I’m no social media pro. SEO and Google Ads, otherly known as ‘Search Marketing’ is my thing. But out of curiosity and professional interest, I do partake in the phenomenon of social media. After all, it all falls under the ‘digital marketing’ umbrella for business owners like you and me.
If you’re a small business owner like myself, then no doubt managing your own social media falls into your hands.
Therefore today I thought I would take my 7 years of using Instagram and share with you the Instagram tips I have learned along the way.
Instagram launched not even 10 years ago. This photo and now video sharing social media app launched in July 2010 and in February 2012 I signed up.
Morgan and I were in London at the time. We were deciding whether we would stay and get jobs in this historical city or if we’d head back to Australasia after living in Dubai for 4 years.
While I was on the job hunt, I decided I’d create social media profiles for my wine blog, Travelling Corkscrew. I have to admit, for the first few months I actually just thought Instagram was a photo editing app. My first picture was a pile of pancakes and a bottle of wine as we were indulging in a sparkling wine breakfast. I didn’t actually think anyone else would see the picture but that I was editing it nicely to then upload to my blog.
5,180 posts later and having recently set up a second Instagram account for Grand Cru Digital, I feel it’s time to share some of the tips and tricks I’ve picked up on my Insta journey.
Prioritise interaction & engagement, not followers
It’s understandable to want to grow the number of people who follow you in order to grow your reach. But think about it this way, would you rather have 100 followers who couldn’t give two hoots about what you post or have 10 who interact with your posts and genuinely want something to do with your business?
I know which one I’d choose.
The thing is, building an audience who cares and maintaining that relationship takes work. Just like any relationship. If someone takes the time to comment and interact with your posts, make sure you acknowledge them by replying back.
Sadly, on Instagram there are a ton of spam comments, so my advice here is to just swipe left and delete their comment.
Have a reason to sign up and post
It’s easy to get caught up in the hype of social media. I’m guilty of losing my way and wasting a lot of time scrolling through post after post, just ‘because’.
But don’t sign up to Instagram just because everyone is. Before creating an account for your business on Instagram, you should have a reason for doing it. This could be for brand awareness to share your business story, or it could be to connect and build an online community for your customers.
Just like any digital marketing strategy, if you’re putting time and/or effort into Instagram, then you need to know why you’re doing it and how it is helping your business. Because otherwise that time and/or money could be better spent on another strategy which will help you meet your business goals.
Be adventurous and experiment
To be honest, I wasn’t going to set up an Instagram account for Grand Cru Digital as I didn’t think it would suit my line of work. But in fact, it’s been a great tool to help me establish GCD and has even helped some of my new clients come across me.
Therefore the saying ‘you never know until you try’ is definitely good advice. Experiment with different types of images, videos and give Instagram Stories a go.
At the end of the day, think about where your target audience hangs out, if they fall into the category of ‘grammers’ then Instagram might be worth testing out.
Get tips and advice from trusted professionals
Just like in the SEO world, in the social media world, there are a ton of free resources to learn more about Instagram. Therefore if you are self-managing your Instagram account it’s worth following a few social media gurus to keep up with the latest tips and tricks.
Some of my favourites that I follow either via their websites or social media channels are:
Did you know you can add up to 30 hashtags per post? You can either add these into your post caption or as a comment below your caption. There’s no one right way of doing it, so dabble and see what works best for you and your business.
Hashtags will help people find you. Therefore you want the hashtags to relate to your post and your business. When you go to type a hashtag it will give you figures for how many other posts have used that hashtag. This gives you an idea of how popular a hashtag is.
Plus don’t forget to use hashtags in your Instagram Story too, this will again widen your reach.
If hashtags are a bit daunting, then go through and check out what other accounts are doing to get a bit more of an idea of what to do. When it comes down to it, think about if someone was looking for posts using that hashtag, would your post align with what the hashtag says? Think of it as hashtag searcher intent.
Add your location
Just like adding hashtags, if you add your location into your post it’ll help more people see your content in the local area.
