“A picture worth a thousand words.” There’s no doubt that Instagram is a fresh social media that is good enough to compete with (or taken by) bigger names in the business.
Instagram offers multiple unique features, especially for brands and marketers. However, it could be a nightmare if its users are taking away what makes it so cool and cramming it up with a lot of spams.
Here are some tips on how to make Instagram “the hottest social media marketing app” ever:
1. Post your actual photos
Don’t populate your feed with photos of text telling people about promotions and giving them facts. Instagram brings words to life through photos, but they still should be photos. Plus, you’ve got room for a caption. Take and share real photos. If you need to add text, consider using Overgram to add a text subtlety. It’s free!
2. Slowly but sure
There is nothing worse than following an account that decides to post 30 photos in 2 minutes. I realize you may just get the a lot of things to share, but remember that Instagram is important for its every users and they would rather not have to scroll past your flood of photos to look for a content that they like. Limit your updates and work to share only for your best photos. It enriches your followers experience and yourself as well. If you would like to combine photos, apps like Diptic and Fuzel can create a collage and export straight to Instagram to make the best of a photo.
3. Don’t use stock images
People don’t go on Instagram to see stock images. They don’t need to see your billboard, the really expensive shots of your menu items and hotel rooms, or some irrelevant image you found using the Flickr commons. If you’re going to represent a brand on Instagram, give it a flavor. Something special and extraordinary. Give them the backstage pass, the chef’s hat, or the passenger seat to where your brand is, where it’s going, and what it likes to do. Instagram is about gritty, on-the-go images that have distinctive taste.
4. Involve your followers
Big brands such as Red Bull, Southwest Air and Audi have mastered creating communities on Instagram using hashtags and contests that get users to interact with their products and brand by connecting to their lifestyle and emotions. Southwest Air gave away a series of gift cards over the holidays to people who posted photos of their holiday “photo of the day” and used a special hashtag (also had to include their account handle) to enter. The entries flooded in, and during a time when people have traveling on their minds, Southwest caught their attention in all the right ways. Smart digital communications right there!
5. Be interactive!
Depending on the brand size, it can get difficult to answer response to photos every time. However, it’s very important to interact with people in Instagram. It’s a network largely based on the intimacy that a photo provides, and that intimacy includes conversation (in the form of comments) made regarding the photos. Try to make two-way communication and notice how people will be excited not just to follow you, but to interact with you.
One thing to keep in mind is that people use Instagram as a new place to see the world. Make your content as real as possible. If your followers want to go to a certain place or do a certain thing as a result of you, then you can bet that they’re going to your brand/products right away.