Instagram Mastery!
Instagram Insider Secrets
CONTENTS
The Best Practices for Building your Instagram Business.............................................................. 4
Fun and Entertainment Aside, Learn How To Use Instagram for Business................................... 5
Know How to Balance Between Fun Images and Pictures Meant To Promote Your Business..... 6
Nurture a Following on Your Instagram......................................................................................... 7
Make Good Use of Debut Videos................................................................................................... 9
Attach Instagram Videos on Your Websites or Blogs.................................................................. 10
Following Back As Many of Your Followers As You Can.......................................................... 11
Come Up with a Flexible and Workable Posting Schedule.......................................................... 12
Post Photos and Short Videos That Are Relevant To Your Brand............................................... 13
Leverage a Photo Contest on Your Instagram and Facebook Pages ............................................ 14
Market Your Brand on Instagram Using Trends .......................................................................... 16
Network Properly On Your Instagram Page................................................................................. 17
Make an Attempt of Offering Incentives to Your Followers........................................................ 18
Showcase Photos and Short Videos of Your Back of the House.................................................. 20
Treat Your Followers to an Amazing Visual Experience............................................................. 21
Make Good Use of Industry-Related Hash Tags.......................................................................... 22
Optimize your Instagram profile................................................................................................... 23
Quantify and Qualify Your Promotional Efforts on Instagram .................................................... 24
Capture and Share Short Videos of Your Important Brand Moments.......................................... 25
Make an Attempt of Widening Your Instagram Exposure to Other Related Brands ................... 26
Expose New Things on Your Instagram Page .............................................................................. 27
Add A Little Controversy in Your Postings ................................................................................. 28
Make and Attempt of Including Your Location in Your Bio Information ................................... 29
Follow Celebrities and Notable Figures ....................................................................................... 31
Partner With the Local Brands in Your Business Niche............................................................... 33
Make Good Use of Photo Map to Promote Your Business on Instagram .................................... 35
Come Up With Local Brand Ambassadors................................................................................... 36
Hold an Offline Event for Your Instagram Audience................................................................... 37
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 39
The Best Practices for Building your Instagram Business
You probably have wondered how short videos and images can be used to promote business awareness through Instagram in a bid to enhance customer experience. It is simple. Instagram can be used to promote your business online through a number of ingenious ways that have been developed over time. Here is a list of strategies, tools and practices that can assist you building your Instagram business.
Fun and Entertainment Aside, Learn How To Use Instagram for Business
You should note that Instagram has been used on a number of occasions for fun. People are gradually absorbing the idea of using Instagram for business and hence you should learn how to use Instagram for business other than fun. Since businesses are increasingly using this platform for the purpose of promoting their business, Instagram initiated the Instagram for Business Blog. The blog was initiated for the purpose of offering helpful tips and ideas on how to use the platform for business. If you are new on Instagram and intend to use it for business promotion, it is important to visit the Instagram for Business Blog. The platform is operated and managed by Instagram HQ and offers numerous tips on how to make use of it for business purposes. With this platform, a new Instagram user is able to learn basic tips and practices of its usage for business purposes. Therefore, the Instagram for Business Blog is the very first avenue to explore when you want to promote your business on Instagram.
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Know How to Balance Between Fun Images and Pictures Meant To Promote Your Business
Instagram is widely recognized as a social media meant for fun. Drawing from this, not many people view the platform as an avenue for promoting business. Nonetheless, the enormous traffic drawn by this social media platform is ideal for business promotion. It is for this reason that entrepreneurs are increasingly using Instagram with the intention of promoting their businesses. In the process of using Instagram as a platform for business promotion, it is important to balance between fun images and images meant to promote your business. While you ought to include fun images in order to attract and impress your audience on Instagram, be careful not to overuse fun images. In the event that your Instagram is flocked with fun images with only a few images and short vides that promote your business, you are at a risk of misinforming your audience. It is always important to clarify your intentions on your Instagram. Make it clear that your platform is meant for business promotion. By doing this, you will be notifying your audience on what to expect during your business promotion. Needless to say, it is imperative for a business personality, or an entity for that matter, to balance between fun images and images meant for business promotion.
