How To Launch & Grow Your Business Instagram

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Instagram. The social media of photos & followers. After launching my blog I realized that it was time for me to get on social media and grow my audience.

Since starting my Business Instagram I have learn a lot about how to grow and gain genuine followers. It will take time and some dedication but if you’re focused on growing, you can do it!

There are many reasons why starting a business instagram is beneficial for your business. No matter what kind of business you are starting or have established, creating a business instagram account will help you reach new audiences, help attract clients or intrigue people to purchase your products.

So weather you’re starting a micro blog on instagram, aspiring to step into the influencer world or want to expand your online business audience by growing your instagram, these are the 9 ways I grew my page to over 3k followers in under 8 months.

Follow these 9 steps to launch and grow your business instagram.

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What is the first thing you need to do?

1.Choose Your Niche & Name

Much like when you start a blog, you need to choose your niche or topic you’d like to focus on. For me, I think the best way to tie all your social platforms together is by having the same name on every social media page.

This will help people remember who you are and in case they want

The more specific your niche is, the easier it’ll be to find a core audience.

Are you a bilingual homeschooling Mama? Are you a Military wife? A traveling family? What is it about you that is going to rope people in to wanting to follow your story?

Instagram is such a heavily saturated place, meaning there are SO many people on Instagram that are in a similar niche as you. And these days it takes some convincing to get people to press the follow button.

I created a FREE workbook specifically designed to find your niche and name. CLICK HERE TO GET YOURS

2. Create A Professional Instagram Account

Whether you’re starting from scratch or have already begun an Instagram the best thing you can do for your self is create a business Instagram.

What is a business Instagram?

A business Instagram offers you a title for your page. For example mine says Blogger. Now immediately people recognize that I have a blog. The main things that separate a regular instagram from a business instagram is:

Professional title

Easy contact button
Simplified messaging, primary/general message box
Insights

Promotions (Ads)

Now the first thing people notice will be that you have an official title. This helps tremendously when it comes to someone getting immediate insight on you at first glance of your profile.

But the most important part of having a business Instagram is that you are given access to something called Insights.

Insights and analytics are essential to growing your Instagram because this is how you’re going to know when to post, what kind of posts your audience likes to see as well as other details such as the age range, demographic and gender of you audience. This is basically your cheat sheet to know what time to post as well as what to post and know how well it will do.

How to switch to a Professional Account?

If you want to switch an instagram account to a professional accountfirs go to settings > account > switch to Professional Account >

Next simply choose whichever fits your brand better.

Creator or Business.

Add a clear profile photo that is intriguing

Make your photo something that is, personable and describes you and give off a sense of your style, page and theme. Your instagram photo will be shown in a small circle so usually something from shoulders/hips up will be close enough to a clear view of your face to associate with your page.

3. Create A Search Friendly Bio

Now that you have created a business account and name the next thing to focus on is your bio. Your bio is the 2nd thing people will notice of you (right after your profile photo). Within the first 3-5 seconds of someone going to your page they will decide if they want to follow you or not.

3-5 seconds is a very short time to basically describe yourself to someone, so make it fun and creative. Make it simple and make sure it represents you & your niche!

What is a search- friendly bio?

Did you know that your bio is 100% searchable? If someone searches ‘Homeschooling Mom’ and that’s the first thing in your bio, your profile will be able to pop up.

Another great way to make your bio searchable is by integrating hashtags into your bio. Adding hashtags to your bio is an additional way to pop up at the top of a searched hashtag. It isn’t the prettiest looking bio but it will help you grow.

I would suggest that changing your bio every few months and testing out new methods and renouncing yourself will help keep your page fresh and potentially reaching new people. Not straying away from your niche but finding new vocabulary to describe yourself.

4. Quality Photos

Create quality imagery. This means, bright lighting, fun angles and crisp lines. Nothing pixelated or in the dark. If you have a camera use it to your advantage!

Is it necessary to take photos with a camera? No.

Your phone will work just as fine for the time being. (After all, most of us take photos on our iPhones.)But to really stand out and step up your instagramming game a camera will totally add to the professional feel of your page’s feed.

Unsure of what to post?

It can b easy to not know exactly what Stuck on what to post to keep your feed fresh and interesting? Pintrest is a great place to get inspiration for photos in your niche.

