Location, Location, Location: Why It's So Important For Physical Businesses To Geotag Instagram Posts

Here’s a secret you may or may not know about me: when I’m traveling or about to travel, I search the location of where I’m going on Instagram to see what’s out there. I scroll to see what shops, restaurants, coffee shops, and natural things are attached to the Geo/Location tag of where I am going.

And I notice that what so many businesses forget to do is add a geotag to their posts. This means that they are missing out on the out-of-towners like me who do this same thing to plan where they want to go or where they want to eat.

Instagram geotags are digital markers that offer endless possibilities, from exploring new destinations to optimizing your road trip adventures. Read on for a journey into the world of geotagging and start shaping your next unforgettable adventure.

What are Instagram Geo Tags and How They Work

Instagram Geo Tags are a powerful feature that allows users to add a specific location to their posts, providing a geotag for each photo or video shared on the platform. This function enables users to tag the exact place where the content was created, adding an exciting layer of location-based information to their posts.

Understanding Instagram Geo Tags

1. Location Tagging: Instagram Geo Tags associate your post with a specific place on the map. This can range from a famous landmark to a local restaurant or even a hidden gem off the beaten path.

2. Creating Connections: By tagging your posts with Geo Tags, you can connect with other users who have been to or are interested in the location. This can lead to new friendships, travel recommendations, and shared experiences.

3. Discovery Tool: Geo Tags also serve as a discovery tool for users exploring new places. By searching for a specific location tag, users can uncover many posts related to that place, offering insights, inspiration, and practical tips for their journeys.

4. Personalization: Instagram Geo Tags add a personal touch to your posts, allowing you to share the content and the exact place where you captured the moment. This creates a more immersive experience for your followers, connecting them to your adventures.

How Geo Tags Work

1. Feature Integration: Instagram seamlessly integrates Geo Tags into the post-creation process, allowing users to add a location directly before sharing their content.

2. Manual Input: Users can manually type in the location they wish to tag or choose from a list of suggested places generated by the platform based on their current location or past tagging history.

3. Privacy Control: Instagram offers privacy settings that allow users to control who can see the location tags on their posts, ensuring that sensitive or private locations remain secure.

4. Mapping Feature: Geo Tags have a mapping feature that displays the tagged location on a map within the post, giving viewers a visual reference of the content's creation.

Advantages of Using Geo Tags

• Enhanced Discoverability: Geotags increase the visibility of your posts to users searching for content related to specific locations, expanding your reach and engagement.

• Personalized Recommendations: By exploring posts tagged with specific locations, users can discover new destinations, restaurants, attractions, and accommodations recommended by fellow travelers.

• Community Engagement: Geo Tags foster a sense of community among users who share a love for travel and exploration, enabling them to connect, share tips, and form valuable connections.

By searching for location-based tagging related to their intended destinations, individuals can explore new places, gather travel inspiration, and create a comprehensive travel itinerary. Whether finding hidden gems, trending spots, or off-the-beaten-path attractions, geotags provide valuable insights into various travel destinations.

One of the key advantages of incorporating Instagram geotags into trip planning is the ability to maximize road trip stops. Using geotags, travelers can identify scenic viewpoints, local eateries, cultural landmarks, and photo-worthy spots along their routes. This enriches the travel experience and ensures every step contributes to a memorable and fulfilling journey.

Why Your Business Needs To Begin Geotagging

1. Enhancing Local Visibility

Establishing a strong local presence is often crucial for small businesses to attract customers. Geotags allow you to tag your location when posting on Instagram, making it easier for users in your area to discover your content. When users search for posts or stories tagged in a specific location, yours could be among the top results, thus increasing your visibility within your community.

2. Building Community Engagement

Geotags are more than just a feature; they're a direct line to your local community. By tagging your location, you can tap into conversations and events in your area, fostering relationships with nearby businesses and potential customers. This direct connection with your community increases engagement. It builds brand loyalty, as users who frequent or are interested in your locality are likelier to engage with your content, leading to increased likes, comments, and, ultimately, brand loyalty.

3. Showcasing Authenticity and Trustworthiness

Standing out with authenticity is paramount in a market saturated with advertisements and sponsored content. Geotags provide a unique advantage by adding credibility to your posts by verifying your physical presence in a specific location. This authenticity resonates with consumers, as they perceive businesses with a genuine local presence as trustworthy and reliable. By showcasing your physical location through geotags, you're not just promoting your products or services but also telling a story about your roots and commitment to your community.

