How to Create the Best Instagram Posts for your Balloon Business

There is little doubt that a strong Instagram post for your balloon business can help to attract new customers and engage your current followers. Here are some tips for creating a great Instagram post:

Use high-quality images:

For every post, you should always use high-quality, visually appealing images of your balloon decor to showcase your work. Make sure the lighting is good, and the images are clear and sharp.

Design by Karla Bell-Marsh of Blooms and Balloons Portsmouth 

Use engaging captions: 

Write captions that are informative, interesting, and relevant to the image. Use a conversational tone and try to include a call-to-action, such as "book now" or "click the link in our bio for more information."

Here are some tips for constructing effective captions:

1. Know your audience: Understanding your target audience is crucial to creating captions that resonate with them. Consider their interests, preferences, and values, then tailor your captions accordingly.

2. Keep it short: Instagram captions have a limit of 2,200 characters, but shorter captions are often more effective. Keep your captions concise and to the point, using simple and direct language.

3. Use a clear call-to-action: Including a clear call-to-action in your caption can encourage users to engage with your post, whether that is by liking, commenting, or sharing it.

4. Tell a story: Captions can be an effective way to tell a story or provide context for the image or video. Use the caption to share insights, emotions, or experiences related to the content.

5. Use emojis and hashtags: Emojis and hashtags can help to make your caption more visually appealing and increase its visibility. However, use them sparingly and ensure they are relevant to the content.

6. Edit and proofread: Before posting, be sure to edit and proofread your caption for spelling and grammatical errors. A well-written caption can increase your credibility and make your content more engaging.

   
   

   
   

"Celebrating a whole year of love, laughter, and little moments that make life big! 🎈🥳🎂 #1stBirthday"

"Happy 1st birthday to the cutest little one in town! Let's celebrate with lots of balloons and fun! 🎈👶🎉 #FirstBirthday"

"One year down, a lifetime of adventure to go! 🎈🌟👶 #1stBirthday"

Highlight your unique selling points: 

Showcase what sets your balloon business apart from others. Whether it is your attention to detail, your custom designs, or your exceptional customer service, highlight these points in your posts.

• Emphasise your attention to detail; Share photos of your intricate designs and highlight how you pay close attention to every detail to ensure your balloons look perfect.
• Showcase your custom designs: Highlight how you work closely with your clients to create unique balloon designs that fit their specific needs and preferences. Share photos of some of the custom designs you have created in the past.
• Highlight your exceptional customer service: Share testimonials from happy customers who have praised your outstanding customer service. Demonstrate how you go above and beyond to make sure your clients are satisfied with your services.
• Share your expertise: If you have specialised knowledge in a certain area of balloon design, such as balloon arches or balloon sculptures, highlight this in your posts. Share tips and advice on how to create these designs, and position yourself as an expert in your field.
• Offer promotions and discounts: If you are running a special promotion or offering a discount, make sure to highlight this in your posts. This can be a great way to attract new customers and set yourself apart from your competitors.

Use hashtags: 

Use relevant hashtags to increase the visibility of your posts. Research popular hashtags related to your business and include them in your post.

Here are some popular hashtags 1st Birthday balloon decor: #1stbirthdayballoons #1stbirthdayparty #1stbirthdaydecorations #firstbirthdayballoons #balloon1stbirthday #1stbirthdaycelebration #1stbirthdayideas #1stbirthdayinspiration #1stbirthdayfun #1stbirthdayballoonbouquet #1stbirthdayballoonarch #1stbirthdayballoondecor #1stbirthdaypartyideas #1stbirthdaydecor #1stbirthdaycenterpiece #1stbirthdaypartydecorations #1stbirthdaypartythemes #1stbirthdayballoonarrangements #1stbirthdayballoonart #1stbirthdaypartyplanning

Remember to choose hashtags that are relevant to your post and your audience, and avoid using too many hashtags that may cause your post to look like spam!

Encourage user-generated content: 

Encourage your followers to share their own photos of your balloon decor by tagging your business in their posts. Share these posts on your own page to showcase your happy customers and increase engagement.

