13. |||||| Teresa Baerg Communications 13
On the Agenda!
• What is Instagram?
• Who is your audience?
• Why Instagram?
• Setting up your account
• Foundation for Success: the Content Calendar
• Creating your Content
• Engaging with your audience
14. What is Instagram?
• Visual centric social network - since 2010
• Approximately 1 billion active monthly users!
• Fairly even gender split
• Second most logged into social media site for daily use after
Facebook
• Visitors browse for an average of 28-53 minutes per day
• 83% of users discover new products and services on Instagram!
• 200 million users visit at least one business profile daily
• 92% of all Instagram users say they’ve followed a brand, clicked on
their website, or made a purchase after seeing a product/service on
Instagram
Statistics from Hootsuite
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15. The like (heart) button is hit an average of 4.2
billion times per day!
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https://adespresso.com/blog/instagram-statistics/
16. Who is your Audience?
• What are their needs?
• What are their pain points?
• How can you help them solve their pain
points?
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17. Why Instagram?
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• Authenticity – humanize your brand and create a
connection!
• Personality – people want to buy from someone they
know and trust
• Storytelling – tell your story and reinforce your brand
18. Your Account
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• Use professional, not personal account (Settings ->
Account -> Switch to Professional Account)
Insights – track audience metrics
Contact information
Ads
19. Foundation for Success:
Content Calendar
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• “Plan your work, then work your plan!”
• Make your content work hard for you
• Posts should use 80/20 rule
• Schedule sales, promotions, holidays, etc.
• Consistency – prevents under posting and over
posting
20. Creating Your Content
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• Develop a consistent look – the Canva app offers pre-
formatted templates to complement your brand
• Freepik, Pinterest and Google Quotes offer good quality
images to start
• Snap your own photos and videos and create a library for
your use
• Homework: research other businesses in your space
21. What’s in a Post?
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• The photo/image
• Caption (can include emojis)
• Hashtags
• Location
22. Photo/Image
• Your products
• Your products in action
• Event or tradeshow
shots
• Problem/solution posts
• Team members
• Your workspace
• Special occasions
• Your services in action
• Funny things you
encounter
• Hot new finds
• Meetings with clients,
fans, your team
• Quotes
Source: www.sophiebujold.com
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23. Captions
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• “A great Instagram caption will add context, show
off your brand’s personality, entertain the audience
&/or compel people to take action” – Hootsuite
• Up to 2,200 characters in length
• Be clear on your brand voice and how to use it!
• Use emojis tastefully
• Use the @mention to tag another relevant account
• Edit before posting
• Ask a question
24. Feeling stuck? Idea starters!
• Did you know?
• Tell us what you think?
• Like it?
• Has this happened to you?
• Vote for your favourite!
• Does this sound familiar?
• What’s your pick?
• Where are we?
Source: www.sophiebujold.com
• Have you done this?
• Share your thoughts?
• Yes or no?
• How weird/cool is this?
• Which do you prefer?
• Would you do this?
• Are you joining me?
• Fill in the blank…
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25. Location
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• Use location – geotag your posts with your
business location or the location where the
photo/video was taken
• Helps users find you and lets users know where
you’ve been
• According to Hootsuite, posts with location get
79% more engagement!
26. Tagging other accounts
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• Tag other relevant accounts within the image,
using @... and the name of the account.
• Tag other relevant accounts within your
caption, using @... and the name of the
account
27. #HASHTAGS
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A doorway through which people can discover your brand, you
can categorize content to make it more discoverable, and get
seen by the right people!
• Use relevant hashtags
• Approx. 5-11 (9-11 is sweet spot)
• Specific, niche
• Popular
• Make sure # means what you think it means!
• Save hashtags in notes, then copy & paste
• Separate hashtags from caption text
28. Stories
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• More than half a billion people use Instagram Stories every
day, and a third of the most-viewed Stories are posted by
businesses – Hootsuite
• Stories are content that disappears in 24 hours
• Use photos, videos, Boomerang, Superzoom, memes and
much more
• Polls, geo-location, @mentions and hashtags
• Add stickers, gifts, text – personality!
• Track how many people have seen your story by swiping up
29. Instagram Engagement
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• “It’s called social media for a reason. Be social!” –
Hootsuite
• Respond to comments and messages – helps you
better understand your customer and their needs
• Engage with other accounts. Be sure you are
following a variety of accounts. Like their photos,
comment where relevant, give them a shout out
when you are inspired by their story.