Fill in your profile
For people who are genuinely interested in following you and your business, they will no doubt check out your profile page. Therefore make sure this is up to date and shows your business in its best light.
If you have a website, make sure you add this to your profile. Also don’t be scared to use hashtags, tags or emojis.
Add paragraph spaces to your captions
It took me a long time to work out how people were able to add nice white spaces between their paragraphs on Instagram. After I finally took the time to do the research, I found out it’s some magical hidden characters.
Head over to this post by The Preview App to copy the special invisible characters 🙂
Tweet Insta posts as native photos on Twitter
I’ve shared this tip with a few fellow business owners already, and they love it! If you have connected your Instagram and Twitter accounts and you automatically post your Instagram posts directly to Twitter, then there is a way you make sure your images pull through to Twitter too.
Here are all the details on how to tweet your Instagram posts as native photos on Twitter.
I personally don’t do it for my business account, as I prefer to create native tweets, however, I do use it for my blog and it’s super handy.
In conclusion
So there you have it! These are a few of the tips I have picked up over the last 7 years. What’s your biggest Instagram tip? Share it with us all over on Instagram.
Casey is a professional search marketer in the fields of SEO and Google Ads. She started working in web content roles in 2012 in Perth and has brought together her technical skills and online creativity to bring small to large businesses online success.
Casey has a definite passion for the wine world. This led her to start a wine blog travellingcorkscrew.com.au in 2010, which now has over 20k visitors per month (mostly from organic search).
Now based in the Bellarine Peninsula - Geelong area in Victoria, Casey owns and operates Grand Cru Digital with her husband Morgan.
So appreciative of the work Casey has done for our business. She's a whiz and has fixed up our Google ads, which were left in a bad state by a previous agency, improved our ad ROI and is always so helpful with advice and keeping us up to speed on what needs to be done to improve our ads. Thank you Casey!
In a world where every second LinkedIn message and spam email I receive is from someone offering SEO services, it's hard to know who to trust - and Casey and Morgan are the only people I will confidently listen to! Generous with her time and incredibly knowledgeable, Casey helped us recently and our results now speak for themselves. If you're after SEO services, I wholeheartedly recommend Grand Cru Digital.
We are thoroughly enjoying working with Casey and Morgan at Grand Cru Digital. We have seen fantastic results with our organic search traffic, and they go above and beyond always. We have a much more refined SEO strategy now, and are building our content to aid in this with their recommendations. They are proactive and reliable and we would highly recommend Grand Cru for all of your SEO needs.
Casey is a dream to work with and her knowledge is exceptional. I would recommend Grand Cru Digital to anyone looking to supercharge their website performance.
Casey is a genuine pleasure to work with, friendly and incredibly knowledgable. Google makes a huge difference to our business and we feel confident knowing that Casey is taking care of our SEO and Ad needs. Wouldn't hesitate to recommend.
Casey from Grand Cru Digital is a dream to work with. Her breadth of experience and expertise with SEO, Google Ads and Strategies are fantastic and truly helped our Business. We are so glad to work with Grand Cru Digital.
We cannot thank Casey for all the help and hard work she has provided to us. She is on the ball, and we are totally confident to leave our Google ads in her capable hands.
Casey has been helping our business for the past couple of years and she is amazing! The consummate professional...always responds quickly, offers the BEST reporting, very proactive and is worth her weight in gold. I wish I could triple my budget and give it all to her!
I've worked with Casey over the last four years to improve and manage the SEO on Australia's South West's website and to say the experience has been positive would be an understatement. Casey and the Grand Cru Digital team are incredible at what they do. Grand Cru Digital is always responsive, with a quick turnaround on our queries and a willingness to explain and educate us throughout the process. It is clear that Grand Cru genuinely cares about our business and is always looking for the best solutions for our needs.
I've greatly enjoyed working with Casey over the past year on our SEO and Google Ads - I've especially enjoyed how detailed but, easy to understand her reports are every month. Thanks a bunch, Casey!
