Has your small business been impacted by COVID-19? Are you struggling to know how you can use social media in your business strategy? This might be the blog post for you.

I find that there are a lot of businesses and brands that are a little gun shy these days when it comes to stepping up their marketing efforts because when there’s a global pandemic and your company is short staffed, investing in marketing can be seen as unneeded or like the one thing in your company anyone can do. However you find marketing these days, I wanted to give you some tips on how to use Instagram to your company’s advantage. All of these are things you can be doing on a DIY basis too by the way.

1. Find, follow, and interact with your ideal customers

Now more than ever, your ideal customer is waiting for you on Instagram. But how do you find them? Great question!

The first thing you should do is look at the accounts who are following businesses similar to yours – if they’re following them, then they’re probably going to be interested in what your business has to offer too. Social media is the conversation starter in your marketing strategy so once you’ve identified where your customers are “hanging out” and what types of content they’re engaging with, you will be able to start networking and generate a warm lead / real connection to the people you want to interact with

That said, don’t go following a million accounts in hopes they’ll follow you back. It is a strategy, but not a very good one. Focus less on building your number of followers and more on meaningful connection.

2. Create content that appeals to your target audience

One thing you should know going into social media marketing is that when it comes to content, it’s not really about what YOU want to post. It’s all about what engages and what converts. One thing that is useful before taking the time to create more content, is to take a look at what you’ve already posted? Are there any posts that have gone “viral” compared to other posts?

If you’re a business account (if you’re a business and still using a personal account - change that immediately) you can check these analytics by heading your insights tab. It’s in the top right corner and has 3 horizontal lines. It tells you everything you need to know about your content, audience and recent activity. Spend some time looking at your metrics to see which content types are already appealing to your audience and start creating content that your followers will love.

If you’re still stuck on content creation, here are a few ideas on what you can start posting on your account right now.

• Behind-the-scenes videos

• Inspirational quotes

• Employee selfies

• Blog post images

• Product sneak peeks

• Product arrangements

3. Fill out your bio strategically

Did you know that the name you use is searchable? Or that hashtags and accounts in your bio are clickable? Well, they are! Your instagram bio is valuable real estate. Make sure the name is your bio includes key words related to your industry and isn’t just a re-hash of your account name so that your ideal customers can find you. Use hashtags in your bio that relate directly to your business and use a link tool (like linktree) to make the most out of your website link.

Once you’ve done that, consider updating what you’ve been using as your bio. Create a bio that provides value, by listing the specific benefits, who your account is for, how your followers can contact you and an enticing opt-in that will help drive traffic to your website AND build your email list.

Like I said, when used properly, it’s valuable real estate.

4. Post high-quality photos

I’m not just talking about DSLRs and expensive equipment. You can take high-quality photos with your i-phone but make sure you are posting top content because on Instagram, content is EVERYTHING. It used to be that the high quality photos were what went viral but these days, it really depends on your content types and audience.

High-quality now also means that engaging content. So show more faces. Show movement. Show off your personality. Share parts of your every day. But above all, stay consistent.

5. Use hashtags

I highly recommend taking time to do full research on all things hashtags. I’ve talked about hashtags before and while Instagram let you use up to 30, that’s not totally necessary! Once you have your hashtags in place, ideally different sets per content types, double check them to see how relevant they actually are. I’m talking size and related posts.

Do a quick search on Instagram of the hashtag you want to use to see how many people have used it already and quickly scan the related posts to see if your post is going to fit. When it comes to the size of a hashtag, keep in mind how big your account is. The higher the post count does not equal higher reach for you. It actually hides your posts.

6. Show up on Stories every day

Someone recently asked me if you could use Instagram Stories for marketing and the answer is a resounding YES. According to a recent article by Hootsuite, about half of Instagram’s monthly users are using Stories. That’s 500 million people posting 1 billion Stories every day. And about 62% of those people say they’ve become more interested in a brand or product after seeing it in their Stories. This means that by not promoting your business on Stories, every day, you are missing out on a ton of potential customers or clients becoming aware of your business.

