How to Use Instagram to Promote Your Business

I've had instagram for a long time now. I think I've had it since my daughter was born (5 years ago). I had 100 or so followers up until 2015. But it wasn't until I discovered the secrets of posting great content, having effective hashtags and interacting on instagram that I really saw my feed BLOW UP!

There are a lot of apps that you can pay for to get yourself promoted. But I didn't want to pay any money or be annoying. I just wanted to figure out a way organically to make a lot of people interested in my work.

If you want to see me explaining how I do all of these things with some other random stories from my life, you can see it now from my youtube channel!

I try to post everyday- even if it's ONE photo. I try to have it consistent with my BRAND and my mission. I try not to post random selfies all the time or things that people won't be interested in.

I try to inspire people to get out and take photos of their family and kids. I usually have a lot of personal photos mixed in with my session photos. That way I am telling a story about my life and what I am doing then. The more personal and real that I am with my work- the more interactive that people are with me as a person.

Hashtags are so important to drive other people to you. I NEVER knew how to use them effectively until I went to buschgardens last year and I hashtagged all my photos with #watercountryusa or #buschgardens. It was like INSTANT interaction!

So I tried more and more hashtags that related to what I was doing. I have created a custom hashtag cloud that I have saved as a document on my phone that I simply copy and paste. I want people to search my location, so that is important to have that in there.

Whenever I travel to a place, I try to hashtag the place. That way, the place of business sees it and might interact with me. It also drives more people to you because they like that place too!

Everytime I get a lot of likes on my images, I try to follow everyone that likes it. That way they are more likely to FOLLOW me too!

Comment and Tag other people and places to get more interaction as well!

I am so guilty of this. I usually post at midnight when the kids are asleep- but that hurts the number of people interacting with my content. Or, if you like posting late at night- you might see more international followers- so I guess it depends on what you want.

I used to have my URL be my personal website. But I was driving people to a site that wasn't very interactive. So I decided to use my ONE link on instagram to my facebook page.

That way everytime that I post a blog I say on the post: "Go to the link in my profile to see more about this" That way, I am driving people to a spot that is interactive and that they can LIKE my facebook page as well!

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I would love to know other ways that you have used to get your instagram feed to be more interactive!

How to Use Instagram to Promote Your Business

Christal

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