Live Q&A: Instagram for Business - talk with Instagram Product Marketing Manager Mike Bronfin

[Kpay]

Hi Sellers, 

On March 29th from 1-2pm PST,  we hosted Instagram Product Marketing Manager Mike Bronfin, and Square Social Media Manager, Nick Dimichino, for a live Q&A. They answered a ton of great questions about Instagram for Business - check out the replies below! 

@nickd runs the Square Instagram account and grew Square's followers to over 20,000 people in under a year - so he can definitely help with your questions about growth and scaling!

@MikeBronfin is a Product Marketing Manager at Instagram, focused on the needs of small businesses around the world. Specific Instagram products Mike has worked on include business profiles, insights and promote.

A couple example questions: 

• What's the deal with Instagram Stories and what's the best way to use them for business? 
• What time of day is best to post? 

Thanks to everyone who left questions - let us know if there's anything you're still wondering about. 

Cheers!

[TheFreshLoaf]

Hello. 👋  Love the chance to pick your brains, as I'm a little new to all of this. Can you share some tips on editing photos for Instagram? What apps do you use? How often should I post? How far out should I plan? 

[MikeBronfin]

@Horsenround - glad you were able to set it up and sorry for the trouble with the instructions! 

@TheFreshLoaf - We have a few recommendations here! For regular posts, Instagram has a variety of filters and other editing tools within the mobile app. Our app Boomerang, which helps you make everyday moments fun and unexpected - see here for more information and examples. Our app Layout helps combine various moments into a single post. Finally, Instagram stories also has tools to help you make everyday moments fun and interesting to your audience, with stickers, drawing capabilities and other features to make it easy to create content.

On posting frequency, different approaches will work for different businesses. We recommend you experiment and see what works best for your audience. Additionally, converting to a business profile will give you insights to help determine what approach works best - see here for more information.

In terms of planning, there isn’t a one size fits all recommendation either. Some businesses create content daily, e.g. posting to their story as interesting things regarding their business occur throughout the day (such as behind the scenes activities). Others plan their content out some time in advance. We recommend you convert to a business profile (see here), so you can see insights on the results of your experimentation

[sciabica1936]

I have a few questions...

1) How important are hashtags and what's the right number?  I see some posts with a dozen or more hashtags but I've always felt that having more than a couple takes away from the quality of the post.

2)  If you owned a small business, how often would you post on Instagram?

3) Professional vs Personal photos.  I see photos that are obviously by pro photographers, and photos that are likely taken on a mobile phone by the business owner.  Which gets more response?

[MikeBronfin]

@sciabica1936 - To your first question (heads up @CurlUpandDye you might be interested in this too), hashtags can be a great way to add your posts to a larger topic on Instagram. We don’t have a specific recommendation here - we see different results depending on the type of business and specific topic of the hashtag. Instead, we recommend you take an experimentation approach, and check to see what works best for you. We’ve created an insights tool to help businesses like yours experiment and find what works best for their business. Convert to a business profile to access - see here for more information on how to convert.

To your second question, a similar answer to the first - we recommend experimentation alongside careful checking of insights to see what works best.

To your third question, we see success from businesses that take both professional and personal photos. It really depends on your audience and which content they’re most interested in. Experimentation definitely is a good approach here too. Also, if your content skews more towards everyday moments, Instagram stories can be a great way to reach your audience. This feature helps businesses like yours show everyday content (e.g. behind the scenes, building your product, etc.) and make it interesting with stickers, drawing tools and other capabilities. See here for more information on Instagram stories. Our insights tool shows more information on your stories as well.

[Dentalpros]

Mike and Nick,

What is the average age group/demographics of instagram?

My focus clientlle are mainly between 65 and Older.

Is Instagram going to be a place for me and my business?

Sincerely;

John

Colorado Mobile Dental Services

[MikeBronfin]

@Dentalpros, hi there! We see users of all ages and backgrounds using Instagram - over 600 million users worldwide visit Instagram every month. Given this, we’ve seen businesses of all types on the platform - over 8 million businesses have converted to a business profile. See here for some examples of the variety of businesses which use Instagram each day.

We recommend you try creating an Instagram account, then convert to a business profile so you can see insights about how your content performs - see here for how to do so. This will allow you to understand which content is working.

Also, we recommend you search for other dentists on Instagram, and check which types of content they are posting. This may help give you inspiration for which types of content may work well for your audience.

Finally, if you have a website, we recommend you provide a link from there to your Instagram account - this will help your customers find your business on Instagram. Also, signs at your office with your Instagram account name may help your customers find your business.

[Dentalpros]

Mike B.

I greatly appreciate the insight along with the detailed informative supporting facts; youve added links that will allow me to dive deeper into the vast seas of informative visual learning resources....

Sincerely:

John C.K. 

[authorKMDoherty]

Hi! I'm author K. M. Doherty. I have two very popular magical fantasy books in the style of Harry Potter/Lord of the Rings. I've sold thousands of the books at book signing events and schools in New Hampshire. I've gotten tons of emails from kids (and adults) telling me "I'm their favorite author" and "I've read your books ten times, when's the next one comeing out?" etc.. I know there are many more kids nationwide that would love the books, but I don't know how to expose them to my work. How can an author best use Instagram to get exposure/create a buzz?   Thanks! KM

[Kpay]

Hi everyone! Heads up that we're about to get started posting answers to your questions. Feel free to reply if you're still looking for more info. 

[MikeBronfin]

@authorKMDoherty We recommend you check out our suggestions here! We’ve put these together after chatting to a variety of small businesses and seeing what works for them.

[nickd]

Here are some really great Square sellers to follow that are marketing their business well on Instagram:

• @Menottis (beautiful daily content for the coffee lover in all of us)
• @bubblypaws (fun, daily Instagram Stories from their business—aka dogs!)
• @sonsofsawdust (woodworking company taking its audience behind the scenes)
• @odellsstore (fantastic men’s boutique in London)
• @Hazel_boutique (great balance of marketing and personality)
• @bobaguys (live customer Q&A sessions on Wednesdays via Instagram Stories)
• @bluebottle (high-quality imagery and stories from a global coffee brand)
• @saltandstraw (who knew ice cream could be this descriptive?)
• @journeycoffeeco (South African owner creating daily content for his independent business)

Additional, check out this post with videos from some other non-traditional businesses in Australia.

[MikeBronfin · Accepted solution]

I know we had a few inquiries about account trouble, so if you ever need help with your Instagram account itself, check out our Instagram Help Center for answers to some of the common questions and issues that users have. 

Thanks so much for all of your questions and I hope Instagram can help your business grow!

[5SolasFarm]

I want to know if I can add more than one instagram feed (different names) on my website