Instagram users enjoy applying some special effects on their photos before sharing them with friends and followers. Photo sharing is now easier and more pleasurable than ever. Thanks to Instagram platform that brought online photo sharing to a new level. With its 100 million active users, just like Facebook, Instagram is now becoming a popular site for online marketing.
In terms of business, we can take advantage on the features of Instagram, by getting followers as many as we could and sharing with them our creative photos of products or services. Instagram users definitely love creative visual images. That’s the primary reason of joining the site. Hence, you could form a bond of closeness with your followers by sharing creative photos of your products, services, or even employees. Here are some suggestions to boost your brand’s online exposure using Instagram.
1. Tag Specific Location with your Photos
When joining business trade shows, product exhibits, or trade fairs, don’t forget that Instagram now allows Geotagging. You can tag the location of the trade expo with your photos before sharing them with your followers. In this way, your friends and followers will not only know that you participated in a business event, but your location as well.
2. Strategic Use of Hashtag
We are familiar with the use of hashtags on Twitter to draw the attention of both followers and non-followers. On Instagram, hashtags categorize photos, making them more searchable. So, you may use hashtags specific to your business to draw the attention of other Instagram users. But always bear in mind that the use of hashtags on Instagram is not for a direct generation of sales. Instead, the purpose of hashtags is to show or brand your business. That is, to create brand awareness.
3. Promote Interactions
Instagram has vintage filters and tilt-shift effects that give images a quality similar to those of pictures taken using DSLR. The strong and creative visual aura of your photos will allure your followers. They would comment on your photos as a sign of appreciation. Acknowledge any comments, either good or bad, to encourage friendly interactions. If you are creative with your photos, your followers will likely share them on their other social networking accounts.
4. Make Instagram as Your Default Photo App
By using Instagram as your default camera app, you can easily share your photos on your other social media pages like Facebook and Tumblr. That is, you are feeding your other social channels as you feed your Instagram account.
5. Social Promotions
You may hold a photo contest, asking your followers to share pictures of them using your products or availing your services. Your contest may also focus on getting ideas from them on how to effectively market your products or services. They may share pictures presenting creative ways of advertising your products or services. By so doing, your brand will be exposed not only to your followers but to their friends as well.
Update your followers on what is going on for your business. If you are attending a trade fair or holding a big sale, take some pictures of your booth or sales flyer and share these to your friends and followers. You may invite them over to the trade show or to your big sale event to support your brand.
Businesses have discovered video in general as a valuable marketing tool. For example, posting videos on landing pages and within blog posts provides marketers with an additional SEO opportunity. Not only can their pages or posts potentially rank for specific keywords, video adds yet another component valued by search engines.
Since Instagram video is short, it can also be highly effective. Internet users have short attention spans. They may not be willing to invest more than a minute or two in watching a business video. However, with just 15 seconds at stake, they’re more likely to click the play button.
Businesses are using Instagram video in several creative and not-so-creative ways. Some really do post videos of business signs and office building signs while others create elaborate 15-second animations. In some cases, the videos are meant to turn a static photo into a short clip with movement. For example, if your “about us” webpage has a photo of your business signs, adding an Instagram video of your office building signs swaying gently in the wind could bring that photo to life without being overly intrusive to viewers.
Short tutorials are also becoming popular on Instagram Video as are mini portfolios by artists, photographers, and designers. Product videos, demonstrations, customer testimonials, promotional offers, and company tours are also commonly used by businesses.
Why how to instagram is important?
Businesses learning how to instagram for business marketing for several compelling reasons:
Reach – Instagram is a hugely popular social media site. By posting videos on Instagram, you could potentially reach a wide audience. In addition to Instagram itself, users often share videos via other social networking channels such as Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest which further expands your potential reach.
Ease of use – It’s easy to snap a short video using a smartphone and Instagram. Not only that, Instagram includes easy-to-use video editing software that can quickly transform a mediocre video in a thing of beauty.
Engagement – Perhaps the best reason of all to start using instagram for business marketing is to increase engagement. While it may be fun to shoot and edit videos of your business signs, it’s even more fun when you can get your customers involved. For example, you could hold a contest asking customers to post videos of them interacting with your products or posing under your office building signs.