Social media can be a fickle beast. Strategies that worked one year ago may be completely unheard of today. What causes mass hysteria and goes viral for one account may have another one hearing crickets. There are so many ways to do social right, and so many ways to do social wrong.

It doesn’t all have to be so hard, though. While Instagram is constantly evolving as a platform, there are a handful of consistent best practices that can help build a foundation for a successful and thriving presence.

 

Start with solid photography

Don’t overlook the actual intent of the platform. Unless you’re starting a meme account, you’re going to want to make sure your feed is populated with at least good photography. You don’t need to be Ken Burns, but your photography should be clear and well composed. Don’t overdo it with the filters, either!

 

Pick your niche

It’s hard to make everybody happy all the time, but if you can pick a certain audience to speak to on a regular basis, you can gain some traction quickly. Maybe you want to speak directly to the MMJ audience? Or perhaps you want to appeal specifically to growers? While not every post needs to be specific to your niche, if you’re going to take this route, it should at least stand out as the theme of your page.

 

Be consistent

More important than the volume of your posting is the quality of your posting. If you only want to post Monday through Friday, that works. But you need to make sure you keep up with that cadence. A consistent cadence and frequency in posting will help ensure your posts receive more widespread distribution. If you want to up the frequency of posting, that’s fine, but be prepared to keep it up in the long term.

 

Be a part of the conversation

Unfortunately, this isn’t the field of dreams. Just because you build it, doesn’t mean they’re going to come over. A good posting strategy is just one piece of the puzzle. Finding and following users that fit your niche, and liking and commenting on content from other accounts is going to help you gain much-needed visibility to start. Find accounts similar to yours, and follow and engage with their audience. Show genuine interest and share your expertise.

 

Use all of the available features

Posting to your page and interaction across Instagram aren’t the only ways to be seen. Ensure your profile is filled out to give interested fans a way to learn more about you and to better inform those visiting your page. Instagram’s stories feature also offers the ability to let fans swipe up on a story to visit a web page. This is a great way to drive traffic to the desired page since links are disabled everywhere else on the platform. Stories are also a way to share more informal updates at a higher frequency without having to worry about cluttering up your page.

 

Consider influencers

While buying social ads is out of the question for cannabis businesses, influencers are a great way to reach a bigger audience. Do your homework, and you can build a roster of local influencers that can multiply the size of your audience for a minimal investment. Learn more about how to work with local influencers for your cannabis business.