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Nurture a Following on Your Instagram
A key preamble to promoting a business online via Instagram is ensuring you have a sizable number of followers. The more followers you have on your Instagram the better your chances of succeeding in your promotional activities on social media. Thus, having an enormous following is one of the most significant tickets to succeeding in Instagram marketing of a business. It should be noted that there are a number of proven tactics of cultivating the desired following on Instagram. One of the widely used methods of cultivating the desired following on Instagram is connecting an Instagram account with a Facebook account. It should be noted that Instagram has a provision of connecting to a Facebook account. With this tool, you are able to synchronize your Instagram and Facebook accounts. When this is done, all your postings on Instagram will be shared on your Facebook account and hence appear on your Facebook timeline. By the way, Facebook and Instagram are associated entities with the same ownership and the possession of the two somehow leverages a business and individual’s online presence. This is an implication that your Facebook friends will be able to view, like, and share your Instagram images and short videos. Therefore, when your Instagram account is linked to your Facebook account, you stand a chance of doubling your audience thereby enabling your promotional information on Instagram to reach far and wide. You can also make use of your Facebook audience to communicate your presence on Instagram. This can be achieved by cross-posting selected images and short videos to your Facebook page and aligning them to your campaign on Instagram. With this provision, your Facebook audience
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can be made aware of your engagements on Instagram and follow your there. On most occasions, this practice comes in handy in the event that you are new on Instagram and want to have the same audience on your Facebook page to follow you on your new Instagram page. Therefore, cross-posting images on Facebook and aligning them with your Instagram campaigns is an important strategy of not only cultivating an audience on your Instagram page but also promoting your business effectively on this platform. The use of relevant popular hash tags is also another useful strategy of cultivating the desired following on your Instagram. Social media enthusiasts have a trend of identifying themselves with popular or trending hash tags. On most occasions, trending hash tags are used to disseminate current and highly persuasive information of any kind. You can therefore take advantage of the enormous traffic attracted by these hash tags to effectuate your promotional goals on Instagram. If this is done correctly, your promotional information on Instagram will reach a wide audience thereby assisting in meeting your marketing objectives. Building a strong business through Instagram can also be achieved by engaging other famous Instagram personnel and liking their images and short videos. It is important to note that Instagram users will feel free to like your content if you like theirs as well. You can take advantage of this trend and like images and short videos posted by other Instagram users with the intention of luring them to like yours as well. This has worked for many and will definitely work for you if done correctly.
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Make Good Use of Debut Videos
Videos clips complement the image and photo postings on Instagram. Therefore, it is advocated that savvy promoters should make consideration in uploading video clips that are sizable enough for the followers to peek through and generate fun. Notably, the video support capability by Instagram has, in many ways, offered an alternative to and, in fact, become a direct competitor to twitter’s Vine. The most notable competitive edge that Video on Instagram has over Vine is the 15-second editable video and filter-enabled functionality. This is in comparison to the 6.5 seconds of twitter’s Vine. The fact that Instagram is doing well with video attachments is a direct implication that the use of videos can go a long way in helping users cultivate the much desired following needed to grow Instagram business promotion. Therefore, you should never hesitate to make use of video attachments on your Instagram.
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Attach Instagram Videos on Your Websites or Blogs
For a long time this functionality was unavailable to Instagram users. Due to high demand, however, Instagram recently came up with a desktop browser version that included a new embed feature. With this new feature, Instagram users can now attach their short videos to their websites and blogs. The secret behind this provision is to increase the number of viewers of your posts. You can never be sure of the number of people who will view your postings on social media platforms. It is for this reason that embedding your Instagram short videos will increase the chances of more audiences to your content. By attaching your Instagram videos to your website or blog, you are not only marketing your business to your blog or website community but also informing them of your presence on Instagram. As a consequence to this, you are highly likely to increase your following on Instagram thereby standing a chance of meeting your marketing objectives on the platform. Suffice it to say, it is imperative to take advantage of the newly launched Instagram embed feature that allows you to share your Instagram videos with your blog and website audience as a strategy of promoting your business on Instagram.
