Instagram What’s Working: Treating Instagram Like a Tool (7 Ways)

This is Part 7 of a 10-Part series. Find all the links here.

When it comes to social media, the rhetoric is all over the map. It’s great, it sucks, inspiration, comparison, learning, doom scrolling, community, bullying, and the list goes on. Honestly, it’s probably all of those things. But I’m of the opinion that, like most things in life, your experience has more to do with your beliefs about it. Your beliefs influence your perception and your perception shapes your reality.

I prefer to treat Instagram like a tool. And as a famous podcaster once said: [fill in the blank] “is like any other tool. It’s like a hammer. You can build a house with a hammer, or you could just hit yourself in the d*ck with it if your f*cking crazy.” I believe we should use it to build amazing gardens, farms, businesses, communities, and lives . . . and not scroll-hammer our souls, emotions, and . . .

Anyway, below are 7 ways I use Instagram as a tool.

Building Community

Social media is called social for a reason: it’s a great community building tool! You can build community by sharing engaging content (see Part 3 and Part 8), but you can also build community by interacting with people!

There are countless ways to interact with people on Instagram: Ask questions in posts, stories, and comments. Leave comments when you like something, share other creators’ posts to stories, create surveys, etc.

When people interact with my content, I respond! I know some folks “post and ghost” but I think actually interacting with folks is fun and engaging. I also interact with other accounts: Accounts I love, amazing customers, industry peers and leaders, brands I use (that’s how many partnerships are born). Don’t be afraid to interact with other accounts, most of the time it’s a reciprocal interaction. And who knows? You might meet a new friend or business partner🙂 Most of the florists I have met were through social media.

Portfolio

You can read more about this in Part 5, but it bears repeating because it’s a major tool for my business. I think of my Instagram profile like a business card and my grid as my online portfolio. For a lot of people, it’s their first impression of me and my business, so I am intentional about it.

I was recently listening to a podcast with Kristin Cavallari. Now, regardless of what you think of her, the woman knows how to market and connect with her audience. She divulged that she started her company, Uncommon James, with a $50K buyout from her business partner of her past jewelry line (I did not even know she had a prior one). Of that, she spent half on a branding photoshoot, HALF! Look, I don’t need convincing: we are visual creatures and quality content is key (read this post for a deep dive on this). However, I loved hearing how even someone who already has notoriety places an incredible value on visual content.

Telling Our Story (Marketing)

Instagram is perfect for sharing bite-size stories about our business and a little bit about ourselves! Sharing on Instagram helps your current community get to know you better, as well as introduce new people to your business. According to Global Media Study (Meta-commissioned), “Instagram is the #1 media platform for people to discover new brands and build relationships with brands among those surveyed.” My own anecdotal experience seems to support this.

Think about how you learn about new brands. As a kid, it was definitely magazines, television, friends, and the mall for me. Now, I almost entirely learn about new brands through social media, podcasts, and websites. And of course friends as well, but they are learning about these on the same platforms. It’s pretty wild.

Sharing about you and your business on Instagram helps connect you to your people. As Marketing Hall of Famer Seth Godin so eloquently said, “People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories, and magic.” Don’t get too caught up on sharing products–learn how to tell stories.

Sales

Instagram is an invaluable tool for selling! According to Instagram Trends Research Study, “Nearly half of people use Instagram to shop weekly.” That’s wild! And I have to admit: I’m one of those people. Hello, guilty of scrolling to find out exactly what [fill-in-the-blank] someone was using. But: I also use Instagram as a sales tool for my business.

If you’ve ever bought anything through social media, what made you go from viewing to purchasing? Can you replicate that in your own business? When you first start selling your (flowers, product, services, whatever) on Instagram, it can feel really awkward! If you feel that way, make sure you read Part 6: Not Being Afraid to Sell (or Put Yourself Out There). Once you get over the fear of selling on Instagram, it can change your business. Remember: the key is believing in what you are putting out there! If you don’t believe in it, no one else will!

Measuring Performance (Utilizing Insights & Professional Dashboard)

For me personally, I focus on showing up authentically on social media. I’m not that regimented with it, meaning I don’t post on a schedule at the “optimum” time. I’m not hyper-focused on metrics or numbers, but insights and the professional dashboard are available tools worth mentioning. Before measuring anything, make sure you define what working actually means for you.

From there, we can dig deeper on how certain posts performed by viewing insights and metrics. While the metrics available will depend on what type of account you have (public, business account, etc.), you can view insights on individual posts as well as the dashboard. Individual post insights will tell you things like views, interactions, likes, comments, profile activity, audience metrics and more. The Professional Dashboard will give you insights like views and interactions on your content over a period of time (i.e., week, month, 6 months, year, 2 years, etc.).