7. Tag Products to Your Posts

Is your business located in a supported market? Does your business sell physical goods? Does it comply with our commerce policies? Is your Instagram account a business account?Is your account connected to a Facebook Page? If you answered yes to everything, you’re ready to start using Instagram to promote your product through a shoppable Instagram feed. First you’ll want to connect your account to a catalogue on Facebook via Catalogue Manager. This is the do-it-yourself method. You can create yourself a new catalogue, or connect to an existing one.

Once your account and catalogue are connected, go to the Instagram app to sign up for Shopping. Go to your profile's settings, tap Business and tap Instagram Shopping. Follow the steps to make sure that everything is good to go and to submit your account for review. Usually the process takes a few days, but sometimes it can take longer. You can visit Shopping in Settings at any time to check your review status. Now that you've set up shop, you can start adding product tags and stickers to your Instagram posts and stories. Start creating a post as usual and tap 'Tag Products' to add a product from your catalogue. You can feature up to five products per image or video post, and up 20 products on multi-image posts. You can also go back and add shopping tags to old posts on your business profile.Stories can feature one product sticker per story. And you can adjust the colour and text of product stickers.

8. Provide Social-Only Discounts

To grow your following on a variety of networks and inspire loyalty, offer deals that are exclusive to each network. Exclusive offers on your social networks can be a great way to build customer loyalty with those who follow you. Plus, this tactic provides a reason for new people to follow and subscribe to your social channels, which will allow you to market to them in the future as well.

9. Alter Your Approach Per Network

Before joining a social network to make sales, you must know your client base. To take even a step further, you must know where those clients are hanging out and what they are looking for on that network.

Just as a quick refresher: The most popular social media sites are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Youtube, Linkedin and now TikTok is joining those ranks. Facebook is next to impossible to grow and reach your audience without a solid ads or groups strategy. Instagram is all about the visuals but because it’s under the umbrella of Facebook, there are many integrations that will enhance your approach. Twitter, though not so popular in Hong Kong, requires a lot of tweeting to get anywhere. Pinterest and Youtube are search engines, so anyone hanging out there has access to every post (a.k.a. evergreen content). Linkedin is more formal and professional. And TikTok is like the new puppy of social media - everyone wants to play with it and because it’s new, it’s gaining a lot of popularity.

Now, your ideal client may not be on every platform, and you certainly shouldn’t feel like you need to be on every platform for the sake of being visible. This method just strings you out in the end and you give all of the platforms half of your attention. The other option is to know your client base, what are the main 2-3 platforms they use/you get traction on, and forget about the rest for now. It’s more important to know how the platforms function for a client, what they want to see when they go on those platforms and be able to give your approach the attention it deserves.

10. Get Your Employees Involved

Ah, employee advocacy. This is a concept that is growing in popularity in a number of brands but requires unanimous participation in order to be effective. The idea is that you can leverage your employees’ social networks to organically promote your brand.

If employee advocacy is new to you, or you’re on the fence about whether or not it’s worth the investment, here’s some reassurance. Take a look at these statistics showcasing just how powerful and important employee advocacy can be for your brand:

• 72% of sales people that use social media as part of their sales process outperform their peers and exceed their quota 23% more often.

• Brand messages get re-shared 24 times more frequently when shared by employees vs the the brand.

• Leads from employee advocacy are seven times more likely to close than other forms of leads.

• Customers referred by an advocate have a 37% higher retention rate.

• 50% of employees that share content to social media post about their employer.

• 21% of employees are estimated to be advocates, and an additional 33% have high potential to become employee advocates.

• Interest in employee advocacy has grown 191% since 2013.

• Nearly 86% of employee advocates say being involved in social media has positively impacted their career.

That’s just a brief look at some of the stats to support the case for an employee advocacy program. The benefits are too great to overlook. As advocacy starts to become the “norm,” these numbers will likely continue to grow.

This is, of course, not an exhaustive list and there are entire workshops, online classes and facebook groups that you should look into if you want to learn how to use Instagram professionally. But I do hope that this has been helpful and gives you a couple of ideas as to how social media can benefit your company’s image and consumer reach.

For more info on social media marketing, check out my previous blog posts, instagram account or send me a DM! I’d love to hear from you.