Instagram is a powerful platform, and it’s a great place to build up a presence for your brand new online business. The best thing is, it’s a totally free way to market your business – you don’t need to invest in ads to start landing clients – you can grow a profitable and sustainable business for FREE on Instagram.

It’s not easy, and it’s not a way to get rich quick but with the right strategies and consistency you’ll get your business off the ground in no time.

Know who you’re targeting

The very first thing I’ll say is, before you use any of the methods in this video – it’s really important that you know exactly who you’re targeting. Everything rests on this, if you are unclear who your ideal client is – it’s going to be really difficult to build your business anywhere, especially on IG.

If this is something you’re struggling with, don’t worry because I have a free mini-course to show you exactly how to figure out who your ideal client is and find out everything there is to know about them.

Keep reading to find out exactly what you need to do to start landing clients and growing your business on Instagram, or watch the video below.

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Optimise your page

If you want to start attracting potential clients, first impressions really matter.

The very first thing you need to do is optimise your page so that whoever lands on your page wants to stick around and then hopefully follow you.

Your profile photo: If you’re a service provider, make sure it’s a picture of you. You want to use a high quality headshot with a clear background. You can even use canva to remove the background and use a brand colour like I have to make your profile photo really stand out.

Your name: make sure you use keywords in the name field, as it’s SEO friendly, which means when someone searches for that keyword, your profile will come up. For example, if you’re a social media manager, make sure to put that in the search bar.

Your bio: the mistake I see is business owners that make the bio all about them and not about the client. It’s important that you tell your audience WHO you help, how you help them and what you help them to achieve.

The link in your bio: people need a way to book in a call with you or find out how they can work with you – make sure the link in your bio makes sense. You might want to link it to your calendar or to your website.

Your content strategy

Your content strategy can be POWERFUL. It has the ability to attract ideal clients, build trust with them AND convert them into paying clients. That’s why it’s so important that you have a strong content strategy.

Here are the 3 most important things when it comes to your content strategy:

• Quality over quantity
• It needs to be educational, inspirational or entertaining
• You need to be consistent

Now let’s think about the types of content you can use.

FOR VISIBILITY & GROWTH

Right now, one of the best ways to grow on Instagram is by using reels. There are business owners I know who have grown tens of thousands of followers in a matter of months by creating valuable, high quality reels that have gone viral. So think how you can harness the power of reels to really ramp up your visibility.

Another way to get more eyes on your content: use hashtags within your posts. Hashtags help your content to show up in the hashtag feed which means more people who aren’t following you will be able to see your post.

TO BUILD TRUST

Of course, visibility is not the only goal when it comes to growing your business on IG. Once you start to gain some followers, you need a way to build trust with those followers. The easiest way to do that is through video content. The following options are a great place to gain trust on Instagram:

• IG stories
• LIVES and
• IGTV
  
  These options are a great place for you to show up, give some value and really connect with your audience in a more personable way. Your audience can get to know you and your personality. People buy from people they like – and it can be difficult for people to get to know who you are if you avoid video content.

Building relationships

Another amazing way to grow your business on IG is to go out and create real connections with your audience.

What NOT to do:

• Cold DM people / copy and paste messages
• Spam comments with emojis
• Follow/unfollow

These methods will NOT get you genuine connections and are totally pointless.

Here’s what you should do instead:
Build REAL connections in the DM’s by sending genuine messages that are personalised to ideal clients. Take a look at their profile and read some of their content – find a talking point and start a conversation.

If you can find some kind of common ground and relatable talking point then this will make it even easier to build that connnection. Maybe you’ve noticed that they recently travelled to a country you’ve been to, talk to them about it!

Remember, people buy from people they like. The more ideal clients you get to know in the DM’s – the more chance that someone will decide to work with you.

But it’s not JUST ideal clients you should build relationships with. You should also build relationships with people in your industry. Networking with other like-minded people in business can also help opportunities to come your way.

For example if someone is totally fully booked and they want to pass on the work to someone else – they might think of you!

Talk about your offers and services

Whilst it is important that you provide value to your audience, just giving away free tips and hacks isn’t going to be enough.

It’s also important that you’re able to SELL your products and services – otherwise you might end up with an audience who never wants to buy from you – they just want to consume your content.

Here’s what you can do:

Save your services to your highlights: your highlights are a great way for your audience to quickly find out more about how they can work with

Talk about your services whenever you can! Even when you are giving value or educational content.

Use strong CTA’s: When talking about how people can work with you – it’s important you give them the next steps. What do you want them to do? Where do you want them to go? A strong CTA will help your audience to take action.

Now you know how to start growing your business on Instagram!

Once you dive in, you’ll start to grow a warm audience of ideal clients. Remember that this takes patience and consistency! For now, start with these simple steps and you’ll grow your business in no time. And don’t forget to DM me on Instagram and let me know how it goes!

You can also check out my Youtube channel to watch the full video on how to grow your business on Instagram from scratch. While you’re there make sure to hit subscribe for more marketing and business ideas!

Learning how to grow your business on Instagram is only one part of a great marketing strategy. Don’t forget to sign up to my free mini-course where you can get clarity on who your ideal client is and where to find them.