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!

[Horsenround]

1-2pm in which time zone?

I'm interested in the answers to both of the sample questions as well as dealing with Pinterest, perhaps down the road. Just getting started with Instagram.

[Kpay]

@Horsenround pacific time! I updated the original post - thanks for pointing that out. 

We can ask Nick to cover general getting started tips for Instagram too. Anything specific you're wondering about? What kind of business do you have? 

[Horsenround]

Thanks! Will add it to my calendar.

I sell fiber-related things mostly -- handspun yarn, hand-painted spindles, wool for spinning/felting, finished goods (shawls, hats, cowls, scarves, gloves, pouches, etc.), as well as teaching local classes. I have trouble getting people to connect with it online, as it's very much a touch-and-feel kind of thing. However, I seem to be getting more consistent responses on Instagram than on my FB business page with less work, but wondering if it's more about how FB manages information flow than the medium. Well, I have a lot of theories, but have only been doing this full-time (again) since last March and on Instagram since... maybe June or July? Wondering if I'm really making the best use of Instagram, as well, or there are features I haven't found yet.

[MikeBronfin]

@Horsenround - Facebook and Instagram are both great platforms for reaching your audience. We recommend you experiment and use the tools on both to understand what works best for your audiences on each. On Instagram, you can convert to a business profile to access insights about how your content is performing - see here for more information. For Facebook, we recommend you carefully watch Page Insights to learn more about what is / isn’t working with your Facebook audience - see here for more information on Facebook Page Insights.

In terms of features, we recommend you try out Instagram stories if you haven’t already - this is a great way to reach your audience with everyday moments from your business. We provide multiple tools to help make these moments fun and interesting - see here for more information.

[creatorofstuff]

Me, too. For some reason, I'm unable to successfully "like" anything consider this a "like" for the above post. 🙂 (The first reply.) 

[Sean]

Hi again @creatorofstuff. It looks like your like did work! Feel free to post any questions in advance for our Insta-Expert. 

[Sean]

Hi @AlexanderATL @AHC @impastoart @creatorofstuff 👋  I know that you all use Instagram for your businesses so I wanted to make sure you saw this thread.

[creatorofstuff]

Thanks, Sean, for alerting me. Always interested in ways to do IG better! 🙂 

[TheSpanishTin]

I'm a prepackaged food company (spices). What are some tips for foodpreneurs and using Instagram for marketing and sales? Our handle @TheSpanishTin. Thank you! Nydia

[MikeBronfin]

@TheSpanishTin - thanks for the post! It really depends on the specific of your business - e.g. where you operate, who your customers are, etc! What we recommend is your take advantage of all of the tools we offer to businesses, then experiment to see what works best. See here for how to convert to a business profile, which will allow you to see insights about your audience and which of your content is resonating with your business. Converting to a business profile will also allow you to promote your posts, so that you can easily reach new customers on Instagram with just a few quick taps.

[Parkbound]

Is there any chance that we will be able to use direct links in Instagram captions for better selling to our audience? Constantly changing my "link in bio" is confusing for my audience if I'm selling on different platforms or promoting something that is not directly on my website.

[MikeBronfin]

Hi there @Parkbound - at this time, link in bio is the main way to link to your website. You can also convert to a business profile to add a contact button, which allows users to call, text, email or get directions to your business - see here for more information.

Additionally, note that we’re beginning to offer shopping features to thousands of businesses that sell apparel, jewelry and beauty products. See here for more information.

[Utensil2012]

What is the best/easiest platform to sell directly from Instagram? 

[CurlUpandDye]

How should I use hashtags strategically? And should I put them in the original post or in a second comment, and how many should I include? 

[nickd]

@Utensil2012 Thanks for this question, it's definitely something they hear all the time from businesses! In November, Instagram began testing a new shopping experience that made it easier for people to find, evaluate, and track relevant products on the platform. They’ll be rolling out these shopping features to thousands of businesses that sell apparel, jewelry, or beauty products in the coming weeks.

👉 Check out more about how it works and what it looks like here.

[MikeBronfin]

We saw there was some interest (@Horsenround 👀 ) about the best times to post - it depends on your business!

We recommend businesses experiment with the time of day and week for posts, stories and Live content, to see when their content most resonates with their audience. There isn’t a single recommendation for all businesses - it depends on your audience. Note that Instagram stories are visible for 24 hours after posting. Square recently released a blog post of their own on this as well. Check it out here: How Savvy Businesses Use Instagram Stories

To learn more about when your audience is online, as well as how content posted throughout the week is resonating with your audience, we recommend you convert to a business profile to access insights. This will help in your experimentation with different times for posting and types of content to post. See here for more information.

[Horsenround]

Just figured out how to convert (the instructions in the link you provided are either a little out of date, or are iOS-specific. Looks like it's not available in a computer browser, either, but finally found it on my Android, and discovered how to finish connecting it to my FB page as well. Thanks!

[The-Coffee-Mug]

@nickd When you first attempted to grow the Squares social media presence, which platform did people respond to the most? Which social media channel do businesses seem to prefer? 

@MikeBronfin If there was one tip that you could give us when using Instagram for increasing sales, what would it be? 

[nickd]

@The-Coffee-Mug Thanks for the question! When I first started at Square, our social media was a bit neglected, so a lot of the work in the beginning was revitalizing our channels by creating a constant stream of educational and engaging content for our sellers. It’s a lot of work, but anything to help inspire them and also help them grow is worth the time.

For Square, Facebook continues to be the most successful channel from a seller engagement perspective—we share tons of articles and information with tips and tricks to run a business more effectively, and you all seem to really take to those pieces of content 🙂

Instagram is my favorite channel to create content for because it’s where we are able to really showcase our amazing sellers and tell the stories of their businesses.

[MikeBronfin]

@The-Coffee-Mug Converting to a business profile is a great way to make your business more successful on Instagram - see here for how to do so. A Business profile allows users who visit your business’ profile to learn more about your business, and allows you to access insights to learn more about your Instagram audience and which of your content is resonating with them. Additionally, it allows you to promote a post to reach new customers on Instagram, and drive them to your website or store.