According to Keely Siciliano, director of brand & digital marketing for Dawn Foods, tagging the business location in an Instagram post - or geotagging – can increase a bakery’s visibility as it will live not only on their profile, but it will also exist in the tagged location’s public feed. When a business address is tagged, whenever people search for the same neighborhood or click on that neighborhood’s geotag in another Instagram post, the bakery’s post will have a higher likelihood of being found. Adding a geotag to posts will also allow bakeries to engage with local users and help people discover their business.

Make your business easy to find by tagging your location through social media channels and optimize your profile for search.

Build an aesthetic Instagram feed in line with your brand identity, she continues.

Bakers should be creative, consistent, and strategic when building their Instagram feed aesthetic. Consider choosing a color pallet that is reflective of the businesses’ branding. If warm or neutral colors are used in branding, reflect that in the content posted. Instagram and other photo editing apps like VSCO and A Color Story provide a number of filters to help bakers create consistency in the colors and textures that come through in their content.

Get creative with captions – and write longer ones. Use strategic hashtags.

Bakers should use captions to tell the story behind the content they post and even engage in conversation in the comments with followers. This applies across the board to the various types of Instagram content including Reels, standalone, and carousel posts.

Longer - yet thoughtful – captions can also stop an Instagram user from scrolling quickly past a bakery’s post. For longer captions, Instagram places a “More” button for users to continue reading. The more people that click on that button the better a bakery’s post will perform in Instagram’s algorithm.

Bakers can use longer captions to tell stories about their products and their people; share a call to action that encourages followers to take advantage of LTOs and product sales; and include a few hashtags that are relevant to the business like #BakersofInstagram or #BakingBusiness to make posts easier to find for people who do not follow that account. Bakers can also use the town or city their business is located in as a hashtag. Each hashtag used will filter into its own respective public feed, allowing bakeries to bring awareness of their business to an even wider audience.

Focus on the target audience.

To keep track of posts resonating with a target audience, bakers should make sure their account is switched to an Instagram business profile. By doing this, they will have access to extra features, such as tracking content performance and selling products on Instagram.

Another tactic to focus on the target audience is to pay attention to the comments on their posts. Taking the time to respond to comments can be a great way to build a community of followers. For example, if a baker posts about their bakery selection for the day and a person takes time to ask a question, it’s important to respond and show the customer they are being heard. Be careful not to sound too robotic and try to personalize responses whenever possible. Finally, every brand has its own personality, and that personality should come through in their responses just as much as in the captions.

If posts aren’t getting a steady stream of comments, consider adding prompts to encourage people to engage in the comments. One example could be for people to share which flavor – pumpkin or cinnamon – they enjoy most for the holidays. Using Instagram Reels and Stories can also help bakers focus their audience as the platform has a number of engagement prompts that can be used, such as polls and sliding scale rankings.

Create more carousel posts.

Of all Instagram post types, carousel posts receive the highest engagement rate and offer bakers another way to diversify their profile’s content with up to 10 photos and/or videos in a single post. For example, bakers can use carousels to give shoutouts to their customers with a roundup of photos of happy customers - taken in-store and/or of followers who tagged a bakery in their post - enjoying one of their baked goods. Another great use of carousels is to post photos of the bakery’s top 10 best-selling products or most loved flavors.

Use Instagram Reels videos.

Unlike Instagram Stories, which disappear after 24 hours, Instagram Reels allow bakers to create engaging videos to share with their audiences. Beyond profile followers, Reels gives the opportunity to reach people who do not follow a profile, because these videos exist on both Instagram’s Explore Page and in a dedicated public Reels tab.

While videos are capped at 60 seconds, that is plenty of time to share content that can attract people to a business. Bakers can consider showcasing their variety of baked goods for sale - like vegan donuts to highlight how a bakery caters to health-conscious dessert lovers.

To help drive sales, also consider using Reels to announce product sales, LTOs, and special offers. Bakers can share these types of reels for free or submit them as paid advertisements to target a specific audience. When developing these types of Reels, make sure content is authentic and genuine to the bakery and not too salesy.