Why you should consider using Instagram

With this in mind it is beneficial for tourism businesses to create an online presence on Instagram, influencing a wide audience and engaging with new and recurring customers.

Top Tips to help your get started!

1. Know your audience – write a caption that will be of interest to your audience, will they understand the reference?  
2. Identify your brand voice – what qualities make your brand recognisable? Are you bold, authoritative, funny, curious?  
3. Consider length – use 125 characters or less to get your main message across and place the most important words at the beginning of your caption.  
4. Edit and rewrite – make multiple drafts to keep content as concise as possible. Edit the post once published (if needed) to add additional information and hashtags. 
5. Use hashtags wisely – research the popular hashtags that your industry and audience are using and replicate these in your captions.  
6. Keep hashtags separate from the main caption – use return / dashes or dots to position them separately in the caption.  
7. Ask a question – encourage engagement by using open ended or multiple choice questions. Mention others – include usernames of other Instagram profiles, this might compel them to like, comment, share or follow your account.  
8. Use a call to action – don’t be afraid to ask people to do something e.g. check out your bio link, share or comment below.  
9. Use emojis – It’s a great way to draw the eye and make posts fun.  
10. Try using quotes – clients testimonials or comments from the people in the photo or video 
11. Instagram Stories are available for 24 hours and creates interaction between the user and audience, stories can be shared between both parties and there is also the option to ‘Go Live’ which could be used to showcase a new part of the business to the audience.  
12. Instagram Highlights allows you to save favourites stories to your profile giving the audience the option to go in and look at a later date. 
13. Cross post and share on other social media channels. 

Benefits of Instagram for your business

Almost every location in the world has an Instagram account with thousands of followers. This can help you create ideas for your own business posts, study what your competitors are doing and keep you up to date with trends. Don’t be scared to re-share images and posts as this will help you to connect with likeminded businesses and reach a global audience! 

For example Airbnb shares images of the most beautiful places in the world, from the canals in Venice, Italy to the hills of Donegal, Ireland, to real and inspiring stories from their guests and hosts. The stories, embellished with the brand's touch of empathy, inspire their audience to dream about their next getaway. 

Using follower’s content not only provides free content and advertising for your business it demonstrates that the customer enjoyed the experience, adding trust and influencing others.  

Creating an Instagram for your business is hugely beneficial in reaching new audiences and engaging with people online, it not only can help grow your network but also provides free advertising and can boost SEO driving people to your website, in turn hopefully creating a ‘sell’ of your product or experience and a brand advocate.

As part of the Tourism Enterprise Development (TED Programme) Paul McGarrity, Octave Digital delivered a webinar about Social Media and Search Marketing for Tourism. 

Paul McGarrity from Octave Digital shares some tips and advice on making the most of the channels available to help grow your business.