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Following Back As Many of Your Followers As
You Can
This is perhaps one of the most credible strategies of succeeding in business promotion on Instagram. On most occasions, quite a number of businesses on Instagram, especially those with large following, do not follow their followers back. In doing so, they fail to create long-lasting relationships with their followers. Thus, you need to have a competitive edge over such businesses on Instagram by coming up with a totally different strategy of creating strategic relationships with your followers. It is important to note that your followers will feel recognized and appreciated when you follow them back. The act of following back Instagram followers is a trusted strategy of gaining a large following thus leading to success in your promotions.
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Come Up with a Flexible and Workable Posting Schedule
The frequency of sharing images and short videos on Instagram is important in forming a credible following base. Important to online promotion, you need not make postings every day on Instagram. Instead, you should design or come up with a flexible and working posting schedule that makes you able to determine what is to be posted and when. You should not saturate your audience with too much information. It is advisable to allow your audience to have time to digest your promotional information before you post another lest you risk mind-numbing them with repetitive or too much content. Having a well-defined schedule for posting information on your Instagram helps you remember what you have already posted. With this, you are able to avoid instances of posting the same content more than the required number of times that would make you look unprofessional. Additionally, having a comprehensive posting schedule helps you keep track of the kind of content that works best for you. It should be noted that some posts always appeal to your audience while others may not be liked as much by your audience. Therefore, a proper posting schedule is vital in assisting you post the most relevant content that will meet your promotional goals.
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Post Photos and Short Videos That Are Relevant To Your Brand
Being relevant at all times makes you look professional and consistent. It is always important to post images and short videos that are relevant to your brand. If this is done correctly, you stand a chance of making your Instagram page identifiable with your brand. On most occasions, businesses on Instagram make irrelevant posts that have nothing to do with their brand. In doing so, they confuse their audiences. This is an implication that they do not offer their audience a definite line of identification. Posting relevant and consistent images and short videos also makes you readily identified by your audience. Internet users have a wide range of interests and are expected to only engage themselves with the content that pleases them. Capturing the interest of internet users, especially social media enthusiasts, is perhaps the most difficult thing when it comes to social media marketing. Being consistent and relevant with your postings is an important step to capturing the interests of your audience. Therefore, it is important to always remain relevant and consistent with your Instagram postings in order to woo the support of your audience.
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Leverage a Photo Contest on Your Instagram and Facebook Pages
The use of photo contests is a proven strategy of winning the hearts of your audience. Photo contests, just like the name suggests, are photo competitions. During these contests, people post relevant photos displaying the same or almost similar themes with the intention of identifying which photos are most likeable and relevant to the theme in question. Such contests attract social media enthusiasts and can be leveraged to cultivate an enormous following on Instagram. In order to succeed in photo contests on your Instagram page, you need to identify a common theme that is likable. Ensure that your theme is not only relevant to your brand but also lucrative to your audience. Once this is done, come up with a photo contest on your Instagram page and link it to your Facebook account in order to woo more support. If done correctly, your photo contest is expected to attract participation from your audience thereby paying a significant role in promoting your brand amongst the participants. What’s more, these photo contests become more effective in promoting your business on Instagram when done using hash tags. RSS feeds and submissions can best be organized with the help of famous hash tags. With this, more people will be attracted to your photo contest thereby increasing the range of audience for your business. For instance, Samsung Camera made good use of photo contest accompanied by a hash tag. It used #LiveInTheMoment hash tag as a mechanism of promoting its Instagram photo contest that was also linked to its Facebook page.
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The success of the promotion was majorly attributed to the hash tag used. Participants were drawn by the hash tag that spread far and wide. Thus, the use of hash tags as a strategy for promoting photo contests on your Instagram page can be significantly helpful in social media marketing of your business.
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Market Your Brand on Instagram Using Trends
The advent of social media has made information dissemination quick and effective. People can now gain access to any kind of information merely through their social media pages. As a result of this, there is a growth in the mode of sharing trending information on social media platforms. Such information always has significant importance to a given audience. As a result, social media users take advantage of the trending information to seek media attention. You can as well make good use of trending information on social media to promote your brand on Instagram. It should be noted that not all trending messages might be relevant to your brand. However, you can use the information on these trends to come up with a promotional message that suits your brand. Always try to find a common ground between trending information and your projected promotional message to your audience. If this is done the right way, trends can be invaluable in increasing the number of followers of your Instagram page thereby assisting you in meeting your promotional goals.