4. Targeting Relevant Audiences

Geotags offer a powerful targeting tool, allowing you to reach audiences based on their location. Whether you're hosting an event, running a promotion, or want to attract foot traffic to your storefront, geotagging enables you to target users within a specific radius of your business. This targeted approach ensures that your content reaches the most relevant audience, maximizing the impact of your marketing efforts and driving conversions.

5. Improving SEO and Discoverability

In addition to enhancing visibility within the Instagram platform, geotags can benefit your overall online presence. When users search for local businesses or attractions on search engines like Google, geotagged Instagram posts may appear in the results, thus improving your SEO ranking and increasing discoverability. By consistently geotagging your posts, you can boost your chances of being found by potential customers on and off the Instagram platform.

Geotags on Instagram offer many benefits for small businesses looking to expand their reach and engage with their local community and travelers looking for unique experiences while visiting a location.

From enhancing visibility and authenticity to targeting relevant audiences and improving SEO, geotagging is a valuable tool that should not be overlooked in your social media marketing strategy. By harnessing the power of geotags, small businesses can amplify their presence, foster meaningful connections, and ultimately drive growth in their local market.

So, next time you post on Instagram, remember to geotag your business's location and watch your business thrive in the digital landscape.

Is Posting At A Certain Time On Instagram Relevant For Success

FAQ: What time should I be posting to Instagram?

Answer: Whenever you have the time.

I'd like you to hear me out.

The time you posted actually USED to be a thing, but then a significant world event happened, and we were scrolling at all times.

So...

The time that you POST is NOT more important than

👉 Showing up consistently

👉 Taking the time to create SCROLL-STOPPING Content

👉 Taking care of your IRL priorities

i.e.:

❣️ Running your actual business

❣️ Spending time with loved ones

❣️ Your health <mental & physical>

⏰ The posting time is the tiniest really irrelevant detail in this whole social media marketing thing. ⏰

Sure there are better times, but it's not universal. But you've gotta get down and dirty with your insights and analytics because accounts, like humans, are different.

If you're consistently showing up with good content, which happens when you're taking care of yourself <I've got an honorary Ph.D. in this category because when I don’t take care of myself, it shows in the content>, your audience will show up.

People can smell the burnout of inauthentic posts to post and appease the algorithm through their phone screens. Just so you know. 🤭

But if this answer isn't enough for you, post as early as you can in the day. If you're in a committed relationship with your analytics and insights, find the largest number of your followers> look at the time> and schedule posts 30 minutes to an hour before that.

Bottom line- if you're running your social while wearing all your other business hats, create a posting schedule that aligns with your REAL TIME LIFE because done is better than perfect, and you gotta show up if you wanna be seen.

The Future Of Still Photos On Instagram

Do you like to see pictures?

I am constantly staying up to date on all things happening behind the scenes on social media platforms.

Yesterday, I watched an IGTV from the head of Instagram, and he said, “Instagram is no longer ‘just a photo-sharing app” and went on to explain how Instagram plans to reintroduce and promote entertainment, videos, reels, and stories.

This statement about taking the emphasis off images is one that I saw coming three miles away, but it still makes me so sad.

While I do love a good video and a crazy reel, I need the still images. And feel that your business needs the still photos.

There are still people out there who need to look at something that doesn’t move from their screen two seconds later. Some people still want to look at a stunning image, study it and read the words in the caption.

The still images in your feed help capture and convey the tone for the atmosphere and ambiance you are trying to achieve when the viewer signs up to work with you or walks into your store. The still images are an excellent way to convey your messaging to your people.

If you’ve been following or been around me for a while, you know that I believe in looking at your feed as a portfolio of your work and that the other neighborhoods of Instagram more of entertainment.

Reels should be looked at as a commercial, a hook to bring the reel viewers to your feed and capture them to follow and stay in touch with you.

Stories are a great place to give that behind-the-scenes footage and access to who you are as a person or team, not just a brand, because, let’s face it, we’re all nosy.

IGTV is for you to put videos of your expertise to listen or watch as we need.

While one of the head people of Instagram is saying that they are working on taking photos, I still believe that is where your business should keep its primary emphasis. With the introduction of Keywords and the SEO implementation on the platform, I feel still photos are not going out of style any time soon.

How To Use Instagram Keyword Search And Get Seen

A few weeks before the US election, Instagram removed the search hashtags in the explore tab to stop the spread of misleading information. 

While we were all annoyed that the hashtag search was disabled, they rolled out Key Word Search, which to me is a million times better than just a hashtag search.  There is so much optimization potential in this feature; let’s start to think of it as SEO for Instagram.

