How to Promote Your Business Locally using Instagram

Most local businesses market their products or services online, as 91% of consumers search for local businesses there first. That’s why you need to know how to promote your business locally.

When searching for marketing tools to speak to people in your area, Instagram isn’t the most obvious option to promote a local business.

In this post, I will explain Instagram’s potential for local business promotion and walk you through four actionable strategies to promote your local business on Instagram.

Estimated reading time: 13 minutes

Table of Contents

Why Should You Promote a Local Business on Instagram?

For local businesses, it’s important to show up where your potential local customers are searching for your local business, and Instagram is a perfect place to market your local business for the following three reasons.

First, the Instagram audience is large and engaged. Instagram has quickly become a powerful marketing tool for growing an audience, as it has a huge user base, and 90% of users are interested in brand communication from different businesses.

This means your local business can market its products or services to a large, engaged audience of potential local customers.

Next, people seek out local reviews online. Around 34% of consumers use Instagram to find local business reviews. And users are happy to share their customer experiences with their followers and businesses to help other customers make the right purchase decisions.

Thus, it’s a perfect place to provide customers with authentic reviews of your local business.

Lastly, Instagram has built-in features to promote a local business. From geotags and hashtags to the searchable map, Instagram can help local businesses reach their potential customers in a particular geographic area.

Here is an example from Soloway Coffee, a coffee shop in Chicago, showing how this business uses Instagram for local promotion.

Now that you realize the importance of Instagram for promoting your local business, let’s go through four actionable strategies for doing it right, backed by detailed tips and real-life examples.

Optimize Your Instagram for Local Search

Write a Descriptive Instagram bio

When you’re just starting out with your local business promotion on Instagram, it’s important to set up a business profile and take care of your Instagram bio to make sure your business can show up in local searches.

Why? Your Instagram bio is a business card for your local business. It helps visitors learn more about your business and can include relevant keywords related to your business and/or location, increasing searchability within your local community.

Here’s how to create an Instagram bio to promote a local business:

Write about your local business. Make it clear to readers how your local business is attracting the right audience and turning them into local customers. However, keep in mind that you have only 150 characters.
Add relevant keywords. People do research on Instagram, and they search for particular places, so it’s a smart idea to add keywords that tell more about your business and your location.
Include your location and opening hours. This information will help visitors and followers learn more about your local business and indicate where and when they can try it.
Optimize your link in bio. Instagram lets you include one clickable link in your bio, but you can use relevant tools to create dedicated landing pages with all the information about the local business you want to share (website, other social media handles, reviews, menu, etc.).
Make good use of Story Highlights. If you use Instagram Stories, you can save and organize relevant content into separate Story Highlight albums, helping visitors find information or navigate your profile with ease.

Let’s take a look at an example of a well-organized Instagram bio from Jackie:

Include Geotags and Location Hashtags

With the introduction of Instagram’s map feature, which lets users tap the map to see what’s nearby, businesses operating in a given area have had more opportunities to reach their local communities on Instagram.

Moreover, location-based content is easier to find for people searching for content in a specific location, so it has great potential to help market your business to the right audience. Thus, it’s important to include geotags and location hashtags that inform users where your business is located.

Local businesses have two options: create a custom location or add a possible location geotag near you (your city or a popular location in your district/city). This will provide viewers with more information about your area and help you gain more exposure among users interested in it.

Check out how one nail bar uses Instagram geotags:

Team Up with Local Influencers

Influencer marketing has become one of the most effective marketing tactics. Working with smaller niche Instagram influencers is one of the influencer marketing trends, as it’s more cost-effective yet powerful–these people have loyal followings.

When promoting a local business, it’s important to team up with local influencers whose audiences live in your area. Not only can it help to improve brand reputation, but it can also result in more local customers.

For instance, if you have a local restaurant, you can find influencers who specialize in doing restaurant reviews and invite them to visit your place and share their thoughts. Check out an example of this strategy in action:

As a result of a similar collaboration, you can get a business review, user-generated content to use on your profile, and more exposure among the already-established community of potential customers. Not bad, huh?

At first blush, it seems difficult to secure collaborations with relevant influencers. But most of them are open to brand collaborations. For example, here’s what the restaurant blogger mentioned above says about herself in her bio. She invites relevant brands to slide into Direct Messages and discuss collaboration.

Turn Your Instagram Into a Business Card

Tell About Your Local Services

To attract the local community and turn residents into customers, you need to interest them in your local services. To promote a local business on Instagram, the first step is to tell Instagrammers more about your local business–your stuff, values, and products or services.

First, if you have a website, don’t forget to link back to it in your bio. Not only can it provide visitors with more information, but it can also drive more traffic.

Next, you need to create product content. With the help of carousel posts, when you can add up to 10 visuals in one post, your local business gets more opportunities to implement storytelling to tell followers more about a particular product or even showcase various products/services without posting much on the feed.

