This document provides guidance on using Instagram to promote a business. It discusses statistics about Instagram usage, strategies for increasing followers and engagement, analyzing competitors, developing a six-month content plan, and tools for managing an Instagram account. The plan is to increase followers from 700 to 2,000 within six months by posting high-quality photos and videos twice per week, engaging with other accounts, and using calls to action and hashtags to drive traffic. Progress will be tracked using various analytics tools.

1. Summary
Overview
Statistics
Increase popularity
Drive followers into website
Analysis of competitors
Our strategy
Managing tools

2. Overview: what can you do with Instagram?
Instagram is a social network owned by Facebook and it is focused on sharing pictures and videos.
In particular, using this app, you’re allowed to:
Share pictures and videos with your followers
Follow people and brands you like
Chat and sharing contents with a specific person by the Direct function
Tag people who are in your pictures
Like pictures and video shared by people you follow or also you don’t follow
Use hashtags to allow people who don’t follow you to find your pictures

3. Some Instagram statistics (1/2)
500 million monthly active users (mainly young
people)
300 million daily active users
Instagram’s engagement rate is 58 times greater
than Facebook’s and 120 times than Twitter’s*
Instagram has officially bypassed Twitter, tinder and
google plus in terms of users
*source: Studio Samo: https://www.studiosamo.it/visualstorytelling/5-statistiche-di-instagram-per-aumentare-l-engagement/

4.  Mentioning other users in the
description increases the engagement
rate of 56%*
 Adding location on the pictures increases
the engagement rate of 79%*
Some Instagram statistics (2/2)
*source: Studio Samo: https://www.studiosamo.it/visualstorytelling/5-statistiche-di-instagram-per-aumentare-l-engagement/
 50% of comments are published within the
first 6 hours from the publication of the post*

5. How to increase your popularity on Instagram
In order to increase day by day your popularity there are few tips you should follow:
Have a solid marketing plan (strategy, goals, measures, times) and a defined style
guide;
Make a good use of #hashtags: they help people find your pictures, so it’s
important they are related to the picture, and try to use the most popular
hashtags, so that your visibility increases;
Lots of users are Anglophone, so use English as main language to reach more
people;
Do not publish too many pictures, try to find images that are worth publishing
(few beautiful pictures are better than lots ugly);
Link Instagram with other social networks, particularly Facebook and Twitter;
Be active on Instagram: like other users’ pictures, comment and answer questions
people ask you under your pictures;
People love food, so if you work in this sector you should use Instagram!

6. How to drive your followers into your website
Once you’ve reached a considerable number of follower, is important to deal with them,
trying to drive them into your website. How to do that?
Keep on posting your images regularly, so you maintain your followers’ interest in you
Insert your website link in your Instagram bio
Use call to action posts: they are posts that push followers to perform an action,
possibly through your website.
ATTENTION: Do not use too many call to action posts (they should be
about 10-20% of your total posts) in order to not exhaust your followers
with posts that seems like an advertisement (publish a call to action post
every 5-9 normal posts, depending on how much content you publish)

7. Call to action posts, an example
The elements:
1. The image: use strong images to capture
attention (visual appealing and eye catching)
2. The description: use few keywords
3. Call to action: tell people what they have to
do
4. Eye catching elements
5. Website links
6. hashtags
!! Regularly (1-2 times in a day)
delete the CTA post and re-post it
during the day in order to reach as
many people as possible !!
!! You should track your traffic from each CTA post in your
marketing plan !!

8. What competitors do with Instagram
 D&D London:
 948 posts, 3335 followers, 720 following
 they usually posts three times a week
 They posts mainly food but also lots of people
 Italian Business Consulting: they don’t have an Instagram profile
In general, firms specialized in consultancy post graphs, motivational phrases, team pictures,
but there are lots of examples of firms who don’t care a lot about Instagram. This is wrong!
Instagram has a huge potential, according to lots of researches, among which Iconosquare’s
2015 research.
Also, in our case, the vantage is we operate with food, and we can focus on it our content
strategy, since people on Instagram love food pictures.

9. What can we do with Instagram?
Post images about:
 Our products (food)
 Our clients’ restaurants
 Our staff (important and funny moments, group pictures,…)
 Events
 Contest
 Offers and promotions
 Motivational phrases
In doing this, have a well defined style so your followers can recognize you and your brand awareness
increases.
Follow brands and food bloggers and like their pictures, trying to interact with them
Try to be active on the social network, answering questions of our followers and like their
posts
Schedule some Call to Action Posts to strengthen the engagement

10. Six months strategy: goals and numbers (1/2)
What we have already done ( from 29th of July to 25th of August):
• 29th of July: number of followers: about 150
• 25th of August: number of followers: about 700
• New pictures posted in 25 days: 11
• Average number of likes for each picture: 80 (approx. 12% of our followers)

11. Six months strategy: goals and numbers (2/2)
To be done within six months
• Increase number of followers: exponential growth, reach 2K followers
• Keep on posting pictures approximately every 2 days (remember the quality and the style
are important, not the quantity)
• Increase the percentage of likes for picture, from 12% to 20%
• Plan 5 call to action posts

12. Useful tools for Instagram management
Dasheroo, minter.io, social rank: are three different almost
free websites which allow you to see lots of useful statistics
regarding Instagram: engagement rate per post and per
hashtag, highest engagement filters, popular hashtags,
most engaged people, most valuable, where your followers
are from, the number of their followers and more…
Followers is a free app which allows you managing your
Instagram account: discover people who don’t follow you
anymore or you don’t follow back
Websta or top hashtags are two websites you can use to
find the most popular hashtags
https://sumome.com/stories/instagram-marketing useful
website

13. How I manage Instagram
• I usually post one picture every two days and every day I like other users’ pictures
and I comment some pictures of food bloggers or people with lots of followers,
because comments are more useful than likes for the engagement and for gaining
new followers;
• In the morning I check for the updates regarding our followers, likes and comments
in our pictures, using Dasheroo, minter.io, social rank and obviously Instagram;
• Then I use the app Followers to see people who have unfollowed us, in order to
unfollow them;
• Then I visit some food bloggers’ profiles and start adding their followers (about 150-
200 per day) and I try to interact with some of them, putting likes or commenting
their pictures;
• Using the Followers app, I also check for people who do not follow us, and I unfollow
them (the free version of the app allows you to unfollow just 60 people every two or
three hours);
ATTENTION: I do not unfollow people who I have followed in the last one or two
days (give them time to notice that you have followed them. If after three or four
days they’re not following you back, then you can unfollow them).
 On the left there is the app icon for IOS, and on the right the main page 