For the past 2 years, I have been running the Instagram profile for the best club in one of the cities in Serbia. How did we reach that level of success, you may wonder. You will learn in the next few minutes.
Today, everyone is reading and talking about how social networks can improve your otherwise unrecognizable business, but you can’t find a blog specifically for night clubs.
That’s why I decided to write a guide, hoping to help many people who are having trouble promoting their clubs on social networks.
This guide consists of 5 steps and if you follow them, I’m sure that your nightclub will become one of the most visited in the city, if not the most visited one.
1. Defining your (NightClub) guests
Imagine in your head how you would like your night club to look. Everyone would like it to be full, but dig a little deeper with this analysis.
Who are The Night Club Guests?
Which people would come to your place? Are they young people aged between 25 and 30, or between 18 and 24? What are their obligations, hobbies, interests? How does their usual life look like?
Although it seems like you’re going into details too much, this is the most important step of all.
Properly defining the target groups can be the difference between a successful and failed business. So take a piece of paper and a pencil, and answer the questions above. When you have a detailed picture of your ideal guest, it will be much easier for you to find the golden formula to keep your nightclub full.
Music
Is there a DJ at your club or is there live music? If it’s a DJ, what music would they play? Techno? Folk? Nostalgic disco music from the 80s? You notice how is this related to the previous definition of your ideal guest.
As soon as you know their interests, you will immediately get an idea about which music would are they interested in.
And if you find the music they like, you can be sure that they’ll come back, because they will have the best time in the city – at your place.
2. Building your Instagram profile
Now that you know all of these things – how would the perfect party look like, who should the guests be, and what music would be playing, it’s time to pay attention to your Instagram profile.
Aesthetics is very important. In cities where there is yet another club at each corner, it is very difficult to be unique. That’s why Instagram’s profile aesthetics come to the fore. Instagram will separate you from the competition and will help you to constantly get new guests, which can become regular guests with a bit of work.
You will understand better what I think when I say aesthetics, when you see this example of a high-quality profile.
So what I’m trying to say is that your profile has to have its story. It also means that the story has to reach the hearts of your target audience. You want your ideal guest to think “Wow! This place looks really cool to me, I have to go there on Friday! ” when they visit your profile.
Make your story cause reactions. And do not be afraid to be different from the others. In the sea of contestants, the one that differs has a much greater chance of winning.
People who will help you with your profile
You, as a manager or owner of a club, have a lot of work to do to make sure that everything works properly, but if you want your club to look like it’s the best club in the city, you need 2 more people.
These two people are a Graphic Designer and a Photographer.
A graphic designer is a person who perfectly handles software for image and video processing. It is a person who has an eye for beauty and a talent for catching the attention of the person looking for it.
Here’s one example. Tell me which one of these 2 posters is better?
Here are 2 posters next to one another.
The poster on the left is the work of an amateur, a person who doesn’t do work as a graphic designer professionally. They have just downloaded an application on their phone and “tried” something.
Look at the poster on the right. Isn’t it beautiful? Did you have a thought: “Man, I would like to go to this party!”?
This is because a good graphic designer knows how to make things beautiful. How to cause emotion in the eyes of the viewers, i.e. your guests. A good graphic designer means at least a few more full tables at the end of the day.
Another benefit is creating an image of the club that cares about professionalism, aesthetics, and branding. Because that’s what your club depends on – how much talk about it there is. And people are talking about brands that have caused some kind of emotion in them.
Be special.
Pro Tip: Video converts better
Videos on social networks generally achieve better results than images. We can freely say that the video has defeated the image in every aspect because it is much more interesting to watch a video announcement of an event than a static image.
From my experience, I see that it is very good for a promoting party to use videos for the story format (9:16, 1080x1920px) because it is much more interesting, and many more people will pay attention to it.
Another very important person for an excellent Instagram profile that can make a full club happen is a photographer. People often underestimate the power of a good photograph, because they think they can do the photographing themselves. But often the end results look very cheap without them even being aware of it.
Here’s another example. Tell me, which of those two clubs would you rather visit? What was the first thought that came to your mind when you saw these two photos?
There are 2 photos from the party next to each other, one made by an amateur, and one by professional.
If I can guess, your impression for the first photo was that it’s too dark. You probably think that the place is ugly, and people who go there are not people like you.
And about the photo on right? It looks like it’s a special place, which has been arranged as the most elite clubs in New York, and that very nice people go there. People I’d like to meet!
These are the emotions that can make a difference from “I don’t go there, I don’t like it” to “I’d go there every week!”.
Your profile should be a symbiosis of values that your photographer and your designer bring to the table.
What does the best profile look like? It’s a mix of posters made by a graphic designer, and photographs from your professional photographer. Here’s an example:
Here is an example of a profile that has both posters and photos.
In this way, the profile continues to have a great reach, yet it does not bore people – because you are not only posting posters, but also the atmosphere from the party.
3. Making your content more recognizable
Sure, having high quality images is pretty great, but imagine if all of them had a unique effect on them, one that only your night club uses?
