Around 200 million users visit at least one Instagram business profile per day. If you are a local business owner, you must be after a fraction of this vast number.

With the last algorithm update, Instagram has changed how Instagram content will work. Things have changed for the local businesses as well.

Today, I will share ten guaranteed ways to promote your local business professionally on Instagram in 2023.

10 ways to promote your local business Effectively on Instagram in 2023

1. Switch Into A Business Account

For a business-centric online presence, you need to switch from a personal account to a business account.

For your local business, switching to a business account makes it more professional. It also comes with the following benefits.

• Professional call to action button
• Hands-on Instagram analytics
• Instagram ads
• Product links on posts and stories
• Instagram Shopping

2. Optimize Your Business Profile

Unique Brand

Grow your brand as a unique personality. For your local customers, you need to establish your presence as a helpful and valuable brand.

A unique brand will help you to grow your community.

Location Tag

Make sure your customers can find your business as the neighborhood business.

Location tags in the content and profile make it convenient for both the platform and the audience.

Besides the location tag, you should also use localized hashtags to get on your local customer’s feed.

Don’t Forget The Essentials

For optimizing your business profile, you need to have two major elements.

• A clean and precise Instagram marketing strategy.
• A brand guideline

With a combination of these two, set up your business profile with your service, specific bio, and call-to-action button.

Saved Stories

Bring out the best from your Instagram feed with saved stories. You can showcase your products categorically, you can give your audience the general FAQ.

3. Be Consistent With The Content

Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram once suggested posting a couple of feed content a week and a couple of stories in a day.

However, posts can be more organized to have optimal engagement depending on your business.

Set a schedule depending on when your audience will be active online.

4. Use Localized Hashtags and Keywords

Hashtags can grow audience engagement at a 12.7% rate. With the help of local SEO and local trends, You can use up to 6-11 hashtags in a post.

Trending localized hashtags will help you to get your content into your local audience’s feed.

On the other hand, you must also use local SEO keywords in your captions and shopping posts to reach your customers.

5. Engage With Your Local Audience With Helpful Intentions

Connecting with potential customers to build a genuine B2C relationship have never been this easy!

You need your own local community to establish your local business.

Here are a few ways to interact with customers,

• With high-quality customer-centric content, you can grab the attention. Communicate directly with them through comments, tags, and follows.
• Follow local businesses and influencers to establish your presence. Reposting their content with permission and catching up with local trends are always beneficial.
• User-generated content is extremely valuable for local businesses. It shows authentic feedback from the customers.
• 75% of the total consumers rely on direct messages on Instagram to engage with businesses. Being present for any kind of inquiry or engagement will make the business trustworthy.
• Videos get 21.4% more engagement than pictures. For product showcasing, Unboxing, and How-to tutorials, try to make video content more.

6. Connect With Local Influencers

Did you know that 61% of consumers trust influencers rather than brands?

Local Micro-influencer marketing will be much more helpful and effective with the trends and followers.

7. Why Not Instagram Ads?

50% of users become more interested in the brand if they see an ad on Instagram.

To grow the business spontaneously on the Instagram platform, what would be more beneficial than using Instagram ads itself?

Also, the feed ads have up to 88% click-through rate.

8. Use Instagram Stories

50% of business profiles use stories to connect with more audiences.

Business profiles allow you to have direct product links or call-to-action links in the stories.  

Another quick fact is Instagram stories stay for just 24 hours. The FOMO of the users helps to connect more with the business accounts.

9. Run Giveaways and Contests

While curating the content, schedule interactive contests with giveaways frequently.

Business accounts that arrange contests have 70% faster growth than regular profiles.

On average, a user spends around two minutes and thirty seconds on contests.

Also, who doesn’t like giveaways?

10. Always Use Instagram insights

Just posting frequently on the business account will not be enough.

You need to evaluate how your marketing strategy is working on Instagram.

Here comes the Instagram insights. You can easily check which posts get more engagements, and which post is not working out that much.

Depending on the insights, don’t hesitate to change the strategy.

Keep in mind that as long as you have the local audience engaged and entertained, your business has the highest probability to grow.

Finally

Instagram intends to have more reels on the platform. From reels, you can have 120% reach now!

Instagram is moving all the video content including the vertical video content to the reel section.

As you are growing your local business, make sure you use the most updated and effective options from the Instagram platform.