patyane on Pexels

Why the Insights feature is a game-changer 

You no longer have to do the math to figure out how well your content is performing—Instagram is doing it for you. The Insights feature will provide you with all the metrics you need on the same platform such as reach, engagement, and followers. You can make the most out of your Insights dashboard with our simple tips below. 

Views, views, and more views! 

When you visit Insights Overview, head to the “Content you shared,” and there you can see all the various categories like Posts, Reels, and Stories as well as Instagram Lives. This is your golden ticket to doing some valuable R and D. You can check out the number of views for each category and individual post to see which kind of content performed better. Now you know which type generates more views for your brand. 

Stories 

The story content tab has many metrics to study, including impressions, saves, and overall engagement. You can even find out the exit intent. With this data, you can pinpoint the exact slide after which the user abandoned the story and swiped next, so you can determine where your viewers lose interest and improve your content strategy. 

Posts 

With so many other features like Lives, Collabs, and Reels, Posts are falling fast behind, but it still stands to be one of the most basic ways to enhance your profile. In the insights tab, you can check out the reach, engagement, and impressions for each post. Impressions and engagement will include the likes, comments, and views of your post while the reach will tell you what kind of audience you ended up interacting with.  

A good caption goes a long way

Sometimes all it takes to get a page going are some catchy captions. Some small businesses like supply shops or educational institutions may not have many interesting photographs to display on their feed. But if their caption game is on point, they can expect to see many more followers. Here are some tips to get some good captions on your side: 

Be witty and funny

People love a sense of humor and they’ll keep coming back for more! Try using puns and some good old wordplay to hook your audience in. Yes, Instagram has long been known as a visual discovery platform, but the caption provides context for the image.

Write story captions

If you have some satisfied customers whose pictures you are sharing, you can also write their client stories in their own words in the caption. The idea is to get the reader hooked on a familiar storytelling format much like the famous Humans of New York.  

Use the right keywords

Stay current with keyword research for your business to get the best out of your captions. Don’t force the keywords where they don’t belong but using them once or twice will attract the right audience to your profile and eventually your business’ doorstep.  

Enhance your IG Live game 

Using Instagram Lives can amp up your small business like never before. People realized the power of Instagram Lives during the Covid-19 lockdown when customer interaction became impossible. Here are some tips you can use to keep Instagram Live content fresh.

Do a question and answer round

Get customers to ask real questions and satisfy their queries. For some potential clients, this could put an end to their curiosity, encouraging them to finally check out your product!  

Invite a guest!

Having a guest doesn’t just mean driving their followers to your page, but it also means giving your own followers a taste of some new knowledge or a different angle to your profile.  

Show and tell

Show the viewers your business factory or work from home setup. You can also show them the full assembly line of the product: from start to finish.  

In this manner, even a small business can gain a lot of traction. Don’t forget a simple tool like UNUM can end up changing your social media game. A business owner might not have the time it takes to get an Instagram up and going but UNUM has got it all covered. Try it out and signup for free today! 

[Header image by Ketut Subiyanto on Pexels]

‍