30. Sources
• Sprout Social
• Marie Forleo
• Gary Vaynerchuk
• Chalene Johnson
• Hootsuite
• Ad Espresso by Hootsuite
• Sophie Bujold
• Ekaterina Walter & Jessica Gioglio
• Elizabeth Plouffe
• Instagram image: Freepik.com
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31. Thank you for joining me!
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Editor's Notes
Welcome to Social Media for Small Business: Instagram Edition!
Thank you for coming! I’m excited to be here with all of you this evening.
Tonight we’ll be talking about how you can use Instagram as a powerful tool to help you tell the story of your business. You already know that customers buy YOU, not your product or service. As the face of your business, you need tools to help you tell your story in ways that resonate with your customer, in places where they can easily find you.
Here’s where Instagram comes in.
Let’s start with some fun trivia. What are some of the most popular Instagram brand accounts, based on number of followers? Guesses?
The number one brand on all of Instagram is, indeed, Instagram
Two other brands with a very large number of followers are National Geographic and Nike.
Two other brands with very large numbers of followers are National Geographic and Nike. Can anyone guess how many followers Instagram’s most popular dog has?
Instagram’s most popular dog, jiffpom, has 9.8 million followers!
This is my dog, Roxy, who I think is even cuter than Jiffpom, but she doesn’t have quite that many followers! (My daughter runs her account). This also happens to be one of my favourite photos ever of Roxy, and I took it with my iPhone 6S and I added a few filters. Keep in mind that you don’t need the most expensive equipment, or the latest and greatest smartphone, to take great images that tell your story. Instagram is truly accessible for everyone!
Our Prime Minister has a large following of 3.3 million.
And not too far behind him is a cookie! The Oreo, everyone’s favourite cookie, has 2.8 million followers! Here’s another fun fact. Does anyone know which celebrity basically broke the internet when he/she joined Instagram back in October?
Actor Jennifer Aniston, formerly of Friends, who set a world record for the fastest account to 1 million followers, which she achieved in just 5 hours and 16 minutes.
So let’s find out who’s in the audience this evening, based on your industry.
Who here is a service provider? A lifestyle business? What about a Technology company? Who offers a Product? Anything else we’ve missed?
Does everyone in the room have a smartphone? You will need one if you’re going to start using Instagram. A few more questions. Who already has the Instagram app? Who has a personal Instagram account? What about a business account? Who actually LIKES Instagram? For those of you who don’t, I hope we can change that a little here this evening! For those who do, l hope you’ll leave feeling more confident in using the platform.
Now that I know a bit about you, I should introduce myself. I’m Teresa Baerg, as Lisa mentioned, and I am a storyteller at heart. I’ve been telling stories my whole life, whether through words, photos or a combination of both. Also, as Lisa mentioned, I did learn to swim just a few years ago at age 41. For most of my life, I held on to a fear of putting my face in the water, and likely missed out on a lot of fun because of it. I failed the last swim lesson I ever took, at about age 10, and that became my story. But my older two kids and I joined a triathlon club here in Milton about 4 years ago, and since triathlon is three sports, including a swim, I had no choice but to jump in! (pun intended of course). I was absolutely scared as I walked across the pool deck to my first lesson, and I don’t think the coaches realized just how remedial I was! So I spent the first several lessons basically blowing bubbles in the shallow end, until one day, through trial and error and many uncomfortable facefuls of water, I could swim. Was it a humbling experience? Absolutely! Do I have any regrets? No, quite the opposite! I actually enjoy swimming now, which continues to surpirse me. Why am I telling you all of this? Because if I can learn to swim at age 41, then I firmly believe that anyone in this room, regardless of age or ability, can learn to use Instagram, and hopefully even have a little fun doing it!
I started using Instagram a few years back to keep an eye on my kids, who were much more fluent on social media than I was. And maybe they still are! But none of them were available tonight, so you get me! I started my two personal accounts for fun and as a way to capture and document the beauty and inspiration I saw around me. In turn, I’ve been able to inspire and encourage some of my own followers through the stories I tell.
I spent 6 ½ years as the Content & Community Manager for six snapd newspapers, including Burlington, Hamilton, St. Catharines, Niagara Falls, Bloor West and Etobicoke. We told our stories primarily through the event coverage that appeared in the print editions, online and on social media, through photos, videos and the written word. I had the chance to develop and grow our social sites during my time at snapd and it was one of my favourite parts of the job. One of my favourite experiences was exactly a year ago, covering Pancake Tuesday at my local Sunset Grill. While I ate my pancakes and drank my coffee, I created a number of fun and engaging Insta stories to encourage the community to come out in support of the Canadian Cancer Society. My takeaway? Instagram doesn’t have to feel like work!
I was also a storyteller at Burlington Lifestyle, an online community promoting all-things Burlington, through, blogs, Facebook and Instagram.