Show your team: 

Share images of your team creating balloon decor or working at events. This helps to add a personal touch to your business and can help to build a connection with your followers.

Below is a collection of photographs from a corporate balloon job that I did some years ago. I have mixed prep work with an end result photo to create this collage!

By following these tips, you can create engaging Instagram posts that showcase your balloon business and attract new customers.

And finally, how often should a business post on Instagram?

The ideal frequency for a business to post on Instagram depends on various factors, including the type of business, its audience, and the content being shared. However, a general guideline for businesses is to post at least once per day, or a minimum of 3-4 times per week to maintain an active presence on the platform. That said, it is important to note that quality should always be prioritised over quantity. Posting too frequently or posting low-quality content can lead to decreased engagement and may even turn off followers. It's also important to consider the best time to post, as posting during peak hours when your target audience is most active on the platform can increase engagement and reach. You can use Instagram Insights to track your audience's activity and engagement and adjust your posting schedule accordingly. Ultimately, finding the right posting frequency for your business requires experimentation and analysis of your audience's behaviour and preferences.

I won't even pretend to understand algorithms, but I certainly try to create posts that will hopefully help to improve and increase engagement and visibility. Never be afraid to try out new things, and remember to check your account insights to help you to understand what works well and which posts are the most successful for you.

Happy Ballooning!

Sue

www.suebowler.com

Follow me @suebowler

An Inside into the Instagram Algorithm and The Importance of Understanding It

After watching a free tutorial about Instagram and how to get your 'Dream Followers' earlier this week, I realised as the instructor spoke about how to use the Instagram algorithm to get better engagement that I need to be honest, and confess that I really did not know what the algorithm actually was! Yes, of course, I had heard the term many times, but I had no real idea of how it works, and how it can influence my Instagrams account's effectiveness. 

1. The Instagram Algorithm Predicts How Much You Care About a Post

Your Instagram feed isn’t just based on who you follow, it’s also based on who and what you like. Instagram algorithm keeps tabs on posts that you like. The more photos that you double-click, the more signals you give to the Instagram algorithm that you want to see more content like this in the future.

The more the Instagram algorithm thinks you will “like” that post, the higher it will appear in your feed. Therefore it is important to get your followers to double-click on your posts so that you will always appear in their feed.

2. Instagram Algorithm watches engagement with your followers

According to Instagram, the most important engagements for feed ranking are comments, likes, shares and reposts, and for video posts, views, which is especially helpful to know when you are planning your posts, content, and captions.

It is important that you create content that your followers will enjoy engaging with. If you have the ability you should plan what you are going to post each day. Try to plan a week, or even a month in advance. 
Variety is key, you don't want to be posting the same kind of content every day, or your followers will become bored or worse, unfollow you! 

Here are a few suggestions for some more unusual types of posts from your norm.

• Post an inspiring quote - A surprisingly large proportion of successful posts are quotes/memes, so every business should share this kind of content on occasions as a part of their posting strategy.

When I posted this quote on my Instagram feed it received 100 likes and 4 comments.

• Ask a question - These can vary greatly, here are a few ideas:

Is there a household chore you secretly enjoy? If so, which one?

What famous landmark would you love to visit?

Or the one that I have used below:

This should initiate quite a few responses. Something you really need to be hot on is responding to comments, even emoji comments. You could respond with another emoji- If someone shows a sad emoji then you can respond with a hug emoji for example. 

Questions are a fun way to interact with your audience, and a good indicator that people enjoy what you are posting.

Make your posts exciting! 
I have used CANVA to create both of the posts above. This makes them much more visual. You can either post them using a background that you feel is appropriate to the post, or you could start branding your posts so that they all have the same look and feel about them, and ultimately become instantly recognisable as one of your posts! If you are unsure how to go about branding your business, check out Creating Your Brand Image by Zoe Adam- Jones. Through a video tutorial, she shows you how to create your brand image. 

Creating Your Brand & Image - Digital Marketing with Zoe Adam- Jones CBA

Comments are the most valuable form of engagement, as a comment is a tangible indication of a follower or customer's loyalty and commitment to you and your brand. The fact that they spent the time to write a comment means your audience is highly engaged with your content. 

