Improving your Instagram marketing { Tuesday tip }

There have been some major changes to Instagram in the last year. So I’ve been reviewing the way I use Instagram marketing to make my IDs more appealing to my different target markets. Here’s what I’ve done and why. And I’m running a free challenge too, to help you get Instagram working for your business.

Tidying up my Instagram feeds

With the introduction of the Stories feature a few months back, Instagram now works best when you keep your feed contents so they have a consistent style and theme. In my case, I need to use it as a portfolio rather than a general dumping ground for what I’m up to. So last month I reviewed the way I’d been using Instagram on my main account and decided to make some major changes so that I’m actually practising what I preach to my clients!

Since I started on Instagram back in 2011, my original ID’s feed has been a mix of commercial and fine art photography plus a few casual snaps. My commercial and fine art photography are quite different in style and, while there are lots of people who like both, I’m aware that one might put lovers of the other off and vice versa. So I’ve split it into two accounts now:

• My original account, https://instagram.com/linscan, is now purely for my fine art photography
• I’ve setup a new account, https://instagram.com/lindascannellphotography,  for sharing my commercial photography

You won’t see the casual photos of my dinner or snaps of what attracts my attention while I’m out and about on either account now – I share them on my Instagram Stories feed instead so when potential new followers look at my feeds they can instantly see the services I offer and the style of photos I produce professionally, without being confused by the non-professional pics.

The results

Has it made a positive difference? Resoundingly, yes! I’ve already found that it’s been easier to get my target market to follow me on my new commercial photography account and, after stagnating at 630-650 followers on my old account for months, once I removed the old irrelevant photos and started being extra picky about the fine art images I posted, I’ve acquired 100 new followers with very little effort in just 4 weeks.

Making it easier for you to tidy up your Instagram feed

If you want to do something similar, Instagram introduced a new feature last week – archiving. Which means you can experiment with hiding posts on your feed by archiving them. If you change your mind, you can easily restore them from your archive – much easier than deleting them and having to reload them from scratch if you do want to put them back.

Upping your Instagram game

If you want to do more than tweak your existing ID, my 5-day Instagram Challenge will give you ideas on how to attract new followers in your target market, including tips and hints on improving your phone photography to make what you’re sharing more appealing. I ran it successfully last week and, as lots of you missed it, I’m running it again, starting on Monday 12 June. Sign up here. It’s free and there will be Facebook Live broadcasts each day so you have an opportunity to ask questions. See you there :-)