bM expert: TOP 5 INSTAGRAM-GROWING TIPS

INSTAGRAM PLAYS A HUGE ROLE IN BUILDING & MARKETING A BRAND, BUSINESS OR PROFILE

we asked our business contributor Claire Aristides to share her top Instagram-growing tips – which can also be applied to your personal feed

Instagram is an exceptional channel to reach existing and new followers, and to share the journey of your brand or business. The ability to have a direct conversation with potential clients is both exciting and rewarding, it is an informal and relaxed forum where by you have direct access to customers and you receive feedback via likes and comments almost immediately.

Claire, creative director of @AristidesFineJewels @AristidesBridal and @BambinoDiamonds, knows this first hand and has used instagram to help build her brands. “Instagram is our key marketing tool for our three brands, and much time and focus is placed on capturing our brands story and sharing this visually.”

“For me as a designer, it has meant customers can ask us design questions and we can very easily answer their questions. It is a breakthrough to have such a direct, and accessible relationship with potential clients, and as a result lots of beautiful jewellery has been created for our customers.”

Here are Claire’s top five brand/profile building instagram tips…

1. Download and use the VSCO Cam App

A little challenging to work out at first – but do persevere as it is well worth it. No image is posted on our feed that hasn’t had the VSCO CAM touch. Essentially it is an app packed with a variety of incredibly good filters (which VSCO calls “Presets”) and once you’re finished editing, you can upload your photo to any social network. By using the same filters in VSCO CAM you can very easily keep a consistent look and feel to your posts.

Create imagery that tells a story.

2. Create beautiful & consistent imagery

It’s about beautiful images !!!! So get snapping, learn some basic photography skills such as the rule of thirds, lighting and image composition. Structure and consistency to your feed is very important – try to avoid posting random irrelevant images. Our @aristidesfinejewels feed has a colour flow to it … we work in predominately nine images of the grid in one main colour tone, then we move to the next colour.

 Create same colour flows

It’s time consuming but it has given our feed a completely unique feel. Using one main filter can also really make your feed stand out and have a creative flow to it. Some feeds like to desaturate their images creating a very matte like feel. As well as using VSCOCAM we also use the Structure, Highlights and Shadow effects that are within Instagram edit mode of an image – a little tweaking can really make a difference to your image.

We love love gold, and more gold …

It’s important to share your inspiration and creative influences as well, constant product posts can over saturate, so share what your vision and mood board inspo are for your brand.

3. Organise your content

Continually posting content is a job in itself, so it can get stressful thinking what to post, particularly if you don’t have a content plan. Some easy tips for curating and organising content, is to create folders within your iphone photo feed and categorise your images in these folders, or “favourite” images so you can easily and quickly find them.

4. Quality over quantity

Build a niche group that love to hear what you are up to. Our follower count (44,500) is modest compared to some other brands but we have built a multi-million dollar business and 80 % of sales are attributed to Instagram. So don’t focus too much on the number of fans, its more about creating a loyal following that gets you and you get them.

Create signature posts … ie we have coffee with the jewels post once a week.

5. Hashtags can work !!

I see some feeds and they are full of hashtags, and I often think it looks a little needy! We found that hashtags made no difference at all to Instagram growth for @AristidesFineJewels … however for @aristidesbridal we really noticed an increase in followers if we used certain relevant hashtags such as #engagementrings #wedding #weddingbands – as bridal is such a niche area.

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Goodluck and I’d love to hear any questions you might have… {leave a comment below}
Claire
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