Each share of your posts is like a mini organic advertisement for your content, and it rates very high on the engagement scale and is therefore something you want to encourage. A simple way to get people to share or repost your post is to create a competition. This is something that I am seeing more often on Facebook, and I am sure that Facebook algorithm works in a very similar way?

This is a competition that is being run by one of our local butchers on Facebook. They are asking people to LIKE the post, Leave a COMMENT and to SHARE to their own page, all the things that will generate great algorithm. At the time of me copying this post they had already generated 996 comments and 1.2 shares! I wonder how many new followers they have attracted too!

Some while ago I shared this Instagram Social Plan - One Month of Post Ideas by Fiona Flintham - fionaflintham.com.

If you are struggling to find things to post about, this plan will give you some great pointers - and have you noticed that it's not all about the products that you are selling! 

3. It's all about the timing!

Posts that are more recent are more likely to be pushed to the top of people’s feeds. This means that posting when your audience is online is crucial. How do you know when they are online? Check your insights! For example, looking at my insights, the best time for me to post is between 3pm and midnight as that is when my followers are most active on Instagram - hmm, I seem to do most of mine in the mornings, so I will look to change my timing and see if it's make a difference!

The one thing that I truly love about creating posts like this is getting to learn so much while doing the research! I have started to put some of these ideas into practise over the different social media platforms that I work on and the initial results have been amazing! If you are on the QBN Members Facebook group, you may have seen a post that I shared asking members - 

If you could have a day working with anyone in the balloon industry who would you choose and why?

This post received 27 likes but more importantly 202 comments! The responses have been amazing and I feel that this post has re-connected many of the group's members who may  have been inactive for a while! 

Understanding algorithms is not easy, but getting an idea on how to engage with and grow your followers through exciting and consistent content is definitely a solid step towards making those algorithms work for you! 

Happy Ballooning!

Sue

www.suebowler.com

Follow me on Instagram @suebowler

A Little Introduction to Instagram Stories - How Do They Really Affect Your Page?

Many of us work hard to build an Instagram feed that promotes and grows our businesses. Hopefully, along the way, we have started to grow a healthy number of followers, also known as our audience.

If a client lands on your Instagram page, it’s important that you engage them immediately by visually communicating your style and that you help your visitors to capture the essence of your creativity. With so many balloon companies actively using Instagram, it is important that we stand out. Here are a few suggestions that you can use to help achieve this:

• Show clients your talents, and that you would be a good person to work with.
• Ensure that your Instagram feed is appealing and consistent.
• Make sure that the work that you present on Instagram "Sells the Dream" - our job is not to sell balloons, but to sell the special memories that our balloons make, whether it's a beautiful bouquet of balloons that we deliver for a special occasion or amazing decor that we create for a corporate event, a wedding, or a party.

So now that we have started to grow our followers, we need to learn how to keep them engaged - remember, it is just as easy to unfollow someone as it is to follow them!

Instagram Stories are a great way to communicate with your audience and potentially acquire new followers! Unlike your Instagram feed, your stories can be a much more casual affair. Instagram Stories help to capture the little moments throughout your day. They don't need to be pristine, but they should give your followers a glimpse into what goes on in your world. The key to having a successful Instagram Story is staying true to your brand's personality and style.



Let's start by looking at how you can create an Instagram story. I recommend that you have your smart phone on hand so that you can follow along as you go through the steps below.

Start by clicking on the Instagram icon to open your Instagram home screen.

1. Swipe right from your home screen or tap the camera icon in the top left corner of the screen to open the Instagram camera. 















2. Take a photo by tapping the record button or take a video by pressing down on the record button for up to 10 seconds. You also have the option of making a Type (this is fun to play with if you have never tried it before), Going Live, creating a Boomerang, using Superzoom, Rewind, or doing a Hands-Free Video.


Other story options:
Photo: Select your most recently taken photo or video
Thunderbolt: The flash button.
Arrows: Switch from front-facing camera to back-facing camera and vice-versa.