And if you want to keep up with trends and increase user engagement, consider creating Instagram Reels that provide more information about your local business in a fun, engaging way.

With the variety of options on the market, potential customers pay close attention to peer recommendations and customer reviews to assess the quality of your business.

When existing customers share positive reviews about your business, other people see them as social proof, encouraging them to try your business.

Thus, it’s important to post customer reviews on Instagram, just like in the example below:

Do you lack reviews from Instagram followers? If your local business uses Google My Business and you collect Google reviews, there’s no need to ask Instagram followers to share their thoughts about your company to post reviews on the platform.

Instead, you can see what other clients say about your local business and repurpose their reviews for the Instagram feed.

Invest in Instagram Ad Campaigns

No matter how many followers you have on Instagram, it’s nearly impossible to have all of your target audience as subscribers. Thus, it’s important to reach a wider audience of potential customers, and running Instagram paid ad campaigns is a great way to market your local business to your community and get more exposure quickly.

Tracking metrics for Instagram ads will help you optimize campaigns and targeting. With advanced targeting, you can deliver your ad to the right audience in your area.

Here’s how TreatWell uses Instagram ads increase wellness appointments for its local business:

The company used a collection ad campaign to showcase all their services in one ad and therefore target a wider audience.

This campaign resulted in a 19% increase in purchases and a 7% lower cost per order compared to other campaigns.

Turn Your Local Visitors into Instagram Followers

Make it Easy for Visitors to Find Your Business on Instagram

When promoting your local business on Instagram, think outside the box and merge offline and online marketing for maximum impact. This means you can find your followers offline, too.

One of the best ways is to offer your existing customers the opportunity to join you on Instagram.

Why? People who visit your local business are more loyal to your brand, so they can also become brand advocates and share your profile with their friends and family, which may result in more followers and customers.

For any local business, it’s a good idea to generate dynamic QR codes and add them to your visit card or entrance to help your local visitors find out more about your social media handles and therefore become loyal followers on Instagram, too.

Offer Exclusive Bonuses for Instagram Followers

When people visit your local business, this doesn’t mean they are ready to be among your Instagram followers. At the same time, it’s crucial to grow your Instagram following, and your customers can help you promote your account and therefore raise interest in your business.

Thus, it’s important to encourage visitors to follow you on Instagram, and one of the most actionable ways is to offer something valuable for your followers.

For instance, you can give special discounts, free tickets, or branded freebies.

Some local businesses practice telling their customers about the benefits of being among their social media followers at checkout to encourage them to follow the business.

It delivers great results, so you can also consider a bonus system for followers and promote it at your local store.

Give Your Local Customers a Reason to Promote Your Instagram

Organize an Instagram Giveaway

When your followers have an interest in your Instagram content, and they share your profile with their friends and family, not only do you get more engagement, but you also get more exposure, which results in more potential customers.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could turn your Instagram followers into brand advocates who promote your local business?

Instagram giveaways are one of the most effective ways to drive business growth, as people love the chance to win something valuable in social media contests. Moreover, running a giveaway is another lead-generation strategy that helps businesses collect leads and turn interested prospects into customers.

For example, you can ask your participants to tag friends or repost your giveaway to their Stories to reach a wider audience. And when it comes to prizes, it’s a smart idea to give away gift cards or coupons to ensure your giveaway attracts the right local audience who can become customers.

Check out an example below.

Or you can also take a look at the example from Ardmore Coffee.

The local business organizes an Instagram giveaway and offers branded merch as prizes, which gives them a chance to promote their local business to a wider audience, as people who wear this merch become walking advertisements for the business. Win-win!

With a variety of merch ideas, your local business can find something that suits your business best.

For example, it’s no wonder that most coffee shops have custom mugs, stickers, tote bags, or T-shirts with eye-catching designs as merch to give away.

Tag Your Loyal Fans on Your Profile

Instagrammers crave communication with companies they love, so when you make your followers feel valued, most of them are honored to spread the word about your profile among their followers and therefore promote your page.

How to do it? Tag your loyal fans to get them in front of your audience. It shows respect to loyal followers and encourages others to promote your company for a chance to be featured on their favorite profile.

And if you don’t get many tags to repost, don’t worry. Today, there are many Instagram tools that allow businesses to analyze their social media presence and track mentions, even when local customers don’t tag their profile.

Not only can it help you better understand your customers, but it also allows you to reach out to them and ask for permission to post their content on your feed.

Another way to promote your local business is to team up with other businesses that share a similar audience. You can co-promote each other on the platform or even make good use of affiliate marketing and turn these businesses into partners who recommend your company to their customers.

In a Word: How To Promote Your Business Locally on Instagram

Instagram can be a perfect place to promote a local business and reach your local community if you know how to do it right. Having an Instagram presence for your local business is a great way to reach a wider audience of potential customers and increase brand loyalty or trust.

Thus, don’t be afraid to experiment with Instagram marketing and try some of the tactics mentioned above to reach new local customers.