Subtitle: Elevate Your Business’s Social Media Presence with Organic Instagram Growth Strategies
In the ever-evolving world of social media, Instagram remains a vital platform for businesses to establish a strong online presence. As a business owner managing your own social media, mastering the art of organic Instagram growth is key to achieving sustainable results (on a budget). In this blog post, we’ll explore three tried-and-true strategies for organic Instagram growth tailored to business owners.
First up…
Organic Growth Strategy #1 — Collaboration with Complimentary Niches:
Collaboration with complementary niches isn’t just a strategy for influencers; it’s also an invaluable tool for business owners managing their own social media. When you partner with accounts that share a similar target audience but aren’t direct competitors, you can unlock fresh opportunities for follower growth. Imagine you’re running the social media for a yoga studio. Partnering with professionals in the health and wellness space, such as meditation experts, breathwork coaches, mindfulness trainers, or spirituality gurus, can be immensely advantageous for expanding your business’s follow count.
Here’s how you can do it:
Host a live session together. Conduct engaging Instagram Live sessions on topics of mutual interest to both your audiences, providing valuable insights and attracting new followers.
Collaborate on a giveaway: Organize a collaborative giveaway featuring your services or products. Such giveaways are a win-win for your business, the collaboration partner, and both of your audiences.
Collaborate on a reel or post together. Make sure it’s engaging and aligns with both of your audiences.
Organic Growth Strategy #2— Create Shareable Content:
Shareable content is a critical element of any business’s social media strategy. It’s your opportunity to reach a broader audience effortlessly. If your content gets shared by just 10 people, each with 1000 followers, your business’s message could potentially reach an extra 10,000 people with minimal effort.
To create more shareable content, the most important thing is this:
You must first understand your audience. (Very well)
Conduct coffee chats with online friends within this demographic, or explore forums like Reddit and Quora to understand their interests and questions.
If you can’t find anyone to speak to… Use AI to uncover pain points, dreams, thoughts, and current realities of your target audience. This data can serve as a valuable source of inspiration for content creation.
This is my favourite prompt — “I’m a (insert profession) who helps (insert target audience description), what would some of my audiences pain points/dreams/thoughts/current realities be?”
Organic Growth Strategy #3 — Leveraging UGC for Business Owners:
As a business owner managing your own social media, user-generated content (UGC) is a powerful tool for promoting organic growth on Instagram. Encouraging your followers to create content related to your brand or products not only fosters trust but also amplifies your reach.
Big brands like Starbucks have effectively utilized UGC in their Instagram strategy, showcasing their customers’ love for the brand.
Here are ways business owners (aka you) can harness UGC:
Create a branded hashtag: Develop a unique and memorable hashtag related to your brand, encouraging your followers to use it in their posts.
Showcase UGC: Repost UGC on your Instagram feed and stories, giving proper credit to the creators. This not only builds trust but also highlights your loyal customer base.
Run UGC contests or challenges: Host contests or challenges that encourage your followers to create content featuring your products or services. Incentives such as prizes or profile features can motivate participation and generate excitement around your brand.
Doritos employs this marketing strategy often around Super Bowl season, where they ask their fans to create their next commercial. The winner will then receive usually a monetary prize that’s definitely worth their time and effort. One year it was over $200,000! Check out an example here.
By implementing these strategies, business owners managing their own social media can navigate the ever-evolving landscape of Instagram and secure organic growth for their businesses. Remember, organic growth takes time, effort, and strategic planning, but the rewards are well worth it. (And they’re a lot more affordable lol)