Previously, you could only use keywords to find Instagram profiles in the name, user name,, or bio. Now, however, you can use keywords to search posts as well.

As part of the Explore page, Instagram Search is the directory to every account in the app.  Just like you would type a search term into Google, you can use the search bar on top of the Explore page to find and discover accounts, posts, hashtags, and locations.

For example, if you search “linen spray,” in the search bar Instagram will populate several recommendations in the search results that contain that keyword. 

First, you will see posts with “linen spray” and its variations written in their caption. Next, you will see any accounts with “linen spray” composed in their bio, and lastly, you will see hashtags with the keyword you are searching. 

When you click on one of the keyword search results,  you’re directed to a page featuring posts that are related to the keyword- along with other relevant keywords at the top of the page.  These posts make their way here because the keyword has been written in the caption itself. 

What does this mean for you?

Adding keyword searching is huge news, and there are more opportunities to have your content discovered in the Explore tab!   Hootsuite released its 2020 statistics and said that 45% of internet users say they use social to find a product or service.  The shopping statistic is colossal news. Knowing that almost half of internet users use social media to discover a product or service, you can optimize your Instagram posts for various relevant keywords and get found faster and easier than the hope and guess hashtag game. 

The keyword search feature is currently only available on the grid form. Keyword optimization is not installed on Reels, IGTV, Stories, Shopping, or anything else.  However, when you optimize your Instagram posts for various keywords by writing descriptive captions and including alt text, you better your chances of being found in the sea of photos. 

The rollout of keyword optimization signals that Instagram could be moving toward adding SEO into the algorithm, which ultimately comes down to how it will optimize your content to be as discoverable as possible in the explore tab. It is now more important than ever to begin getting accustomed to writing keyword-enriched captions.  Most users do not even understand what precisely this rollout does, so if you can start to make it work for you before the masses learn how you’re one step ahead of your content being seen. 

On March 9th I will be teaching an Instagram Best Practices Zoom Room on how to implement using keywords into your content strategy. Register Here.

Speaking of getting seen, have you downloaded your copy of Maven & Muse’s Social Media Marketing Checklist to optimize your social profiles and keep them operating at full capacity.

How To Use Instagram Guides For Your Business

The latest Instagram update has provided us with this rad new feature called “Guides.” There are three types of guides that you can create Places, Products, and Posts. Creating one of these guides is an excellent way to combine your content and share other people’s content on Instagram.

What Is Instagram Guides?

Guides are collections of your posts and other users’ posts related to a particular topic. Think of guides as Instagram’s version of a Pinterest board, a highlight reel for your posts, or as your very own curated digital content zine.

The guides you set up can be about anything you want, but I would encourage you to create relevant guides for your business. For example, when this feature rolled out, I made my first guide for Holiday gift ideas from Women-Owned Business Owners. One of the most significant parts of guides is that they are shareable, meaning that other users can share your guide as a DM, in their story, or as a post.

How Can My Business Use Guides?

With the three categories; Places, Products, and Posts, the possibilities for how your business can make use of this feature are endless. 

If you are a retail business, you can use the product guide to feature your specific products and share other companies that go with your product. For example, sell artisan body care products and feature your products. You can add towels or other home accessories that enhance the user’s experience with your product. If you are a store, you can create a guide representing the products available in your storefront.

I have had a few B2B and other service providers reach out and ask me how they can use guides. If you are a real estate agent, you can use the “places guide” and share posts related to specific neighborhoods of cities that you specialize in. 

B2B service providers can create guides related to your industry’s news, your posts related to the industry, and share other users posts that resource another part of your industry that you do not specialize in but are essential. 

Share Your Guide 

Since this is such a new feature that snuck in the right under the holiday time, many users are not aware of this feature. To bring awareness, make sure that you share the guide that you worked so hard to create in your stories and on your feed. 

If you need ideas on how guides could benefit your business, reach out for a FREE 20-minute consultation on making this feature work for you.

Why Are Instagram Highlights Important To Your Digital Marketing Plan

Every day I see so many important Instagram stories on businesses feeds that would be useful content for consumption in future scrolling. There are a few times that I have gone back to a business’ story because there was something that I saw to see if they saved it as a highlight, but that vital content disappeared because it was past 24 hours.

The Highlight buttons on your Instagram profile are an essential piece of your rented Instagram real estate. Think of these highlights as a landing page for all of the aspects that your business offers. If you are stumped on what types of highlights to create, begin with each category that you have on your website. Give people a taste of all of the products or services that your business has to offer.

