How to create content on Instagram

*Stage 2, topic 1 & 2*

*How to create contents and using location.*

Instagram contents can be categorised into 3 major types.

1. Informative/Educative content.
2. Entertaining content.
3. Controversial content.

1. *Informative/Educative Content:* Every business owner has a personality. What makes up one's personality includes passion, beliefs, values, interest, orientation, likes/dislikes, hobbies, psychology, and attitude. To a great extent, one's personality can affect business performance. So on Instagram, your personality will reflect your business brand. Are you a type of person who likes educating/informing people? Then inculcate it into your brand. That means you should create content that educate or inform your audience about your products or services. If your business is about buying and selling of phones and phone accessories, educate/inform your audience about the latest phone technology, specifications, types of earphones, how to identify a good earphone, side effects of using earphone and how to overcome it, etc.

This means, you have to be a good researcher and reader to stay relevant to your your audience. Be the first to announce the latest trend in your industry. But if you do not have the time for all these on Instagram then you can employ a professional content creator to bridge that gap because that's what Instagram entails if you want to grow your business via Instagram.

2. *Entertaining content:* This is how @wanneka, @maraji and the likes became top brands. @wanneka is a hair seller so she post videos of her dancing while combing wearing her Wigs and combing it. She does some naughty facial gestures and this is quite entertaining. That's her personality anyways so she inculcated it into her business and became the most sort-after Nigerian hair seller on Instagram. So if you are a good actor like @maraji or a singer, or comedian, you can create contents with this talent of yours and indirectly sell your business in the process.

People get pissed off when you ask them directly to buy your products/services but if you do it indirectly, you will not only attract more followers, but your sales will skyrocket.

3. *Controversial content:* Some business owners are controversial in nature. They love to argue and give their opinion on topics related to politics, football, celebrities, etc. So if you are in this category, again, that can be your selling point. Find a way to indirectly promote your brand and sell your products/services. Before anyone can buy anything from you on Instagram, they need to see your post and the major way you can get people to see your post is by attracting post engagement. If more and more people engage with your post; like, comment and share, then your profile visit will increase which will increase the number of your followers and sales eventually.

Apps you can use to create better pictures are photogrid, pixel, postermaker etc
Apps you can use to edit videos include videoshow, kinemaster, inshot, etc

Using Location for your content
A lot of people ignore adding location when posting but research has proven that adding location to your post can increase your visibility level. So while posting remember to add location. *Here's how to post and add location* :

1. Open your Instagram App and click the the plus icon at the bottom of your screen.

2. Select a picture/video you want to post from your gallery, click next twice.

3. Click "Add location," and type the name of your city, or any location of your choice then click 'share.'


 *Liking and commenting*

Many business owners are too busy to like other peoples post not to talk of commenting, little do they know that liking and commenting on other people's post is a good way to build rapport and relationships. It is very difficult to get a customer from Instagram if you are not a top brand. For small business owners and upcoming brand, you need to build trust first before you can talk about sales. When you keep liking and commenting on your potential customers post, your handle keeps appearing on their notification and this is subconsciously building a relationship between you and them.

So when you eventually ask them to patronize you with good discount or giveaway, they are most likely to oblige. Part of your routine on Instagram should be liking and commenting on your potential customers post. In topic 3, I taught how to follow people, read it again, to learn how to find your target audience.