Instagram, the fun and quirky image app for iPhone and android devices, has taken the world by storm. Millions upon millions of people use it as a way to transform everyday photos and videos, with filters and frames, into memory-laden content. All of this can shared with the world on an online gallery as well as on a variety of social networking platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr.
What’s more, it is a great social media tool for a business like yours to engage with your customers to build relationships and increase your sales.
An Introduction to Instagram
Instagram was launched in October 2010 and was bought by Facebook in April 2012. Instagram is mainly a mobile platform, and it is so important for your business because people are increasingly accessing the Internet via their mobile devices.
Instagram users can view their newsfeed and browse other users’ profiles through the website, Instagram.com. As mentioned earlier, this application is currently available only for iOS and Android Phones, and it is freely available in the Apple app store and the Google Play store.
Instagram allows you to capture a moment or choose an image or video and edit it to transform its look and feel using filters. You can then post the images with your smartphone and post your pictures on Instagram for a particular user or all to see. You can capture a series of pictures with your mobile device and share with your friends.
The Internet has drastically changed the way we promote our businesses. Marketing is all about sharing the things that are happening right now. Instagram is one of the world’s most popular social network apps and a great way to share your photos online.
So many global and local brands are using Instagram as a marketing platform to increase their social engagement with Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Pinterest and other social media platforms. It is among top 10 most popular smartphone apps, and it is a very important marketing and promotional tool for your business.
People who want to become more social and share what is important in their lives with their families, friends and followers use Instagram.
It is also widely used by businesses to promote their products and services as a way of connecting with their followers. The secret of Instagram's success for your business is that it allows your pictures to generate customers for you and increase your brand reputation.
You can create an Instagram newsfeed with helpful information to boost your followers, engage them with your brand, and generate new content that will drive more customers to you.
How Instagram is generally used as a Marketing Tool
Instagram is mostly used by individuals to share images and videos. However, like the other social sharing sites, it also has incredible business potential. Everybody from global brands, pop stars, movies stars and local businesses in any niche use Instagram to great effect which allows them to promote themselves and their brands.
For example, you can include virtual tours and behind the scene views for your new product and services, such as how-to videos, company tours, images of your products, and more. No matter what your industry may be, Instagram provides you with the potential to connect with thousand and millions of customers across the globe.
Instagram encourages your customers to connect with you on a more personal level as compared to other Internet marketing strategies. You can provide behind the scene video and an image of your product demonstration to make your customers feel like they are also the part of your whole development process.
You can write descriptions and use hashtags to support your video and images. However, when it comes to online marketing strategies, Instagram really comes into its own and delivers the best results when you use images and video.
Building Relationships With Your Customers
Instagram is so easy to use and is arguably the world leader in visual representation for online businesses. But your chances of success wholly depend on how you utilize Instagram to increase your engagement and awareness about your business and brand.
For example when using Instagram, your business model can share you’re your followers exactly what they can experience by using your products or services. The more photos you share showing how you can improve or bring value into their lives the more appealing your product or service will be, resulting in greater customer satisfaction.
Instagram makes it so simple by supplying you with an easy to use and very elegant user interface. Even if you have never used it before, you will be up and running within a matter of minutes.
It is the perfect platform that allows you to build close relationships with your audiences, represent your brand beyond the products you sell, and create the visual strategies that your brand needs.
Why YOUR Business should definitely use Instagram?
The popularity of Instagram is growing year by year, and its number of active users is increasing on a daily basis. Just like Facebook, Instagram has captured the publics imagination and is now a very popular and important social media website. For that reason, it is the perfect tool for online marketing strategies.
The uniqueness of Instagram is that it focuses on images, videos and sense of closeness images and videos provide. This makes them a great tool to use for visual marketing. You can instantly post images with your mobile device and share them with your followers to promote your products and services.
Instagram is an essential tool for any online marketing campaign.
Reasons Why Your Business Should Use Instagram
Easy-to-Use
Instagram allows you to create awesome images that you can also use on other social platforms. Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr and other social media platform are optimized for images; that’s how images are displayed on these platforms, so you can directly share from Instagram.
Instagram is mobile
Instagram merges two great forces that are essential in social marketing strategies: mobile and photo sharing. This can give unique value to your brand.
Visual storytelling
Instagram has more artistic value than other social media platforms. You can use a brand moment that will make more of an impact than if you just used text. With Instagram, you can communicate visually with your audience, followers and fans.
Build trust
Personal images humanize your brand and allow you to be more reachable. Instagram allows you to put a face to your brand, and this will help to build consumers’ confidence in your business.
It also provides you with a way to build a positive online user experiences and generate leads for repeat customers. Instagram is a great way to share your business experience in an informal and casual way. You can also include behind the scenes and employee images to give a personal touch to your business.
