Using Instagram to Benefit Your Service-Oriented Business
Social media platforms are a great way to promote your service and increase business, and among the leading platforms for effective social media marketing is Instagram. Increasing your company’s presence on Instagram can boost exposure and benefit your business. However, it can be difficult to understand how to best implement Instagram strategies in a way that can be successful and effective for businesses offering services rather than goods.
Partnering with a social media agency in San Diego can help you understand how to utilize this platform for your company’s biggest benefit. What are tested methods that have proven successful? How can your business stand out amidst the noise? How exactly do you get started with Instagram or improve on an account you already manage?
Read on to learn helpful tips to benefit your service-oriented business through Instagram.
The Benefits of Instagram
Instagram is a great tool for businesses that provide services. Not only does it increase your visibility, but it also helps you connect with customers and discover new ideas and perspectives that can inspire your business. Instagram can be an ongoing dialogue that helps you understand your customers and how to best serve them while adapting and growing your experience.
Gaining insights through Instagram can help reshape your marketing strategy into an effective plan to attract new customers and create loyalty. If you have a great service that helps make life easier, how do you plan on reaching those you can help? Do you have an effective strategy to reach a larger audience?
If not, the following six tips can help you expand your market and reach new people, as well as keep them coming back.
1. Showcase Your Services
Select appealing photos that show your services in action to help your audience visualize what your service provides and how it can help them. Use photos that best represent your services, and showcase the people using them. An effective photo will help potential customers visualize themselves receiving the same services. Create a visual story with your photos that draws people in and helps them see why they could benefit from your service.
2. Offer a Peek Behind the Scenes
Share behind-the-scenes footage and how your business operates, providing a glimpse into your business and what it’s like. Customers are loyal to brands they trust, and this sort of transparency shows customers you are a brand they can rely on. It also builds rapport and invites them into your community, making them a part of the brand rather than simply a customer. This keeps customers coming back and increases the likelihood they will tell their friends and family about their positive experiences.
People want to know about your company culture and if you are a business they want to work with. Focus your behind-the-scenes content on staff and your values, and don’t be afraid to show your personality. Customers want to relate to your company and feel good about supporting your services, rather than a competitor’s.
3. Share Helpful Tips
Don’t keep what you know a secret. If you have helpful advice and information, share it. Giving away your best advice and tips won’t hurt your business but will pique interest and attract customers who want to learn more. If they see you as an expert in your field, they will choose you when they are ready for your services.
How can you share your expertise? Depending on your service, you can post videos answering frequently asked questions or give a small tutorial. Make sure to keep these videos fun and engaging, even when informative.
4. Highlight Your Customers
What is your service? How does it help your customers? Who are the people who have benefited from your unique services? Tell their stories. Provide short testimonials of people using your services and why they love what you have to offer. Provide insight into the people you are passionate about and why you are here to serve them.
This is also an opportunity to include reviews and positive testimonials. People tend to trust their peers’ recommendations over businesses talking about themselves. What are people saying about your services and customer support? Share the highlights.
5. Engage Your Audience
Some of the most successful strategies engage the audience and encourage interaction. You can inspire an audience to stick around and interact with your post by including your audience in a “call to action.” Ask them to like, comment, tag a friend, or share the post, simple tasks anyone can do with no time and a click of a button.
Take it a step further and invite your audience to visit your website, sign up for emails, or read a blog post. Encourage a customer to snap a photo when they use your service and tag you on Instagram or share and tag your account in Instagram Stories. Developing a relationship with your customer can be more effective than making a sale. Instagram is a relational, visual, interactive, conversational platform. Marketing is important, but connecting with your audience is key.
6. Partner With Professionals
Since Instagram is a visual platform, it’s important to develop professional-looking visuals. In today’s market, even amateurs can produce high-quality content with just a smartphone, but doing so takes time and effort, which you might not have a lot of since you’re busy running your business. Instead, you can use professional services for photography and graphic design.
You may even consider working with an agency that specializes in social media marketing and understands how to best use platforms to attract and engage a lasting audience that translates into real, lifelong customers. A media agency understands the trends of social media, like what kind of content gets attention, which captions and layouts make people visit your feed, what time of day is best to post, and how you can stand out in an algorithm.
What are your immediate and long-term goals? The right agency helps you understand your ideal audience and how to get their attention while developing a plan to keep them as lifelong customers.
InnoVision is a full-service social media agency in San Diego offering innovative and custom strategic solutions for your business. With years of experience and an approach that works, we partner with you to create concepts that will sell your service through any platform. Contact us today and learn how we can help your business achieve its full potential.
