The visual part of your business profile is the face of the company. Exactly. If you develop your Instagram carelessly and sometimes even forget to make publications, then you shouldn’t think of any successful promotion on social networks. Therefore, to increase the number of followers, find potential customers, and just show that the company can be trusted, you have to work with your profile.
And you should start with an audit to identify all the problems that hinder promotion. This is exactly what we’ll talk about in this article.
Let’s start with some most common problems.
Problem #1. Your account is not switched to a business account
Check that your account has been switched to a business profile. This is the first place to start. To do this, go to your Instagram profile, then click on “Settings”, select “Account” in the menu, and then “Switch to business profile”.
After switching to a business profile, you will be able to purchase ads, and statistics will also appear: the number of views, your reach, information about the target audience, and more.
Before we analyze the rest of the problems, let’s outline the general structure of the business profile, it looks like this:
Problem #2. Nickname
Your nickname is a unique profile name that can consist of Latin characters, numbers, and signs like dots and underscores. The maximum number of characters in a nickname is 30. But the shorter your nickname, the better. Because this will make it easier for users to find your company through the Instagram search. It is better to make the nickname easy to remember.
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| This nickname is not really short, since it consists of 20 characters. Besides, users can easily get confused when entering characters into the Instagram search bar. | This nickname is short, easy to remember, and users shouldn’t have difficulty typing it in the search bar. |
Problem #3. Profile name
Besides the nickname, the name of the company is also important. This can include the brand name of the company, topic keyword, and location. There are the following variations:
- Brand name + thematic keyword
- Thematic keyword + city
- Thematic keywords
A thematic keyword is a request that helps users to find your account through the Instagram search. To choose a proper keyword, you can use the Yandex.Wordstat service.
For example, type in the city where you provide services in Wordstat settings and enter the key request:
Important tip: you should focus on the frequency of about 2,000 to 7,000 views. But we should mention that the frequency of requests depends on the sphere of your business so sometimes it can be higher, but sometimes it is lower. Therefore, it is better to analyze each case individually.
In such a simple way, you can find out which keywords are used by users to search for products/services in your sphere. But, also, to get a whole picture, it is necessary to analyze competitors’ accounts, and see what keywords they use.
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| Only the brand name of the company is shown here, there are no more identifying marks that would indicate what the company does. Therefore, it is worth adding a thematic keyword. | There is both a brand name and a thematic keyword. |
Onlypult posts to all social media platforms, collects analytics data, allows creating micro landing pages and multiple links, and helps monitor what people say about your company.
Problem #4. BIO
BIO is a short description that tells subscribers more about the company. It is best to write about competitive advantages so that subscribers can understand what you do and what benefits they will get.
So let’s see it step by step. What should be written in the BIO?
- Link to the website. If there is no website, then you can quickly create it using Onlypult Builder.
- USP (Unique Selling Proposition) is what sets you apart from your competitors. For example, a 15% discount when ordering the second time, free shipping when purchasing for more than 500 rubles, work experience, etc. If it is difficult to define the USP, then as an option, you can list the services that you provide.
- Contact information. This can be either your phone number or a message for followers that they can ask you any questions through Direct messages.
- Geotag – your company’s location. If there is no exact address or office, at least you should indicate your city. This will answer some of the questions from users.
- Subject. Add the most suitable subject to describe your profile’s activity.
The last thing to consider when writing your BIO is the structure. It’s better to write each paragraph from a new line and use emoji to highlight accents. This will make your text easier to read.
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| There is no well-created structure. Also, in this description, there are no competitive advantages, the website is not added, and it is not clear in which city or region the company works. | There is a link to a website, competitive advantages, and a geotag. |
Problem #5. Profile picture
The profile picture can be a thematic picture or company logo. The size of the picture is 110 by 110 pixels. The profile picture should be clear, it should show all the details, including the inscriptions should also be easy to read.
Although it seems to be very simple, still some people make mistakes. For example:
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| A thematic picture was used as a profile picture, also the profile name was added to it. But the inscription is not readable, and we can’t see from this picture what the company does… | The company’s logo is used as an avatar. The brand name is easy to read. |
Problem #6. Highlights
Highlights on Instagram can be used as the menu, where the users can easily find all the information they need. The only thing is, not everyone likes to spend time creating this block. But it is worth it. After all, the fewer questions potential customers have, the better.
The following information can be added to the highlights:
- Pricelist. Followers love transparency, so there is no need to hide the cost of your products or services. If you cannot name a specific price, then write the starting minimum – for example, the cost starts from XXX rubles.
- Services and goods. This block is needed to tell more about your product. Including materials, dimensional grid, assortment, service composition, etc.
- Reviews. It is better to collect reviews from your customers. This will give you additional loyalty points.
- Working hours. Another useful block, especially if you have an offline store. Let your followers know your working hours.
- Frequently asked questions. This is a precious block of useful information for your followers, where they can get answers to most common questions. Also, this block can be easily used as a reference.
- Company information. Tell something about yourself: work experience, certificates, awards, benefits, etc.
Another important component of the highlights is the visual part. To make the blocks look harmonious and nice, they must be designed in the same style.
