The Instagram Guide allows you to create curated lists of posts from your Instagram account and other accounts. Originally rolled out for exercise and travel influencers, it is now available to everyone and can be used by wedding photographers, portrait photographers and more. .
In this series on Instagram Guides, we covered how to create them and ideas for how wedding photographers can use guides to attract their ideal clients. Now let’s see where you can share your guide and expose it to your audience.
Where to share Instagram guides to connect with your audience
Once your guide is published, it will appear in your followers’ feeds and have a dedicated tab on their profile page. But you can do more with the work you put into the guide.
Every guide has a unique link, share button, and that’s what we start with. For example, this guide on his Promptographer blog of mine.
Create a short link with Rebrandly
First and foremost, you should rebrand if you share naked links. Instagram links are long and ugly, so use a tool like Rebrandly to clean them up. I have tried many link shortening services over the years and Rebrandly is my favourite. At the time of writing, you can add up to 5 custom domains to the free plan (which is pretty cool). You can also use the default short link domain if you don’t have your own short link domain.
Registering a short domain is as easy as registering a regular website URL and often costs less than $15 per year. Rebrandly allows you to register a new domain directly from your account. Alternatively, you can register where you have your main URL (such as GoDaddy) and then point it to your Rebrandly account.
When choosing a short domain, choose a shortened one like the main domain. For example, if your main website is familyfunphotography.com, your short domain name could be ffphoto.cc. I have several short domains for different purposes such as jemma.cc, pollari.cc, cbstory.cc.
Remember to customize your slash tag (that is, what comes after your domain) to make it easier to use and remember. For example, https://jemma.cc/familypromptsguide.
Share a short link to your Instagram guide on other social media or offline
A short link for the guide has been created to share on other platforms. Pin it to the top of your Twitter profile. Share on your Facebook page, etc. Print on flyers, business cards, postcards.
Embed an Instagram guide on your website
Okay, now that we’ve dealt with the simple and obvious idea of where to share your Instagram guide, let’s dive into some of your other options.
When thinking about where to share your Instagram guide, consider where your clients will look for information. For example, if you created a fashion guide for your model clients, creating a Model Portfolio Photo Shoot FAQ page on your website would be a great place to embed a guide that shows your clients how to plan their session attire. It’s going to be a great place.
In the share menu of the guide, embed A button that displays the code to copy. Every website builder should have a code block you can paste this into.
This is a very versatile way to share your Instagram guide. Because you can talk to the people who found you without duplicating your efforts. It also means that your website saves storage space and loading time as large image files are delivered by Instagram’s mega network of fast image servers instead of your website host. Website load time is a big factor in how long visitors stay on your website, so using Instagram guides like this can help you in many ways.
Using Instagram guides as part of your local SEO blog marketing strategy
In the previous article in this series, we discussed creating a guide for sharing your preferred venues with your clients. If you have a blog on your website, using an embed guide like this is a great way to tackle your local SEO strategy. Depending on your photography specialty, you can write blog posts such as:
- local wedding venues and restaurants
- gym or fitness class
- Local shop selling cute baby and kids clothes
- Nearby beaches, forests and fields make for great photo opportunities
- Local business networking opportunities
- A marketplace or pop-up that would be of interest to your ideal client
Optimize your on-page text with SEO plugins and walk people through helpful guides to take people from search to your website to Instagram with one piece of content.
Guides can be made with posts from any account, so photo attribution is already done and there is no need to take someone else’s content and republish it on the site (e.g. download the image, reupload and publish it in another format). blog post). This saves a lot of time and effort.
As a bonus, if your guide is thoughtful and helpful, the accounts you refer can also share it with their audience.