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Network Properly On Your Instagram Page
Business promotion on Instagram can never be achieved without proper networking. People connect and interact on Instagram through photos and short videos. They do this by sharing their content widely. As a result, a wide network that allows these users to interact freely is created. There are a number of proven tactics of networking on Instagram. For example, liking images posted by others is one of the most considerable tactics of creating a credible network of followers on Instagram. In addition to this, you can include hash tags and engage other users in an attempt to network with other Instagram users. You will be amazed at how effective networking on Instagram is when done in the right way and at the right time. Page | 18
Make an Attempt of Offering Incentives to Your Followers
Instagram is an amazing platform that allows you to identify your most loyal followers. People that constantly like your images and short videos posted on your Instagram account deserve some kind of recognition or reward. Followers’ recognition and appreciation is a creative way of motivating them and encouraging them to keep liking and sharing your pots. While there are no industry-specific incentives that can be offered to your audience, always ensure that the rewards you offer are relevant to your brand and play a part in your brand promotion. In addition to that, do not offer incentives produced by your competitors because you will be promoting your competitors rather than your own business by doing this. Successful Instagram businesses have offered incentives such as backstage entries to concerts, fashion shows and other related events that might interest their customers. However, you should be cautious not to overdo this strategy. Do not offer too many incentives to an extent that your operational costs go beyond the profits gained from such incentives. It is difficult to calculate the exact profit gained from internet marketing efforts. It is for this reason that you are advised not to offer too many incentives that you will later be unable to account for. Other incentives that can be offered to loyal followers include promos and discounted codes. While these are the most commonly used incentives, they work best for retail brands. Therefore, ensure that that the incentives you offer your loyal followers are compatible with your brand. That aside, it is important to keep track of the frequencies of providing these incentives. This makes your audience eager to be part of your incentives by constantly checking on your Instagram postings. Consequently, providing incentives and rewards can go a long way in promoting your business on your Instagram.
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Showcase Photos and Short Videos of Your Back of the House
Posting images and short videos of completed products on Instagram is increasingly becoming monotonous for social media enthusiasts. Your audience would love to see something new, creative an out of the ordinary during your promotional efforts. You can take advantage of this urge to showcase photos of your back of the house in which you display images and short videos that are hardly ordinary amongst your competitors. These could include production processes, managerial activities or even packaging of your fished products. It is noteworthy that displaying images and videos of your back of the house gives you a competitive edge over your competitors who bore their followers with ordinary pictures. The use of back of the house images on your Instagram page also wins the trust of your followers. While your consumers may find satisfaction on your finished products, it should be noted that they might not be immediately comfortable by their production methods and processes before you show them how your products are arrived at. This happens a lot with food products that are perishable. What’s more, cleanliness must be emphasized at all times when dealing with cooked products. This implies that consumers of such products are always uncertain of how their products are prepared despite getting the desired satisfaction from consuming them. Therefore, giving your audience evidence of the manner in which your products are prepared wins their hearts and you are hence expected to create more loyal customers from this lot. Page | 21
Treat Your Followers to an Amazing Visual Experience
Beautiful visual demonstrations for your audience on your Instagram wall play a critical role of creating entertainment and passing information. Succeeding in business marketing on Instagram requires a number of strategies and practices that will leave your followers amused and excited. It is important to be cognizant of the fact that treating your esteemed audience to a visual experienced is one of them. There are hundreds of ways through which you can come up with beautiful visual images in an attempt to amuse your audience and nurture brand loyalty amongst them. However, the only thing that cuts across board is creativity and most importantly originality. It is important to always be creative when treating your followers to a visual experience on your Instagram page. Come up with eye-friendly and balanced mixture of colors that would impress people that visit your page. Always keep in mind that all the amazing images that you use to impress your audience must be relevant to your brand. In the event that your posting do not match with your brand, you are at a risk of losing your audience. This is because they will not readily identify your promotional materials with your brand. Therefore, treating your audience to a visual experience can be helpful in meeting your marketing objectives but must be approached carefully in order to evade the risk of confusing or losing your followers. Page | 22
Make Good Use of Industry-Related Hash Tags
