Instagram over took the amount of daily twitter users way back at the end of 2012 (Mashable, 2012) with 7.3 million users connecting daily compared to twitters 6.9 (That’s huge). Being the biggest platform in the social media world at the moment, Instagram can blow up your brand if used correctly.
With 37% of users follow 1-5 brands and 32% follow 5 or more (Clasen, 2015) – Instagram is an ever growing platform and apparently one post is worth a thousand words (Abbott, Donaghey, Hare & Hopkins, 2013)
85% of the top brands are now throwing everything into Instagram (Le Page, 2015). If they’re jumping on the bandwagon, then so should you. Here’s some top tips to ensure your brand is successful on Instagram.
Tell a story behind your brand
Brand authenticity in the twenty first century is something that many brands are so desperately fighting to achieve. Brand authenticity can be built upon 3 relevant principles: (Beverland, 2009)
- Telling rich stories
- Appearing as amateurs
- Sticking to where they came from
One way to enhance your brands persona, is to share lifestyle shots. (And yes, research shows it is possible to sell a product through presenting lifestyle images related to the brand (Goor, 2012)).
Why not highlight your brand in an everyday situation and engage with your customers this way – but remember STICK TO YOUR ROOTS. Don’t try to be something that you’re not (I.e. if you’re a small second hand jewellery company, DO NOT share pictures of multi-million pound watches). After all Branding Magazine does state that a single purchasing decision can be solely based upon the lifestyle photos seen trending on Instagram (Kaluza, 2013).
Ellen De’Generes has one of the strongest brand presence on the platform – check out her ‘behind the scenes’ photos for inspiration (https://www.instagram.com/theellenshow/?hl=en).
Use the tools provided
Video
Video is huge on social media at the moment, and having the tool to post short videos’ on the platform, why not keep your customers engaged by sharing a combination of photo’s and video’s? However, don’t jump the gun and start spending a fortune on video’s that might not get the engagement that you want at first because it won’t be worth the investment (Xu, Van der Schaar, Liu & Li, 2015).
Hashtags
Hashtags on Instagram are extremely important. Link your photo to a bunch of relevant hashtags and you could just reach the engagement levels you’ve been waiting for (Patel, 2014). Hashtags are a powerful thing on the platform, but not sure of what’s relevant? Don’t worry, website’s like Websta can help you out. (http://websta.me/hot).
Contests
Throwing the odd competition into the marketing mix will definitely increase engagement towards the brand (Mangold & Faulds, 2009) cause after all everyone wants something for nothing, don’t they? Make the campaign fun and easy, all they’ll have to do is like or comment or even post the photo themselves accompanied by a hashtag (chosen by you) to be in for a chance of winning something from your brand. Sounds easy enough!.
Engage with the community rather than influencers
There are way more members of the community on Instagram than influencers, so try to target these. The people who follow you, follow them back and make sure to comment and like photos relevant to your brand, this gives you a sense of likability within the community. This will also directly engage with existing customers (Baird & Parasnis, 2011) by building up a relationship.
There’s so much more to learn, but that will get you going. Good luck with your Instagram Ventures and make sure to check back in soon for more digital marketing chats and tips.
References
- Abbott, W., Donaghey, J., Hare, J. & Hopkins, P. 2013, “An Instagram is worth a thousand words: an industry panel and audience Q&A”, Library Hi Tech News, vol. 30, no. 7, pp. 1-6.
- Mashable (2012), “Instagram now has more daily active users on mobile than twitter” available at: http://mashable.com/2012/09/27/instagram-passes-twitter-users/
- Classen, 2015
- Beverland, M. & Dawsonera 2009, Building brand authenticity: 7 habits of iconic brands, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.
- Kaluza, 2013 – Branding Magazine http://www.brandingmagazine.com/2013/08/29/tips-on-targeting-generation-z/
- Goor, M.A. (2012). “Instamarketing”: a content analysis into marketing on Instagram. Universiteit Van Amesterdam. Retrieved October 16, 2014, fromhttp://dare.uva.nl/cgi/arno/show.cgi?fid=449011
- Xu, J., van der Schaar, M., Liu, J. & Li, H. 2015, “Forecasting Popularity of Videos Using Social Media”,IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 330-343.
- Mangold, W.G. and Faulds, D.J., 2009. Social media: The new hybrid element of the promotion mix. Business horizons, 52(4), pp.357-365.
- Heller Baird, C. and Parasnis, G., 2011. From social media to social customer relationship management. Strategy & Leadership, 39(5), pp.30-37.
- Le Page, E. 2015. A Long List of Instagram Statistics and Facts (That Prove Its Importance). 17 September 2015. Hootsuite. [Online].[Date Accessed: 20 January 2016]. Available from: http://blog.hootsuite.com/instagram-statistics-for-business/
- Muhamid, H. 2014. 6 Ways to build successful digital marketing campaigns in 2014. All Business.
- Patel, S. 2014. 25 Tips for successful Instagram marketing. Small Business Trends. 24 April 2014.