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November 6, 2018

Stand Out and Drive Real Business Results on Instagram

BY: Instagram Business Team

San Francisco, CA

In our Stand Out video series, we spent the day with successful entrepreneurs in the UK, France and Germany who are driving real business results with Instagram. The following 6 brands offer plenty of tips and tricks to help other small and medium sized businesses find success on Instagram by leveraging business and creative tools. Their marketing and creative process will help you build your Instagram strategy and inspire your followers in new ways.

Founded in 2013, Bloom & Wild (@bloomandwild) is the U.K.'s leading online flower delivery service. They specialize in letterbox flowers, bouquets that fit through standard letterboxes so customers don’t need to wait at home to receive them. Bloom & Wild uses Instagram to showcase its bold and beautiful bouquets, to share arrangement tips and to alert customers to giveaways and special offers. The actions customers take, and the questions and comments they post, give Bloom & Wild direct insight to refine their service.

We post Instagram stories really frequently and that drives the most traffic to our website. Instagram helps us discover what customers are doing and saying, it is the best way to create advocates for our brand.
SARA GORDON, BRAND AND CREATIVE DIRECTOR BLOOM & WILD

Find out how to create great Instagram Stories like Bloom & Wild here and learn more about Ads in Stories here.

Photo from Bloom & Wild of woman arranging flowers in a vase

Georga's Cakes (@georgiascakes) is a new breed of pâtissière, known for stunning cakes that bridge classical baking and contemporary style. Its founder Georgia Green individually designs and handcrafts each cake, from multi-tiered wedding cakes to playful birthday cakes for children. The Georgia Green Instagram account captures the baker's creativity and skill, which turns desserts into works of art. 3 out of every 4 orders now comes from Instagram.

Instagram helped me a lot and I use it as a business tool now. I post videos to get a good reach and connect with the community on Instagram.
GEORGIA GREEN, FOUNDER, GEORGIA'S CAKES

Learn how you can connect with your followers and the community on Instagram with a Business Profile.

Photo from Georgia's Cakes of woman holding a cake

Shanty Biscuits (@shantybiscuits) brings fun and whimsy to the world of snacks. Customers select from 10 flavors of biscuit (including lemon, matcha and hazelnut) and personalize the treats with words and phrases of their own choosing. The company uses Instagram to share images of its most witty biscuits to give customers inspiration when choosing their own words. Customers frequently respond with clever suggestions and twists on the original. This authentic engagement strengthens the brand's bond with its followers.

With Instagram, it's very easy to speak to people. They send me a message and I respond straightaway. You can ask questions and it is a lot quicker and easier to respond.
SHANTY BAEHREL, BISQUEEN AND CEO, SHANTY BISCUITS

Find out how you can leverage messaging on Instagram here.

Photo from Shanty Biscuits of woman holding up a biscuit to the camera

Papermint Paris (@papermint_paris) designs and manufactures graphic wallpaper with a bright and playful aesthetic. The Paris-based company can customize designs across size, material and color so they fit customer homes and offices perfectly. Whether that means an entire room or a portion of a wall with unusual dimensions. Papermint's Instagram feed is the company's main way of showcasing its work and often marks a customer's first encounter with the brand.

Since the beginning, Instagram was the premiere showcase for us and around 80% of the traffic came from there. It has become our channel to show our products and to give people inspiration. Every day we get significant traffic from Instagram.
ALEXANDRA BRUEL, CO-FOUNDER, PAPERMINT PARIS

Find out how you can increase sales, find new customers and much more with Instagram Ads.

Photo from Papermint Paris of woman and man posing for camera

Schwester Schwester (@schwesterschwester), that's Sister Sister in English, spreads positive vibes with its eye-catching earrings. From pink earrings with emerald tassels to earrings with dangling golden bumblebees, their creations turn heads and complete looks. They've had great success using Instagram as their visual storefront with bold images and bright colors inviting shoppers to browse their collection. Shoppable tags make it easy for customers to complete purchases. In fact, most of Schwester Schwester's business comes directly from Instagram.

We use Instagram to connect with our customers and build a community for Schwester Schwester. Our clients inspire us everyday to create new designs for our collections. Since we've started working with retailers in 2018 we noticed that 90% of our retails business comes from Instagram.
JANNE RÖNSBERG, CO-FOUNDER, SCHWESTER SCHWESTER

Find out how you can tag your products using new Shopping tools.

Photo of two women posing in front of a Schwester Schwester jewelry booth

Coffee Circle (@CoffeeCircle) delivers the best coffees in the world straight to customer homes. Ethically minded and committed to transparency, it buys coffee directly from producers in countries from Colombia to Ethiopia and works with them to maintain traditional and ecological cultivation methods. Coffee Circle uses its main feed and Stories to introduce its coffee partners from around the world. These slice-of-life videos and images show the real-world impact the brand is making and reinforces their commitment to openness.

Instagram is the place where we can tell our brand story and engage with our customers. With Instagram Stories our community travels with us in real time.
MARIA HÄNEL, MARKETING MANAGER, COFFEE CIRCLE

Businesses are some of the most creative contributors to Instagram. Find out how you can inspire your followers to action.

Photo of two women posing in front of a Schwester Schwester jewelry booth

Bloom & Wild, Georgia's Cakes, Shanty Biscuits, PaperMint, Schwester Schwester and Coffee Circle have all leveraged Instagram to connect their brands, products and customers in inspiring ways. If you want to learn more about how entrepreneurs are using Instagram to achieve real business results visit our Stand Out landing page and keep up with the latest news on the Instagram for business blog. Need more help getting started? Find free online courses on here.

BY: Instagram Business Team

San Francisco, CA