Are you on Instagram yet? If not, you may be missing out on a huge opportunity to connect with your market. Instagram has 400 million daily active users, and 150 million daily active InstaStories. Ask your clients, and you may find that they are on Instagram pretty often!

Some reasons that we LOVE Instagram for business?

Tell a Visual Story

Showcase your brand in a way that requires very few words – your Instagram Feed. Many refer to their Instagram Feed in terms of their “First Nine”, which are the first nine images a user sees in the grid when they visit your Instagram profile. These images should always be carefully selected, and ‘speak’ to your brand and business in a way that would instantly mean something to any visitor. Use this first nine to grab their attention!
Click here to subscribe

Relate through personal posts

Not only can you share your professional photography work, but you can showcase a bit more of your personal life on this platform in a natural way. Consider mixing your content (while keeping it visually appealing in your First Nine) to share a bit of what drives you personally. Use the text descriptions under images to share more stories about things that mean the most to you, and why you love what you do.

Visual content

Unlike Facebook where the text comes first, Instagram is simple, visual content. In addition, the image is displayed with very little text actually visible below, so the users are instantly drawn to the imagery over any links or text. Great for photographers!

Like and Respond to Comments

Interact with your audience by ‘loving’ their comments, and responding easily through the comments area. Also interact easily with your favorite brands, and connect with your audience. Remember – more conversation breeds more conversions!

how to create the perfect instagram first nine

Re-posting

Use the popular “Repost” app to share content that you are tagged in. This is great to not only connect with your clients and favorite stores/vendors, but also to share content easily without much noise. Sharing is caring!

Image Tagging

Tag your favorite clients or vendors on an image, and your photo will show under their ‘tagged photos’ section of their profile. In addition, others can tag you, and you’ll have a running portfolio of your shared images across the platform.

Easy Contact Buttons

Convert your Instagram Profile to a Business Profile listing, and you’ll keep all of the ‘personal’ aspects, but gain a “Contact” button! When users select this button on your profile, they’ll be directed to your email or phone – and can reach out easily. That’s a great button to have!

Save Visual Ideas

Have a few feeds that you love and draw inspiration from? You can use the new ‘Save’ button on Instagram to save posts to a personal feed. Think of it as your “Instagram Pinterest Board”, where you’ll be able to save popular posts, text you love, images that inspire, and more.

View Your Stats

Once you’ve converted to a Business Profile, you’ll be able to see a lot of statistics about your users! Just go to your profile and click on the bar chart in the upper menu. This will show you information like the times that your followers are most active on Instagram, which posts and InstaStories got the most attention, and how many conversions you had from Instagram in the past week.

Share Your Daily Story

Want to share more about your daily life, but not sure that it fits in your visual “First Nine”? Not to worry – you can still share a bunch in your InstaStory! Think of this as a way to connect with potential clients in a more personal way. After all, anything you post there goes away in 24 hours, so share away!

Find Inspiration

Use Instgram to connect with your favorite brands, and gather inspiration from all across the Instagram world. Some of the best ideas I’ve posted have actually be modified from what others have shared. Gather some inspiration to grow your Instagram game!

Are you on Instagram? What is your favorite thing about this social media tool? Are you looking to get to work with your FIRST NINE? We’ve put together this guide to help you get started with your content planning!
Click here to subscribe

Pin It on Pinterest

Sharing is Caring

Share this post with your photographer friends!