The aim of this chapter is to help you get an overview of the strategies in this course. I’ll go through the basic principles of them so that you can see the high level strategies, and then I’ll dive into more details in later chapters.

Diversifying Your Content: The Experimental Phase

In the beginning of your journey on Instagram, the key is experimentation.

You should experiment with different content types and formats: Posting photos vs reels, posting behind the scene vs lifestyle product videos, etc.

After posting a number of content, pay close attention to which type of content gets more engagement, especially shares and saves. The insights from these metrics will guide you in refining your content strategy, helping you lean into what resonates more with your audience. Iterate and create variations of the more successful pieces of content.

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Engage To Be Engaged

Engaging with relevant accounts on Instagram is crucial. I recommend spending about 10 minutes before posting, and 20 minutes after to engage with other accounts in your niche. Those accounts can be other handmade artists, your biggest supporters, or Etsy’s main Instagram accounts.

To interact with them, you can write thoughtful comments, answer relevant questions, and even share handmade creations from other artisans. The goal is to foster genuine relationships.

Your Content Should Build Relationship

Your Instagram content shouldn’t be a constant sales pitch. In fact, I’d recommend 20% of less of your content to be sales-focused.

The majority of your content should be about building positive relationships with your followers. Grow a small, engaged community with them. Most people on Instagram are there to connect, learn, and be entertained. They aren't actively looking to make a purchase every time they scroll.

Your content should satisfy one of these objectives:

• Educate
• Entertain
• Inspire
• Showcase

We will look at how to achieve these objectives in the next chapter - The 5C Content Creation System.

Should You Follow Trends

Trends can be tempting. They often give you a boost in terms of reach and engagement.

Following trends can work if you:

• Use the trends that are relevant to your Etsy business (A random dance reel may not benefit your handmade product)
• Use trends that are still fresh. If the trend is overused, using that doesn’t benefit you, or even hurt your engagement.

With the speed of trends coming and going, it could take a lot of time and effort to keep on top of it. Overall, I recommend focusing on content that are more evergreen.

From Instagram Follower To Etsy Customer

One of the main purpose of your Instagram account is to bring shoppers to your Etsy shop and convert them into customers.

Here are a few key points to optimise that process:

• Build Positive Relationships With Followers - Your engaged followers on Instagram are more likely to become your customers on Etsy. Focus on posting content that benefits them and involves them.
• Cohesive Branding - Make sure your Instagram branding align with your Etsy shop. Consistency instills trust and avoid confusion with shoppers.
• Profile Link & CTA Buttons - They are the two main ways to bring shoppers into your Etsy shop.

Using Instagram As Catalogue Or Portfolio

But for some Etsy sellers, they may not want to be too involved with actively creating content and engaging with people in order to grow their Instagram account.

For them, Instagram can be used as a portfolio or catalogue for your Etsy shop. That case, you aren’t looking to bring in extra organic traffic for your shop. Instead, the purpose of your Instagram account is for people who are already interested and heard of your brand to do their own research, and look at your instagram to help with their purchase decision.

If that’s the case, your content would focus more on product showcase. Your focus would be high quality images or videos that captures your products. Showcase your products with some close-up vs wide shots, different angles, different use cases, etc.

You can even experiment doing a ‘puzzle’ style content grid, which combines multiple posts to create a larger artboard that connects them in a cohesive way in terms of design, colours, etc. Those templates can be found easily on Etsy or Creative Market.(For other instagram accounts and purposes, I wouldn’t recommend doing that as that requires extra work and co-ordination, without much benefits from my experience.)

You can also consider turning off the like count for the new posts so that it doesn’t affect people’s perception of your brand when they come across your Instagram page.

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