Nurture your Instagram Audience

Last month we touched on the 5 ways to grow your Instagram audience. So, what do you do once you see your audience start to grow? You can’t just leave them hanging! Here are 4 ways to nurture your Instagram audience.
 
Write Engaging Captions
 
Writing long form captions, often referred to as microblogging, is the easiest way to connect with your audience. Captions let you to share your personality and breakdown barriers a follower might feel which builds trust and connection.
 
If you’re unfamiliar with a microblogging caption, simply put it’s essentially a mini blog post! It’s important to make your point in the first couple of lines of the Instagram caption that way your followers don’t have to click ‘more’ in order to understand what the rest of your caption will be about. This is also known as "the hook". These kinds of captions encourage users to save and share posts, which increases the likelihood of growth while fostering and providing value to your current audience.
 
Here are some prompts that start with a hook:

• The best way to…
• Here are the best restaurants in…
• A quick fall guide to skincare:
• Our favorite fall cocktail recipe made with...
• Most Instagrammable spots in…
• Where to find the best…

 
Pro-tip: Make your captions fun and conversational, encourage followers to chat in the comments, and make sure you’re responding to comments in a way that continues the conversation or generates leads. And, if you're including other businesses in the post, make sure to tag them!

Get to Know your Audience 
 
It’s safe to say, connection is King (or Queen) and believe it or not, we can achieve real connection through Instagram.
 
Instagram Insights are a great tool to use to have a baseline understanding of your audience like where they’re from, gender, and age ranges. And while these are important things to know when crafting your social media strategy, going deeper is where the good stuff is.
 
But how do you go deeper other than asking questions in your captions? Using the Instagram polls and questions features in stories is a great way to get to know your audience. Your business is providing a service to your consumers, and, in order to add value to their lives and nurture the relationships, you need to understand your people.

Here are some starter questions to get you thinking about your own poll:

• If you have tangible products, asking your audience what they want from you
• If you offer services, asking how you can solve a problem
• Questions about customer hobbies, as they pertain to your business
• A visual version of ‘this or that’ using polls to understand what your audience wants to see showing up on their feed

 
By getting to know your audience, you begin to establish trust. But remember, it’s a two way street, which leads us to our next tip...

Create a Face for your Brand

Simply put, people want to feel connected to brands with whom they spend their money. Therefore it is imperative to show face! It takes some getting used to when starting out talking to the camera, but it will get easier. Practicing in the mirror is a great way to up your comfort level.
 
If the person behind the brand simply does not want to talk to the camera, share photos instead. Or, if you’re the social media manager, have the owner sign off on photos and copy (written in first person) so it feels like the owner is talking directly to their audience.
 
If you’re already a pro at IG stories, try Reels or IGTV. Reels is quick, 15 second, digestible content, perfect for how to’s, house tours, skincare routines, and recipes! IGTV is longer format video and is great for long form Q&As, more in-depth how to’s, and meatier content pieces.

Establish your Visual Aesthetic 

On such a visual platform, it is important to keep your unique visual aesthetic in mind. We mentioned in last month’s post the importance of consistency, having a cohesive color palette and style of imagery when fostering your current audience and continuing growth.
 
This is why keeping your business account separate from your personal account is important. Chances are your customers don’t want to see last week’s girls’ night out, your day at the dog park or your Instagrammable lunch- unless of course you own a restaurant.
 
Your audience wants to see your products, understand how you can solve their problems, and where exactly you add value to their lives.
 
Establishing a visual aesthetic in terms of color, edit and type of photo lets your audience know what to know expect, when to expect it, and that they can consistently rely on you for that type of content.

​You can schedule your posts out on apps like Unum, Planoly, and Later. This allows you to visually see how the photos look next to one another, ensuring you are not posting a similar photo every day. Some of our favorite ways to edit photos is through Lightroom, VSCO, and the TezzaApp. We also recommend scheduling out your posts to make sure you are not sharing too much of the same type of content.

A quick breakdown for sake of example:
 

• Monday: Product Post
• Tuesday: Owner Post
• Wednesday: Event Post
• Thursday: Inspiration
• Friday: Product Post with CTA

At the end of the day, you get what you give when it comes to Instagram (and, well, life in general). If these tactics feel overwhelming, tackle them one at a time, maybe even one a week over the next 4 weeks until you can establish a routine. Remember, not every post has to be groundbreaking with hours of production and editing behind it! It just needs to speak directly to your audience and add value to their lives.
 
 How do you nurture your Instagram audience?