Getting started on Instagram: our tips

You've finally taken the plunge, your account is created, but you're not sure where to begin with the app? Here are the essential tips for getting off to a great start on Instagram.

01 – The basic tools when creating your account

Adding a profile photo on Instagram

There is no escaping the universal rule of every social network: the profile photo. In the case of a brand or business, it is generally advisable to use your logo. This allows users who are searching for you to quickly find your account among others. Moreover, an account without a photo very quickly gives the impression of a "fake" — and the aim here is to inspire trust.

Customising your Instagram profile

Once your photo has been added, you can complete your profile with all kinds of information: for your brand, prioritise contact details such as your phone number or email address.

It can also be useful to include a link to your website or Facebook Page, if you have an online shop.

Again, the goal is to share a few relevant pieces of information related to your activity on this social network! In this example, Lunette Pour Tous highlights the promise of its shop: "from €10, ready in 10 minutes". This account is international, but you can add the address of your business to your bio. Finally, you can also include your own hashtag in your bio to encourage users to create posts with it.

Switch your account to a professional profile

As a small or medium-sized business, your presence on Instagram means you are looking to increase your sales and/or visibility. If you switch your standard account to a professional account, you will have access to all of Instagram's features.
It is, in a way, the essential tool for promoting your brand. It provides a number of advantages over a standard account:

• track the statistics of your posts
• obtain demographic data on your audience
• ability to add calls to action to your bio
• ability to access Instagram Shopping to showcase your shop on your profile

02 – A consistent visual world

Here is an essential point. Visuals are what take centre stage on Instagram, hence the importance placed on the quality of your images. Opt for clear, sharp, airy, and colourful photos that immediately invite the eye to linger.

Before you start, it is essential to define a kind of editorial line. Some people go for pastel tones, others base their photos on a single theme. It is a great way to stand out and attract attention. A poetic aesthetic will appeal to one category of people, just as a floral theme or a black-and-white approach will to others. The key is to avoid making the account look cluttered.

To illustrate this, here are three completely different accounts that each convey a strong identity of their own. L'Atelier Saint Eustache with its pastel tones blending socks and architecture, La Redoute with its flesh and brick tones, and Marielle, a Lyon-based fashion instagrammer who swears by nude tones.

"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken." — Oscar Wilde.

03 – Optimise your posts

The caption

The description step is often overlooked, yet it allows you to connect with your audience and generate engagement from them. It also serves to provide additional detail about the content of your post or to add hashtags to improve its visibility. In this way, you can build long-term loyalty with your audience by telling your story or the story of your brand. Play with the tone of your text, emojis, and so on.

In other words, this stage is somewhat equivalent to the product description found on e-commerce websites. Here, however, it is more about providing informative elements — of course — but also about humanising your marketing approach through emojis, tips and tricks, or a competition.

Hashtags

Normally, outside of Twitter, hashtags tend to be overlooked — and rightly so, as their usefulness seems limited elsewhere. On Instagram, however, it is the complete opposite! If you don't use them, you will lose an enormous amount of visibility. So how does it work?
Just as a website must be optimised to be visible on search engines, Instagram posts must also be optimised. If on the web we talk about keywords, here we talk about hashtags.

Limited to 30 per post, it is advisable to use a maximum of around ten that are directly related to your photo, as Instagram tends to penalise posts with too many hashtags that bear no relation to the image. The whole challenge is to use trending hashtags without overusing them!

Geolocation

When you publish a post, you have the option of adding a geolocation to it. The advantage of doing so is that it makes your business's address more visible — since it appears above your post — and also allows you to appear in more general publications such as #lyon, for example.

This means that users in Lyon may well come across your publication or even your stories without following your account.

04 – Maintain a posting rhythm

A good posting frequency comes down to two things:

• The best time to post
  If you have a professional account, you will have access to your statistics, including a view of the time slots when your audience is most active. Posting at regular times helps build loyalty within your community — though there's no need to become obsessive about it.
• Your capacity to post at that frequency
  There is no truly ideal number of posts per week. It is up to you to decide based on your available time and the type of content you have. Let's take a base of 2 posts per week and stick to it. It is important to maintain the rhythm, otherwise you risk losing followers — a bit like YouTubers. A consistent frequency encourages people to follow you, unlike someone who rarely posts.

Finally, don't forget that all of this takes time. Don't expect quick results — you need to give users time to get to know you and your brand to establish its identity…

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