Casey and Morgan were wonderful and very refreshing to work with. I was seeing immediate results with the SEO implementations and changes to our website. I loved the communications via Google sheets, and our on-line meetings that kept us in the loop and informed and involved even though we are on opposite sides of the country. I also have loads of information to keep me on track now that I am flying solo with managing our SEO myself. I would highly recommend Grand Cru Digital to other wine businesses, and look forward to working with Casey and Morgan again in the future to keep our SEO humming along as we grow and expand, and change over time. Thanks again, Cathy
Casey is our one stop SEO powerhouse. Technically top-notch but also a pleasure to work with and very adaptable and accommodating when to working with my marketing team!
We've had a really great experience using Grand Cru Digital. Casey has been so lovely to work with and super responsive to all my correspondence and questions (even the silly ones from a novice in this area like myself). We've been through quite a few digital marketing agencies in getting our small business started but have had one of the best experiences with Casey by far so would definitely recommend.
Casey is more than just an amazing business owner. She is a wonderful business mentor and friend. I had the pleasure of working with Casey back in 2014, and now as I start my own business journey, Casey so kindly offers her time and advice and deserves more than 5 stars.
Casey and the team at Grand Cru Digital really cares about your business. I have used a couple of SEO companies in the past without success. We have finally found the Company that really hears us and works closely with us to achieve our desired goals. I highly recommend Grand Cru Digital!
Casey is the best! She is always on the ball and super helpful. Responds quickly and never leaves you waiting more than a day for a response. Highly highly recommend!
Being taken under the wings of GCD is one of the best things I have invested in. Casey and her dream team will get your website to where it needs to be and teach you all their tips and tricks. Thank you Casey, for all your support.
Casey is an absolute delight to work with. We've seen incredible results across our SEO and Google Ads, and would definitely recommend Grand Cru Digital. Casey really goes over and above for her clients. Thank you, Casey!
Although I have not yet used Casey's expert services, she is my go-to for knowledge, advice and SEO tips. She not only is amazing at what she does, she really knows how to run a good business.
Casey has been looking after my SME business SEO for more than 4 years, and I could not be happier with her efforts. She has been instrumental in growing our business, which she has come to know very well. She is on target with her suggestions, thoughts and ideas for us to continue to grow our online presence and we could not operate in the digital age without her expertise. Having Casey work 'side by side' with my business, allows me the time to get on with the business without the day to day time and worry of SEO. As far as I am concerned, Casey is an absolute star!
Casey is just the best. She always goes above and beyond and has helped me more times than I can count. The results I've seen since we've in the past year can be directly attributed to her efforts. She's a rock star. Highly highly recommend.
Casey is AMAZING. She always goes above and beyond what is asked for, she is super friendly and efficient. She has helped me set up google ads/analytics for my business and actually helped make sense of it all (not an easy task).
Working with Casey from Grand Cru Digital has been fantastic in continuing to enhance my on-line presence. Casey is innovative, knowledgeable, enthusiastic and incredibly efficient !
Casey is absolutely fantastic! She is knowledgeable and very thorough in her approach and really goes above and beyond. And she does it in a really friendly manner! I highly recommend Grand Cru Digital
So very happy with Casey's services for SEO on our new webpage. Casey went above and beyond to deliver us with the right targets for our audience and worked seamlessly between our project manager and website teams. We highly recommend Grand Cru Digital for all your SEO needs.
Very happy with Grand Cru Digital, so refreshing dealing with someone like Casey who is constantly proactive and creative to benefit your on line presence.
Casey at Grand Cru Digital is amazing! Efficient, effective and also friendly. Everything is executed promptly, results are shown and explained, accurate timeframes are advised and all done in a professional and caring manner. Thank you.
I highly recommend working with Casey if you need assistance with SEO & Google Adword campaigns. She was great to work with and knows her stuff. We are already seeing terrific results with my businesses online presence and brand awareness and l look forward to seeing this grow. I have learnt alot about SEO & Analytics in my time working with Casey which will be hugely benefitial...Thank you Casey you are a star!
