If you want to grow your business today you need to be on Instagram. It's just that simple. I know that it can be overwhelming to create good, consistent content on a daily basis, which is what you need to be doing, but I am here to help! Posting once every two weeks just won't cut it. If you need a general introduction to how to use Instagram for your business check out my previous post here - 10 Tips On Using Instagram for Business.
This post is to give you specific ideas for the types of photos you should be posting. I think the categories are universal for any business, with a little tweaking here and there. At walk in love. we basically recycle these 10 type of posts over and over again and you could do the same for your business.
10 Easy Types of Instagram Content For Your Business:
1. Super Basic Product Photos
This is about as easy as it gets when making content. Literally just post photos of your product/service. If you sell t-shrits, post photos of those t-shirts. If you sell tables, post photos of those tables. If you are service based, like a photographer, post the photos you take. It's about as easy as it gets and we do it all the time! Simply put - post photos of the product you are trying to sell, duh!
2. Creative Product Photos
Just add a little excitement or style to the traditional product photos. One way we do that is folding the shirt in half and filling in the other half with buttons. We also do it by taking "outfit" photos from above. It's a way to highlight our products but it isn't just the same as every other product photo we post.
3. Working Photos
Show people how you do what you do. We do this a lot of different ways. We will take photos, like the one above, of our team signing, "thank you" on our orders. We will take photos of Brooke taking photos for campaigns. We will take photos of our mailers all stacked up and ready to go. Show people how you do what you do from time to time!
4. Workspace
Along with showing them how you do what you do, show them where you do what you do. People love seeing behind the scenes things and knowing where there favorite brands work. It will also help you keep your workspace clean and organized :)
5. General Encouragement
Add value to your followers feed by encouraging them. Things like "Yay! It's Friday!" or "Have an Awesome Day!" General encouragement goes a long way. Make sure it lines up with your brand and isn't out of nowhere. For walk in love. we use our app VRSLY to create that content and encourage people as they walk with Jesus.
6. Reposts
When people use your product and take a photo of it. Repost it. We are pretty picky about our reposts and make sure the photo is good quality and well shot to repost it. You should be the same way when you have lots of reposts but at the beginning you should try to repost anything that is out there. If you want better content to repost send out free things to good Instagrammers who will do a good job with it! We send out free items all the time to good photographers so we will have great stuff to repost!
7. Giveaways
Giveaways are a super easy way to grow your followers and bring in new customers. We try to run a giveaway every weekend and always try to giveaway things in twos. To enter people have to follow us and tag a friend. That way we are telling our fans about the giveaway and they are turning around and telling even more people for us. It's also a great way to find people to post things about your company. If you want good photos to repost pick good Instagrammers to win the giveaways!
8. Lifestyle
Get "Instagrammy" and post a super unrealistic lifestyle photo of the cup of coffee you are drinking or your coffee table perfectly organized, like it always is 😂. We all know these types of Instagrams are totally staged, but they are still beautiful. Add some lifestyle to your feed! It will also give your followers an idea on how they should be posting photos, which will give you photos to repost!
9. Videos
This is the type of post that we really struggle with and always say, "we should do more vidoes.." I think the variety it adds to your feed is good. People also interact with videos. They are more likely to get shared or passed around. If they are funny people will be more likely to comment and tag friends. We don't do a lot of videos but we know they have value and are trying to figure out an easy way to add them to our feed. You should be doing the same!
10. Reminders
We are telling people that they can buy shirts on our website and that we have actually have a website EVERY SINGLE DAY 😂. I always laugh because I feel like it should be obvious that you can buy the shirt we are posting about, but hey, some people need to be reminded. We remind people about everything. Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, check us out on Pinterest, don't forget about our sale, did you enter our giveaway and so on. Most of the time we use the text portion of the instagram to remind people and post it along with the one of the type of photo mentioned in points 1-8. You will always have to remind people of what you are doing. We try to limit it because people will get annoyed with an overkill of reminders, but you still have to have some!
That's it! 10 simple, easy types of content to help you know what to post to Instagram. If you need more ideas on a specific type of post for a specific business let me know in the comments and I can reply with a couple of ideas I have for you. Make sure to include your Instagram user name so I can take a look at your feed.
When you start to use Instagram well, you will start to see your business grow!
If you have a product that you would like me to try and post about you can send it to
walk in love. studio c/o T.J. Mousetis 148 E. Stiegel St. 4th Floor Manheim, PA 17545
I wear a size Large shirt, Brooke wears a Small and June wears 6-9 months. 😄