Instagram campaigns. We’re going to talk about them.

Because I believe they have the power to transform your business from a product or service provider to a movement. And the potential of that is electric in your business; empowering you to stand out, build community, and make more money by serving people right where they are. To give you some background, I run a social media movement called The Imperfect Boss and it is my baby! Through Instagram campaigns, hundreds of women entrepreneurs come together to post confessions of what it really means to run your own business and go for your dreams. In other words, it is not perfect nor is it flawless. Together, we learn how to see our imperfections as power in our business and become friends in the process. Now, I am going to tell you a couple of my secrets on how to make it happen for you.

Types of Social Media Campaigns

Do a Messaging Campaign.
These campaigns are foundationally built upon a message in your brand while mobilizing people to get involved in that message. Creating a messaging campaign starts with determining the struggles of your audience and crafting a message that could speak to that very pain point. The result? Community.

Do a Challenge Campaign.
These are a very popular style of campaign because they give people an opportunity to grow, learn or move forward in a collective way. Creating a challenge campaign starts with determining the challenges or obstacles of your audience and making an opportunity for them to move forward in that area.

Steps to Starting an Instagram Campaign

Get a vision for what you want to do.
Think about the effect you want to have on your audience and how you want them to feel at the end of your campaign. From there, you can determine if you want to do a messaging or a challenge campaign. Make your vision clear because this will enable people to grab it with you and jump all-in.

Establish Your Visuals.
I believe that branding and visuals can make or break your campaign idea. So be sure that if this is not in your gift set to hire someone else to do it. You’re going to throw so much work into this type of outreach that you cannot afford to make your visuals anything less than amazing. Make the branding of your campaign cohesive across platforms too!

Work With Your People.
Brainstorm who the people are that can really help you fuel this campaign forward. You can think about influencers you could partner with, having a launch team, using ambassadors, doing special guests with interviews or resources, etc. Look at the people in your corner already and think, “who do I want to partner with to take this far?”

Make it Easy.
Make it as easy as possible for anyone who is taking part in your campaign whether it be as a participant, influencer, sponsor, or whichever roles you’ve got going on in your campaign. Use email sequences and communication to create consistency. Plus, make them fun. Because everyone loves a fun email.

End with Gratitude.
Get thankful! It takes a lot of people to pull off a campaign especially larger ones where it gets a little more viral. So, use those thank you cards, emails or phone calls to express your amazing thanks. This will empower collaboration if you do the campaign more than once, especially.

At the end of the day, the best thing you can do when creating an Instagram campaign is to believe in your vision. Believe that what you’re doing will impact people, make lives easier, and add to the world. Believe in it so much that it doesn’t even make sense to you why anyone would not take part. You’re on your way! I cannot wait to see what you come up with, sweet friend!

This is a guest post written by Ashley Beaudin. Ashley is a heart encourager, speaker and the visionary behind the Instagram campaign #theimperfectboss. Ashley is passionate about empowering women to enrich their lives and grow their businesses through heart and vulnerability. She brings with her a sensitive and strong voice that will inspire passion in you to do what makes you come alive with confidence. She’s also got this thing for gathering women and seeing them transformed through community. When she’s not helping women absolutely kill it, she’s probably writing some good words, being with people or dreaming up big ideas.  No matter what, you’ll leave spending time with her, feeling believed in and empowered. 

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Gorgeous stock photography provided by the HAUTE CHOCOLATE styled stock library, my go-to for affordable – feminine stock photography.