You've just started a small business and wanted everyone to know about it. You think Instagram is a great place to start with your business marketing. You are absolutely right. Instagram's huge audience base will give your small business exposure and exponential growth. This blog post will break down the steps to do Instagram marketing for a small business the right way. Follow this ultimate guide for 2025 and see your small business grow quickly.
Why is it the ultimate guide for Instagram marketing?
Instagram is a competitive social media; growing your small business is a strategic game that requires consistency and the right set of actions. This ultimate guide covers all of them. We will not only explain strategies to grow your business account but also actions you need to take to grow faster.
Other benefits of using this ultimate guide for Instagram marketing are as follows:
- Start small but start strong. This guide helps you grow from 0 followers
- Completely strategic process for long-term, persistent growth
- Updated tricks for 2025 that you can apply right away
- No ChatGPT content, working methods learned by many trials and experiences.
1. Build your Instagram foundation
A strong foundation is a source of huge business growth. That's why when starting Instagram marketing for your small business, you need to build a strong Instagram profile that will go a long way. It's not just about having a stylish logo or catchy tagline. A well-set-up Instagram profile includes technical knowledge and marketing expertise.
First things first, you need to make your Instagram profile look genuine. This involves your correct business name, your website, your contact info, your Instagram Bio, and of course your logo.
Here's the checklist for a strong foundation of your Instagram profile:
- Your Logo, brand name, color theme, fonts, and branding assets.
- Your username and profile name can be the same or similar, depending on availability.
- Business contact no. official email id, website, and address
- Instagram Bio, primary hashtags, secondary hashtags
- Story Highlights, at least 3 starting posts, and a bunch of followers.
Logo and Brand Asset
This is an interesting start for your business foundation. Get your business a logo and create all brand assets needed for all social channels, not just for Instagram. Finalize your color theme, fonts. This is necessary so that your audience can easily recognize your brand in the chaos of millions of posts.
Username and Profile Name
Before choosing a fancy username or profile name that sounds good, keep in mind to include your primary keyword within the username and profile name. This makes it easy for new people to find on Instagram search.
For example: If you are creating an account for a restaurant and its name is Epic, then keep your username as Epicrestaurant, or epicrestro, epic_restaurant. Similarly, keep the word Restaurant in your profile name.
Business Contact Details
Business contact details are an integral part of a business profile on Instagram. It's necessary to fill in so Instagram keeps your profile in a safe zone. Also, it puts a positive impression on your visitors, building trust, which is necessary to increase conversion
It is recommended to have a website, an official email, and an official contact number. and location/address of your business. Having these details makes it easier for Instagram to choose your audience.
Instagram Bio
Then comes the Instagram bio, which includes a 150-character description of your business and hashtags. An Instagram bio supports your profile for Instagram search optimization. We have a well-researched article on How to optimize your Instagram Bio for maximum followers. Make sure to check it out before you write your Instagram bio.
Highlights and Posts
There are many creative ways to create highlights in your profile. You can check out some cool references for highlights on Pinterest. Similarly, you should have at least 3 starting posts on your profile. It can be a Reel, carousel, or static image, though reels perform better for a new profile.
2. Forming connections
Instagram, which is a part of the social ecosystem Meta, is built to connect people, share thoughts, talk, and build a community. It's all about forming connections. That's what we need to do next after building a strong foundation for your small business on Instagram. We will find ways to form connections, strengthen them, and leverage them to achieve business goals.
There are certain ways to increase engagement on your profile:
- Conversation on comments
- Follow and share others' content
- DM and videocalls
- Live discussions
Conversation on comments
For sure, when you start your Instagram marketing for your business, you will not have followers or a lot of content to share. During that time, it is still necessary to participate in the discussion for Instagram to understand your profile's interests.
What do you need to do?
A good place to start is to join the discussion in the comments of others' profiles within your niche. You can reply to other people's comments. Don't spam, but genuinely reply so it will create a chain of conversation with you and their audience.
Why is it necessary?
Every time you have a meaningful conversation with someone, even in comments, it gives Instagram a signal that you two have a connection. Next time, when you post on Instagram, they are more likely to see it first or get notified automatically by Instagram.