As business owners, we already have so much content that we create that should resemble our brands. The good news is that not all Instagram story slides need to be branded.

The point of stories is for people to get a peek into who you are and what goes on behind the scenes at your business. If you are creating content that you know is important and that you are going to want to save into one of your highlights, take the time to brand this content. There are plenty of free story slide design apps where you can create on-brand templates.

My challenge to you is, start thinking about your overall Instagram profile as a landing page for your website ore commerce store. Social media is quickly becoming the second place where potential consumers and clients search for things to buy, places to order food from, or places close to them to visit. Moreover, users consume stories and highlights at a higher percentage than items in your feed.

Is There A New IGTV Rewarded Algorithm?

Is there a new Instagram algorithm? Every time something on our favorite app shifts, I get an inbox full of "Is there a new Instagram algorithm?" As far as I know and the trusted sources that I communicate with, there is no such thing as a "new" Instagram algorithm.

Instagram is consistently testing, adding, and removing features. Updates are happening on the weekly, the daily, even on the hourly. Currently, Instagram is testing the removal of "likes" in the following markets: Canada, Italy, Japan, and Australia with more to come. Instagram is testing for the overall elimination of "likes" from the platform, which begs the question of will this leave room and forces people to engage more?

There's a rumor floating around that there is a new algorithm in place that favors heavily on using IGTV. Y'all this isn't new news. Anytime ANY platform releases an upgrade; they heavily prefer the content of the accounts that are using said new feature because they want to promote this new feature internally. IGTV is a little over a year old. I have my hypothesis about the "new" IGTV algorithm. Since I have gotten 10 DMs and four emails asking me about this new IGTV algorithm includes that y' all aren't currently frequenting this neighborhood. I hypothesize that since it's release on June 20, 2018, this neighborhood hasn't grown in the masses that Instagram thought that it would become. That in its 13-month lifespan it hasn't taken down Youtube or even really showed up in the ring as a heavily favored competitor of Youtube as I feel the end goal was. I think that this is the basis of the "new" IGTV preferred algorithm. When the facts point to if you are present on IGTV, you are rewarded for frequenting this neighborhood that Instagram wants to grow. It's like going to a street fair, and you are handed coupons from vendors to come to their establishment for 10% off or a free something or other. You are there in their "platform," and they want to reward you for showing up and showing interest by giving you something in return.

For a few months there, I was animate about recording and adding IGTV content; it helped everything in my digital marketing world for sure. However, life and client work got the better of me, and my IGTV fell to the side. Do I think that not regularly posting to my IGTV is what is hurting views and likes? Nope

I have been marketing on this platform since it's infancy and I've seen and heard it all. In almost nine years on this platform, three straightforward things lead to some measurable "success"

Consistency

A unique photo

Tell a story

Consistently show up by posting, commenting, and interacting in whichever neighborhood of this platform you enjoy the most: your feed, stories, IGTV where the eff ever. But keep showing up. When people trust that they will hear from you, they will buy from you or recommend you to someone who will buy from you.

Sharing a unique photo sets you apart. When I hear from people that they know they photo is from me before they even look at the account name, that feels good. Stop trying to copy everyone else who you think is doing it right and post what is you.

Tell a story, digital marketing is just digital storytelling. If you want to grab peoples, attention tells them a story. We are nosy by nature and want to know ALL the details about the people that we follow and the brands that we purchase from. Give people something that they can relate to because while our experiences are all unique to us, someone somewhere can connect on a personal level.

Please do me a favor; if you haven't heard it from a credible source such as Instagram, someone with an in at Instagram, or some nerd who subscribes to EVERY email that comes from reliable digital sources that have ins at Instagram, then it's just a rumor.

The Social Media Apocalypse What's Your Digital Marketing Back Up Plan

The social media apocalypse of Facebook and Instagram being down is happening. It’s March 13, 2019, Mercury in retrograde and we’ve been experiencing the biggest meltdown in social media history.

Since 8am PST people around the globe have been unable to get into both Facebook and Instagram. At the coffee shop today the world seemed a bit quieter, people are having these things called conversations with each other instead of being preoccupied with snapping a quick picture of their latte to put on their Instagram story. (Ahem I am guilty of this as well, sometimes.) I don’t know if this is because we are all secretly freaking out just a little bit.

I will say that I have enjoyed the silence of only having to focus on other digital marketing platforms for my clients that do not include a member of the “Facebook Family” for one day.

