Is your Instagram profile ready to convert new visitors into paying customers? First, you need to ask yourself some questions:
- Do you have a clear idea of what you should write in your Instagram bio?
- Do you have a custom bio link that brings visitors to your conversion site?
- How easy is it for visitors to find the information they’re looking for on your Instagram page?
If you’ve been using Instagram for a while but you feel that you are stuck and not able to grow, we’re here to help.
In this article, you’ll discover some useful tips to help you audit your Instagram profile and discover the best ways to optimize it for growth in 2020.
Ready? Here’s a simple checklist to help you audit and optimise your Instagram business account.
1. Make Sure You Have a Business Profile
What is an Instagram profile? You already know this, but are you aware that Instagram allows you to create three different types of profiles? These are personal profile, business profile and creator profile.
You’ll want to have a Business Profile. Why? Because it comes with extra features such as Instagram shopping, integration with Facebook ads, and advanced profile analytics.
All these extra components will help you grow and reach more targeted consumers! You can learn how to change your profile type here.
2. Your Bio Should Be About Your Customers
Your bio is the first thing someone will look at when they visit your profile.
Here’s where someone will decide whether to hit the “follow” button or say “thank you, next!” So, it’s very important to use it strategically.
Here’s what you can say:
- State who you are & what you do: eg. "Social Media Expert", "Nutrition specialist", "London cat cafe".
- A key benefit to customers (aka. why should anyone follow you): eg. "I help (target audience) solve (what problem) to (value to the customer)".
- Finish with a call-to-action: “Download the app”, "Get a FREE Trial", "Book a FREE call here".
3. Use Highlights to Store Important Info
Your profile is not complete without a set of self-explanatory highlights. Instagram allows you to save your stories into individual highlights that you can display on your profile.
These highlights are a great way to showcase content that is evergreen and provides even more depth to your profile. Below is a screenshot from the @BossBabe.Inc Instagram profile.
Here are some elements of your business you can turn into Instagram story highlights right away.
- About you: Create a story highlight where you introduce yourself. It can be a compilation of text + images or (if you’re comfortable to be on camera) film a short video and explain to new visitors what your business is all about and how you can help a specific group of people.
- Customer Feedback: This is where you showcase good customer reviews or testimonials. You've probably heard the saying that "a satisfied customer is your best salesperson". So make sure you showcase what other people had to say about your business or how did working with you make their lives better.
- FAQs: Do people ask you the same questions over and over again about your product? Like, what are your sales terms and do you offer international shipping? Have a self-explanatory highlight that answers all those common queries from your audience so your prospects can easily find it.
- Educational Content: Do you often share tips or tutorials that your target audience finds useful and they apply? You can display it in a highlight so people can to come back to your profile and rewatch it if they missed your story.
4. Have a Feed that is in Line with Your Brand
The No.1 goal of your Instagram profile should be to build a recognisable brand over time. Nowadays there's no real product differentiation.
Why do people buy a pair of designer sunglasses for $500 when they can get one for $10? People will choose to buy from you only if they like you and they feel they can resonate with your brand.
Think of your brand image when you plan your Instagram feed posts. Apart from your brand colours, fonts and logos, you’ll want to have your Instagram feed tell a story.
Here are a few content themes to inspire you.
Rainbow theme - @Gaborestefan
Tiles feed - @Bossbabe.inc
Monochrome feed - @elan_cafe
5. Use Analytics To Grow
Analytics is what’s going to set you apart from others. How well you track your performance and how quickly you adjust your strategy will determine how fast you grow on Instagram.
The 4 important metrics you need to track:
1. Followers growth
A growth in your followers over time indicates that your existing Instagram strategy is working.
Your posts, your captions and everything else are working well to attract new followers.
Look out for spikes in followers to identify if a specific post or a promotion campaign has reached its goals.
2. Top performing posts
Top performing posts help you identify the type of content that your audience finds engaging. Think of what do these posts have in common? Is it the caption, the hashtags, colourful graphics or a photo of you smiling? Whatever it is, do more of that and you will see improvement.
3. Hashtags performance
Hashtags are keywords that allow non-followers to find your content on Instagram. But do you know for sure that your hashtags are helping you grow?
Use analytic tools to figure out which hashtags bring you the best engagement and which hashtags are useless.
Here's 5 ways to optmise your hashtags.
4. Best times to post for engagement
Because, why post irregularly or at the time you know your audience won't see them.
It's 2020 and you need to be strategic about when you post.
Use SharemyInsights to check your post analytics and get valuable insights in terms of when to post for likes, comments or reach.
Instagram Checklist
Here’s a simple Checklist to summarize the points above. Feel free to take a screenshot and use it to audit your Instagram account.
Comment below - how many of these items have you “ticked” off the checklist so far?