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Instagram for Your Microbakery: Profile, Posting and Captions | Part 2 | Episode 10

  • Nov 12, 2024
  • 7 min read

Updated: 2 days ago

Listen on Apple Podcasts


This happens more than you would think. I land on a baker's Instagram profile and I cannot tell what town she is in, I cannot find a link to order, and there is nothing telling me what to do next. She is baking beautiful bread and losing customers on the profile page before they ever see a loaf.


Social media grows your bakery when you are clear about what you want it to do and you have set the account up to do that job. So let us get tactical about goals, profiles, posting, and captions.


Decide what your account is for

Before you post another photo, get clear on why you are on social media at all and who you are trying to reach.


Are you trying to reach local buyers in your own zip code, the people who will actually pick up bread from your porch? Or are you building a wider audience with an educational angle? Do you want the account to be mostly menu updates and sales, or more of a lifestyle account you might monetize later? Every one of those is a good goal. You just need to pick one.


Sit down with a pen and paper and write out why your business is on social media and what you want the account to look like in a year. Then name your audience out loud, local customers or a broader online audience, because that answer shapes every post you make.


Pick your platforms and stop spreading thin

For microbakeries, the platforms that earn their keep are Instagram, Facebook, and the Nextdoor app. Find the one or two that serve your goal and set those up properly. I put most of my bakery content on Instagram and share it straight over to Facebook, which works well for almost no extra effort.


Optimize your Instagram profile

This is the highest return twenty minutes you will spend on social media all year. Go open your profile and fix these.

  • Profile photo. Your logo or a clear photo of your own face. Nothing else.

  • The name field. This is searchable, so use it. Your name, a divider, then something like "artisan sourdough in your town" or "sourdough microbakery in your town." The words sourdough, bakery, and your town are what people type when they are hunting for bread near them. If all you have in there is your business name, you are leaving search traffic on the table.

  • The bio. A quick line on what you offer, like artisan sourdough bread and baked goods, or organic sourdough bread. Then a clear call to action, because our brains need directions. "Click the link in the bio to order," or "Order here" with an arrow pointing down at the link.

  • Your location. Tag it. On Facebook too. If someone lands on your page and cannot tell where you are, you have lost them.

  • The link field. Put your website or your ordering platform in there. Do not just say DM to order. A real ordering link is easier on you and easier on your customer.

  • A pinned introduction post. One photo or a small carousel of you, with a little about you, pinned to the top of your grid. People want to know the person behind the account, and they should not have to scroll past forty loaves to find you.


Set a posting goal you can actually keep

The more you post, and the more strategically you post, the more you grow. But be honest about your capacity, both the capacity to make content and write captions and the capacity to be on your phone answering comments.


Three times a month is a goal. Once a week is a goal. Four or five times a week is a goal. Pick the one you will actually hit and commit to it, and lean toward whatever format comes easiest to you while you are building the habit.


Try not to go more than about two weeks without posting anything. New people who stumble onto your account will click through a couple of posts, and if the last one was three weeks ago they will assume you are closed.


Fix the content problem before it is a crisis

I polled my audience about their social media struggles and most of them said the same three things: coming up with content, staying consistent, and not knowing what to post. I relate to all of it.


A content calendar for the month takes the pressure off, because you are not writing every post from a blank page. When you are stuck, you open the calendar and pick an idea.


Batch creating is the other half of the fix. Make five or six or ten posts in one sitting and you have a couple of weeks waiting, so you get to post when you have a spare minute instead of inventing something in a ten minute window.


For filming, put your phone on a tripod while you work and grab a few clips of you folding dough, mixing, loading the fridge. Let the footage sit there until you need it.


For photos, lighting is the whole game. Get near a window or step out on the porch where the light is bright and indirect, and turn off the other lights in the room, because they cast odd shadows and turn everything yellow.


Know what each format is actually for

  • Reels reach brand new people. They get shown to people who do not follow you, so this is your growth tool.

  • Stories are seen mostly by the people who already follow you, the ones telling the algorithm they want to hear from you. Use stories to nurture. Behind the scenes, your face, the baker behind the brand.

  • Static posts and carousels also reach mostly your existing followers, so they are where sales, menu updates, promotions, and teaching belong.


The reel shortcut that got me unstuck

I struggled with reels for a long time. I would spend twenty minutes filming, use twenty seconds of it, and not even like the result.


Here is the simpler way. In Instagram, tap to create a reel, scroll along the top, and choose Templates. Those already have music and clip timings built in. Pick one whose music suits your content, tap in, and it walks you through dropping in your own footage.


Go get those clips off your phone, you mixing, you shaping, you putting dough in the fridge, and drop in a few seconds of each. The template sizes them and syncs them to the music. Adjust the on screen text, write your caption, and post.


I like the shorter templates with four or five clips, and I often make five or six in one sitting and save them to drafts.


Write captions that ask for the order

Do not just throw text up there, and do not agonize over it either. The most important part is a clear call to action. If the post is about your menu being open with a deadline, say the deadline, then say exactly what you want them to do: "Click the link in my bio to order." No wishy washiness. Without it, people think "oh, her orders are open, I will circle back," and they never do.


If writing captions is where you get stuck, ChatGPT can get you moving. I never copy and paste what it gives me, I use it for a rough draft and then put my own voice on top.


My prompt looks something like this: act as an Instagram expert and help me draft a scroll stopping caption. The audience is this, the post is about this, the caption should communicate this, the call to action is this, write it in a casual, friendly, chatty tone. You can even name a podcaster whose voice you admire and ask for that tone.


Use hashtags to match your goal, not out of habit

On my bakery page I hardly use hashtags at all. I only want local customers, so tagging sourdough and microbakery would bring me people who can never buy from me. I use a location tag and leave the rest off.


On my podcast account it is the opposite. I want to reach sourdough microbakery owners everywhere, so I use hashtags built for exactly that.


Match the tags to the goal. Local means location specific tags, your town plus small business. And when you post about your farmers market, tag the market or add them as a collaborator so the post shows up for their audience too.


What I actually do

I am not trying to build a big bakery account. My growth comes from local Facebook groups. Our town has a few very engaged mom groups and social networking groups, and I share in those about once a week. That, plus word of mouth, brings in most of my new followers.


From there I bring people over to my Facebook page and Instagram, where they get to know me. I post about once a week and put up stories a couple of times a week. That is the whole strategy.


If you are a year or three in

Go look at your last thirty posts and sort them by which ones brought you orders, not likes. Then look at where your customers actually came from this quarter. If it was a local Facebook group, that is where your hour goes, and Instagram becomes the place you send them afterward. It is completely fine to shrink your social media effort down to the one channel that is paying you.


Final thoughts

It is okay to not want to go viral. It is okay to not want a big account. It is also okay if a big audience is exactly the goal. What matters is that you are clear about what you are chasing, so you can go after it on purpose and then show up consistently in a way that fits your life.


Fix your profile this week. That one is free and it takes twenty minutes.


Cheering you on,


Caroline


Keep going

If you want more on getting found by the right people, start here.


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