One of the questions that you ask us the most is how to bring all the traffic of users who follow you on your Instagram accounts to your local business to monetize them. Having a business, it is useless to have followers if they do not translate into sales. For this reason, in today’s post, we have prepared a series of strategies that you should already be applying to achieve this. Keep reading.
To begin with, it is important to optimize the profile of the account. We tell you how:
- Add the location to your bio
It is essential that customers know where to find you. Therefore, in addition to putting the city, we recommend you put the exact address so that the followers close to your location know exactly where you are. To do this, you must go to your Instagram profile and click on “edit profile-public commercial information-contact options-commercial address”. There it will ask you for the address and when you have put it, click on save.
Another piece of information that you must include in the biography is the hours of your business. Thus, you will prevent someone from moving on purpose and finding it closed, causing the consequent bad experience. Remember: there is only one chance to make a good first impression.
- Set up an action button
This is a call-to-action button that will appear blue when users show interest. To activate it, you must follow these steps: edit profile- contact options- action buttons- add. You can also make integrations to put the option to book appointments, charge customers…
For businesses such as restaurants, hairdressers, etc; It is very interesting to be able to make reservations.
In this image, we can see how Sephora has included an action button, to be able to click and directly access the product on the brand’s website. In this way, the user will be able to see the price and all the information of the product.
- Add the location to both Instagram posts and stories
This way, when a user searches for a location, they’ll be shown both posts and stories that are tagged with that location.
To add the location to a post; when uploading the photo, you will get several options among which will be “add location”; while to add the location in a story, you must add the hashtag “location” and add it from there.
In this image, the restaurant of El perro y la galleta del Retiro have added the location. We can see it at the top, under the username. In this way, any user who sees the photo can know directly where the restaurant is without having to enter the profile or the web page to look for it.
- Use local hashtags
The most important thing is that you don’t just think of hashtags related to the brand, but you should think of hashtags that are relevant to the local area where the business is located. You need to think about the local hashtags that your target customers are searching for. To do this, search for other accounts near your location and research the hashtags that are being used and try to use the most popular ones.
- Offer coupons and discounts in the store
You must offer a compelling reason for your target audience to visit your business in person. To do this, it is a good idea to offer a discount, a coupon, or some free item in the store. Highlight the promotion in the caption or in the image itself, and remember to add hashtags and location.
If you prefer not to have to worry about having to send a direct message to each user that follows you, at Instaboom we offer this service for free, if you have an active monthly or quarterly plan with us. This “Welcome MD” service allows you to send a personalized message with a maximum of one thousand characters, in which you could also include a specific discount and thus, know the traffic that is coming through Instagram and measure the return.
- Create reminders for in-store events
Holding in-store events is another way to increase traffic to your store. To invite local customers, you can offer them to sign up to receive notifications when your account uploads stories or posts so they’ll always be in the know.
To do this, you must create a post for the event, select the “add reminder” option, and add the event details. Another option available in stories is to add a countdown. This way, you can put the date of the event along with the countdown. Users can check the option to be notified when the countdown ends, and this will serve as a reminder to keep an eye on the date of the event. To add it, it must be done from stories, adding the “Countdown” box and personalizing it with the date and name you want.
- Social Proof
Nothing is more compelling than opinions and reviews from other customers, as well as local press articles and awards. This can attract new customers or retain existing ones.
To show this social proof on your Instagram account, you can list the awards you’ve won, mention local magazines, share the reviews in stories or posts; You can even star these stories or pin these posts.
- UGC
UGC: user generated content. Content created by users, related to a brand or company.
In addition to sharing the content created by your brand, it is also very interesting to share the content uploaded by customers to their Instagram account. Users will probably like this option a lot as it will give them more confidence.
To find UGC, you need to use your brand hashtag and business location to see the content they’ve shared. Having a brand hashtag has many advantages, as you can use it in all posts and ask your followers to use it when uploading content about your brand. This way, searching for this hashtag will bring up all the posts.
We recommend putting it in the bio, and asking that it be used when someone uploads a post mentioning your brand. If they are quality posts, you can share them on your feed. Keep in mind that you must ask the creator for permission first, or there is a new option on Instagram, that if clients tag you as a collaborator, you can accept it and it will appear in your feed. Above the photo will appear the names of the two profiles. If you share it in stories, you don’t need to ask for permission, but we do recommend that you mention the user.
As you can see in this example of Mypugandco and Pecasthepuggle, the two accounts appear above the photo (the one of the brand and the one of the puppy that has shared it). In this way, users see that this photo has been uploaded by a client and this builds trust.
- Share local content in stories
Although most of the content you share in your account is exclusively from your brand, it is also interesting that you share content from other companies close to yours, plans in the area of your local, etc. In this way, you will be able to attract more local followers and it is likely that the brands you share on your account will also share your account.
- Collaborate with local users
It is always a good idea to collaborate with other companies or with influencers, and especially if they are close to your business. You can look for accounts of influential people who usually move around your business area and ask them for a collaboration. Talk to him/her and invite him/her to visit your place. You can offer them a product/service from your brand and try to get them to share it on their Instagram profile, or do a paid collaboration. You can also search for brands close to yours with which to collaborate and mention each other, etc.
- Promote publications to reach your target audience
If the previous option does not convince you or you do not get much profitability using only organic growth, you can always use Instagram paid promotions and place ads in the area that interests you. To do this, choose a quality publication, click on “promote publication” and choose the objective of the promotion (for example, more visits to the profile). When creating your audience, choose the location of your business and set a distance range so you can reach people who live nearby.
When you build an audience, be sure to target people in your local area. Choose your current location and set a radius that aligns with your customer base.
We encourage you to follow all these tips to benefit from the advantages that we have mentioned in each of them. In addition to attracting your Instagram followers to your local business, it will help you achieve a much more consolidated brand image on social networks.
