Manage Your Own Instagram Account

Planning on saving yourself a few dollars by managing your own Instagram account? If you’re in the early stages of your business (aka low on revenue) and/or you have the time to setup, manage, and maintain your own Instagram account, you probably should.

Here’s the most efficient way to do it…….

How to manage your own Instagram Business Account

1. Follow your outlined Instagram Strategy
   • Having a strategy works 10 times better than just randomly posting pictures at any given time. (Unless of course, you’re a celebrity or online influencer, and if so, post away.)
2. Create content quarterly (or in batches)
   • When you make pancakes for your family, do you do it one pancake at a time or do you get a large griddle and make several pancakes at once? If you’re efficient, you get a griddle and make many at once.
   • Do the same when it comes to creating content for your Instagram account. Creating several posts in one sitting will save you time in the long run, when you are too busy working on your business to stop and worry about a dormant Instagram account. Then, move on to the next step to ensure your fans don’t forget about you.
3. Use a 3rd party tool like Planoly, Hootsuite, or Buffer
   • Another timesaver like batching, using one of these social media posting tools can help you to:
     • schedule future posts
     • preview the images layout
     • manage multiple accounts (even linked accounts, like your Facebook business page)
   • Plus when you create quarterly content and schedule them out at the beginning of the Quarter, you can spend less time on social media and more time running your business, knowing that your content will be posted regularly over the next 2-3 months (depending on what you consider a quarter in your business).
4. Be Human
   • Don’t just schedule posts and forget your account. Yes, I just said to create your content in batches. Yes, I also said to schedule them out for 2-3 months so that you can focus on your business. BUT, I still want you to spend some time connecting with your fans who are also your customers.
   • Be an active user (or include as part of your strategy if someone else is managing your account), by scheduling some time to interact with your customers. Respond to comments. Follow other accounts. Post off schedule if you’re in the moment and took an awesome photo. Engage. Connect. Repeat.

There’s nothing wrong with managing your own social media accounts if you have the time and patience to do it, in addition to running your business and brand. It can be done and should be done in the early stages when you need to save revenue or have the bandwidth to fit this into your schedule.

Consider outsourcing when the time is right.

However, once it’s get to the point of being overwhelming or you find yourself down the rabbit hole of spending more time learning and trying to understand all these social media platforms versus learning how to scale and manage your business, don’t be afraid to let these tasks go.

You can consider hiring an intern who you will have to train to understand your strategy and brand or you can consider hiring someone with the experience of managing other business social media accounts.

When you are ready to let the task of managing your Instagram account go to someone else, consider the latter and let me help you manage your Instagram account, efficiently and effectively.

Your Valued Asset @ Outsource Mondays