COURTNEY PARK: Hi,
my name is Courtney Park and I'm
a Social media manager, strategist
and a content creator.
I work with a variety of small businesses
and brands to help them use
Instagram to grow their business, sales,
and an engaged community.
Let's talk about how you can do the same
and grow organically on Instagram.
The most important thing to remember on social media
is that your content needs to give value.
Valuable content leads to more followers,
exposure, reach, and engagement.
Value can come in a lot of shapes and sizes,
including education, humor, and inspiration.
With that in mind, you can create your content pillars.
What are content pillars?
They are the topics and themes that create
the foundation of your content marketing strategy.
Creating content around your pillars ensures
cohesiveness and streamlines processes.
The pillars should be specific to
your business, industry and niche,
but make sure they revolve around
the following: educational,
community, entertainment and promotional.
Next, make sure your profile is
optimized for a strong first impression.
For example, this is
an Instagram account for my business, Cultivate Socials.
As you can see,
I have a clear profile picture of my logo,
a bio that reflects my
business offerings, niche keywords,
and a call to action that
encourages people to click on my website,
as well as highlights that guides potential clients
for a better understanding of
what my work and services are.
Now that your profile is optimized,
make sure that your posts are optimized for search.
You can do this by including
relevant keywords in your captions,
hashtags, text overlays in your videos and graphics.
Let's take a look at a post I
shared on Cultivate Socials.
Because my ideal audience consists of
business owners and creators
that need help with social media,
I made sure that the caption, hashtags,
and the graphic itself
included keywords that they may search for.
If you're looking to reach people in specific locations,
it can be helpful to include
location hashtags, as you can see here.
Now on to actually creating the content.
There are multiple types of
content types that you can share on Instagram,
including feed posts that are singular or carousel,
reels, stories, Instagram videos, and lives.
It's important to utilize different content formats
for their specific purposes so you can maximize
reach, engagement and growth.
Instagram stories are a great way to
build and maintain an engaged community.
This is a place where you can hold polls,
ask questions, share testimonials,
share behind the scenes content.
Overall, a great way to have your audience
feel included in the conversation.
They're also a great way to show
your audience the personality behind the brand,
so share funny,
relatable and genuine moments from your business.
Because they disappear in 24 hours,
they have a sense of urgency that drives up engagement.
But if you feel like they're
important and can share value to your audience,
you can always share them as highlights on your profile.
Instagram reels are a great way to maximize reach,
raising awareness for your brand.
Reels have the potential to reach hundreds of thousands,
if not millions of new users,
even from a small account.
Create original and engaging content with a strong hook
because people's attention spans are
getting shorter and shorter each year,
and use trending sounds whenever possible.
Some additional tips are to keep the video
short and simple to encourage repeat views,
as well as adding text overlays and closed captions
for accessibility and for those
that watch without their audio on.
Keep in mind that Instagram stories are to
keep your existing community engaged,
while Instagram reels are to reach
new users and convert them into followers.
Sharing great content on Instagram is crucial,
engaging back with your community is just as important.
Don't be afraid to act like
a real human when engaging with your audience.
Users now navigate towards brands that
have an authentic and genuine voice.
Take the time to respond to
people's comments and messages,
and use real language and fun emojis.
Lastly, consistency is key for growing on Instagram.
Come up with a posting schedule
that works for you and that you're
able to stick to for an extended period of time.
Consistent and frequent posting shows
both your audience and the platform that
you're committed to sharing valuable information
on a regular basis.
To recap, here are the things you should focus on to
maximize your organic growth on Instagram.
Create original and valuable content
that encourages saves and shares,
prioritize community-building and engagement,
regularly check your account and content insights
to get an idea of what content performs well.
Growing your Instagram takes time,
so be patient and stay consistent and persistent.
Remember to have fun because
creating and sharing content should be enjoyable.
Good luck, and have fun.