So let’s dive right in, to milk another swimming pun…
There is no shortage of information to be found on the internet about any social media platforms. I’ve done my best to narrow down the basics for you this evening, and have listed my sources at the end of the presentation.
If you have questions during the presentation, I encourage you to write them on the sticky notes provided. I’ll collect them later on and do my best to answer!
So, what IS Instagram all about, anyway?
Second most logged into social media site for daily use after Facebook: However, Instagram images get an average of 23% more engagement than their Facebook counterparts.
Visitors browse for an average of 28-53 minutes per day, vs. 58 minutes on Facebook. Time spent on a social network is a strong indicator of an engaging platform!
And did you know…
I think it’s quite safe to say that Instagram is here to stay!
I imagine you’ve already spent a fair bit of time considering who your audience is as you’ve started to grow your business, so we won’t go in depth on that this evening. So who is your audience - What are their needs? What are their pain points or problems? How can you help them solve their pain points? After all, you’re in business to help people solve their problems! If you haven’t already figured out who your audience is, then this is your first piece of homework. A few tips: If you already have an Instagram business account, you can look under “Insights” in your settings and go to “Audience” to learn some statistics about your existing followers. Another way you can learn about your audience is directly through your followers, using “Polls” on Instagram stories. We’ll touch on that a bit later.
Instagram is a platform where you have the chance to be authentic. Authenticity allows you to humanize your brand and create an authentic connection. CONNECTION WITH YOUR AUDIENCE IS YOUR GOAL and should be prioritized over selling on this platform!
Personality – people want to buy from someone they know and trust, not just another generic business, and Instagram will allow you to show off your personality. Which you will do through storytelling. Be YOU!
Instagram gives you a platform to tell your story as well as reinforce your brand and who you are!
So we’ve gotten this far, and you’re starting to get excited about Instagram, hopefully! Once you’ve decided that Instagram could be a part of your marketing strategy, based on identifying your target audience, you need to make sure your account is set up properly. If you already have a page for your business, but it’s set up as a personal account, you should make the switch to a professional account. It actually just takes a minute. In your settings, select Account, then Switch to Professional Account. If you’ve already got a professional/business account, then you are good to go! Having a professional account will allow you to track audience metrics using the Insights tool, add your business contact information, and eventually, use Instagram ads.
Now we’re really getting into the fun stuff! The foundation for your success is to use a content calendar. As the saying goes, Plan your work, then work your plan! A properly used content calendar will allow you to remain organized and be consistent, along with making your life a whole lot easier. An analogy I like to use is creating a meal plan at home. Once the meals are planned in advance (you’ve got your recipes and your groceries), all that’s left is to execute (cook). And that’s the fun part! Most of the thinking (often the hardest part, am I right?) is already done! At this point in your Instagram journey, your goal is not to achieve Jennifer Aniston-like record setting followers. If you put the work into your content calendar, then consistently follow the plan, consider that you are already succeeding!
Make your content work hard for you: Remember that when you are creating content, you have the ability to reuse and repurpose it across multiple social platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. When customers begin to see your branded posts on more than one platform, your business is going to become that much more memorable.
80/20 rule: When creating your content calendar, remember the 80/20 rule as it applies to marketing: 80% of your content should be useful, informative, trust-building and free information that helps you connect with your customers and enhances your brand. The other 20% will have a marketing/advertising message. If you get this backwards, you will alienate your followers and lose out on engagement.
A content calendar allows you to start with a scheuled activity or event such as a sale, promotion, holiday, etc. that you want to promote, then work backwards. Ideally you are working on about three months in advance. You want to give yourself plenty of time to share what’s coming up, and plenty of posts to share the news in different ways.
Your calendar will help you maintain consistency in posting and prevent you from under posting OR over posting.
I’ve got a sample of a content calendar printed off that might work for you. I encourage you to create something that makes sense for you and that you’ll actually use. I’d like everyone to take just a few minutes right now and think about something big that’s coming up in their business, perhaps some time in May. Now you’ll need to work backwards. Decide when you want to start talking about the event. About 6 weeks in advance is a good place to start.
Creating your content is a topic we could spend hours talking about, but we won’t tonight because I’d like to let you go home at some point. The type of content you choose to create to represent your brand and tell your story is going to be quite different from the person sitting beside you, and the person in front of you. Your story is unique, your brand is unique, and you are unique!
Content can take the shape of photos, videos, memes, gifs, simple graphics and more. Wherever possible, your content should maintain a consistent look and feel – colours, tone of voice, and personality. I’d suggest taking a look at the Canva app, which is a great tool to get you started (free and paid versions), along with sites like Freepik, Pinterest and Google Quotes.
