This month, the editor in chief and content manager of Dirty Boots & Messy Hair, the community for adventurous photographers, is answering your most pressing Instagram marketing questions all month long in our Ask An Expert series.
Your Instagram marketing questions answered
Hi everybody, Gina here. I’m the editor-in-chief and content manager over at Dirty Boots & Messy Hair, and I’m here on HoneyBook’s Ask an Expert series to talk to you about Instagram marketing.
Sophie wants to know…
How do you think of captions?
Well, Sophie, before you do any kind of online communication, it’s so important to have your basics down. You’re gonna wanna know, what is my brand all about, what is the voice of my brand, what does it sounds like, who am I talking to, who’s my audience.
And then once you really have that, ask yourself, what would be helpful to my audience?
What topics are they interested in? What do they want me to talk about, and then, you move on to look at the individual caption, and really ask yourself, all right, how do I bring my message across?
Talk about a personal experience that you’ve had that relates to the topic that you wanna talk about that day, and then you talk about what you learned from that personal experience, and then you always, always end with a call-to-action to get your followers engaged and start a conversation.
So, having that framework can be really, really helpful, and it’s gonna make things a lot easier, especially if you need a little spark to get the creative juices flowing.
Christina wants to know…
How do you do content planning?
Well, Christina, for content planning I think it’s so important to separate the creative process from the actual planning stage, meaning that when you come up with ideas everyone should feel free, and it should be playful, and should be funny. We, for example, have a couple of Trello boards that can be filled all the time with random ideas whenever one of us comes across something, and then the actual planning usually happens about one to two months in advance.
We’re pretty short notice with that, but we’ve just realized that it really works for us as a team. You’ll be shocked to find out that the Instagram photos that you see, like the actual photos in the feed, are often decided upon the morning of that day. Yeah, that might be a little short notice for you, but just give it a go, and then there really is no right or wrong.
Find a system that works for you. Try a lot, and then stick with that.
Scarlet wants to know…
How do I turn followers into paying clients?
Well, Scarlet, one thing that I see happening all the time is that, for example, wedding photographers use Instagram as their main marketing platform to attract couples, but what they do is they present themselves in a way that looks really cool to other photographers, but doesn’t necessarily speak to couples. They use like a language, or they talk about certain situations that couples can’t really connect with or maybe not even know what they’re talking about.
So, really, really make sure that your product is aligned with the audience you’re talking to, and then once you’ve made sure that this is the case, get your followers involved.
Be consistent, build that trust, and what is very, very important, communicate why you are so proud of the product and why you think it’s really gonna benefit them.
All right, guys, that was it for today. I’ll see you around here next week. I’m very much looking forward to your questions.
Additional Instagram Marketing Resources
Want to learn more about Instagram marketing and turning followers into paying customers? Get our Ultimate Guide to Instagram for Business here.
Thanks, Dirty Boots and Messy Hair!
