Past Events

Learning how to Ace The Gram.

Written by Sophie Jaggs from Likeable Lab.

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I knew this talk was going to be epic.

How?

Because I follow Viv and Tash on Instagram. And you can clearly see they know what they’re doing.

In fact we’re all pretty lucky that these two have dedicated their lives (it seems that way anyway) to the forever growing platform that is Instagram. We can all look upon them and learn. And that’s an awesome resource to have available.

They’ve tried, tested and tried again all sorts of theories, they know what works and what doesn’t, and as you can see from their collective Instagram accounts, they’re nailing it with over 100,000 followers.

I’m not going to go into much of the detail of the talk as they’ve kindly shared the presentation slides with you. And if you’re looking to up your game on Instagram then you should absolutely take a look.

What I am going to do, is go over the critical take-home points that everyone needs to be aware of when using Instagram.

Facebook Vs Instagram.

Even though Instagram is owned by Facebook they still operate very differently. Here’s why:

1. Instagram gets an average of 23% more organic engagement than Facebook.
2. To get in front of people on Facebook, you need to pay. Instagram is still on a level playing field.
3. It’s a highly visual platform, so more care needs to be taken when selected photos to post.

How good is your content?

Depending on your business and what you’re selling, you’ll face varying levels of competition.. For instance, if you’re a cafe, you’re up against it, because loads of cafes use Instagram. Therefore your content needs to be good. People will soon skim past you and on to the next if they think your food is average by the looks of the images you post. Take a look at your feed, how does it look for people who are discovering you for the first time?

Connecting with other business.

If, from your business account, you go and follow a bunch of random accounts who have nothing to do with your target audience, your business niche or your location, you will confuse Instagram’s algorithm. It won’t know who to show your content to and you could be losing a whole lot of potential engagement by connecting with other accounts that don’t marry well with yours.

Instastory perks.

Instastories are an amazing way to connect directly to your followers. They’re an opportunity to show the raw side of the business. In fact the more raw material you show, the better. They also give you an opportunity to get instant feedback from your existing followers. E.g. What colour hat should we produce next? Or what flavour muffin do you want to see in our cabinet? Get a poll up there and get market research in an instant. And remember this gem from Ace the Gram... ‘top of screen, top of mind.’

I have no doubt we will continue to learn from Viv and Tash and if you don’t already, go and follow their accounts. You’ll see they have a true passion for Instagram, work hard and have a good time doing it.

Thanks to Viv for taking the time to come and talk to us. An absolute natural presenter that made it easy for us listeners to learn a whole heap of Instagram gems!

So, is it about time you up your Insta-game?