Your Instagram profile in fifteen minutes
Most people find your Instagram after they have already heard of you. It only has to answer three questions.
The short version
Say what you do and where in the bio, point the link somewhere useful, and make sure the first nine squares show the work. The profile matters more than the posting schedule.
Here is the thing almost nobody says about social media for local businesses: most of the value is in the profile, not the posting.
Someone hears about you, searches your name, and lands on your page. They are not scrolling for entertainment - they are checking you are real, seeing what your work looks like, and finding out whether you are still trading. Three questions, answered in about ten seconds.
Get that right and an account you post to once a fortnight still does its job. Get it wrong and posting daily will not save it.
The bio
You have very little room, so spend it on facts rather than atmosphere.
- What you do and where, in the first line. “Barber · Headingley, Leeds” does more than any slogan.
- One thing that makes you specific - walk-ins welcome, open Sundays, thirty years in the same shop.
- How to book or ring, plainly.
- Your name field is searchable, so put your trade in it as well as your business name. That is the field people miss.
Skip the emoji ladder, the inspirational line and the list of hashtags. None of them answer the three questions.
The link
One link, pointing at the thing you most want to happen. For most local businesses that is the booking page or the quote form, not the homepage.
If you genuinely need several - book, menu, directions - a link page is fine, but be aware each extra tap loses people. Two links used is better than six offered.
The first nine squares
That first screen is your shop window, and it should contain work. Not quotes on coloured backgrounds, not stock images, not a graphic saying “Happy Friday”.
Nine photographs of what you actually do - the cut, the plate, the finished bathroom, the shopfront - tell a visitor everything they came to find out. If your last nine posts are announcements, a visitor learns nothing about whether you are any good.
Try this now
Open your own profile on a phone, as a stranger would. Cover everything below the ninth square. Can you tell what the business does, where it is, and whether the work is good? That is the whole test.
Highlights, and what to keep there
Highlights are the permanent row under the bio, and they are the closest thing Instagram has to website navigation. Four or five, named plainly, covering the things people ask:
- Prices or a menu
- Before and after, if your work shows that way
- Where to find us - the outside of the building, parking, the door
- Hours
- Reviews - screenshots of your Google reviews
Use covers in your own colours from your identity rather than whatever frame the app grabbed. It takes ten minutes and it is the difference between a profile that looks tended and one that looks abandoned.
A few common questions.
How often should a local business post?
Less often than the advice usually says, and consistently. Once a week, forever, beats daily for a fortnight and then nothing for three months - a dormant account reads as a closed business. If once a fortnight is what you can sustain, do that.
Should I use a business account or a personal one?
A business or creator account, because it gives you the contact buttons, the category under your name, and some idea of what people did after seeing a post. There is no cost.
Do hashtags still matter?
Much less than they used to, and far less than location. For a local business, tagging your actual location and being in local searches does more than a stack of generic tags. A few relevant ones do no harm; thirty look like spam.
What do I post if my work is not photogenic?
The people and the process. Plumbing is not photogenic; a clean install, a tidied-up site and a van outside a job are. Before-and-afters work for nearly every trade, and faces work for all of them.
