5 Steps to Planning Your Instagram Strategy

Instagram can be all the rage when it comes to online marketing for your business, but planning an effective strategy is a whole different ball game. One of the main reasons you might not have an Instagram strategy is because you don’t know what it should include, how long should it be, or how specific should you should make it.

An Instagram strategy can be created a number of different ways, so it really comes down to experimenting with different approaches and deciding which one is best for you and your brand. 

Some important reasons for having a clear, clean Instagram strategy:
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So! I wanted to share with you an easy, fast way I have found to get started with the WE Network Instagram strategy in 2017...

Step 1: Set your goals for the platform. 

Determine why you have an Instagram account in the first place. Do you want to simply create awareness about your blog or business, sell your products or services, grow a large audience, or build a community? The first step in driving sales for your business is build awareness about your product or service. Instagram is a great place to do just that.

Decide what you want your main goal to be and break it down into measurable outcomes. If you want to grow your audience, how many followers would you like to have by the end of the month?

Then, note down your goals and record your progress. Note down your top performing posts, anything that you do that leads to a flow of new followers. How will you know if being on Instagram is helping you create awareness about your brand? Setting goals are great, but you need to have a system in place that allows you to see when your goals have been met. 

Step 2: Write a Captivating bio.

You want to make sure you have an Instagram bio that speaks to your brand. You’ll be surprised how many business accounts don’t have an bio that represents who they are, or worse, don’t have a bio at all!

Your bio is a huge deciding factor when people are considering following and engaging with your feed. If they don’t know anything about your business, why should they follow you? In your bio you’ll want to include who you are, what you do, and who you help.

Check out the WE Network Bio here to see how we've done ours. It's pretty obvious who the account is for, right?

It’s also important to make sure the link in your bio is updated so it directs your audience to your website, current offer, or latest blog post. And if you’re into using emojis, go a head and throw a few of those in there!

Step 3: Decide how you want your feed to look.

Instagram is a visual platform; your audience will always look at your image first and the caption second. Not only do people look at your individual posts, they look at your feed as a whole. Decide what you’d like the look and feel of your account to be, and set parameters around the types of images you post. If you’re going for the soft and elegant look, you probably don’t want to include too many pops of red or highlighter orange. 

Step 4: Make a list of the type of content you’d like to share. Remember to include content that coverts clicks to your website!

Deciding what type of content you’d like to share with your audience is the most important part of your strategy. To get the most engagement with Instagram, you’ll want to share a combination of posts that educate your target audience, promote your product and services, and gives followers a glimpse into your life outside of your business.

The trick is coming up with a formula that gives you the right balance of posts. You don’t want three posts in a row to be a direct sell, but you also don’t want to share so many lifestyle posts that your audience ends up forgetting what your business is all about.

Top tip! Always post with your customers wants in mind. Imagine this.

You sell website design services, and your customer is a busy, 30-40 year old woman in business who struggles to manage her time, feels overwhelmed and like she is not doing well enough with her business, her family or her own health and wellbeing. She craves a website that coverts to sales so she has more free time to do the things she loves.

If that sounds like your customer, don't post photos of dogs or even pretty landscapes. Dogs and pretty landscapes are cute and might get lots of likes and followers. But dog lovers and landscape lovers will not buy your product.

So, use your Instagram feed to tell your customer- I get you. I know what you struggle with, I am just like you. And give her what she needs:

- snappy easy to impliment wellbeing tips (eg drink more water)
- permission to follow her passion through her business and not feel guilty about it- (eg motivational quotes/ you deserve this)
- snappy tips on how to make DIY improvements to her website

Remember, it's ok to include a call to action in every post. It doesn't have to be a straight sell. Linking through to a value adding blog post your blog is a great way to give me to your customers and lead through to a sales.

Step 5: Create a brief outline of an engagement schedule.

Planning in advance for how you’ll go about engaging with your audience helps ensure you’re doing it consistently and with intention. Whether you carve out 15 minutes a day to do this, or an hour a week is up to you.

- Make sure you set aside time to reply to comments you receive on your own posts

- Seek out your ideal client on a regular basis and connect with them on their feed
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- Follow influencers in your industry (not people who offer the same service as you, but complimentary services) and comment and interact with their feed. They should have a LOT more followers than you
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​Growing your brand on Instagram might seem exhausting now, but once you get in the habit of creating a strategy and sticking to it for a good length of time, you’ll start to see the results you’re looking for and when you do, you’re going to feel amazing!

ACTION TO TAKE:
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- schedule two hours in the next week to work on your Instagram Strategy
- review your customer avatar and hone in on what your customer craves
- keeping that in mind, what does he/ she want to see on your Instagram feed?
- think about your tone of voice, what would appeal to your customer?
- choose 5 post strategies for your account (eg quotes/ tips/ case studies etc)
- check your blog posts and see what content you can pull from them to post on IG

COMMENT BELOW AND SHARE YOUR INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT AND YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER WITH US!