By having all of your images share a color scheme, you’re working on your branding and standing out from all other night clubs in the area. Imagine if someone shared one of your images and people could immediately tell where the photo was taken because of the color palette.
What you can also do is add a border in the color of your brand and maybe even your logo somewhere on the bottom. This way, if your photographer shares a photo, people in the comments will immediately know where the picture was taken.
Another way to stand out from your competition are also unique events. You can hire your local acrobats, fire breathers (make sure to exercise utmost caution), local bands, dance performers, etc.
4. Reach the people who don`t even know your Night Club exists
This is the step to help you reach people who do not even know about your night club and what do you do.
There is no better and cheaper way to reach thousands and thousands of specifically targeted people as it is with social networks.
If you’ve never run ads on Instagram, this section might scare you, but here’s how to easily launch Instagram ads in 4 easy steps.
The first step is to determine where do you want your potential visitors to land once they click on your ad. Do you want them to go to your website to see what other events are there and find out more about the club, or do you want them to land on the page for a specific event. Or do you want them to directly message you and leave a reservation that way?
Of course, which of the three choices you choose depends on how you planned your ad to work.
When I personally run campaigns for my client, I always link my profile, because that has shown to be the most successful solution for us, and it also promotes brand recognition of the nightclub.
But in your case, it may the second option, and it is best to test it yourself with a small budget. And you can be sure that this testing will most certainly pay off.
The second step is to define your target group. You can allow Instagram to determine which group of people will be the best for you, but I would not recommend it. The result will be much better if you define your target group yourself.
The first parameter is Location: in which area do you want the ad to show. Is it only in the city where your club is located, or does it include surrounding areas as well? Or maybe an area wider than that? Choose the territory that you think will have the greatest effect.
My recommendation is that it should be the city where your club is located, but there are some special cases it would be beneficial to add the surrounding areas as well.
The second parameter is Interests: what does your target audience like? Maybe a DJ, or perhaps are the involved in some music-related activities, such as playing musical instruments?
Add everything that connects most of your target audience. Using this, you will reach people who are more likely to be interested in the parties you are organizing.
And the third parameter is age: how old are the guests that you would like to attract? As far as gender goes: I recommend choosing both.
The third step is to determine the daily budget for the advertisement and how long the ad will last. If you are doing this for the first time, my recommendation is to have a low budget (for example, 10$ a day), so you don’t waste a lot of money if you make some silly mistake.
And you can be certain that after a few times you’ll get it how it works and it would be your permanent investment which will put a smile on your face every time you do it.
And the fourth step is to link your preferred payment method (a card, PayPal, etc.) if you have not already, and to confirm the release of your ad.
Once you have completed these 4 steps, you are expected to have your ad verified and released. It’s usually done within a couple of hours (in my case, it’s always in the next 2 hours).
After that, you can easily monitor the performance of the advertisement, get an idea when does your ad perform best.
5. Feel the changes after the promotion
After you have followed the previous three steps and your club is constantly full, monitor the situation on the social networks. Perhaps your audience will get bored with a particular design, so you will have to change it. Perhaps people will prefer that the photos you post have a slightly different effect, so oblige them.
Listen to your audience, and follow their wishes. That’s how you create a place everyone is talking about, a place where a spot is highly sought after.
Pro Tip: Use hashtags and stickers for your city’s location
When you want something new or refreshing on your profile, I recommend that you use hashtags for descriptions.
For example: If you have a club in New York, use the following hashtags:
- NewYork
- NY
- NewYorkParty
- NYParty
- NYNightLife
- NYClub … you get the point.
In this way, you can reach out to strangers who have come to this city for a couple of days, and are searching through Instagram for a club to go out to tonight.
Also, ALWAYS put the location info in posts, as well as in Story. You have no idea how many people are watching stories through a location sticker. I strongly recommend placing a location both in posts and on the story.
Additionally, people browse the hashtags of their interests all the time. This way, they can find more cool accounts to follow and even businesses in whose products they’re interested in. Make sure to use the relevant hashtags in your post.
Tag the genre of music that will be playing, the day your party will be on, the event name and type, the food that will be served and special drinks, as well as some generic hashtags such as #music and #dancing. There are different types of hashtags you can use:
- Branded hashtags – these are related to events, for example #livebandmusic
- Industry hashtags – as the name suggests, these are widely used by the industry and are hashtags like #clubbing or #nightclub
- Niche hashtags – these hashtags are used by your audience, and a great and widely used example is #nightlifestyle
- Content hashtags – these describe the content you’re posting, for example #tbt
6. Bonus NightClub promo tip: themed parties
I’ve mentioned in the previous step that you should always listen to your customers. Sometimes try to add something new. Themed parties are very interesting, and they bring a new sense of excitement and anticipation of what will happen next.
There are many companies that do surprise event and themed parties, so it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get them from time to time to break the monotony.
Conclusion
I hope I helped you improve your Night Club standing on Instagram, and that your club will become one of the most popular in the city.
If you follow through with these five methods, I’m sure that the income will only grow, because you will know what you are doing, and you will know how to present yourself to others as true professionals. And most importantly, you will keep your audience happy.
