It’s easy to get drawn into the world of hilarious memes, cute cats and dogs, delicious lunch bowls and travel photography on Instagram. The amount of original, engaging and aesthetically pleasing content that’s on the platform is vast! As Instagram users, we are intrigued by content that targets our interests, which encourages us to continue following specific accounts and learning about different people, businesses and brands.
Instagram is no longer your basic photo-sharing service but has now grown exponentially into an effective content marketing and audience building tool, which businesses can utilise to their advantage. Having a Virtual Assistant by your side can help your business to reach your Instagram marketing goals.
In our latest video, owner of Outsourcing Angel, Linh Podetti, sits down with our special guest, Jade Allerby from Focus SME to discuss the tips and tricks around Instagram marketing and how having a Virtual Assistant will make the job even easier!
Meet Our Special Guest:
Jade Allerby
Jade is a marketing professional and owner of Focus SME. Her company specialises in assisting businesses in their social media marketing. Our Virtual Assistant, Nadia, assists Jade in managing her social media content, research, preparing reports, creating graphic and client support. Nadia has helped Jade provide the best service to her clients by freeing her time to focus on the growth of her business.
Have a Plan of Attack
The first step to starting your Instagram marketing is to develop a strategy. If you’re lacking a clear vision and are just posting on social media for the sake of it, then you’re just wasting time and effort. As Jade puts it:
“We always recommend starting with a strategy, because it’s like your roadmap.
If you’re driving a car and you don’t know where you’re going, then you’re not going to end up where you want to go”
To have a clear and concise strategy process, it is important to know:
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- Who is your target audience?: Having an understanding of who you’re trying to reach is an important step before deciding on a social media platform. For example, if you’re targeting B2B, then LinkedIn would be more beneficial than Instagram.
- What kind of content should I create?: Learn about your intended audience in depth, so you can tailor your content towards their needs and interests.
- How to leverage a platform effectively to distribute my content?: Understand the features of your chosen platform, and create a variety of content to engage with your followers, such as Instagram photos, IGTV, stories, highlights, biography and captions.
- How to engage with followers?: It’s important to spend the time to respond to those who have taken time out of their day to comment on your post. This can be done by responding to comments on Instagram, liking their photos and answering their direct message.
- What are the different kinds of formats you need to use for each platform?: Make sure you are aware of the sizing measurements for each platform before you post. For Instagram:
- Profile Image: 110 x 110px
- Photo size: 1080 x 1080px
- Thumbnails: 161 x 161px
- Stories: 1080 x 1920px
Get a Helping Hand
When it comes to Instagram, uploading videos, writing captions and commenting on photos all sounds nice and easy. But, it is very time-consuming and can get boring and repetitive over time.
Having a Virtual Assistant can be really beneficial for managing your Instagram marketing. As the business owner, you can focus on creating the content, spending time with your clients and focusing on your business’ growth, while leaving the distribution and execution to your VA.
Virtual Assistants can:
- Create content
- Prepare graphics (e.g. on Canva)
- Video editing
- Organise content calendar
- Create captions
- Schedule content
- Produce reports
- Engage with followers
All Things Insta
Compared to other social media platforms, Instagram is primarily visual. When scrolling through our feed, we tend to follow pages that have aesthetically pleasing and engaging content. This is why it’s important to focus on the content that is being produced, which will help attract potential clients.
High-quality photos and videos: There is no need to hire a professional photographer or videographer, but it’s important to have images on your Instagram page that look good and will attract attention.
Have an appealing bio: Think of Instagram as a mini-profile, where you only have a few characters to talk about who you are, what you do and your key achievements. Include branded hashtags, so your audience can tag you and lead them to your website and podcast by leaving a link. For example:
Remain on brand: Whether you’re designing graphics, writing a bio or creating story highlights, you should always use brand colours and fonts to retain your brand image. This will ensure that your business remains memorable in the audience’s eye.
Be consistent: It’s important that you post content consistently, as a reminder to the audience of your brand and allowing them to keep an eye out for your next post. You can schedule and preview your posts with software such as Later, which will help you remain organised and never forget to post.
Engage with other people’s content: To help grow your Instagram page, it will be beneficial to do some outreach, by proactively targeting people that you want to be following and engaging with their content. This will help form relationships and get recognised by others.
#Businessgoals
While we all know that celebrities like Kylie Jenner can post a single brown heart emoji on her post and get millions of comments and likes, hashtags are super important for smaller accounts on Instagram. Hashtags allow your content to be seen and further your reach. But, don’t worry, your Virtual Assistant can do a lot of your hashtag research for you.
Jade’s Tip:
Compile a spreadsheet and divide into different kinds of categories associated with your business. Give your VA the task to create a list of hashtags for each category. Therefore, when it comes to creating an Instagram post, you will save a lot of time, because you can pick and choose hashtags from your spreadsheet and then just top it up when needed.
Track your progress
While it’s important to observe the vanity metrics on Instagram, such as followers, likes and comments, they don’t always equate to a sale. If you’re using Instagram for business, it is important to try to get your leads through the platform, because that’s where the conversion takes place. This could be through a program, lead magnet or linking to your website.
#Wewillhelpyou!
Download our FREE Instagram Checklist and find out how your virtual assistant can start to effectively manage and grow your Instagram account.
To find out more about how you can free up your time to grow your business, book a FREE Discovery Call with us today and let us help you find your perfect Instagram Virtual Assistant
