Instagram’s visual nature and huge base of highly engaged users makes it the social media platform that your business won’t want to miss out on.
Facebook-owned, photo-sharing app Instagram is the third most popular social media platform after Facebook and YouTube. According to Social Media Today, Instagram has over 600 million monthly active users and over 400 million daily active users. With these figures in mind, you would be foolish not to exploit the platform for all it’s worth to reach new customers and market your brand to the world.
In this blog, we’ll discover what Instagram is, why you should be getting excited about it and how to get started with using it for business.
What is Instagram?
Instagram is a social network mobile phone app that allows users to edit and share photos and videos. Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 for $1bn.
In the early days, Instagram simply allowed users to put filters over their photos before sharing them with followers on their feed. Now the app offers a whole host of features including Instagram ‘stories’ which allows users to share photos and videos with their following without posting them to their feed (a feature similar to Snapchat) and live video streaming.
Businesses can also take advantage of Instagram’s paid advertising services.
Why should your business be excited about Instagram?
It’s free
Signing up for a business account with Instagram is completely free and with its 400 million daily active users spending on average 25 minutes a day browsing Instagram, there is huge potential to reach new customers with your marketing.
Visual content gets a better response than text
It’s scientifically proven that visual content evokes a better response from humans than text content, giving Instagram an edge over other social networking platforms. Not only do we process visuals quicker, but we’re more likely to remember them too.
Higher engagement with brands than other social networking platforms
Because of its visual nature, if you get creative with your posts you’re likely to get a much better response on Instagram than on other social networking platforms.
In fact, according to this Infographic by Social Media Today, engagement rates with brands on Instagram are 10 times higher than on Facebook, 54 times higher than Pinterest and 84 times higher than Twitter!
Less crowded
Despite the standout figures above, there are still less marketers using Instagram than Facebook so the platform is not yet overcrowded and brands are more likely to reach their followers with their posts on Instagram than they are on Facebook. Now is a great time to start taking advantage of Instagram before everyone else twigs on too!
Highly targeted ads
If you’d like to reach more users with highly targeted sponsored posts you can use Instagram’s paid ad service which offers the same extensive targeting options as Facebook ads.
Improve your performance over time using analytics
Instagram’s business accounts allow you to view analytics and insights into the performance of your posts to help you to work out what your followers like and what they don’t, so that you can learn how to get more back from your activity.
How can my business use it?
When using Instagram for business, don’t forget the reason people love the platform. Users are there not only to share moments from their lives, but also to be inspired by other people and brand’s feeds and lifestyles. Don’t post for the sake of posting, quality imagery is better than quantity on Instagram.
To get started with Instagram for business you will need to already have a Facebook business page to login via as the two are connected.
Here are a few hint, tips and ideas on how to use Instagram for business:
- Turn customers into ambassadors by encouraging them to share photos that include your products with a unique hashtag
- Show the human side of your business using behind the scenes and employee posts
- Take the time to professionally shoot attractive lifestyle photos that include your products and/or service to inspire and encourage people to buy into the image
- Collaborate with influencers
- Use paid promotional posts to target new customers and gain more followers
Want to find out more about social media for business or need some help getting set up with Instagram? Give us a call on 0800 285 1424 to speak with one of our social media experts.