You can of course capture your own photos and videos and create a library for your own use. This works especially well with a product based business.
Do your homework! Spend some time scrolling through business and brand accounts in your industry (both large and small) with an eye for research – see what you notice and like, and what works. Then decide what is the feeling and look you are wanting to create with your account, and apply this consistent look to the images you share, keeping in mind your unique story!
What’s in a post?
This is one of my favourite and most popular posts on my triathlonteresa account, and shows off the elements of a post.
These are the essential elements: the photo/image/video. That’s where you always start.
The caption
Hashtags
Location
Your photo/image needs to be high quality!
I’ve given a sample of ideas here that you can use, as they suit your business, to get you started!
The sky is the limit with your ideas,but as always, keeping in mind your brand story.
(Read quote.) That sounds like a tall order but it doesn’t need to be that complicated!
Up to 2,200 characters: Length of caption is up to you, but do try to be consistent. When in doubt, keep it brief.
Be clear on your brand voice and how to use it!: Are you fun? Funny? Formal? Friendly? Educational? Inspirational? No nonsense? What does your voice sound like? Be consistent. And remember that typically Instagram users aren’t looking for anything too serious or formal. Tasteful use of emojis here is another way to add to your voice. Would anyone be willing to share what their brand’s voice is?...
Use the @mention to tag another relevant account – encourage that account and their followers to interact with your post, bringing more eyeballs to your post.
Edit before posting: check grammar and spelling. It matters! Remove words that aren’t needed. Make sure you are saying what you want to say! But don’t let this process prevent you from posting. Once you’re comfortable with the caption (and perhaps have someone else take a look as well if that’s possible), go ahead and post!
Your caption can Ask a question: here are some suggestions…
There are two ways you can tag other accounts in your post…
Tag other relevant accounts within the image. Use @... and the name of the account.: that account will receive a notification that they were tagged in your post.
Geotagging location, and using @mentions take very little extra time, but are valuable tools to help you increase your engagement.
Relevant hashtags: make sure they are relevant to what you are posting, to your brand, and to the story you are telling
9-11
Specific, niche: Are there hashtags that are specific to your industry? Do your research by looking at other accounts in your industry that you follow, and see what they are using. Can anyone share some that they are aware of in their industry?
Popular: it’s okay to use popular hashtags, as long as they are relevant (back to point 1)
Make sure your hashtag means what you think it means! Save yourself some embarrassment. Search your hashtag before you use it!
Pro tip: if you are planning to use the same group of hashtags in most of your posts, and you don’t want to type them each time, use the Notes app on your phone to save them, then simply copy and paste them into your post each time. (You can do this with your caption as well).
----Branded hashtags (#ShotOnIphone)
Separate hashtags from caption text: separate with periods and line breaks. Or put hashtags in comments.
Don’t take yourself too seriously. Instagram stories are a fun and easy way to let your brand’s personality shine!
Several types of posts that you can use on a daily basis:
Real life – authentic, messy, what’s happening – this is not airbrushed or filtered! Give your followers the inside scoop on your business!
Advice, recommendations – perhaps podcasts or products or books that you want to tell your followers about. This builds trust!
DTC- Direct to Camera – a great way to get your face and voice in front of your customers in a way that feels a little less intimidating than a regular post. Can be a quick video that once again provides your brand’s personality – remember, your customers buy YOU!
Give them what they came for – tell them what you’re all about.
(Read quote)
Respond to comments and messages that you receive – this will help you better understand your customer and their needs. Everyone wants to feel heard, including your customers. Your followers can either comment on a post, which you’ll receive a notification for, or send you a direct message if they want to share or ask something more private.
Engage with other accounts. Be sure you are following a variety of accounts, not necessarily just those in your industry, but related industries or accounts that you simply really like. Like their photos, comment where relevant, give them a shout out when you are inspired by their story. Why not follow accounts such as National Geographic, or Oreo, or even Jiffpom or Jennifer Aniston for some inspiration?
Keep in mind that not every one of your posts is going to be a home run. Some may fall a little flat, and others may pleasantly surprise you. Take note of what works and what doesn’t. Which posts are popular with your followers, and which ones don’t seem to resonate? Take a look at your account’s Insights tool to help you gather more information. Then, as long as you continue to post consistently, while authentically sharing your unique brand story, you will eventually find that you are connecting with your customers, creating new customers, and hopefully, enjoying Instagram along the way.
Thank you so much for listening and participating this evening! I’m grateful for your comments and questions and truly hope you’ve learned something valuable here this evening.
