{"id":36045,"date":"2024-06-24T15:39:25","date_gmt":"2024-06-24T03:39:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nzie.ac.nz\/?p=36045"},"modified":"2024-06-24T15:39:25","modified_gmt":"2024-06-24T03:39:25","slug":"blog-instagram-strategies-for-non-visual-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nzie.ac.nz\/blog-instagram-strategies-for-non-visual-businesses\/","title":{"rendered":"Instagram Strategies for Non-Visual Businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
Instagram is often equated with visual content. That makes it great for highly visual industries like fashion, beauty, food and travel. But what if you don<\/span>\u2019<\/span>t work in one of those fabulous-looking sectors? Does that mean you should give Instagram a miss?\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/div> Nope. It just means you might need to think a bit more about how you share your content. So here are some tips for how non-visual businesses can succeed on visual social media.<\/span><\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t If your product or services don<\/span>\u2019<\/span>t lend themselves to pretty visuals, then enlist the human element of your business instead. Take images of your staff working to tell the behind-the-scenes story of how the business functions or at staff events to showcase your team<\/span>\u2019<\/span>s personality.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/div> Videos can work even for businesses that don<\/span>\u2019<\/span>t have a strong visual presence because you can use them to easily explain difficult concepts or give more insight into your brand and the people behind it. You can post them as Reels or on your grid. If you are camera shy, ask if one of your team members would be keen to do it, or create a video using a cartoon character or avatar.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/div> Take an accountant for example. Videos could be used to explain how to deal with end-of-year taxes or what a client needs to supply to an accountant, to unpack a change in regulations or a money-related news item, or to do a question and answer session with an accountant for burning tax questions.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/div> Stock images often get a bad rap, but, chosen wisely and used well, they can be helpful if you don<\/span>\u2019<\/span>t have a lot of your own images. Look for images that represent your business and have a Kiwi flavour. Add your captions to the images to convey your message and make sure the image matches what you are trying to say.<\/span><\/p><\/div> Instagram is always developing as a platform and introducing new features. Recent innovations such as stickers on Reels which can be used to run polls or for your audience to take a quiz can add an interactive dimension to your post. For example, our accountant could post a poll asking if people are ready for tax time, or a quiz to see how much people know about filing their end-of-year accounts.<\/span><\/p><\/div> Emojis can be a good way of brightening up an otherwise text-heavy post. Just don<\/span>\u2019<\/span>t overdo it and use appropriate symbols. If you feel out of touch then it might be a good idea to consult a younger colleague, family member or friend to check what<\/span>\u2019<\/span>s appropriate or could be misconstrued right now.<\/span><\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t For the rest of your posts, you\u2019ll need some good design software like Canva, a willingness to learn, and a bit of creative flair (or someone who can do it for you!). With a bit of work, you\u2019ll be able to turn some of your word-based posts into visually appealing ones. Here are some ideas for doing that\u2026<\/p> When you are creating your designs you want to create a sense of cohesion and tie them into your other branding through your choice of colours and fonts and use of logos. That way, your audience will come to associate them with your brand. Plus, by keeping to similar templates for certain types of posts, your audience will easily recognise when you are posting, for example, about a key date in the year.<\/p> Setting up templates in software like Canva can also speed up your content creation because you\u2019ll have a set of templates to use as a base, and you\u2019ll just need to tweak them.<\/p>Use your staff or customers in images<\/span><\/h3><\/div>
Create videos<\/span><\/h3><\/div>
Use carefully curated stock images<\/span><\/h3><\/div>
Take advantage of Instagram<\/span>\u2019<\/span>s features<\/span><\/h3><\/div>
Use emojis<\/span><\/h3><\/div>
Invest in learning some good design skills<\/h3>
Let\u2019s use our friendly accountant as an example again. They could post:<\/h4>