Start a business on Instagram

In todays world gone are the times of needing a premises, stock or even staff to start a business. All you need is a smartphone and a little knowhow. Using only these 2 things I am going to show you how to earn a very decent living. Sound good? Read on!

Visit 20 Business' a Day Go to your local town or shopping centre - this takes 4 to 5 hours at most! The goal is to get 4 to 5 managers to respond to you and and out of those close 1 or 2 as clients. That’s 100 locations in a working week, 4,800 locations in a year. Even if you have just a 10-20% closing ratio, it adds up quickly.

4800 locations per year at 5% close rate at a very low rate of £500/ month per client = £120,000/ month! 🔥

These are low ball numbers as well, if you close 10% of locations you visit and charge them £1000/month that adds up to a huge £480,000/month! Using only a smartphone.

Most of the time they don’t have someone to handle their social media and that’s where you come in. I've known people charge up to £5000/month but obviously this is something you will have to gauge depending on the size of the outfit.

Managing Instagram Service A big fear of small business owners is not knowing how to do their social media. They know the potential and they know they should be doing it but most of the time they don't know how to do it properly. They can take photos and post an image of the sale or the menu, but that’s it. If you can provide one post a day of good content for your client, you’ve already saved them time and made their social media more active.

The Best Time to Post to Instagram? 9 am - 7 pm. Most people are awake and checking their phone at this time. If you’re the social media manager of a nightclub or a bar, you might want to make your posts a bit later, or make adjustments if the business is in a different time zone, but generally, this is a good rule of thumb time to be posting on Instagram. Content is King Where do you get the content? You could write it yourself, but there are only so many hours in a day, it depends on the amount of clients you have of course, but I wouldn’t want to chain myself to a desk and try to write out one piece of content per day for 1,000+ social media accounts. The good thing is that photo and video also count as content, and you can use the camera on your smartphone. Take great photos of the outside and inside of the business as well as any interesting features. For example, maybe the place has a water feature or a jukebox - use filters and make it look attractive to their target audience. Hashtags Searching the hashtags of the industry, any local events and even competitors can help boost visibility. You want to cherry-pick the ones with the highest engagement. Unless it’s a professionally produced video or music, you can use that hashtag. Obviously, you want to avoid things like politics, sexual content, and drama. You don’t want to gamble with your clients’ reputation. You can do funny, but make it “funny safe” - nothing sexual-funny, racist-funny or anything like that, if in doubt, check with the client first. Growing your following Don’t use bots or spam on Instagram. Fake followers is a terrible idea, since you’re creating a false representation to the client, and they’re going to expect that you bring them thousands of new “followers’ a day. Anyone can click and see that the profiles are fake. So don’t do it.

Tens of thousands of local people don’t want to follow the bar or restaurant but what you can guarantee them is good solid content. In turn, local people will tag their friends and those are potential customers. Engagement is King. Get the staff involved too. Encourage them to post at least once a week. They may have a small number of followers on their own, but those add up. Look at competitors too, and see who’s within a few miles of that business. Then like and comment on the people that are following THEIR pages. Nothing crazy, but just commenting that their photo is cool or interesting. Once they follow your client, ask them to tag three friends the next time you post a caption. Its all about gaining exposure in the right audience. Quality is better quantity here. Imagine seeing a photo of a cute puppy posted by the local vet’s office. Maybe the puppy has fallen asleep in its food dish. If you post this, and then comment “tag a friend who would like this”. People will often tag their friends because who hasn’t had a day like that? USP (Unique Selling Points) Most of your competition isn’t going to do the legwork or go the extra mile to take photos like you should do. Your own content of the place and the people, simply spending the time sets you apart. Plus, once they have a couple thousand followers having a contest is a great idea to set you apart from the competition as well. As you continue to build up a following for them, you can have people tag three friends to enter the contest. A £20 or £50 gift card actually ends up costing the restaurant only £10 or £20, so it’s little risk for the company. This strategy is often used on Facebook too, you must have seen it before? The great thing about setting up a social media agency like this is that you can literally run your business from anywhere. Whether you live in the UK, USA or even Hong Kong or even traveling. It only takes a moment to pull out your phone, check out the photos you’ve taken or the hashtags with the most engagement, screenshot and share that picture and write a caption.

Thanks for reading, let me know your thoughts below.

JK