You can never fail to have hash tags that relate to your industry or brand. This can be attributed to the current trend in social media platforms that promotes hash tags from all corners. People have become fond of hash tags to an extent that they are increasingly becoming the norm in the contemporary societies. Virtually all industries and brands have hash tags on a daily basis trending on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn amongst many other similar forums. You should therefore be on the lookout for relevant hash tags for your brand. It is only through this that you can identify a tending hash tag on time and act on it accordingly before it is rendered irrelevant by other upcoming hash tags. The use of hash tags comes in handy when you want to align your brand with an ongoing trend. Social media platforms have an amazing way of detecting similar hash tags and pooling them together. This implies that hash tags bring together related posts and brands with common goals. Through this, you can be able to promote your brand to more people who are brought together on Instagram via hash tags. Therefore, making good use of industry-related hash tags is an excellent strategy for promoting your brand on Instagram. Page | 23
Optimize your Instagram profile
Instagram profiles must be optimized in a bid to achieve the most while engaging in brand marketing. On most occasions, social media platforms are optimized through numerous strategies that have worked before for other social media marketers. One must be careful in selecting a strategy for a brand because every product must be driven by specific objectives. This is so because while some profile optimization strategies might work for others, the same strategies might not work for your brand. There could be a myriad of reasons behind this phenomenon and it is therefore imperative to carry out a comprehensive research and feasibility study so as to ascertain the tactic that would yield your desired results. Brand optimization involves a number of practices including determining the most recommended image sizes for your photos, the appropriate number of characters or words that best fit your promotional materials and the attention you need to accord to your branding. All these are required to optimize your Instagram page as a strategy of gaining the most out of your online marketing. If done appropriately and according to plan, you stand a chance of succeeding in your efforts to market your brand on your Instagram page. Page | 24
Quantify and Qualify Your Promotional Efforts on Instagram
Important as the discussed strategies are, it is important to quantify and qualify them. It is only through this that you can tell the tactics and practices that work best for your brand. Quantifying and qualifying your promotional strategies simply means that you need to know how you brand is performing on Instagram from the promotional strategies that you are applying. Instagram has since come up with impeccable image analytical tools that are able to provide comprehensive insights on how you brand is performing on Instagram. These tools include Curalate and BlitzMetrics that have been used in the past to streamline the performance of brands on Instagram. With the use of the aforementioned tools, you are able to track comments and likes of your posts. This provision therefore allows you to see how your promotional efforts translate into additional followers. Even more, this provision enables you to know which promotional tactic works for your brand and which ones do not. Therefore, with this functionality, you are in a position to dismiss promotional strategies that do not work well with your brand and maintain those that assist you significantly in promoting your brand on Instagram. Page | 25
Capture and Share Short Videos of Your Important Brand Moments
Many social media marketing gurus have confirmed the viability of capturing and sharing short videos of important brand moment on different social media platforms. It should be noted that there are countless brand moments that can be captured and shared with the intention of effectively marketing your brand to a wide range of Instagram users. For instance, preview of upcoming products and highlights of specific brand launches and functions can be shared on your Instagram in the form of short videos. In addition to that, you can decide to share important news in your Instagram page in the form of short videos as a mechanism of wooing support from your existing and potential followers. Through this, you can be able to cultivate a wide range of following thereby increasing your chances of succeeding in your promotional efforts on Instagram. Driving promotional awareness and co-creating content with your audiences and sharing them in the form of short videos also amounts to important brand moments that can be shared on your Instagram page. Additionally, creating videos that highlight your fans appreciating your brand can also be considered as important brand moments. Such videos can be shared on your Instagram page as a way of confirming to your audience the participation of your customers towards building your brand image. Therefore, it is advisable to capture and share short videos of your important brand moments if you need to promote your business effectively on Instagram. Page | 26
Make an Attempt of Widening Your Instagram Exposure to Other Related Brands
It is never a sin at all to borrow followers from other relate brands that have been on Instagram longer. Established businesses obviously have cultivated following that you definitely want to associate yourself with. Quite a number of businesses have succeeded in Instagram marketing because they have resorted to borrowing followers from other more established businesses on Instagram. It is noteworthy that you too can succeed in this form of marketing when you decide to make good user of other businesses’ followers. Widening your Instagram exposure with the help of other related brands can be achieved by following other related brands on Instagram. When you like and comment on images and short vides posted by other brands, you are more likely to gain the confidence of their followers. It is simple. When you are part of their following you gain access to other followers who might be interested in our brand. Therefore, you can succeed in meeting your Instagram marketing through if you widen your Instagram exposure with other established brands. Page | 27
