I love being on Instagram. I love sharing my tips and ideas. I love interacting with people. I love searching through hashtags and finding awesome new people to follow.
(I also love shopping via Instagram -- which isn’t so great for my bank balance.)
What I don’t love is taking photos or creating graphics.
As a copywriter, I’m happy to admit photography and graphic design are not my strengths. Needless to say, I was wasting a lot of time trying to do it myself and still not getting the look and feel that I really wanted for my feed.
As soon as I could afford it, I outsourced my image creation and curation on Instagram. And it’s been an awesome decision.
In this post I’m going to share with you how I went about outsourcing my Instagram images and why I’m more in love with Instagram than ever.
How I went about outsourcing
As luck would have it, a client I was working with brought on a junior graphic designer to help me manage their Instagram feed. She’d curate images in line with the strategy and I would write the captions. It worked really well and their feed started exploding (in the good way).
I realised that I could do the same thing with my own feed, so I asked that graphic designer, Angelina, to work with me.
The first thing we did was sit down and discuss my Instagram strategy and branding. We then arranged a photoshoot to capture a bunch of images for my feed.
Now, at the start of each month, I send Angelina a list of tips, quotes, and brands I want to mention on my feed. She then curates images and creates graphics and puts the whole lot in a shared Google Drive folder.
All I need to do is grab the images, add captions and schedule them with ScheduGram.
The results of outsourcing
Now that I don’t have to worry about the visual stuff, I have more time to actually engage with my followers and create new content I think they’d love.
Of course, paying for something like this only makes sense if there’s a return on that investment.
And I have to admit, I was slow to see results at first.
But recently the engagement on my feed has taken off -- my email subscribers have grown, I’m getting copywriting enquiries directly via Instagram, and I’m even getting comments IRL from people about how helpful my feed is.
The big thing for me was ensuring that I maintained control over the content of my Instagram feed (I am a copywriter, after all). So I didn’t want to outsource the entire management of my Instagram feed. Every caption and comment is me.
How to outsource your Instagram marketing
Now, you might love creating images for Instagram, but maybe there’s another business task you’re doing that would make much more sense to outsource. If you’re thinking of outsourcing, here are my tips for making it work based off of my Insta experience:
Know what your objectives are
Make sure you know why you’re outsourcing a part of your business. For me, it was because I wanted to have an Instagram feed that felt branded and cohesive to help me find new clients.
For you, it might be to grow your engagement, give your brand a clearer “voice” or simply save time on something you don’t enjoy doing.
Figure out how much control you want to maintain
You might be happy to outsource all of your marketing, a part of it (the visuals or captions) or maybe only the stuff that followers wouldn’t notice (like ‘liking’ certain hashtags or finding new people to follow).
I would never get someone else to write my captions because I want my voice to come through, but you might be happy to let a copywriter who gets your brand to do it, while you take your own photos because maintaining control of your visual look is more important.
Do your research
When it comes to finding someone to outsource a part of your business to, spend some time looking for the right person. I was lucky that I’d previously worked with Angelina and already knew how well we worked together.
Seek out recommendations (Editor’s note: We highly recommend the ladies in the OWS Directory!) and take a look at what that person is doing on their own feed or for their clients. Ask them about their collaborative process and what they’d need from you to make it work.
The truth about outsourcing
A tip: As soon as you start investing in a part of your business, you start to take it a lot more seriously. Putting money into my Instagram has made me treat it as a key pillar of my marketing funnel, rather than just a fun place to hang out. And it’s definitely paid off for my business.
Would you ever outsource all or part of your Instagram marketing? If not, what would you outsource? Let me know in the comments below.
PS -- Not sure where to start in evaluating potential pros? Our Prior to the Hire ebook has you covered.
Latest posts by Nell Casey (see all)
- How (And Why) To Outsource Your Instagram Marketing - March 17, 2016
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