Lunch and Learn: How to grow your small business brand on Instagram

In this Lunch and Learn, Enterprise Nation's Lorna Bladen speaks to Martha Keith, founder of Martha Brook London, about how Martha achieved growth for her lust-worthy stationery brand on Instagram and built a 50,000+ following.

With 81% of people using Instagram to research products and services and 130 million users tapping on shopping posts every month, you may ask how your own small brand can cut through the noise and generate sales?

Martha's key tips for using Instagram

• 💁 Keep it real. As a small business founder, adopt a personable, relatable tone. It’s much more powerful and engaging.

• 📅 Prioritise your Instagram. Planning makes such a big difference. Mix up the type of posts for variation. For example, behind-the-scenes insights Vs a product promotion.

• 📲 Use powerful apps. Experiment with Preview, Later or Planoly. They can support your content planning, scheduling and curation.

• 🔄 Keep it consistent. Your brand feed needs to have a cohesive aesthetic that reflects your brand identity and values.

• 👂Be reactive. Planning your Instagram content in advance, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be reactive to wider events.

• 🎉 Have fun. If you enjoy it and don’t take it too seriously, this will come across. Getting people excited will help drive sales conversions.

• 💬 Be sociable. Use Instagram as a channel to build the relationship first. That then gives your permission to talk about your products and services.

• 🔍 Adopt a test and learn approach. Use Google Analytics to track the volume of traffic from Instagram to your website and what users are buying. Using trackable links (UTMs) will help with this.

• 🛒 Use the Instagram Shopping feature. 72% of users make purchase decisions based on Instagram content, compared to 23% on Facebook and just 3% on Twitter.

• 🎁 Instagram rewards feature usage. Instagram is no longer a photo-sharing app, according to Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram. Try all the new features that lean into entertainment and video, particularly Reels.

Final tip! Make sure you follow @marthabrookldn and @e_nation.

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