Drive more traffic
Yes, you can drive more traffic to your business with Instagram. When you upload an image to Instagram, be sure that you list your website in your profile and that you add your website URL in description. You can use hashtags, calls to action in post comments, and share your content on other social media platforms to generate more traffic to your website. You can also include amazing content that will encourage your audience to visit your website.
Free exposure
With other social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn, you have advertisement buying options according to your goals. But with Instagram you do not have to buy anything. Instagram is completely free, and it will help you to create a great online presence.
Visual marketing
Instagram’s simple design allows you instantly upload engaging visuals that include images and videos. You have heard the phrase “A picture is worth a thousand words”. This is even more important when marketing on the Internet. It has never been easier to share visual content with your customers and potential clients, so you should take full advantage of the opportunity by posting pictures and getting your brand recognized. For extra engagement you can get very creative with your images.
If you are already getting good results with visual marketing on other platforms such as Pinterest or Facebook, then think of all the possibilities of Instagram, which is dedicated to visual marketing.
User engagement
Now Instagram has over 400 million active users every month – that means huge traffic for any business using Instagram for marketing.
By providing useful and interesting content on Instagram, you can earn higher levels of engagements with your customers. Studies show that Instagram delivered 58 times more engagement per follower than Facebook, and 120 times more engagement per follower than Twitter.
Get personal
Instagram gives you a chance to show your customers who you are and what you do. With this you can make your business more personable, which leaves a long lasting impression on your followers and customers.
Emotional connection with your customers encourages them to take the desired action, and using emotions in your post can increase your engagement. You can show them behind the scenes stories, video and photo of a meeting, staff posts and birthdays in store, etc. to become more personal.
Network
Instagram is also a social marketing platform in addition to an image platform, so use its network. It will help you to meet new audiences and build relationships. In return, you will gain followers, new audiences and potential customers. The value of your customers basically depends on connection. If your connections with your audience are deep and structured then you can monetize your connection with ad-networks like Facebook.
Increase conversions
You can run contests and online marketing campaigns on Instagram. This will increase your followers and engagement with your audience. You need to set a custom reply on each and every campaign entry.
You can add a links, sign up forms, and terms and conditions to your contest in the comments. You need to manually write the links because copy-paste doesn’t work with Instagram. This will help you to increase your conversions and lead generation.
Going viral
Instagram also provides you the opportunity to go viral with your images and videos. You can take some time to capture images in a creative way. Instagram’s popular pages show current moments and images, and these visuals are visible to all users of Instagram. You can share incredibly creative and cute images to generate more leads with the potential that it will boost your sales and customer relationships.
We Have a Proven Method of Generating a Predictable Flow of Highly Engaged, Motivated Followers and Customers for Your Business!
As you can see, Instagram gives you the power to start to attract followers who are genuinely excited about your business… and who will enthusiastically tell their social networks about you!
If you are keen to start using Instagram to promote your business but want to make sure that you are doing it properly, then contact us first before you do anything.
We have lots of experience, not just on Instagram but across all of the social media platforms and we can help you to automate your campaigns… and to use them to bring in customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week… without massive ad expenses or “babysitting” your social media accounts!
We will set up your Instagram account the right way, so that you can position your business for massive success and avoid costly mistakes that can sabotage your efforts!
We Can Make Sure That Your Business Makes a HUGE Impact on Instagram and Can Seriously Increase Your Customer Base and Profits.
Our social media expertise will give YOUR business a huge advantage. Take a look what we can do for your business starting today:
-
Setting Up a Customer Converting Profile:
We know how subtle elements in your Instagram profile can have a dramatic impact on your success… and how to optimize your profile to skyrocket engagement!
-
Tracking Your Success:
Tracking link clicks is crucial so that you know exactly how well your Instagram campaigns are performing. We can do that for you.
-
Linking to the Secret place on your website that will get sales:
While most business make the mistake of linking to their website homepage, we know that this is a really bad move… and know exactly what you should link to instead
-
Creating the perfect posts:
Knowing when and what to post can be minefield for many businesses. Get it wrong, and your business and brand suffers. But if you get it right, the rewards are incredible. We know just how often you should post – and what types of content to post – for optimal results.
-
The right posts at exactly the right time:
Timing is the key to success. We know exactly which times of the day to post for maximum engagement!
-
#HashtagSuccess.
On Instagram, Hashtags are critical to your success. We have the secret to choosing the right hashtags for maximum exposure with minimal effort!
To ensure your success on Instagram, why not let us look after almost every aspect of your Instagram campaigns, so that you can spend more time running your business and taking care of your customers! Contact us today
