- Welcome to The Journey.
Today we're talking about how to use Instagram
for your business.
Let's jump in.
Hey, I'm Nealey, your GoDaddy Guide for today.
And today we're talking about how to use Instagram
for your business and for that,
I have my social media expert, Emma.
Hey, Emma.
- Hey, Justin, what's up?
- How are you?
- I'm excited.
- You ready?
- Do it for the Gram.
Cool, so we're talking about Instagram
for a small business owner.
Maybe I have a coffee shop that has a skate park
in the back, who knows?
What's kind of the first step?
What should I be looking at?
- So, think about your audience.
I know Instagram is definitely preferred by teens
and Millennials, so that'll be great for your business idea
which you stole from me.
(laughing)
But also some cons, like a lot of the platforms out there,
there's a pay to play component.
- Right.
- It's important to think about who are you
trying to target before you even get on there.
Also identify your voice because you wanna be on there
and be consistent because after all, it's your brand.
- So you don't wanna be one way on one post
then 360 on another post and it's hard to follow.
- Yeah, which I know for small businesses,
because they're doing and juggling
a million different things.
Sometimes they'll have four different people
at the business doing the Instagram.
And while I see why they're doing that,
it comes off that way and it's too inconsistent
from the way the photos look to the coloring
to the captions.
It's just there's no consistency there.
- Absolutely.
So what about my profile?
I've seen some pretty great profiles.
I'm just looking around.
I've seen some bad ones.
What are some best practices and things to avoid?
- So, best practices, definitely starting with the name,
you want your name to be consistent across--
- So Coffee and Kickflips.
- Yeah, exactly.
Again, stealing my business.
(laughing)
So you wanna be consistent across Instagram,
Twitter and Facebook with that name, that handle.
Also, when it comes to your photo, I'm sure,
because it's a visual platform,
there's so many ideas you wanna put up there.
Also, stay consistent across the platforms
and don't forget your description.
- What should I really put in my description?
Should I just say cool, come buy coffee in my shop,
or what should I do?
- Just give me essentially your elevator pitch.
What makes you unique.
Also feel free to just, in a way, kind of brag.
What makes you cool?
- All right, so Instagram has posts and it has stories.
Can you talk to us about some of the things
we should look out for when we're doing a post
versus a story?
- Yeah, so there's a lot to say about posting on Instagram.
One thing that I like to remind small business owners
is that it's important to come off authentic,
consistent, but also professional.
So it's like a balance.
Those are the ingredients.
The one good thing with Instagram is that,
although it's a highly visual platform,
you don't have to hire a photographer.
And give us a sense of that behind the scenes.
Who works there?
The outside, the inside of your business.
I love that because you can really get a sense
of I'm already there.
But you're not, you're maybe on the go or chilling at home
on your couch, but you could feel like you're
already at that business.
- I've got a great idea.
Should we do behind the scenes?
- Let's do a behind the scenes.
Right now?
- Right now.
Absolutely.
So this is really gonna bring to life
what we're doing for all of y'all out there.
- We'll see if this makes the cut.
- Okay, cool.
- So we got behind the scenes here of the crew.
Say hi.
- Please document this.
Perfect height.
Oh, come on, man.
(laughing)
- All right, diving back in.
So, line.
(laughing)
Back to what we're actually talking about.
- You're on Instagram.
Great.
- Literally all day.
- Now what?
You wanna be active, proactive.
So as a business, it's really important
that you're paying attention to when a customer
or potential customer comments on your post.
Let 'em know you heard.
Like their comment, respond back.
Also, if they're tagging your business
or mentioning, acknowledge that as well.
And that can help with customer retention.
I mentioned a business that I was at
and I was traveling and doing my own thing on the road
and I just mentioned them because they had amazing
soy latte and I was stoked on it.
Sure enough, they respond back with this genuine message
of thanks for business.
And even though I preach about this all the time
and educate business owners on doing this
and it happened to me, I felt truly valuable
and it like made my day.
So I'm more likely to go back and do business with them.
- Yeah, I love it.
We have an easy way just to actually talk to people.
If you go up to a random stranger and say hi,
they're like, wait, what are you doing?
On Instagram it's just the norm.
- Or if you call me, don't call me.
- Who calls?
It's 2019.
So cool, so give us a lowdown on just Instagram search.
- Yeah, so Instagram search is really helpful
if you're looking to, for example, grow your following.
You wanna look for a target audience of your own,
look for people talking about things that pertain
to your business.
- Search those hashtags.
- Yes, search hashtags so you can find people
that are relevant and follow them
so you're growing an organic following, right?
- Right.
- But also you can chime in on conversations with people.
So maybe you area vegan restaurant.
Let me know, I'll be there.
So if you're a vegan restaurant,
maybe search for other people talking about vegan cooking,
vegan recipes, maybe you then follow a vegan blog
or a chef, and that way you're really cultivating
this niche bubble, which will ultimately help
your engagement, which we'll talk about engagement, right?
- I mean, you brought it up, please.
- Without further ado.
So, engagement, right, is really important
because you wanna make sure you're measuring your success
on there, so engagement rate is your ROI.
So you hear me say the word a lot,
but what it actually is, it's some math.
Are you ready?
- No.
- What was your best subject in school?
- Not math.
- Not math, okay.
So it's really simple.
Engagement rate is the number of likes
divided by your followers, times 100.
- Carry the three, divided by...
(laughing)
All right, cool.
- I'll write it down for you later.
- Thank you.
- But that's gonna give you some insight
as to, hey, this post, it performed well
or it was a flop, and then from there you can
even go further because if you're on Instagram
as a business, which you should be,
as a business page, then you have insights.
You can see what time of day worked best to post
with your audience, what day of the week worked best,
and then you look at the engagement rate
as well and it's just gonna help you to have
this approach to posting that's not so blind.
- Right, it's not a shot in the dark.
It's more of an educated guess
because it's not always perfect,
but it gets you in the right direction.
- Yeah.
But again, you want to be there and active
so I really can't stress the importance of commenting
and replying to your customers as they're engaging,
taking the time to engage with your business.
- Literally comment back on every single person.
Because they took the time to say something.
Replay back. Give them that time of day.
- And have fun with the stories, just like we did
because that's truly a live element,
it's a very organic, authentic element
to your personality and your brand.
And if you feel like I don't have time
to do all this, then I encourage brand ambassadors.
Get your staff involved in this.
Also come up with a hashtag so that way
when your customers come in, they can start
getting the content for you and you can just sit back,
use it, repurpose it.
I'm all about efficiency.
- Right.
Well, thank you so much for hashing it out
on the Gram, you've been awesome, Emma.
- Thanks for having me.
Do it for the Gram.
- Do it for the Gram.
Well, this has been The Journey.
Make sure you comment and subscribe
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Thank you again, signing off.