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| There are no proper covers and no common design. Also, the blocks do not have well-written titles, they are written with a small letter, which does not look aesthetically pleasing. | These icons have covers with the same style, they look very nice. |
Besides the visual design, the content for your highlights plays an important role. The information must be easy to read and understand. You don’t believe us? Then you should try it yourself to see the difference between the two options.
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| There is a lot of text and it is difficult to read it, as it is placed on a low-contrast background. There is no proper design, so it looks messy. | The text is easy to read, there is an attractive design. |
Problem #7. Content
Instagram is not only about beautiful photos, but also about the texts you share. High-quality content can interest subscribers, increase reaches, and encourage people to buy a product or service. But there are also some nuances here. For example, you shouldn’t publish only advertising posts with a call to order something. Nobody likes this and no one wants to read it. You should try to create interesting publications, that include useful information. Therefore, for commercial accounts, the 20/80 rule applies. Where 20% are selling posts, and 80% are informational, entertaining, and engaging posts.
Now let’s talk a little about what you need to know and how to work with content:
- Publication frequency
Usually, it is enough to publish one post every 1-2 days. The Instagram feed updates quickly, so it’s important to stay visible all the time. Of course, you can post more often, but do not go too far. Especially if you publish 5 posts a day. This can quickly make your followers bored, and they will simply unfollow you.
But if you have a complicated topic and it is rather difficult to create an interesting and engaging content, then the rule with the standard frequency of publications will not suit you. In this case, the posting frequency depends on your business area. But it’s worth noting that it makes no sense to do less than two posts per week, otherwise your reach will drop dramatically.
If you publish less than two posts a week, there is a chance to disappear from your followers’ feeds, and your account will seem abandoned. After all, no one wants to follow profiles that do not share any useful information and rarely appear in the feed.
To follow the right frequency of publications, it is necessary to create a content plan, which will outline the topics of your posts, the time of publication, the type of the content, and other nuances.
- Post structure
To understand what content your target audience likes, you need to try different post formats: longreads and short posts of 300-500 characters. But whether these posts will be read depends a lot on the structure. If the text is presented in the form of one large article, then it is unlikely that followers will even try to understand it.
It’s much better if the text is well-structured and has a headline, post body, and a call to action. At the same time, do not forget to divide sentences into paragraphs and focus the attention of users on important points.
This implies 3 rules:
- Divide the text into small paragraphs and indent between them.
- Add emoji to add accents.
- Use enumerations and lists in your texts.
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| The text is not divided into paragraphs, so it looks bulky and unattractive. Even though there are emojis in the post that should draw people’s attention, they do not provide any benefit. | The text has a clear structure, it is divided into paragraphs. Also, there are well-used emojis to draw attention. |
- Hashtags
Some marketers forget to add hashtags to their posts, and that’s a mistake. Using hashtags can help you to increase the reach of your target audience. How?
For example, let’s imagine a situation when a user is searching for a tour to Olkhon. In the Instagram search bar choose the search by hashtags, the user enters #toursnaolkhon and, as a result, gets a selection of recent and Top publications. And this is a way to get some extra coverage.
Therefore, hashtags should be added to each post. But not all hashtags are equally useful. In general, they can be divided into high-frequency, mid-frequency, and low-frequency used. For promotion, medium-frequency hashtags are optimal, with the number of mentions ranging from 800 to 4000. The fact is that posts with these hashtags can get to the Top and will not get lost among other posts, which gives you a chance to get extra coverage.
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If you use high-frequency and low-frequency hashtags, then they will not work. The first type of hashtags is mentioned too often, so the post will not get to the Top and will quickly get lost among thousands of other publications. And the other one, on the contrary, does not interest anyone, since users will not even search for posts by such hashtags.
We also recommend putting no more than 12-15 hashtags and avoid using prohibited hashtags. Otherwise, Instagram can decrease the reach of your post and even move you to a shadowban. To check your profile for prohibited hashtags, you can use IQ hashtags.
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| Too many hashtags. Also, except for the mid-frequency hashtags, there are high-frequency ones and even hashtags that are not related to the topic of the post. | The number of hashtags does not exceed 15. There are mid-range hashtags and brand hashtags. |
- Photo content
When users scroll the feed, the first thing that catches their attention is the nice picture. If a photo looks interesting, the user will try to read the text under it. Therefore, you cannot avoid posting bright and attractive photos.
You can use your own photo content as a picture to the post, or you can find something worthwhile on photo stocks. But not all stock images are equally useful. There are common and boring pictures, but there are also original and nice pictures.
Another important point that should be mentioned is that you should try to follow a common picture style. This will make your Instagram profile rid look aesthetically pleasing. Besides, when users scroll their feed, they can immediately identify your post by the unique style.
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| There is no common style: the author uses boring stock images, that do not look attractive. | Although the photos are taken from photo stocks, the rid is designed in the common style and looks unusual and interesting. |
To conclude
After such a small audit, you can improve the quality of your visual and informational content, but the main thing is to prepare your profile for the promotion and increase the loyalty of your followers. After all, a well-designed profile takes time and resources.