Oh my god this women is seriously amazing! Thank you Casey for being such a pleasure to work with. Casey knows exactly what she is doing and was very happy to explain to me as if she was explaining it to a 5 year old haha cause I was way out of my depth. I'm so glad I paid for a service that was able to take control, give me exactly what I wanted and take away the stress. The extra bonus is how lovely Casey is and always willing to go the extra mile. Thanks Casey x
Casey has been wonderful to work with. She held our hand every step of the way and gave us so much information to manage our Google listing. With her knowledge and support we have managed to increase our online presence in an new location that we have been targeting. We couldn't recommend Grand Cru Digital highly enough. Thanks Casey!
Casey was a dream to work with - really efficient, incredibly informative. Huge relief to deal with someone competent in this area. Highly recommend! Thanks Casey!
Casey at Grand Cru Digital is extremely knowledgeable and experienced in providing SEO and online marketing support. She is brilliant to work with - she responds quickly to all queries and always provides well thought out strategies and suggestions. We have seen a marked increase in traffic to our site since having Casey advising us and her services are excellent value for money. We would highly recommend her to anyone wanting to improve their online presence.
Grand Cru Digital is fantastic to work with. Casey is pro-active, results driven and always making valuable suggestions to improve leads and traffic to our business. An excellent company to work with.
I didn't even know SEO existed till I spoke with Casey. A friend passed her detail on to me. After talking for about a minute I knew this girl was onto it. Casey explained the ins and outs of what she does and why I needed it. Honestly I had no idea about half of what she was saying, haha, but trusted her instantly. And that was one of the best decisions I made. This girl has opened my eyes to the world of GOOGLE. Casey works so hard behind the scenes to make sure everything is spot on. I cant thank her enough. She has quickly become someone I respect wholeheartedly but more importantly a great friend. I cant wait to see what she has in store next
Casey is very generous with her knowledge, extremely helpful and her customer service is second to none! Highly recommend for small businesses who want a personalised approach.
I hit a big problem with the traffic on my website, and every SEO specialist I spoke with wanted to sell me a big support package, whilst I felt I had a fire I needed to put out first. Casey suggested an SEO audit, and uncovered so much useful information in such a short space of time, and got everything back on track. She knows her stuff and was brilliant to work with.
Casey is terrific at what she does, one quick audit, and we were ranking organically on first page ! No google ad spend (yet- we might do that later) we couldn’t be more pleased.We are ranking higher than some of the “big boys” in our market.Thanks Casey!
Casey from Grand Cru Digital is amazing! Her expert knowledge of SEO and GOOGLE is second to none! Casey helps you to grow your business online, whilst providing a personalised service you can trust! Thanks Casey for all your help! I have loved having you as my new online marketing specialist!
I’m no social media pro. SEO and Google Ads, otherly known as ‘Search Marketing’ is my thing. But out of curiosity and professional interest, I do partake in the phenomenon of social media. After all, it all falls under the ‘digital marketing’ umbrella for business owners like you and me.
If you’re a small business owner like myself, then no doubt managing your own social media falls into your hands.
Therefore today I thought I would take my 7 years of using Instagram and share with you the Instagram tips I have learned along the way.
Instagram launched not even 10 years ago. This photo and now video sharing social media app launched in July 2010 and in February 2012 I signed up.
Morgan and I were in London at the time. We were deciding whether we would stay and get jobs in this historical city or if we’d head back to Australasia after living in Dubai for 4 years.
While I was on the job hunt, I decided I’d create social media profiles for my wine blog, Travelling Corkscrew. I have to admit, for the first few months I actually just thought Instagram was a photo editing app. My first picture was a pile of pancakes and a bottle of wine as we were indulging in a sparkling wine breakfast. I didn’t actually think anyone else would see the picture but that I was editing it nicely to then upload to my blog.
5,180 posts later and having recently set up a second Instagram account for Grand Cru Digital, I feel it’s time to share some of the tips and tricks I’ve picked up on my Insta journey.
