4 steps to build an Instagram marketing strategy for small business

Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms right now and probably THE most popular platform for small businesses.

There are currently more than a billion active users on the platform according to Statista. Surely, your customers are there too.

In order to promote your brand on Instagram, you need to build a robust marketing strategy. Here are four easy steps to do that.

Step 1: Set your Instagram goals

Of course, before you start posting, commenting and talking in DMs, you need to set goals. They can be different: growing your Instagram profile (this article about 12 free and paid ways on how to get more Instagram followers can help you with that), increase engagement or create a community.

Depending on your goals, you will post different content, and engage differently with users and influencers.

Step 2: Chose Instagram marketing tools

Automatization is a marketer’s best friend: it helps you save time and effort, and allows you to create, post, and analyze content that you wouldn’t be able to otherwise.

When we are talking about Instagram marketing tools, we can divide them into four categories:

Schedulers that help plan out your posts in advance and upload them automatically. Tools like Buffer or Later allow you to plan out your grid and post on schedule.
Instagram analytics tools. For example, an Instagram monitoring app called Awario lets you analyze all the Instagram posts mentioning your keywords. Other tools in this category, such as Tailwind, help you analyze your own profile and highlight data patterns that you might miss.
Instagram design tools help you create visually appealing content. You don’t have to be a designer: such tools as Canva, Visme, or VSCO can be used by anyone to make up an infographic, a sales announcement, or enhance your photographs.
Tools that simplify working with Instagram. This category includes the apps that create landing pages such as Linktree or Taplink, tools that arrange your grid, tools that help you colour coordinate your posts and others.

Step 3: Create engaging content

“Easier said than done” — you will say. But actually, with a goal in mind and the appropriate tools to go with it, creating content shouldn’t be an insurmountable task for you.

For example, let’s say your goal is to grow your profit. Taking this into consideration, you should create content that encourages a lot of shares i.e. has the potential to go viral. It should be either really useful and unique so that people will be prompt to share your valuable advice with their friends or really funny and relatable.

To create good content you need to know your audience and be aware of the trends in your industry.

Step 4: Try different formats

Instagram offers you a lot of different formats to try when it comes to content: videos, IGTV, carousels, Stories, Reels, AR masks, and more! Try out different types of content to see what clicks with your audience.

This is also a good way to repurpose your content: make an Instagram post about your business journey, then shoot a Reel based on it, and host a live Q&A session where people can ask you for business advice.

Remember that Instagram is constantly adding ways to share content, so keep an eye on new features!