Instagram Marketing Strategy Tips for 2022

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Happy Monday, friends!

A while back, we touched on how to tell your brand story and Pinterest, so today, we’re chatting about Instagram.

We can discuss so many topics on Instagram alone, but I’ll keep it to the things we do at construction2style daily to build our community, drive traffic, and increase leads, all while also not losing our sanity.

Don’t Let Content Live Solely on Social Media

I can’t stress this enough. The biggest thing to remember is that we don’t own our social media platforms. In one second, it could all be gone. And I’ve seen it happen. 

Are you only leveraging social platforms?

Own your content and use social channels as platforms to leverage, market, and push it. You don’t need to start a blog, but if you are a brand that is selling a product or service, you need a website.

Anything we’re publishing at construction2style on social media tells a bigger picture of a story to lead them back to one place, and that is our website. Our website is the place that finishes telling the story and the place they will buy from. And once they get to our site, we have multiple ways of making revenue. Whether that’s through ads on our website, affiliate links, asking them to take action to buy a course or contact us for our services, or download a template. Multiple funnels and ways to create revenue in ways we can’t do within one post on social media. 

And if you don’t have one and not sure where to start, we created a step-by-step tutorial for you to create your site in under an hour. I’ve followed these steps to help several friends launch their websites, and it’s pretty simple. Just follow our guide –> How to Start a Website.

Have a Descriptive Name & Bio

Do you have a descriptive name and bio in your Instagram profile? Remember, this is used for search!

When people search for whatever keyword they want to be found for, you will be nowhere to be found if it’s not within your name profile description. 

I recently did a presentation for a group of realtors. While prepping for the conference and researching some of the attendees, I was blown away by how most of them didn’t have “MN Real Estate” or “MN Realtor” listed anywhere on their profile. Sure, they had real estate. But nothing location-specific. And do you know how saturated real estate is? There’s a lot out there, and even more nationwide. 

So whatever service, location, or product you want to ensure you’re being found for, make sure it’s listed within your name, description, and/or bio. 

 

Write with Purpose and Give Value

Another point I can’t stress enough, write with purpose, and give value. Look at your last three Instagram posts and read out loud what you wrote. Did it give any value to anyone’s lives? Did you direct them to your site? Give them a tip or trick? Educate or inspire?

Social media can be time-consuming. So why waste your time on something that does absolutely nothing to increase value to someone’s life, drive traffic, and/or drive sales? 

Think about the people you love and follow. Look at how and what they write. Think about what makes you drawn to them. More than likely, I bet you also find an emotional connection to them.

Are you laughing?

Crying?

Is the image just so good you’re drawn to it?

Remember, with whatever you are writing, you also bring emotion into it. At c2s, we always try to give something of value, whether that is a free tutorial, selections we’re using in a space, or giving empathy and letting our readers know that they’re not alone and that life can be rough.

We’re bringing them into the storyline throughout a project. That way, when it’s time for reveal day, they are deep into the storyline with us and are taking the time to click over to our website to know all of the finishing selections and details that went into the project. And you bet every link is an affiliate, we have ads throughout the post, and we have a call to action to contact us to get that same bathroom in their home. They are emotionally invested and ready to commit to either DIY or hiring us, all of which make us revenue. 

Use Effective Hashtags

Hashtags are like a Google search engine on Instagram. 

There are millions of hashtags out there, and I always say, use tags relevant to your post. For example, when I post a kitchen post, and I’m looking for hashtags centered around that, I’ll start typing, “kitchenre” and it will auto-populate a list of hashtags to use. 

You can use up to 30 hashtags on any post, so use 30 of them.

Here’s a screenshot from a recent post we published, and as you can see… 1,664 people saw this post through the use of hashtags. Those are A LOT of eyeballs on your brand just by taking the time to use some hashtags. 

I also always recommend leaving your hashtags as a comment within your post. That way, it doesn’t look “spammy” and takes away from the message (caption) you’re trying to drive home. Within the comments, it’s quickly buried by other comments. 

Commenting, Collaborating, Utilizing your Network

Think about all of the people and the resources you recommend to your clients, or you talk about with your friends and family.

Talk about them within your Instagram posts! Engage with them, comment, share with others. Use their storylines for storylines within your content marketing strategies. 

Why do you love them? Why do you work with them? Why do you refer to them? Talk about it and share the why behind it all online.

Do you have partnerships, kickbacks, referral programs set up with all? If not, you might want to consider that as well. 

I love this example of smart marketing Neat Method did on an Instagram post from Wit & Delight…

Not only is she getting her name in front of a potential client, but thousands of her readers. She told thousands of people that she offers a service they might not realize and tagged a reference. When I saw this, I couldn’t help but think of how that is some smart marketing! And it reminded me not to be afraid to leave more comments to whomever I want to be our next potential client. Get in front of them, and remind them what you do and that you are there for them.  

And don’t forget about all of the other things you probably know but are effective and work, such as…

• Engage
• Leave Comments
• Be Genuine
• Support
• Collaborate
• TIME BLOCK!

Remember, it’s all about Story Telling

Instagram, especially IG stories, is about creating stories, so tell a story. Bring people on the entire journey within your feed as well! From start to finish. 

When we started c2s in 2012, we only focused on telling a story, renovating our first home. One story led to another story. 

Whatever content you share, share the entire journey. Not just the pretty after or what’s for sale. 

Now, more than ever, more and more people want to know the full story behind the brand before they buy it. YOU ARE THE BRAND. They want to make sure it all fully aligns with who they are and what they stand for before they trust and buy from you.

Here’s a picture of Greyson’s room, which Krylon sponsored. For months we talked about how Greyson was getting older and how we needed to take his room from a baby’s room to a toddler. We also talked about how he loved motocross, drawing, crafting, coloring, our passion for wallpaper, created tutorials, talked about how we got this chair & table from my Grandpa’s shop. We probably shared 50 touchpoints with our audience taking them on the full journey to bring this final story altogether. Our audience was probably more apt to buy what we were finally selling because they had been on this entire journey with us. 

Instagram Tools

And lastly, because tools are key, here are our favorites that we love and use for Instagram. 

We use Later to schedule all of our Instagram content. One day a week, we plan out what storylines we’re telling on our blog, making it easy to know which Instagram posts are going live on which days. It’s key to schedule your content. Otherwise, this is where it can leave you feeling rushed and post at the moment without putting much thought into the context behind what you’re posting. Remember, if you’re taking the time to do it, it should be purposeful.

We use Lightroom to edit all of our photos we take on our iPhone. And we use Unfold, HypeType, and/or WordSwag for any text overlays we use within Stories. 

• Later
• HypeType
• WordSwag
• Lightroom
• Unfold

 

I hope this helps you take a tip or two and put it into action for some effective Instagram marketing! Any questions, drop a comment below; we’re here to help. 

Instagram Marketing Strategy Tips for 2021