You’re here because you see the value in boosting your social profile, either for your personal brand gain or to help your business. The power of social media is huge and if you’re worried it’s too late to jump on the bandwagon or see fast results, fear not! Newer platforms are seeing surges in organic growth and the more established are changing tack to keep up. It’s a case of laying a bit of ground work, finding your voice and adjusting strategy to reach YOUR core audience.

1. Set your goals and intentions

Goals

• Your #1 goal should be to establish yourself in the life, mind and heart of your followers. Everything else will follow. And you’ll know it’s working because of your ENGAGEMENT.
• Engagement is likes, shares and comments.
• Remember that likes AND number of followers on their own are vanity metrics – they don’t tell you anything. What you want is QUALITY of followers, and that means ENGAGEMENT.
• Why? Loads of followers who don’t care about you is useless!

• How are you going to get this done? Remember – slow meaningful growth leads to higher engagement and longevity. The journey to your goal can be long, so make sure you’re enjoying it! Work out what is genuinely achievable – frequency, length, quality, level of interaction.
• Work to your strengths – e.g. if you’re good at talking but not so much writing, do a lot of video and reels.
• P.S. getting better at video editing on apps is essential! This is NOT going away, and familiarising yourself with it is simple.

2. Set your pillars

These are the things that hold up your whole strategy – and help you reach your goals. They are the things that DEFINE YOUR UNIQUE HOW and should dictate every story you tell, both in words and images.

Let’s look at an example. For an imaginary cookie brand, the pillars could be:

• Always the best ingredients
• Impeccable technique
• Beautiful experience from packaging to plate
• Flowers everywhere
• Affordable luxury

What are yours? Write them down. They are key to the consistency, look and feel of your message.

3. Remember the three ‘V’s

VALUE

• This is your BRAND VALUES and also the VALUE that you bring to your audience. Both of these spark personal investment in your audience, and that’s key to growth.
• VALUE is crucial. We can’t assume that people will have any loyalty without being given something in return (and we’re not talking competitions and give-aways). That something is an emotional connection.
• Always ask what you can GIVE your audience, rather than how you can manipulate them.
• You create value for your audience by: expanding horizons (tips, insights, aspiration), creating relatability (feel heard & seen, interests are being addressed), and building community (feel part of something).
• Remember the abundance mindset – don’t be afraid of giving away what you have in terms of knowledge etc. There isn’t a finite amount of it!

Your BRAND VALUES are what give you authenticity, and what set you apart. To connect to your audience on an emotional level, authenticity and humanity is key. Your brand values should be the guiding force in every decision, both in terms of content and your wider business. Being consistent in your values will mean that your message and your voice are consistent – and consistency is key to success.

Use this sheet to start (add more if you need).

• First outline your values from a BUSINESS perspective. Grab a sheet of paper and write down two key values, and why they drive you. Specify two examples of how they are manifested in the day-to-day running of your company.
• Now outline your values from a PERSONAL perspective. Again, write down two key values, and why these are the key values that drive you. Specify two examples of how they are manifested in the way you operate and interact with others.

Keep checking in with what you’ve written. Are you staying true to your intention at all times?

VOICE

This is the unique way in which you showcase your brand and interact with the audience. Both how you look and also how you sound. it’s about TONE and MESSAGE, and how you communicate your values and story. That’s what helps you stand out from the crowd.

Your goal is to tap in to how your audience FEELS about your account, not how they THINK about it. Creating that atmosphere is all about tone of voice.

It’s helpful to personify your brand, how would they speak, act, dress? Taking a really deep dive will not only help you to define the brand voice but it will also help anyone in the team that you might need to train.

Three things to think about:

• Make sure you’re speaking to a HUMAN. Who invented that weird Instagram-speak “IT’S FRIYAY, WHO’S HUNGRY?! LIKE AND SHARE, TAG A FRIEND”. If you wouldn’t speak like that in real life, don’t put it in a caption!
• Remember it should be a conversation, not a megaphone. No one likes being shouted at. It’s SOCIAL media, people!
• What makes you a great friend?! Think about those qualities, and how you convey them to people you love.

VISIBILIITY

• That’s making sure that your content is being SEEN!
• Working with the algorithms can be tricky – there are a lot of myths out there, and the algorithms change all the time. But there are some certainties (below).
• Instagram favours and pushes content that it views as VALUABLE, which means content that viewers linger on. That means using carousels to encourage interaction, and also shorter video (the longer the proportion of time someone spends on your content, the better – so if you have a 10 second video and someone watches it for 8 seconds, Instagram will view it as successful. If someone watches 8 seconds of a 60 second video, it will view it as poor content and de-prioritise it.

