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  • How long did it take you to grow your small biz IG?

    Posted by seohelper on October 20, 2020 at 7:55 am

    Background is we created a personal IG (non biz account) for our home-based bakery, and we’re currently focused on just one product before branching out into others, and I need help on how to grow this.

    We’re starting with word of mouth marketing with friends and family first, but I’m also trying to grow an IG presence to generate more orders from there. Problem is, traction is basically zero after 3 days of posting around lunch time or just slightly later, which I understand is typically the most optimal time to post.

    So for all you other people who started an IG for your side hustle, how long did it take you to get anywhere with it? Do you have any resources to recommend on how to properly craft an online strategy? Currently reading a lot of HootSuite, but I can’t say it makes a lot of sense, how does one inject personality into pastries and cakes? Most of the accounts that I see have a lot of very loud copy and pretty pictures of their stuff.

    A different idea I had to create more ‘personality’ is to let my partner’s ‘punny’ sense of humour take charge of the type of pictures we post up and the copy. Has anyone seen this work? Not sure if this will come off as gimmicky.

    tl,dr; Side hustle IG is going nowhere at the moment, looking to learn from your experience.

    pri_ps replied 3 years, 5 months ago 1 Member · 2 Replies
  • 2 Replies
  • thespiceraja

    Guest
    October 20, 2020 at 3:50 pm

    So the goal sounds like you want to grow your orders from using IG. Cool, what hashtags are you using / how are you interacting with your local audience?

    The mistake that local brands do often is using global hashtags. There is a misnomer that having a large following equals sales. It doesn’t. Ex. You have a following of 15k but majority of those people are international but you live in the US, the chances they are going to buy your baked goods isn’t super high. I see examples like this constantly.

    So how do we find local people? I recommend exploring points of interest or geotags that people in your city would know about. Is there a local highschool mascot that gets tagged on IG a lot, or a point of interest that gets geo tagged a lot? Go to those hashtags and either follow / like / comment on the audiences posts. Post content that is easy for people to interact with. Collab with local businesses using their ingredients or an homage to a classic dish. It’s these types of strategies that build quality engagement which ultimately leads to sales.

    This is almost the exact strategy that I used to grow my small business page from 0 to 1500 real, niche followers in a short amount of time. For accounts like this (I am also in the food space) having a niche but activated audience is super important.

  • pri_ps

    Guest
    October 20, 2020 at 9:15 pm

    I consult businesses, F&B including, on how to grow their presence through social media and here are a few pointers to help you on your social media journey.

    1. Set your profile to public
    2. Have a minimum of 6 photos on your profile to begin with. Preferably 9
    3. Use relevant hashtags both popular global ones and things right up your niche and widely used in your locale.
    4. Follow accounts in your niche who operate around your locality. See what they are doing and replicate the same
    5. Make sure your images are crisp and the colours are punchy and vibrant. Instagram has made a few changes recently were the account recommends posts to others based on how well the Image and the content is curated.
    6. Continuing with the above point. Get a good backdrop that you can set at the back while taking pictures.
    7. Like the person above has pointed, pls comment and engage with posts that are part of your locality
    8. Participate in baking challenges that come up , this also helps your account getting more eyeballs