Using Instagram For Your Business? Read This First
Instagram is quickly staking its claim as one of the hottest social media platforms today. It has 300 million active users, and is continually growing. What’s great about Instagram and its reach for your business is that it is boosting 120 times more engagement than Twitter and 58 times more than Facebook! What does engagement mean for your personal or business profile on Insta? It means unlimited potential – people and brands will be looking for, and finding you on Instagram if you do things just right.
Join the webinar March 8th, 8pm/6pm EST/MST to learn how to turn followers into profits!
While Instagram is not as fast moving as Twitter, the feed does move quickly, so you only have just a moment to make your image stop the user for just a second; to see what you have to say. Here are a few tips to do just that:
- Use Good Light – Do you have any pictures on your phone that you’ve taken in a poorly lit room or outside in the dark? Yeah, those are the ones. Lighting is probably the most important factor in a photo, so if you are second guessing the quality of a photo, then you probably shouldn’t post it.
- Use Hashtags – Hashtags can instantly connect you with people who share your same interests, passions, products or issues, among others. Hashtag your favorite company to be connected with them as an influencer. If they like what they see you could become a brand ambassador and get free stuff, or better, get paid! Or, just the simple notoriety of being featured may be just enough. Use hashtags to ATTRACT the type of clients you’d like to see come to YOU for business.
- Connect Your Instagram Other Profiles Available – Within your settings on Instagram you can connect your Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr profiles to name a few. You can set it and forget and post to your other profile feeds. Even if you are not paying attention to those profiles at the moment, if you have them out there, you do not want to run the risk of having a stale news feed if someone finds you during search. Posting regularly will keep your profiles fresh and legitimate.
- Be You – You should never portray yourself as someone else if you are on social media for business or a brand. People buy from people on social, not companies. Show that you are a real person, who has a real life, and is someone other than the face of a company. Post a picture of your disaster of a kitchen table (like mine), post a pumpkin you just carved. Get creative. People like to see the behind-the-scenes of the inner workings of any company.
- Engage – Be sure to respond to direct messages, comments, likes if you want to. People have taken the time to interact with you, so you take the time to reply. Repost others photos and make comments, shouting out to your follower. You will get endless love.
- UGC – Another type of content is becoming the new trend – it’s called UGC (User Generated Content) – and it’s a great thing for online marketers who are just plain burned out from churning out the content day after day, hour after hour! Companies like Burberry, Starbucks, and Belkin have all taken advantage of this trend, [read here] and their sales have surged. Even if you are a simple solopreneur like me, you can coin a unique hashtag for your brand, and start shouting out to your followers to start using it. Believe me, the love will soon follow!
We love Instagram. The platform is so unique and eye pleasing and just FUN. The images we see every day make it a joy to sign in! IMU has also been having great success attracting our own followers into our online and social media marketing fold, where we are able to provide weekly advice and training; providing value to those who have taken the time and effort to hear what we have to say.
We hope you enjoyed this post and it has inspired you to think differently out on Instagram!
Join the webinar March 8th, 8pm/6pm EST/MST to learn how to turn followers into profits!