Smiley face: Instagram’s face filters feature

3. You can also upload a previously taken photo or video from your camera roll by swiping up or down.

If you select a photo from over 24 hours ago, a date sticker with the day, month, and year that the photo was taken will automatically appear. You can remove the sticker by dragging to the trash icon at the bottom of the screen.

4. Tapping anywhere on the screen will bring up the text tool. You can play with text size and colour, and you can also use the “@” sign to tag another account, or the “#” sign to share a hashtag.

Instagram recently launched the ability to search for Instagram Stories by location and hashtag, meaning that if you include a hashtag in your story, other users can see it even if they don’t follow you - this is an excellent way to find new followers!

5. Select from one of three different pen styles to doodle on your photo. You can also erase any drawings that you add to your story with the eraser brush - like my hand-drawn rainbow!















6. You can add stickers by selecting the sticker button in the top right corner of your screen or by swiping up on your story. Some of the more important ones include the location sticker, hashtag sticker, mention sticker, selfie sticker, poll sticker, emoji slider, and question sticker!

7. By swiping right or left, you can you can apply different filters. 



8. When you’re done, tap the “Next” button to share!
Your story will appear at the top of your followers’ feeds, but it will also be accessible on your profile page by tapping your profile picture.









9. You can see how well your Instagram story is performing by swiping up while viewing your story. This will display the number as well as the names of people who have seen each photo or video in your story.


Here's a story that I posted a few weeks ago. The information is invaluable! It shows me how many people clicked on the link that directed people to the blog, and how many people visited my profile and the number of website clicks - this information will tell me how successful my stories are and whether it's achieving any positive results. Make sure to always check your insights to see how well your posts are performing.

The great thing about stories is that they only last for 24 hours from the time that you posted it! If you want to keep stories, you can save them to Highlights which is featured on your home screen above your posts. You can add to and remove them from Highlight as often as you want. You can also create different Cover titles that enables you to file your stories according to difference topics or categories.

Is Instagram Stories something that you should be actively using? It's a definite yes from me! Not only will you keep your audience engaged, you have the potential to attract new followers too! Remember, this is your opportunity to show your audience what goes on in your world - whether it's in the midst of work, at a training session, creating new designs, or showing off new products...

Good luck and I look forward to seeing some of your wonderful stories!

Happy Ballooning! 


Sue
www.suebowler.com
#suebowler

How to Avoid having your Instagram Account Disabled, or worse, Lost Forever!

Breaking the "rules" on social media is easier than you may realise!

Are you committing copyright infringement and don't realise that you are doing it?

Last year a ballooning friend of mine told me that her business Instagram account had been disabled before Christmas for violating Instagram Community Guidelines  - her account was never restored and she never found out why - but a cheeky little "Elf on the Shelf" had something to do with it! 

There are several things that you can do to cause your Instagram account to be disabled or worse, lost forever! 

Banned Instagram Hashtags

As we all know, hashtags get your posts noticed, but did you know that there are many banned Instagram hashtags! Some of the bans are permanent - others are temporary, usually when someone has reported content that may not meet Instagram's guidelines. These come and go so be careful when using hashtags that they are permissible to use at that time.

How do you know if the hashtags that you are using are okay to use?

• In the search bar, type the hashtag you want to use.
• If it does not appear in the search results, it usually mean that the hashtag is banned. The hashtag could be banned temporarily or indefinitely. This means that one day it might be blocked, another day it might be usable.

I've read several articles on this subject and was really surprised to see that words like #Valentinesday and #newyearsday were both listed as banned hashtags, so I checked and saw that they have both been re-instated. I suppose if someone posts something inappropriate and it's reported, that hashtag is temporarily disabled.

There is a great article A Complete List Of Banned Hashtags You Should Avoid In 2020, I recommend that you take a look.

Infringing the Copyright of other people or businesses - please read this as you could be easily infringing copyright or trademark laws.

Under Instagram’s Terms of Use and Community Guidelines, you can only post content to Instagram if it doesn’t violate the intellectual property rights of another party. The best way to help make sure that the content you post to Instagram doesn’t violate copyright law is to only post content that you’ve created yourself.

