Check Out @notonthehighstreet Instagram Best Practices
Not On The High Street is an online retail website which is home to more than 5,000 of the UK’s best small creative businesses. By partnering up with small businesses to make a big impact, Not On The High Street makes use of the internet playing a major role in the evolution of our spending habits, while retaining a focus on supporting smaller, niche creatives. With 488k followers on Instagram, their team have developed a strong marketing plan to back the success of their vision.
Here’s how Not On The High Street are smashing it on Instagram…
Utilising The Platform To Achieve Their Business Goals
Not On The High Street is a retail platform. Therefore, they have set up everything to point towards what they want the end user to do - shop.
The shop tab is saturated with products.
The vast majority of the media on their main feed features a product that is linked, enabling the user to view on their website and purchase.
Products are featured in grouped highlights, keeping gift ideas fresh and current.
Their bio features a direct link to their website and encouragement to ‘Shop what you see’.
By being clear in the end goal for their business, Not On The High Street have been able to be intentional with their use of Instagram. This makes it simple to use as a consumer and focused as a brand.
Integrating Their Values
Sharing company values is an opportunity to humanise a brand and connect authentically with an audience. It also allows the company to showcase its unique selling points. Not On The High Street is particularly different because it is made up of numerous partnerships with small businesses. Finding ways to showcase values, and sew this into the social media marketing campaign, develops a profile beyond the products.
Their IGTV series 'Small Business Supporter' highlights their company aims and features collabs with celebrities such as Gok Wan and Fearne Cotton.
Their festive posts spread positivity and community spirit.
Their bio is uplifting, with the statement ‘home of thoughtful gifts’.
The positive community spirit Not On The High Street weaves into their profile and their posts speaks volumes about their outlook and values. Placing emphasis on thoughtfulness and the support of small businesses helps the audience connect with the brand on a human level.
Keeping Tabs On The Customer Experience
How do we know whether the audience is reacting positivity to products and connecting with the brand on a level that means something to our businesses? By tracking audience activity through a hashtag, Not On The High Street can group together the posts about their products from other users, making it easy to see which products are making a real impact.
This is how Not On The High Street shares their hashtags:
Showcasing a hashtag in their bio.
Adding a hashtag to the descriptions of posts to reinforce it.
Adding additional hashtags for different festivities e.g. #NOTHSChristmas.
Tracking how well your business is doing on Instagram is just as important as putting out content. By keeping up to date with consumer opinion, a business can continue to give their customers things they love, make any necessary changes, and be clued in about how the public really feel about the business and brand. Using Minter.io we can see which hashtags are associated with #NOTHS to see which other hashtags users are placing alongside their product-related media.
Reaching New Relevant Potential Customers
Building an audience to grow business is an essential part of making a viable business plan for the long term. Relying on repeat custom can only be a section of a business plan, while reaching new potential customers is another part of the pie. Not On The High Street uses techniques to reach relevant people on Instagram who might be interested in their products.
They use a mix of relevant hashtags alongside their unique hashtag in media descriptions.
Here are the Top Tags by Interactions for @notonthehighstreet over the past year:
They create competitions that require tagging other users.
They tag collaborative partners.
Reaching other users through tags, mentions and hashtags helps to grow the community. While hashtags and collaborations reach people who may be interested in the types of products on offer, mentions through competitions allow the community to recommend the brand to their friends.
Take a look at your business Instagram profile and see how you can apply these principles to your social media marketing strategy. You can see how well your Instagram presence is developing through tracking advanced analytics with Minter.io. Try it today and witness your Instagram develop before your eyes.
