If you are the owner of a home inspection business, you have probably heard about the need to use social media marketing to expand your business. The juggernaut, in most home inspectors’ minds, is Facebook. There is some merit to this thought, as Facebook contains over 2.3 billion monthly active users.
However, there are some other platforms that you should absolutely consider when spreading the word about your home inspection business. One of the most prominent platforms, as you can likely guess, is Instagram. Instagram—which is owned by Facebook—captures a significant amount of attention (particularly among Millennials). For example, a whopping one billion people use Instagram every month, 35 percent of online adults use Instagram, and users “like” 4.2 billion posts per day.
Because of Instagram’s scale and influence, you clearly want to have a presence on the platform. But how can you best leverage the unique features of Instagram to promote your home inspection business?
We are here to answer this question. Below you will find some of our top tips and tricks on how you can use Instagram to spread the word about your business. While this is just a collection of strategies, implementing these strategies will go a long way in finding a reliable, new source of warm leads.
Instagram Marketing: The Basics
The most basic step you can take to get started with Instagram marketing is to set up a business account. Luckily, Instagram makes this task extremely easy. All you need to do is sign up for an Instagram account with your business email address. From there, enter your business name under “Full Name” so that potential customers will recognize your business. You will also have to pick a username that is unique and that is easily recognizable. If you find that your business name is taken, you may need to get creative, as your username is one of the most prominent ways that Instagram users engage with your company.
After you have completed additional steps—including adding a profile picture, a bio for your business, and a single URL to your website—you can click on your profile settings to change your account to a business profile.
Next, you will want to plan your content strategy. Instagram is different from other social networks in that it is primarily based on visuals. Even if you don’t think that the home inspection business is catered for visual marketing—as compared to a travel website—you will need to get creative. Luckily, there are not many hard and fast rules here. For example, you can share some behind-the-scenes posts that show your followers how you actually complete your work. You could have one of your co-workers take a picture of you as you are on-the-job, and in the caption, you can explain the value that you provide to customers.
Besides behind-the-scenes posts, you can also leverage video. Instagram’s algorithm prioritizes video—especially if you go “live,” meaning that you are sharing a live video to your Instagram page. One creative way to use live video on Instagram is to interview a satisfied client after one of your jobs. You can act as a reporter, asking the client for his or her impressions about the work your company did.
Whatever you choose, you should be deliberate about your Instagram content strategy. See what some of your competitors are doing. Consider borrowing what you like and ignoring what you don’t like. One way to discover other home inspector businesses’ Instagram pages is by searching for hashtags. Searching for a hashtag like #homeinspection or the equivalent can help you find other home inspection businesses and observe their content strategies.
When posting content, you will also want to mind the technicals. By this, we mean ensuring that your photos and videos look beautiful. While you may be able to get away with a grainy or subpar photo on another social media website, Instagram is less forgiving. Again, this is because Instagram is a visual platform. The pictures and videos that you post will attract more attention than the content that you post below.
Because of this, there are a few rules of thumb to keep in mind. First, in your photos, focus on a single subject. Instead of posting group pictures, single subject pictures are more visually appealing. And when posting single-subject photos, try to remove distractions by cropping them out. This is fairly easy to do on Instagram, but you can also use another photo editing application if you prefer.
From there, don’t ignore the rule of thirds. Essentially, this means that you should try to place your subject at the intersection of one set of horizontal and vertical lines on your camera. The rule of thirds, which is popular with photographers and painters, creates a slight imbalance that catches your viewer’s eye. This, in turn, can help an Instagram user pay closer attention to your post as they scroll through their feed.
This is just a collection of technical advice. To learn more about shooting beautiful videos or photos, you can click here. The point, however, is that by minding the technicals, you can create a beautiful, compelling Instagram account that users will want to follow.
From content strategy, you may also want to consider paying for Instagram ads. Instagram ads, like Facebook ads, are extremely powerful due to their targeting capabilities. Setting up Instagram ads is through Facebook’s platform, so if you’ve ever launched a Facebook ad campaign, you will have a head start. If not, though, you will need to set up a Facebook account to get started.
To learn more about the technical aspects of launching an Instagram ad, you can click here. The bottom line, however, is that you can target particular groups of people that you think would become potential clients for your home inspection business. Along with this, Instagram ads become more powerful as you use them. By tracking engagements on your Instagram page (or even your home inspection website), you can leverage lookalike audiences, which can send you even more warm leads.
The good news doesn’t stop there, as you can run Instagram ad campaigns fairly cheaply. Once you set your budget, target your audience, and submit your ad, Instagram goes to work. Ultimately, Instagram ads can be an extremely effective tool in your paid marketing toolkit. Even better a combination of consistent, organic content on your Instagram page and a comprehensive advertising campaign will undoubtedly lead to an influx of warm leads for your home inspection business.
Leverage Instagram Marketing Today
Clearly, Instagram can be a great platform to spread the word about your home inspection business. Whether you are a novice or an Instagram pro, we encourage you to use the tips above as you begin (or expand) your Instagram marketing campaign.
We are also happy to help you would like some additional help with Instagram marketing. At Inspector Media, we work with home inspector businesses like yours that wish to grow their business through social media marketing. Feel free to contact us if you would like to learn more about how we can help your business.