Pretty much you’re going to aim for this formula (niche) + (description word). Search your niche and add things like ‘inspiration’ or

This can help give you ideas of photos to take with your own twist on it. This is the part of instagram that gets really creative and becomes a self expression of you.

5. Hashtag Plan For Success

We all know what hashtags are but are you using them to your full optimization for your images to be discovered?

The purpose of hashtags is to further reach your niche audience and hopefully show up on others ‘discover’ page.

What if your photos were being viewed mostly from your hashtags alone?

Using hashtags strategically can broaden your audience and makes your photo search friendly.

I’ve created a formula that I use to bring my target audience to my photos and page. This has helped me gain more followers with people in my niche.

Learn more by downloading my free guide The Hashtag Plan: For Success

6. Engage With People

Get to know people. This is without a doubt the key to grow your instagram. Respond to everyone! If someone spends the time to send you a message you need to respond back.

A majority of my time is spent responding to peoples comments, messages and returning likes, yes it takes time but is definitely essential to growing your page.

When people make the trying effort to like & comment on your posts, feel inclined to do the same for them. This creates a tie of support for each other. So that people recognize your name and see you as someone that supports them.

Before you know it you’ll have created insta friends! 😊 Which is really what instagram is all about–creating connects with others to potentially bring them to your business.

7. Daily Stories & Consistency

This might be the number 1 thing that has helped me grow on Instagram, create stories daily. Not everyday are you going to create a stunning stagnant feed post, but you can simply hop on to your stories everyday and let people get to know you.

Show snippets of what you do during the day, what you’re doing, what you’re eating or how you’re feeling.

Being authentic and vulnerable is going to help people understand you and relate to you.

Another reason creating daily stories is going to help you grow on Instagram is because more people are going to see your stories than your posts.

Consistancy is key!

Much like anything else, the best way to continue to grow is be consistent.

Creating content and sticking to a schedule will help you stay successful. Grab this free content planner to help you come up with your weekly ideas!

8. A Feed That Flows

Have you noticed that a lot of business and influencers seem to have a theme or certain look to their feed? This is because they are applying presets (filters) to keep a uniform overall look to their photos.

Creating a theme for your instagram page will not only give an organized aesthetic to your page but it is, In my opinion this is the FUNNEST part about instagram because you’re able to express yourself and get creative.

Although it is important to note that you shouldn’t get too caught up on your theme. It’s OK if not every photo has a specific color or lighting that matches exactly to your theme, don’t be afraid to show some diversity(after all, we aren’t robots) just stick to your overall theme colors or filters.

What is a preset and where are they?

A preset is essentially a presetting of image contrast, lighting, saturation, sharpness, etc. It is a faster way of applying all these specific setting to a variety of photos to save you time.

You can create your own presets or you can buy presets. Many creators have made and sell their own presets. Anther great way to find presets is on Etsy! Google presets and find one that matches your style!

Where are presets?

Presets are stored and saved in an editing app called Adobe Lightroom. You can download it on your phone or computer.

You will not regret adding this app to your editing list to bring your IG feed to a whole new level!

Test how your image will look before posting

Have you ever been undeceive about posting a photo because you weren’t sure it’d look good on your feed? Did you know that you see what your post will look like on your feed before committing to posting it?

With apps like Preview you can upload a photo to a mock feed to see what it will look like before you actually post it. It also works as a scheduler to post for you during your high engagement time of the day.

9. Be Yourself + Be Confident

The most challenging part about starting a business instagram is putting yourself out-there in front of possibly thousands of people. There is something incredibly venerable about letting people into your day and life. This is why a lot of people don’t ever start their business instagram.

The best way to start is to just start. The more you do it the more comfortable you become with talking on camera, taking photos, sharing your thoughts, goals and your life. Be confident in who you are

At the end of the day you can apply all the steps in this post but if you aren’t being authentically you, others will be able to sense that and I think we can all agree that no one appreciates inauthenticity. Don’t try to impress or perfect your life.

When you are not being yourself, it will be difficult to relate to you and honestly Instagram is all about connecting with people and potentially exposing them to your business.

But the greatest part about being transparent is that, You’re so unique being yourself that you cant go wrong showing people your true self.

1. Choose Your Niche & Name