How to Manage Your Instagram When it Takes Off
You see it all the time. Businesses languish with a couple of hundred followers on Instagram for months on end, only to suddenly find that they’re inundated with followers and, frankly, don’t quite know how to cope. It might be that an influencer has shared your company or that your recent marketing drive has been successful on the social media front. Either way, more followers means more responsibility to curate your Instagram professionally – and here’s how you’ll do it to best serve your customers.
Hire a Professional
First thing’s first: if you want to professionally manage an Instagram profile, you’re going to need a social media expert to do it. Hiring one is simple: there are plenty of young professionals out there who are adept at managing multiple channels at once and know their way around internet memes, subcultures, and features better than your most on-trend employee. Get this new individual on board to help you make the most of your newfound exposure.
Moderation
This professional will, among other things, make sure that the influx of users to your profile isn’t going to be leaving unpleasant comments on your photos. Moderating comments is an important task for any business on social media, as bad comments can leave a sour taste in the mouth of other followers, customers and consumers. Don’t delete negative feedback necessarily – just those unpleasant remarks that violate the boundary between feedback and bile.
Curation
Now that you have a following, you’ll also need to decide how to keep them all engaged. There are a couple of methods to consider here. One is to line up a huge amount of content and publish it intermittently – perhaps every other day – to present a regular stream of content to your audience. The other is to go light on the updates to your Instagram photos but invest heavily in the stories part of your feed. This latter option gives your company a chance to show off its more human face, with behind-the-scenes shots of workers in the office helping to prove your company is just as human as the users that follow you.
Customer Service
Another new feature of amassing followers fast is that they’ll get in contact with you via your Instagram account. If you’re not prepared to deal with these queries and complaints, and you leave them unanswered, you’ll come across as unprofessional and not worthy of trust. As such, it’s hugely important that you find a way to respond on social media fast – and a great way to do that is via a chatbot. It’ll respond instantly to queries, directing customers or followers to the most appropriate resource – even if that’s a human ready to pick up the phone.
Keep it Fun
Remember that people aren’t on Instagram to learn your quarterly sales figures or to see how your exposition stall went down with other industry clients. They want fun, color, and personality. Don’t alienate your new audience by suddenly pivoting to boring posts: give them what they want, and they’ll remain a useful customer base for months and years to come.
Make the most of new Instagram followers with these five tips.
