You’ve finally got your boutique up and running. You have all your merchandise and your website is exactly how you want it, now it’s time to attract customers.

You’d be hard pressed to find anyone that wouldn’t agree that Instagram is one of the best platforms for promoting a business; especially a fashion boutique. Instagram has become extremely robust over the years and retailers are finding unique ways to market their products on it every day.

The fact that so many boutique owners are using Instagram can be viewed as good and bad. Bad maybe because there are so many people using it, but good for the same reason. If it were not working, countless boutique owners wouldn’t continue to invest so much time and energy into the platform.

Any marketer will tell you that what works for one boutique may not work for the next. The key to success on Instagram is figuring out which strategies work best for you and your boutique. It may take a bit of trial and error, but the best course of action is to implement the strategies that have been tried and tested by the masses that yield the best results.

In this article, I’m going to give you 7 tips for promoting your boutique on Instagram.

Influencers

We’re living in unique times where people with large social media followings have more influence over the general public than anyone else. If you have the ability or opportunity to have someone with a large following vouch for your boutique on Instagram, it will be well worth it.

It’s equivalent to using word of mouth but on a much grander scale. Instead of a friend telling one or two people, social media influencers can tell thousand and in some cases millions of people with Instagram.

High Quality Photos

The hustle and bustle of running any business can become demanding and it’s common for business owners to try and find ways to cut corners. But one area where boutique owner cannot afford to cut corners is with the quality of their pictures on Instagram.

Sure, any boutique owner can take a picture with their smartphone and upload it to Instagram, and it may look nice. The process is easy, and it cuts out extra steps, but buyers are drawn to profiles that use professional photos.

For the sake of your brand, it’s important to use professional, high quality photos whenever you post anything from your boutique. I’m not saying you can’t produce high quality photos with your smartphone, but what I am saying is that everything needs to be on point; from the background to the lighting and so forth.

Captivating Caption

Your caption is another area where you shouldn’t take shortcuts. Consumers are getting smarter everyday and they don’t mind reading information about products before they spend their money, as a matter of fact many of them appreciate the extra information.

No, you don’t have to write a dissertation every time you make a post on Instagram, but with a 2,200-character limit, that gives you plenty of real estate to give a detailed description.

Hashtags

When writing your caption, don’t forget to leave room for hashtags. Hashtags have become one of the best ways to target your ideal clients. Sure, it’s an extra step but once again, it’s that little extra effort that allows your posts to have more reach.

Keep in mind that Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags per caption and even though it can be tempting to cram each post full of hashtags, you don’t want to come off spammy. Studies show that top brands use seven or fewer hashtags on 91% of their posts.

Video Content

Video, video, video, I cannot stress enough the importance of using video content to promote your brand. Whether it’s you in the video or someone else, video must be a part of your Instagram strategy if you want to maximize the reach of your boutique.

As I stated earlier, Instagram is a robust platform and there are many ways to create video content. You can simply upload a video as a post, create an IG story or go live. The choice is yours, but once again, the key is to figure out what works best for you and your brand.

The thing about video is you can be as creative as you want. Instagram allows users to add animation, use gifs, memes, and much more. We can do an entire article showcasing the endless possibilities of video on Instagram.

Tag and Link Products

One of the coolest features Instagram has implemented for business owners is the ability to tag and link products to be purchased from the platform. This has been a godsend for many boutique owners.

We all know that the best time to get a customer to buy is when something is fresh on their mind. By removing a step in the buying process and allowing customers to click a link that allows them to make a purchase, it increases the boutique owners’ chances of making sales.

Interaction

One of the quickest ways to gain the respect of your Instagram followers is to interact with them. Studies show that Instagram users like to feel a personal connection to the people and brands they follow. They love the feeling they get whenever someone speaks directly to them.

Digging deeper into the study, it also shows that there is a release of dopamine whenever we receive a like or comment on social media. That dopamine release is intensified whenever it comes from a person or brand that you’re intending on spending money with.

Conclusion

Many boutique owners are using Instagram as their main vehicle for driving traffic to their storefronts and or websites. It’s a great way to showcase your inventory and target specific types buyers.

To get the most out of Instagram it’s imperative to experiment with different strategies to see which ones work best for you. To effectively manage your boutique’s Instagram account, it requires that you stay on top of the latest trends and that you’re constantly measuring your results.

For this reason, many boutique owners outsource much of their social media efforts to companies like UpSpark.

Instead of trying to figure out which hashtags to use, how to edit a video, etc., they allow companies that specialize in social media management to take care of that so they can channel more of their energy towards their customers and other revenue generating tasks.