Sometimes I feel like Instagram was made for the accommodation industry. Sure, beautiful bikini clad models can kick off a career on it too, but the amount of easy marketing we get off of the platform is outstanding. However, the problem for most people is knowing where to start. Do you need to hashtag? And what does a hashtag even do?
I use Instagram to show off my park and the fantastic area we are lucky to work and live in, and there are a few easy tips you can incorporate into using the app that will put you in the lead. In this article, I’m going to be sharing five of them with you. Enjoy.
Pick a Theme
A picture tells a thousand words, so knowing which words those pictures will tell is important, that’s why choosing a theme is a great idea. Don’t go fully down the promotional route, keep that to around 10-15% of the pictures you post. Show off your park, show off the behind the scenes, or show off your local area. Adding elements like borders can help to tie your pictures altogether and give it an overall similarity to your theme
Schedule Posts
You should be aiming to post around three to four images a day and at different times of the day. Investing in a scheduler for this is a great time saver. You will lose followers if you bombard them with a whole bunch of images, and you will lose them if you don’t post enough. Schedulers like Hootsuite or Buffer can help you with this, and reduce the time you spend posting to the app.
Use Hashtags
Hashtags allow users to find your images that are outside of your follower list. Finding the hashtags that you want to be found on is also important. Choose hashtags you think the Instagram users who you want to attract will be looking for, and make sure you add these to your images. You can add about 20 before Instagram says enough. Using your own hashtags and having visitors to your business use them is a great way to increase your Instagram presence.
Use Quality Images
Great, engaging and beautiful images rule Instagram. You don’t have to take every image with your smartphone, and you don’t have to upload unedited images. The beauty of tweaking your images and then loading them via a scheduler means your profile will showcase amazing images and display them to users of the app.
Engage with Other Users
Instagram is a social media platform and that means you need to be social. Take the time to follow similar users, like their images and most importantly, COMMENT! The more you like, follow and comment, the more users will like, comment and follow you.
These tips should allow you to start building a solid fanbase on Instagram and will showcase your area and business in ways you probably haven’t thought about before. And the best part about it is that Instagram is totally free to use!