Everyone is so sensitive to the word SELL or selling or being “salesy”. We live in a world where products are pushed in our faces all day long. On social media, television, billboards, emails, at work, etc. And we’ve all had those really obnoxious and annoying sales people, or the generic MLM copy and paste messages (I can say that as I have been a part of an MLM), or the people who just won’t leave you alone. But at the end of the day, if you are a company with a product or service you are selling something to someone no matter how you position it.
Social media can be one of your biggest advocates in terms of generating sales. I want you to stop thinking about sales as an icky term or feeling. At the end of the day, you want to build your know, like and trust factor to make selling seem more like sharing.
Right now, Instagram is one of the most popular platforms for with more than 1 billion users. So how do you get noticed? How do you build a successful Instagram platform that people want to follow? I am going to tell you the secrets to “selling” yourself on Instagram, but first things first, you have to make sure your profile is set to PUBLIC for these tips to work:
Write the Perfect Bio
When you write your Instagram bio, you really just want it to be easy to read and quickly give people an overview of who you are, what you do and how you can help them. Under the Name section, you can customize however you like, but use a name that you want people to identify you as and use keywords for what you do. For example, my name is written as: Katelyn | Online Biz Manager. You do have a character count so you have to be strategic, but this is quick and digestible so that the first thing people see is my name and what I do.
Under your bio section, use a hashtag relevant to your industry and then bullet out (and spice it up with Emoji’s) what you help people do, your mission statement, or what types of products you sell. My bio reads:
#OBM & Get Your SH!T Together Strategist👊🏼
I help successful entrepreneurs:
❗️Organize
❗️Prioritize
❗️Strategize
Finally, make sure you include a link to your website, or multiple links through Linktr.ee.
Set up a Linktre.ee
Unfortunately, Instagram only lets you list one link at a time in your bio. This is definitely less than ideal as most companies have many things they want to direct you to: website, blog, email list, shop, etc. and it can be a pain trying to change the link every day when you make a new post.
Luckily there is a solution. Linktre.ee is a website that allows you to use one link to pull up a page where you have buttons that link to everything you want to share with your followers. The best part? It’s free. If you want to customize it a bit more, add animation to some links, remove the Linktr.ee logo and upgrade the analytics, there is a paid version. But if you’re just looking for something simple to give you the ability to share multiple links, the free version will work just fine. I love having the ability to see what links are most popular and engage my followers in many different ways.
Use Hashtags and Engage with Your Target Market Engagement
Using hashtags in your posts are a #GAMECHANGER when it comes to increasing your post engagement and exposure. You want to make sure your hashtags are targeted. Instagram allows you to have up to 30 hashtags on each post. Make a list of all the phrases and hashtags you think your ideal clients would be searching for. What do you do? What do you enjoy? What services do you offer? Then go search Instagram for the different hashtags and you’ll see all the variations and the number of times each hashtag has been used.
Make a list of 25-30 hashtags to use consistently on your posts. But when making this list you don’t want to pick the MOST popular hashtags with hundreds of thousands or millions of posts. Because that likely means your post will be quickly lost on the explore page of Instagram and your potential clients won’t be as quick to find you. Do a mix of 5-10k + 20-100k hashtags on your posts. For example, #onlinebusinessmanager has 13.6k posts, but OBM has 43.5k. You want to mix these up, as well as including your own personal hashtag in there such as your biz name too.
Part TWO of hashtag engagement includes then searching these hashtags and scrolling through them and liking and commenting on people who use these hashtags, as well as clicking on a photo, analyzing the profile of the person who posted it - are they reputable? Do they have a larger audience that you could benefit from? Because if they seem similar to you, you can always go and look at who likes and comments on their photos and then engage with their followers as they would likely be interested in your stuff too if they’re interested in theirs. Engagement is KEY. Try to do this a few times a day and you’ll slowly see your follower count grow ORGANICALLY without using a bot or service to grow your following. Which btw, just don’t do that. Put in the work and be targeted vs. trusting a bot or service to do the work for you.
Using IG stories / Highlights
Instagram stories is a gold mine. It allows you to give people a “real person” behind the pictures. You are humanizing yourself in a world where social media can seem so “fake” or “picturesque”. Share VALUE on Instagram Stories. Show examples of your products or services - in what you do for your clients day in and day out. THEN save these videos to your HIGHLIGHTS. This is where you can essentially save your stories for people to watch past the 24 hour mark.