Follow and Sharing
We know sharing is caring. Indeed, it's true. Unless you have your own content to share, you can share others'. By sharing, it doesn't mean you duplicate someone's work; instead, you can share others' posts, reels, and photos on your stories if it's relevant to your business.
For example, if you have an account for a grocery business, you can follow Instagrammers posting recipes, food bloggers, or restaurants. Then, start sharing their reels and posts to your stories, adding some cool comments, feedback, etc.
This will not only build a connection with the business but also give others to engage with you. Since you are actively posting stories, it also positively affects your account quality.
DM and Video Calls
Instagram usually prevents calls and messages from unknown persons or businesses. But if you have already been following and building a connection with a person, you can send a DM and even call them for lead generation or providing services.
How to DM in the right way?
Don't start selling your services in the first conversation with your customers. It's better to start by understanding their problems. Once conversations continue, you can provide your service as a solution.
For example, if you have a gym business, and you DM a potential customer, start by understanding their workout requirements. Do they have any physical issues that need to be addressed? Are they suffering from obesity, or do they just want to stay fit? Later on, you can suggest a good workout for them with your gym membership offer
You can even offer free classes via video calls to your customers. If they love it, they will join your gym and purchase your subscription.
Live Discussion
Instagram live stream is also an efficient way to start your discussion. You can go live on your account, or you can collaborate with others. This will give you the initial boost in audience reach to your account.
What do you need to do?
- DM influencers in your niche
- Ask them for a live session, it can be free or paid
- Prepare some valuable content for your audience, along with freebies.
- Attend the live session and post it on your account and theirs.
3. Content is Key
Now, you have a strong foundation, and some people already know your business. It's time to provide them with true, valuable content. For sure, you want them to be your customer, but posting offers like 20%OFF or 50% OFF, Summer Sale, Winter Sale won't help. That's something you should do with paid ads. For long-term, persistent growth, you need to do as following:
- Spreading Awareness
- Bring Curosity
- Give Free Trials
- Sell your service.
Spreading Awareness
Start posting content that only spreads awareness about your business and also about the problem your business solves for them. For example, if you are a wedding organizer, you can inform them about the available wedding venues, photo shoot ideas, and how your service helps them save on overhead costs.
Bring Curosity
Next post ideas bring curiosity among your audience to know more about your business. For example, if you are a furniture business, then you can post about innovative furniture, cheaper options for budget-friendly people. The goal is to let them message you to know more about your products.
Give Free Trials
No matter how many testimonials you show or big discounts you give, people won't trust you unless they get a free trial. For your Instagram audience to buy your service or product, it's better to give a free trial. Post reels and photos, encouraging them to get a free trial and explaining how much value they get.
Sell your service
The last phase is to start selling your service one at a time. An engaging way to combine it with some entertainment. To learn how to make an engaging reel to go viral, read our article.
4. Social Media Plan
Now that you understand what to post, it's time to create a long-term social media plan. Start from the awareness phase, then curiosity, trials, and at last the sales post. This plan will be around 3-5 months, so you can have enough time to engage with your audience and work on your business.
Key points to remember when you create a plan:
- Include at least 2 reels every week.
- Post Instagram stories every day. It can be yours, or others.
- Go live at least 2 times a month.
- Follow the trends, and create content around them.
- Use a fixed set of Instagram hashtags in your posts.
Slow and steady wins the race. Don't rush into buying followers or spam others to follow. Focus your time on exploring content ideas. It might seem slow, but being consistent and engaging with others is necessary for persistent growth that lasts for years.
5. Paid Ads
Organic posts are for building connection, trust, and a long-term relationship with your potential customers. On the other hand, Paid Ads are for selling a product. Most of the small business owners make the mistake of posting ads as organic posts. This badly impacts your audience's experience and also makes them think that your business doesn't have the money to pay for ads.
The golden rule is that when you want to sell, go for Paid ads. Of course, it costs you money, but it also gives returns. Creating ads, running them, and optimizing them is a huge topic beyond the scope of this article. We will cover this in future articles.
Conclusion
In this article, we have seen a 5-step process to promote your small business on Instagram. Growing your small business on Instagram is a long journey that needs persistence and patience. Building a foundation, making connections, posting regularly, and mastering paid ads is the only proven process to grow your business on Instagram.