• 300 million active users
  • 70 million photos created and shared per day
  • 85% of top brands actively using Instagram
  • Instagram ad spent to hit nearly $3 billion by 2017

This platform is no longer about teens taking pics of their dinners and engagement rings…this guys has become one of the most important places to advertise your business in 2016.

We use Instagram every day and not just to post pictures of our attempts at latte art (to be honest most don’t make the cut) but to distribute our blog content too.

instagram coffee 1

Instagram is very unique it’s marketability in that it doesn’t allow direct linking out. To say that you can’t post your website address in the post for people to find you. The only time they can do that is by clicking on the link in your profile.

Some people therefore change that all the time and drive traffic to different parts of their site. For me though as a restaurant/cafe/coffee shop etc you can get away with driving traffic to either your home page or the place that most people visit like an info page on your menu or contact details. So you don’t need to change the link at all. You just need to produce good content, get that in front of as many people as possible and build your community.

Here are some accounts I think you should look to for some inspiration:

instagram coffee 2 instagram coffee 3 instagram coffee 4

You are already doing the hard work of putting together your beautiful food and drinks so why not take an extra 2 seconds and take a snap of it? Instagram has an inbuilt photo editor to get your creations looking even better OR if you are feeling extra fancy. Why not get a pro in to take the photos and just upload a new one each day?

The whole point of Instagram is to tell a story in your own unique and creative way!

Next up we have to think about how we are going to get your photos in front of lots of people. Well there are a few ways to approach this:

  1. Hashtags – they are used in the world of Instagram a lot and they are perfectly welcome here too. Best practice is to put 3 in the caption of the photo and then comment on your own photo to add 5-7 more. The key is both relevancy and a high search volume. You can find out how many people are searching for a tag using Instagrams native search function.
  2. Other social networks – Facebook owns Instagram now (bought for $1bn!!!) and it has native sharing capabilities to both Facebook and Twitter. So why not get your beautiful photos to other places too?
  3. Interact – Ask questions in your captions, respond to all comments, go search on your best hashtags for other peoples photos and comment and like them! Getting involved in the community is the best thing you can do
  4. In house promotions – offer customers 10% off their next order if they share a snap on Instagram and tag you in it. Easy to track results too! You can even share their posts by using a third party app called ‘respost’ available on the App Store

These are just a few basic ideas for how to use Instagram if you’re not already as well as hopefully some good tips for those that aren’t yet taking full advantage.

Of course please don’t forget to come and follow us too here and tag us in your photos because we will share them with our audience and they could become new customers too.

 

BONUS TIP:

If you are already spending money on Facebook then you can spend ad money on Instagram too. The targeting options aren’t as accurate on Facebook but location is still something that really works well for small business. You CAN send someone directly to your website that way and they have so far proven to be a bit cheaper than Facebook clicks. Get in early before everyone else does!