Developing my Instagram Best Practices as a New Freelancer

This past month I started a graduate program in Social Media through the University of Florida. In an assignment for class, we were given the task of figuring out what makes us different and how we can use that to our advantage. Upon some self-reflection, I concluded that what set me apart was the desire I have to tell stories and create videos. Feeling inspired by this I decided that I would launch my own freelance Wedding Video Business. It is my intention for this project to feed my passion, put to practice the material I am learning in school, and earn some extra income. I have spent the last few weeks researching the field, creating social media accounts, and building my website. What I am left with right now is a completely blank slate ready for me to implement the strategies I have learned.
For this discussion, I will be focusing on discussing my plan for Instagram but I also intend to use Facebook, Pinterest, and YouTube. However, I believe that Instagram will be a perfect platform for me to get my work out there as well as market my brand.

Brand Voice:

Before looking deeper into the best practices for a post on Instagram I first want to discuss my voice. I intend to come off as being positive and professional communicating clearly and cheerfully. I am not looking to go the satirical route or trying to be modern. I want my tone to be timeless and respectful for anyone that reads it. Because I will be working personally with all of my clients I want them to be able to tell the type of experience they will have from reading my posts. These people are trusting me to capture the most important day of their life and I want to present myself as responsible and respectable.

Post Length:

(Leifeld Videography Instagram)
When posting to my Instagram account I want to be aware of the number of characters I am posting. On average I am looking to make a post with a high quality visual and around 140 characters. The visuals will grab people’s attention and I want them to read the entire message before continuing to scroll. On the post to the left, I have included a visual to grab people’s attention, this also serves an example of what they can expect from my services. In the text, I state “Let us tell your Love Story” this insinuates what I will be doing for them. The second part of the post “Now booking for Summer 2021!!!” tells the reader that it is not to early to get into contact with me. It is also my intention that this post will create a feeling of time sensitivity. Even though my Instagram account is for my business I do not want it to be solely advertising. I intend to showcase different couples and venues on my account and give them shoutouts they will be proud to share. This post will be mainly focused on the visual.

Hashtags:

(Pexels.com)
When deciding on what hashtags to use I want to pick ones that will fit with the overall message I am trying to communicate. I do not want to pick hashtags that are so broad that I stand little chance of standing out. On the other end, I do not want hashtags so narrow that I do not reach a new audience. I also do not want to oversaturate my post with too many hashtags. According to TrackMaven.com Instagram posts with nine hashtags receive the most engagement. I plan to create a list of possible hashtags I can use for my post and include 5–9 of them per post. With this strategy, I hope to reach the largest potential for new connections.

Possible Strategies

Instagram Live:

Traditionally weddings are filmed onto memory cards and edited together in post-production software. Although this is still the final product I am going to offer I also am playing with the idea of streaming the ceremony on Instagram Live. I hope that this would give the couples an incentive to share my account with friends and family telling them that they could stream their ceremony. This would also provide a viewing option for friends and family that can not make it to the ceremony for whatever reason. I believe that this idea has a lot of potential for creating awareness for the brand and also and an extra incentive for booking my services.

User-Generated Content:

I have the idea to create a promotional post where I give away a free wedding video package. To be considered couples will be asked like, comment, and share the post. They will then make a post on their account sharing the story of how they met their significant other using #leifeldvideography and tagging my account. This will hopefully create content that I can share on my account as well as promoting my company.
If I do end up doing the Instagram Live strategy I will be asking couples to share a photo of them I can use on my profile to make a promotional post saying when the ceremony can be streamed on my account.

Final Thoughts:

Even though my company is a blank slate I have many ideas on how to promote it using Social Media. The possibilities are endless and that makes me very excited as I sit here typing this post and charging my camera batteries in preparation for tomorrows wedding shoot.