Using Instagram for Business

I'm not an expert on Instagram. I'm an expert on Twitter and very knowledgeable on Facebook, but Instagram has always been a bit of a mystery for me. And one thing I didn't understand was how businesses can use a social media platform that is mostly visual to generate business.

Recently, I learned that a friend of mine who is a psychological therapist generated a lot of business from Instagram. So, I studied what she was doing, and I decided I would do something very similar--as an experiment to see if I generate any leads or writing jobs.

I mean, I'm actually quite busy with writing clients, but I always want to learn something new.

I hired someone I know and trust to manage my Instagram account. My reasoning was along the lines of "the shoemaker has the worst shoes." I can do a great job with your social accounts, but I'm not necessarily going to do the best job with my own.

I hired Robyn Roste, who I know personally through PWAC, the Professional Writers Association of Canada. Robyn is very talented and creative, and she works about 1000 hours per week.

The result is that since hiring Robyn, I'm getting more traffic to my website and more subscribers to my blog--about one per day. This tells me that Instagram can be used for business, and there are plenty of people who spend time on IG.

I mean I know this isn't a big study with thousands of accounts but some anecdotal information based on one account. (I'm sure my scientist daughter will warn me about drawing conclusions from one case when she reads this.)

So, a warm thank you to everyone who has subscribed to my blog. I appreciate you and will try to give you interesting things to read.

For those in business who are wondering which social media platforms to have accounts on, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are the big three. The others may be useful, but I'd concentrate on these if you're going to use social media. And clearly, Instagram works for business, which may feel counterintuitive because of its primarily visual aspect.

The most important part in choosing social media platforms is to figure out who your ideal client is and where they are hanging out. Twitter is slightly different because it gets crawled a lot by the search engines, and that's why Twitter is so valuable. I don't tweet much, but I've been on there for years, so I'll stay there.

Oh. And my Instagram account is https://instagram.com/dearcynthiawriting. I expect to do some rebranding in the new year.