Here at The Dealio we do just about anything and everything social media related for our clients. One area we have seen major success is with the use of Instagram for Business. In recent months, the ability to create an official Instagram ad has become a reality, but what did you do before then? This blog post is going to help you better understand how to build a relevant following on your Instagram accounts. If you ask a 13 year old, Instagram is all about having as many followers, getting as many likes and looking as cool as possible. If you ask a social media marketer, Instagram is all about having quality followers, finding new followers who will buy your business or product and providing a clear vision of what your brand does.
I am assuming that you know what Instagram is or how to create an account. If not, I wouldn’t bother reading this blog and I would head over to this pretty sweet website that has all the answers in the world, Google.com and find out. Anyway, back to the topic.
Search
So you have you business Instagram account set up. Let’s say you are a local brand in Rexburg, Idaho looking to tap into both the community and college student population. Rexburg is home to BYU-Idaho which is full of college aged adults who love to use Instagram. You want to use Instagram to advertise who you are, specials you are running and show that you are a part of the community. The first way to find a relevant following is the Search option on Instagram.
Tags
In Search you can look at People, Tags and Places. Your biggest help will be Tags and Places. Searching relevant hashtags to where your business is located or the type of products you sell will benefit you. For instance, this local business in Rexburg will find the hashtags #Rexburg, #BYUI and #byuidaho very helpful. When people use a hashtag, it helps to categorize their content where anyone can see you picture when they search that specific hashtag as long as your profile is not private. So in your case, searching specific hashtags and then either liking the photos or following the people who posted them will start promoting your own brand and hopefully these people will follow your account in return.
Places
With the Places search, you can search specific geo-located areas where people have posted pictures. Let’s say you really want to reach the local high school aged kids on Instagram. If you live in Rexburg, you would search Madison High School in the search bar, then select what you are looking for and it will show you any public picture that was tagged at that location by the user who posted the picture. This is a great way to make sure you are either following or liking pictures of people that you actually want to be reaching verses random people all over the world. If you are a brand that reaches farther outside of the realm of one city or state, you can still use these search features to find specific topics and content related to your brand or business. It is just a matter of finding out what topics work best for your business.
Top
Another resource that can help you in following and finding new quality followers on Instagram is by finding already popular accounts in the city in which you live or popular accounts that are related to your brand. Let’s say you are a surfboard company, you could search out other surf related Instagram accounts and follow their followers. In Rexburg there are a few popular parody and business accounts that have Rexburg related followers on them. By going in and following their follower list you can then gain more relevant followers as well.
Example
We have been helping build Instagram accounts and followings for a variety of businesses. One that we have seen great success with is The Dealio Instagram Account. This account helps to promote daily deals in Rexburg. As more and more people use Instagram, we have seen the need to build that following. As we follow both BYUI and Rexburg related people, we have seen our follower list reach over 7200 people, we have seen likes and comments and photos increase which has led to people going and redeeming the deal of the day. An average Dealio previously would get a redemption rate of 25 to 50 people a day. As we have followed more relevant people in Rexburg, those redemption’s have increased to 75 to 125 redemption’s a day. This makes the business running the Dealio happy and gain more business. Blisters BBQ in Rexburg runs deals weekly and has reported that their sales double on Dealio days compared to other days. The Hickory, another local restaurant runs a Dealio every Tuesday and it is always their busiest day of the week. So busy and effective that they reserve every Tuesday of the year because they know their customers expect it and love it. We love helping our clients and other businesses reach their target audience and get more business. That is success for us.
These are a few tips that make Instagram building easier and relevant. You can get plenty of followers fast but what good does it do if none of them live where you are trying to brand your content? Finding quality followers leads to conversions and more and better business. Gaining the following you want can become tedious on Instagram because you can only access it by mobile device, but if you do it right, it could be one of your biggest tools in finding new customers. The other half of that is creating engaging content, but we will share that will you another day. For now, find quality followers by using these tools and happy Instagramming!