Think about the things you want to share most in your business. Probably tips of some kind, maybe product photos, or information on your latest course offering and then merge that into the results your clients are getting from your course, etc. Stories are a way to build that trust factor to show you are the real deal and not just some girl (or guy ;)) that is trying to sell someone something on the internet and not delivering value.
TAKE GOOD PICTURES GUYS.
Who here loves to look at grainy, blurry, dark photos? No one? Didn’t think so. Y’all. Instagram is a PHOTO app. So make sure you are taking and sharing GOOD PHOTOS. Invest in some brand photography. You can likely find someone to do a brand/lifestyle shoot for $150-250 in your area. Maybe cheaper if you commit to doing them consistently (I recommend 4-6 times a year) and can negotiate a deal. These photos are SO worth it. You can use them on your website, blog, email marketing and over and over again on social. They make you look PROFESSIONAL and people stop the scroll for GOOD PHOTOS. They won’t even READ your content and will scroll right past a shitty photo. It’s WORTH IT.
I am not saying to get rid of the selfies or at home photos forever. Hell, some of my top engaging posts are selfies. BUT when you take photos on your iPhone, make sure you have good lighting. I invested in a Diva Ring light on amazon and it is SO worth it. The lighting is NIGHT AND DAY difference.
Outside of having professional photos and good lighting, look into downloading an Instagram Preset. You can buy them from like $4-7 on Etsy. All you have to do is download Adobe Lightroom CC and load in your preset. What this is, is a custom “filter” that is pre-saved to this app. You connect your camera roll to the app and then select the photo you want, apply the preset and BOOM, a beautifully filtered photo in 5 seconds. This helps to streamline your feed and all of your photos have the same look and feed. Trust me when I say, PHOTOS ARE EVERYTHING.
BE CONSISTENT. TELL A STORY. OVER AND OVER AGAIN.
Consistency, consistency, consistency. How many times do I have to say it? You need to be consistent on social media. I advise sharing every day at least once to Instagram Monday-Friday. If you don’t want to post on the weekends that is totally fine and up to you, but engage at times when your audience will be searching and watching. Test out different times in your posts and see what one seems to get the most traction. Over time you’ll be able to tell what times are best for you. But if you dont post consistently, you’ll never know.
Along with consistency in posting, be consistent in sharing your story. What IS your story? Were you broke and then you manifested a 6-figure salary? Were you homeless and now you’re a millionaire? Are you a college dropout turned success? Did you leave the corporate world to create a thriving, passion-filled business? SHARE IT. Only about 5% of your newsfeed sees each of your posts. So tell your story and build the trust that YOU built your business and they can too, or you had XYZ problem and your product SOLVED IT. Sometimes you have to repeat yourself a few times for people to actually hear it.
Business Page
If you are running a business on Instagram, make sure your page is set to business. To do this, go to your page and click the three lines on the top right, then click settings on the bottom. Then scroll down and make sure it says Business Settings (if so, then you have a biz account, but if not it will likely say something like switch to business account). You have to have a business Facebook page to link it to, but otherwise you’re good to go. This gives you the ability to look more in depth at how your posts are performing, audience insights and account growth, clicks and more.
Do you feel like you’re in on the “secret” now? Or maybe you were hoping it was something magical that would grow your account to 100k quicker? Nope. That’s because there really is no secret or special sauce. It’s those small things that you have to do consistently to show up and stand out against everyone else in your industry. At the end of the day though, if you’re doing these things consistently, your audience will find you and your sales will grow. Now that doesn’t seem too salesy, does it?
I hope this was helpful for you! If you want even more great content delivered right to your inbox, sign up for my email list here.
Katelyn Hamilton is an Online Business Manager and Get Your Sh!t Together Strategist. She helps busy entrepreneurs organize, strategize and prioritize their business to go from overwhelmed to out-in-front.
After spending 6 years in the corporate world working with multimillion dollar companies, top-rated chefs and celebrities, she launched her own business to find more flexibility and freedom. She matched her corporate salary in just one year of starting her business.
Katelyn is also a soon-to-be wife, stepmom, dog mama of two furry friends, fitness lover, sports fanatic (Go Dawgs) and dreams of living at the beach.
Click here to book a free call to talk more about your business goals and to see if hiring an OBM is the right fit for you.