The real question we should be asking is, “ Will Facebook and Instagram be back tomorrow?” Honestly, that could happen. We could wake up tomorrow with the same messages on our pages, or they could be erased forever. As of this posting Facebook, reps are saying, “Facebook is down for required maintenance. We will be back soon.” Historically when huge expansive platforms such as Facebook and Youtube have done an update it’s only been 1-3 hours, as of this writing we are going into hour number 12.

If this outage has taught us anything it should be to not put all of your eggs in one basket. I’ve been saying it in talks and to clients since the first Zuckerberg Senate hearings, start thinking about your digital marketing backup plan.

If these platforms do not exist tomorrow, do you have access to your customers? Do you know your customer's email addresses and how to get in touch with them? The only real channels that are guaranteed for you to directly communicate with your customers or clients are your blogs and your email campaigns. I know these are such a pain in the ass to do. These digital marketing campaigns actually take a bit of time, I get that. You can’t post a pretty picture and write an emotionally touching caption to get your message out there. But you should start considering a plan B.

There are other great platforms to build a presence on as well Youtube and Pinterest are two that if you are not already tinkering around on you should at least begin investigating.

Lately, I’ve been pushing current clients toward my Pinterest management package because it is a powerful search engine that as of right now I don’t see going anywhere but up. The power of brand awareness that Pinterest offers is incredible if you know how to use it. Start here, you already have amazing photo content of your products which is half the battle, because you have been posting those awesome images to Instagram. Just start posting them with a good description to Pinterest as well.

Consider blogging as well, if you are a service based business or a product based business you have things to say, things that your target market IS searching for.

I am really thinking positive that the “Facebook Family” figures it out and that we are back in action soon but then again if they don’t we’ll figure it out. We are in this together.

What Is Your Instagram Neighborhood?

The best piece of advice that I got recently was to step back and look at Instagram as an entire city but with three neighborhoods.  This resonates with me because in case you don't already know I moved to Portland via Chicago.  Chicago is a very neighborhood centered city, Wicker Park, Logan Square and Pilsen to name a favorite few. The beautiful thing about big cities is the many different neighborhoods inside of them, each with their character, their feeling, their vibe. 

If you happen to live in a big city, think for a moment about the places that you tend to spend a majority of your time.  How many different neighborhoods do you frequent? Obviously, the area that you live in but are there others that you travel to for a particular coffee shop or a one of a kind gift store that you find that unique item for someone? 

Keep this in mind as we step back to look at Instagram the same way as we are looking at a big city. There are three diverse neighborhoods within Instagram, the feed, the stories and the lives. However, the one similarity amongst all of them is that they each require a neighborly manner to thrive.  You know where you reach out and chat with a person and aren't just lurking neighborhood watching them.  

The Feed

This is obviously the epicenter of the city of the Instagram city. The feed is where the perfectly curated posts and thoughtful words live.  The space that gets the majority of the friendly neighbor to neighbor chatting.  

The Stories

Stories are north of the city center and are a welcoming community that shows a more personal and attainable side. Stories is a place to show more of what your every day looks like and who you are as a person.  The problem here is like any neighborhood place you tend to frequent if you get annoyed with the oversharing that someone is doing you turn your head and avoid contact with them.  This neighborhood is an excellent place to people watch because everyone is doing their own then but conversations are hardly ever started. 

The Live

The Neighborhood that everyone says is up and coming. Realistically this feature should have taken off like gangbusters but over a year later it's still that up and coming place. Some of the neighbors here are still just not sure what to do with it yet.   

By now you have undoubtedly figured out which two neighborhoods are your favorites. The two favorites you should be posting to frequently the other it's ok to make a weekly or monthly commute to, but you shouldn't forget about it all together.  

State of Instagram: Recent Updates

There are two updates which happened on Instagram that I am excited to share with you.

1. The ability to have active hashtags in your profile. Seriously go to your phone, edit your profile and add your business specific hashtag to your profile. Having your personalized hashtag in your profile is a  way for people that are in your profile to click on your hashtag and see an entire representation of your work in just one click.

2. Reposting in stories. While this feature hasn't rolled out to everyone yet, it slowly will. This isn't going to be one of those 10K to play updates.  When your account gets the feature, you will be able to share new feed content directly to your stories. This will eliminate the taking a screenshot of your feed, blocking out the photo or video as a preview to get them to click over. Followers will now be able to click the story slide and be directly taken to the content in your feed.

To see if you already have this feature on your post click the paper airplane and in the “Send To” your story feed should be listed below the Facebook Story button.  Click your story name button and send. It will prompt you to a new story slide and you can write whatever information you want on the slide and press the story send to button.