While this series is focused on Instagram, the Facebook Business Manager at business.facebook.com is another great place to review metrics (for both FB and Instagram)!

Do I look at this for every post? Aaaabsolutely not. Not even close. But occasionally, it’s interesting to dive into them to see if we can learn something. Now, understanding *why* some posts perform better than others can be a little more difficult to extrapolate. And what’s interesting, which I’ll talk about more in Part 9, is that some of my “poorest” performing posts are actually some of the highest converting for sales, ha!

Anyway, for me, I like to think of this data as interesting, but not an end all be all. Instead of pinpointing exactly why the numbers are the way they are, I just like to think of it as a game. If a post performed well, is there something that I can replicate? Did the post start with a question? Did it have a funny story? Was it a picture of my dog? Was it an informative carousal? Whatever it is, I try it again and see if it has similar results (and the answer is yes, all of these types of posts tend to do well for me).

Another thing I like to do every year is look back on my best performing posts for the year. Around New Years, I’ll post the top 10, breaking them up into 2 posts and reflecting on each one in the caption. I like to do this exercise for myself, but it’s also a fun content idea (and the posts already did well, so they’re usually a favorite the 2nd time around). You can see my 2023 reflection posts here and here if you want to do something similar.

Sourcing

If Matt teases me about scrolling Instagram, I just tell him it’s potential inventory data collection research. All joking aside, I’m an incredibly visual person (how many times have I said that in this article?). If I see something I like: a vase, a flower, a sticker, a font, color palette, WHATEVER, I save it and then see if I can order, replicate, reiterate, or recreate it. For example, this is how I find vases for our wedding business (accent decor!), seeds for our garden, and more.

And oh my gosh, this is also how I find dahlias (both new varieties and sources for tubers). Instagram is filled with incredibly creative people and brands that you can collaborate with and support! The key for me is saving these things in a collection for later research during slower seasons. Otherwise, my research happy brain can go down a rabbit hole. File it away, source it later.

Learning & Inspiration

Last but not least, one of my favorite ways to use Instagram as a tool is for learning and inspiration! I have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, and so long as I am not mindlessly scrolling instead of getting important work done, I consider it a little guilt-free scroll time. I love to save posts under different categories like tips, design, flower sources, and more. People are so generous with their knowledge, you can truly learn SO much on Instagram. Just consciously choose what you consume. Only you can be the judge on which information is beneficial to you.

I love to hit the explore page and if I see a flower I like, I click that photo. Odds are likely that the author will share the variety and if so, it gets added to a flowers to potentially grow list. I’m an incredibly visual person who likes to categorize things. If I see a flower I like, I simply save it to come back to in the slower months to research if we should trial growing it on our farm.

And please don’t come at me for saying this, but I find Instagram incredibly inspiring! I’m so inspired by beautiful design, nature, farms, gardens, and more. I know that there is a lot of talk about the “comparison trap” of social media. In other words: feeling inferior (or superior) based on, in the case of social media, appearance (not necessarily physically, but what we’re seeing on the screen).

I get it, I do, but I’d like to offer a reframe, if I may. I have this belief that if you see something (on the internet, IRL, whatever) and it makes you feel a certain way, it has almost nothing to do with anyone but you. It almost certainly has to do with you, and more specifically: *your beliefs* around what you are seeing. And it’s a way to get to know yourself better. If you feel a certain way in reaction to a social media post, ask yourself: why? There’s no right or wrong answer, but I encourage you to consider only yourself here (not others). What do your thoughts or feelings tell you about you? Are they true? Can you be certain they are true? What if the opposite was true?

If your feelings tend toward inadequacy, I believe this is really just our soul communicating that what we’re seeing is actually a possibility for us. It might not look or feel exactly the same way, but there is something there.

I believe these feelings are our soul’s yearning (or repelling) of that human experience. And the fact that we feel a certain way about it is simply our recognition that it’s a potential not yet met (but a true possibility). What about this do we want (or not want)? Maybe it’s not the actual thing we’re seeing, perhaps it’s just the feeling we presume goes along with it.

Whatever it is, I find these moments incredibly eye opening: what about this do I want (or not want) for my life? What’s preventing me from pursuing (or removing) it? Perhaps it’s just an aspect, but I think of them like clues. I’ve never been someone who knows exactly what she wants for her life, so I like to collect these puzzle pieces as inspiration for the next, higher version of myself and my life.

And feelings of superiority? Psychology suggests feelings of superiority may actually stem from deeper feelings of inferiority, insecurity, or vulnerability and an inner conflict to disprove those feelings. I’m not a psychologist, but basically: different sides of the same comparison coin. If you re-read the last two paragraphs above, it hits differently (at least it did for me as someone who has been on both sides of this coin in my own life).