Building a Following on Instagram

2. Brand Story and Your Staff

A resource for the lesson How to Get More Instagram Followers
A worksheet for the video Engaging Your Team

Marketing channels

Consider which of the following marketing channels you’ve got available and are using to make people aware

you’re on Instagram. After this exercise, ensure you make use of the ones you’re not yet using.

Available Used

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Tumblr

Google +

Email marketing

Menu board in venue

Posters or flyers

Staff engagement with customers

Screens in venue

Tip: There are different ways to make people aware of your Instagram presence through dif-
ferent channels. For your website, maybe including a social icon is enough, while on your menu
boards and flyers you can include your hashtag. On Twitter, you may post a Tweet saying “Did
you know we are also on Instagram? Follow us on....” Be creative and do what suits you best.

Identifying influencers

Identifying influencers can be a timely activity. Marketing tools like Union Metrics can automate this process for
you. If you want to do it manually however, there are a few things you can do:
• First, look at who’s already interacting with your content. Go through your notes and hashtag feed and click
through to interacting users’ profiles. Note down the handles of those with large followings.
• Search your city’s hashtag and look at quality food pictures. Are they posted by people with large followings?
Note them down. You can try combining the city with food, for instance #foodtoronto for more specific
results.
• Look at influencers on other social media. Bloggers are usually also active on Twitter, and the handy website

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 Followerwonk lets you search Twitter bios so you can put in ‘food blogger orlando’. From there you can do a
Google search to see whether they’re also on Instagram.
• Similarly, you can use Circle Count to find influencers on Google+. Simply put in your location and Circle Count
will give a list of Google+ profiles with large followings. You’ll have to filter through the list to find relevant people
here. From there you can try to see if these people are also on Instagram.
• Remember that you most likely want to find local influencers, so narrow your search down to your local area.

Write down the Instagram handles of at least 6 influencers you have found using the above methods.

VIP event

Running a VIP event can be a great way to get some Instagram traffic going. If you encourage your guests to
capture the experience and use your #hashtag when they post it on Instagram, it’s a great way to get your brand in
front of their audiences.
Have a brainstorming session about event ideas. Consider getting your team involved to get even more ideas. Use
the following questions to help you.
What theme ideas can you come up with for the night? (Example: in a restaurant, you can have a wine tasting or
new menu tasting or even something completely different like a poetry night for the city’s writers festival). Write
down your ideas below.

Who would you invite for the event?

What would you need for the night?

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What means will you use to invite people/market the event?

What hashtag do you want people to use during the event?

How will you encourage people to post on Instagram and use the hashtag?

Hashtags

If you want to find out more about which hashtags are right for you, you can use Geofeedia to search for popular
hashtags in your local area.

For a more general overview of hashtags, you can use the free tool Iconosquare. Put in a hashtag into the search bar
in Iconosquare, for instance ‘food’ and it will generate a list of related hashtags for you.

Building a Following on Instagram

A resource for the lesson How to Get More Instagram Followers

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