Every eyecare practice's social media strategy is going to be a little different and should continuously change based on the time of year, holidays, staff changes, and trends.
Your resources, budget, target market, and experiences are all going to play into what makes up the right strategy for your practice specifically. While Facebook marketing is probably the place to start on social media, there are plenty of other platforms that might make sense for your practice, like Instagram.
Today we want to look at how you might be able to include Instagram in your strategy, and some tips for getting started if you think it's the right step for your practice.
Getting Your Practice Started on Instagram
One great thing about Instagram is that it's very easy to learn
and use, even for someone who 
isn't tech or social media savvy. Instagram is simply a photo and video sharing platform. You can turn any photo into something more professional with basic editing and filters. It's also an easy platform for your followers to interact with using photo likes, comments, and hashtags.
Let's look at some numbers:
- Instagram has over 500 million active daily users
- The average user spends 21 minutes a day on the app
- 75% of businesses will use Instagramby the end of 2020
One of the best ways a practice can use Instagram is as a platform to showcase products in their dispensary. Other things to show on Instagram include behind the scenes in your office, what different optical equipment and instruments do, sneak peaks, new trends and promotions, or showcasing your staff.
While we mentioned before it's easy to turn any photo into something more professional, it's good to have some knowledge of photography basics and best practices under your belt. Let's take a look at some Instagram photography tips to help get your photos up to par.
Pay Attention to Lighting
Lighting is an important part of taking photos in any situation. While filters and editing can help correct some lighting issues, it's important to get the best lighting you can for your photos. Natural light and light colored backgrounds can help create a good lighting environment for your photos. It might take some trial and error for getting the best lighting, but as long as you're paying attention to your lighting situation you should be able to walk away with a good photo.
Take Lots of Photos
When you decide it's time for a photo shoot, don't just take one photo - take as many as you can. This will give you more content to use for weeks. One shot could be used more than once in multiple ways by zooming in, or focusing on different parts of one photo. It's also typically easier to set aside a chunk of time to take a bunch of photos for the entire week or month's worth of posting instead of trying to find a little bit of time everyday to sneak in a photo.
Shoot in Squares
All Instagram photos are squares, which isn't the natural photo setting on most phones (if that's what you're using to take your photos). Switch your camera to the square setting so you have a better of idea of what will fit in your frame.
Consider Composition
Think about what you're trying to accomplish with each photo you take. Are you trying to highlight a product, explain a process, or share a story? Understanding the goal of a photo will help you decide on the best composition.
There are tons of Instagram photo trends and styles out there, so find one, or a few that work for your brand. One popular trend at the moment is the Flat Lay photo trend. We wrote an entire article on The VisionWeb Blog about this trend if you want to learn more.
Use Filters Wisely
It's easy to get carried away with different editing apps and filters on your photos. You might want to consider selecting one, or a handful of filters to use to keep your brand and imaging consistent. This is totally up to you! But if you are trying to showcase things like the newest frames in your dispensary, too much editing can distort the color and the look of the product which might not be ideal for that type of photo.
Our OD Handbook: Small Business, Big Profits outlines more marketing tips for your practice.