You might also be able to use someone else’s content on Instagram if you’ve gotten permission (for example, a license), or if your use is covered by fair use or some other exception to copyright. It’s generally a good idea to get permission before posting content, and to get that permission in writing.

The key words in the above statement are licenses and copyright. 

How many balloon artists regularly copy licensed characters without permission? This is where a balloon artist creates a character entirely out of balloons and does not used a licensed balloon such as the Mickey Mouse Bubble as shown below. I see it all the time on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest! Not only do they copy the licensed characters, they hashtag them too, which makes it really easy for the license owners to catch people using their license without the relevant permissions required.

It might bring an artist kudos to re-create famous character designs, but is it worth having your Instagram account disabled for posting those photos? 
Here is an article on Legal Use of the Disney Characters - by Marilyn Linblad

It's not just Disney, there are so many characters and other famous things that are heavily licensed and trademarked, such as the Olympics and anything Oscar related to name just a few... there are many!

Making designs like the Mickey Mouse design using licensed balloons does not break any licensing rules.

Making designs using licensed balloons is perfectly acceptable
and does not break any licensing rules. 

With so many balloon companies using vinyl cutters, we are seeing many licensed designs and fonts being copied, again this is breaking copyright and licensing rules.

If you are ever in doubt, simply search "is 'xxxx' protected by licenses or trademark laws" and it will give you all the relevant information.

Be warned, re-creating anything that is licensed or has a copyright can get you into trouble - posting it on social media and hash-tagging it simply flags it for all to see.

So let's go back to Elf on The Shelf - as I mentioned right at the beginning of this blog post, a ballooning friend of mine had their Instagram account disabled and is really struggling to get it back. 
They were informed that Instagram had removed a post for copyright infringement - this was a video that they had made showing their Elf On The Shelf stuffing balloons, the video had been hash-tagged "elfontheshelf". Thinking it was because they had used the hashtag, they continued their Elf on the Shelf marketing campaign by posting photographs of the elf being naughty each day, but this time without the hashtag, sadly after a few more posts their account was completely disabled, and it's really hard to find out why.

It's difficult to understand what's okay and what's not! The words "Elf on the Shelf" are trademarked and I suppose around Christmastime they are checking to see if it's being use appropriately. I saw so many Elf on the Shelf campaigns it's hard to know which of those were legal and which broke the rules. Or was my friend just one of the unlucky ones that got noticed?

Last week I noticed that a company had posted a photograph of mine (without permission) on their Instagram account to promote their business - which incidentally is not a balloon decor company! 

Here are the rules on this:

To repost someone else's Instagram post, you first have to obtain that person's permission to re-use their content. Then, you can use an external app such as Repost for Instagram, Instarepost, or DownloadGram.

The company that used my photo did neither, they did hashtag my name but that does not constitute as obtaining permission.

If someone has posted a photograph of yours that you took, you have to decide if you are unhappy that they are using one of your photos to promote their business, and to be honest it is probably best to contact them directly and ask them to remove the photograph, which in most cases they will. If they refuse, then you are well within your right to report them to Instagram, Facebook or Pinterest.

And there are even more reason why Instagram might block you!

• Mass Following and Mass Liking
• Excessively Frequent Publications
• Images/Videos Violating Social Network Rules
• User Complaints
• Different IP addresses and Devices

Rather than going into more details regarding the above reasons, I will guide you to a great post - 6 Reasons Why Instagram Blocks You. To-Do Actions if You Get Banned - by Julia Minnie who explain each of these really well.

To be completely honest I was unaware of many of the reasons for having an Instagram account disabled, and researching for this blog has really opened my eyes. When it comes to copyrights and trademark laws, I am always very careful, as it's so easy to break these rules. When in doubt always check!  For example did you know that you are not allowed to have an "Oscars" theme party but you can have a "Hollywood Nights Party" - even words are protected by copyright laws! 

Keep your Instagram and other social media accounts safe by not inadvertently breaking any rules.

Happy Ballooning!


Sue
www.suebowler.com
Follow me - #suebowler