We hope you all had a wonderful weekend and are ready for another week. Summer is almost here, wow! Where does time go? Today we are talking about something our team has grown to love because it has been such a big part of growing our company. Instagram is a powerful communication tool for businesses. In a few seconds, the combination of photos and text can communicate, connect, promote and sell. Instagram  is one of the very best ways to communicate, connect with and grow your community and tribe. Bethany is our Community Creator and a huge way that she builds and interacts with our community is through Instagram. Today she is joining us to share a few tips on building an Instagram community and will take it from here!

Creating an Instagram strategy for your brand or business can seem scary at first, but when you take the time to form one and put it to action, it is really doable. When I first started learning about Instagram strategy, I was pretty overwhelmed. I never knew how much intention could go towards a social media platform. It took time, effort and several mistakes before I started to get into a rhythm with it. An Instagram strategy builds community and a faithful tribe to join our journey. So how do you build this community and why is it so important? Well, that is what we will explore today.

Building an Instagram community is an amazing way to connect and collaborate with other business owners, fellow creatives and your own followers. We believe community is so important because we deeply value relationships and the high priority they should take in both business and life. So creating our ‘tribe’ and nurturing and caring for those who are a part of it is an essential aspect of community building on Instagram.

We do this in a few different ways.

1. CONSISTENCY
Having a consistent feed and brand is SO powerful and essential to building an Instagram community. How often we post, the tone we use, the words we choose, and the photos we capture should all be consistent, having a common emotion within each aspect. Consistency builds trust in the brand and our followers learn what to expect from us. Subconsciously, our followers like consistency and knowing what to expect.

2. REPLYING TO COMMENTS FROM FOLLOWERS
It is so important to keep up engagement with your current and new followers. Reply to them when they comment on your posts, seek to value them with your words and your swiftness to reply back. You want every aspect of your brand to be positive, loving and eager to serve them.

3. CONNECTING WITH YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE AND THOSE YOU WANT TO COLLABORATE WITH
We are consistently using Instagram to seek out our target audience, fellow creatives to connect with and new clientele. This can be done by going to the profile of an Instagrammer who we really respect and love what they do (and someone who is in the same or similar niche as we are ) and then we click on who they follow. Chances are that they will follow some amazing people since they seek to be inspired by and connect with like-minded people and business owners. We browse through their followers and once we find the people we are looking for, we click over to their profile and browse their feed. We engage with them on their feed, always making sure we are completely honest, kind and positive in what we are writing to them. Connecting and reaching out often leads to collaboration of some kind in the future.

4. TRADING SHOUTOUTS / GIVING SHOUTOUTS
We also love doing shoutouts as a part of our normal Instagram posts. There are two kinds of shoutouts that you can do. The first one is trading a shoutout. We use this one when we find a fellow creative or maker who we just love their vision, their brand and their aesthetic and who has a similar following as we do. We reach out and ask them if they would like to collaborate with us in this way and we usually ask to use one of their photos as well. We choose a day of the week to post on together, and then we each post about each other and encourage our followers to follow along with the other’s journey. The second kind is giving a shoutout. This is pretty much the same as trading a shoutout, but without the trading. We simply do a shoutout for an incredible business or brand that we love and respect. It is a great way to make connections and share new creatives with your followers. Shoutouts create a sincere respect between business owners and fellow creatives and a desire to work together.

5. HAVE A PLAN
Without a plan, a task can feel daunting. But with a plan of action and an understanding of the how and why behind what you are doing, clarity is born. Clarity then results in efficiency, effectiveness, and getting the job done well. Create a schedule each month and prepare the photos ahead of time. Think through your Instagram strategy in advance to avoid last minute, “I should post but what do I post?!” Putting in a few hours each month to prepare in advance will save you a lot of time and stress in the long run.

We will be covering more ways to build your community and refine your Instagram strategy in an Instagram course that we are working on right now! This course is for business owners, giving them an effective and efficient strategy for tackling this social media platform. More details to come soon!

Thank for reading friends! We hope these tips help you grow your business!