4. Show the machine who you are!

HASHTAGS

• Hashtags are a FILING SYSTEM. They mean that users can find your content filed under their interest, and you can affiliate yourself with themes.
• The theory is that using a mix of broad interest, medium interest and niche interest hashtags will direct new, interested users to your account. BUT there are more effective growth strategies – like interacting with your own and others’ audiences.
• So why bother using hashtags? They’re visually distracting, and if they don’t contribute to much growth then is it worth it?
• The most useful reason for using hashtags is that Instagram’s bots rely on them to identify the type and interest field of content you’ve created, particularly on reels, and pushes your work in front of brand new accounts. That’s definitely worth it!

SEO

• Instagram and TikTok use Search Engine Optimisation to identify and push your content. That means that your BIO should contain key words that are relevant to your audience and will help Instagram understand who you are.
• Your CAPTIONS should also contain relevant words, as these are also picked up (it’s not just the hashtags! Your content is then more likely to be pushed to people who have shown interest in similar accounts / subjects.

5. Frequency

Another algorithm: The more you post, the more the platform favours your content. And of course, the more you post the more you embed yourself in the minds of your audience.

But of course it’s a balance. You have to have a consistent rate which works for YOU. If you set yourself unrealistic goals, panic sets in and you won’t do anything at all! This is where a schedule is so important.

PUTTING TOGETHER A SCHEDULE

• Set aside a few hours every couple of weeks for planning. You can plan ahead a few weeks or months with any big events you have coming up – new menus or releases, or anything that people need to know about – holiday opening hours etc. Put those in first – that makes the non-negotiable skeleton of your week/month/year.
• Then fill in the fun stuff, which you can move around if you need to. Think back to your VALUES and PILLARS sheets to come up with your content, planning ideas which really reflect that.
• If you know you’re way too busy during service or during your day to take high-quality snaps, diarise a half-day every month where you can gather a picture bank which you can feed out over the following weeks.
• There are some really great pre-scheduling apps out there which let you post across multiple platforms and will automatically post your content for you (no more struggling during service). We like Later, Hootsuite and Planable.

6. Creating engaging content

Do you need professional images?

• Find a few places with REALLY GOOD light and a great colour / texture background. Those are your DIY photo booths!
• If you don’t have somewhere that fits the bill, gather together some backgrounds – tiles, planks etc.
• Get yourself clued up with video editing apps. We like Splice and Inshot.
• And if you do use professional shots, which is super useful for bulk pre-scheduling, don’t make them look overly staged!

7. Boosting engagement

Maintaining engagement is tougher than ever now, with everyone fighting to cut through the noise. Just keep starting conversations, and be part of other people’s conversations too! And remember – stories are some of the best ways to increase engagement as people can respond with a lot more ease, especially if you’re using the interactive stickers.

Some engagement wins:

• Focus on carousels, video and reels, and yes – on reels, trending audio does help.
• Keep your video content under 12 seconds long means that people are more likely to watch to the end – and Instagram views that as a more valuable piece of content.
• COMMENT on other people’s content (obviously without spamming!!). That makes you more visible, and shows others what you’re about.
• Make sure you’re posting at the times that your audience is most active and receptive. This can take a bit of trial and error – and remember that different post types can work better at different times of day.
• Cross-pollinate as much as possible, Tag, share and collaborate with likeminded accounts – particularly on Stories, where people can share your content much more easily.

And finally…

Be true to yourself

• All of this is worthless if your account isn’t truly reflective of who you are! It’s not sustainable and it’s not engaging!
• YOUR uniqueness is YOUR best selling point. That’s how you’ll find your best, most engaged audience.
• Self-mythologise! It might sound egotistical, but it just means looking at all your awesome qualities from someone else’s perspective. Big them up, because YOU’RE SPECIAL.

Keep it healthy

Think about the three Ws: WHAT, WHY NOW, WHAT ELSE. Every time you go to pick up your phone ask yourself:

• WHAT are you picking it up to do?
• WHY NOW – is it practical (looking at bus times),  situational (you’re waiting for a friend and bored) or emotional (you want validation)?
• WHAT else could you do right now instead of checking your phone?

If you do end up looking at it that’s alright, the point is you have explored other options and it is a conscious decision. Stop, breathe and be, then decide if you need it.