Instagram is an awesome way for small businesses to engage with customers

Many businesses are now using Instagram as part of their PR strategy to share information with their customers and target audiences. Instagram is a fantastic way for small businesses to engage with audiences, show them what you’re up to, and continue building strong relationships.

Here are a few Instagram engagement tips you should use at your business.

1. Know your message/have your own style

Before you begin sharing photos, think about the message you want to communicate to your customers. Instagram allows businesses to build visual connections and inspire brand loyalty — so make sure your images have a consistent tone and message.

Try to personalise your account and message to customers, is it polite and restrained tone, or maybe playful and informal? It will be better to understand how to answer and solve some problems regarding your product or service because you will have your own business “voice”.

Show your customers why they should be loyal to your business. What can your small business offer them? What can they offer you? Make your feed and messages strategy.

2. Use Ads for testing

If you are not utilising Instagram (or Facebook) to advertise on social media, then you are missing out on huge revenue!

Sure you can post great content on your page, but this will only reach your followers. If you want to reach people that do not follow you and strengthen your social media image, you need to create advertisements. You can target specific demographics and locations, link directly to your website or landing page and gather data.

These sponsored ads will appear in users feeds outside of your follower base. You can run regularly targeted ads or you can re-target customers.

Re-targeting ads are beneficial because they help gain customers who may have been shopping on your site and left their cart. And since Facebook and Instagram work together you can re-target people on both platforms!

Use 3–4 advertisement options and test which converts best, at the beginning don’t expect a return from it, you will get just some data information about your potential customer that will help you to determine specific target groups.

3. Connect Your Instagram DMs to Facebook

If you’re answering inquiries on Facebook as well as Instagram, you can reinforce your messages by sending your Instagram DMs to your Facebook Messenger inbox.

If you’re managing your Instagram comments and DMs from your desktop, it’s also a good idea to create a list of pre-written answers to some of the more common questions that come your way.

But don’t just copy and paste your replies, you need to modify your responses so they are specific and customised to each inquiry. And always address the customer by name.

4. Post Regularly

Regular posting on any social media site is a must. Instagram is a bit more time consuming in that it doesn’t allow third-party apps to post automatically. This is where an Instagram specialist can be beneficial.

We were working with personal and brand accounts and figured out that 4-6 posts per week are the best amount you should share on your feed.

It is better to look after quality instead of quantity because your engagement rate is one of the most important things you should pay attention while building awareness. People are going to interact with your posts more.

Also, test at what time your audience are most active, try different days and hours till you find the best time, create the schedule for a post to not miss it.

Currently, there are 1 billion monthly active users on Instagram and that number is still growing. That’s 1 billion customers for your business to potentially target! Also, it starting to be a very competitive area, don’t miss your peace of cake!