Expose New Things on Your Instagram Page
It is advisable for Instagram users to get out of the ordinary and post something new and interesting on your Instagram page with the intention of amusing your audience. This can only be achieved by being exceedingly creative and thinking outside the box. Ensure that you give your audience something that would solicit discussions because they are impressed. For instance, ABS World News has taken advantage of the fact that social media users always want to be subjected to new and interesting experiences. They have since achieved this strategy by sharing photos and short videos about broadcasts that are yet to be aired on their station. This strategy has received a warm welcoming amongst its wide range of followers on Instagram. It should be noted that this can work for you as well if addressed in the right way with the help of the right instruments. Page | 28
Add A Little Controversy in Your Postings
Controversial stories might not be the noblest approach to wooing traffic your way. However, it is undeniable that people love a little controversy. On most occasions, gossips and controversial news have been used by social media marketers to draw attention to their websites, blogs and other related social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn amongst many others. Amazingly, these efforts have always resulted into the desired outcomes. They have played a significant role in attracting enormous traffic to their specific sites. Thus, including a little controversy or gossip in your posts on Instagram can be helpful in your intentions of promoting your business on this forum. The use of controversial news and gossips should, however, be used very carefully. When you decide to make use of such unscrupulous methods of wooing support your way, you must be fully aware of the repercussions that might arise from the misuse of this strategy. An exaggerated use of gossips and controversies to attract social media enthusiasts to your Instagram page can be harmful to your promotional efforts. This is because your followers might associate you with controversies and gossips which are not too promising for a starter on Instagram. For this reason, a little controversy and gossip on your Instagram page can be helpful in promoting your business on this platform because of their ability to attract traffic and solicit discussions amongst their viewers. Nonetheless, you should be careful not to overuse this strategy because it might taint your reputation amongst your existing and prospected audience. Page | 29
Make and Attempt of Including Your Location in Your Bio Information
This is particularly important for starters on Instagram. Make it clear for your audience from the beginning where you are located. With the new Instagram, you are able to fill in your current location in the process of filling in your bio information. Providing accurate information regarding your location on you bio helps your followers identify your location. It is important to note that there are a number of advantages that come with providing the right information about your current location of operation. For businesses, accurate locations allow followers to determine whether they are able to gain from your business or not depending on proximity. With the right information regarding your location on your bio, you are able to attract the right and relevant audiences who will not only like and comment on your images but purchase the products your brand is offering. This implies that accurate location information on your bio will ensure that you attract followers who will be close enough to buy the products and/or services you are offering. Additionally, providing the right information regarding your area of operation will help you identify your competitors in the same market niche. With this information, you are able to plan accordingly on how to counter the influence of your competitors in the same market. As a matter of fact, the correct information regarding your current location also authenticates your business amongst your existing and potential customers.
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While your marketing efforts might be based on Instagram, it may not necessarily need your location, the people you expect to attract through your promotional efforts need to be certain that you brand is credible and authentic. Providing the right information regarding your location is one way of authenticating not only your brand but also yourself amongst your followers. You need to earn the trust of your followers and by sharing your location with them helps achieve this. Therefore, you need to make an attempt of including your location of operation on your Instagram bio with the intention of winning the trust of your followers as you go ahead with your promotional efforts. Page | 31
Follow Celebrities and Notable Figures
This concept is almost similar to following other well established but related businesses as already mentioned above. However, the only difference in this case is that you will be following individuals as opposed to brands and businesses. Virtually all celebrities and notable figures in the contemporary societies have Instagram backing. They command a large audience on this social media platform. As a brand, you can follow these celebrities in an attempt to win the support of their followers. This has worked for a number of upcoming businesses on Instagram and will definitely work for you if approached from the right angle. While this strategy might sound easy, you should be cognizant of the fact that getting audience from celebrities requires persistence and patience. The outcomes of this strategy are not immediate but they surely are long-lasting once you succeed. Taking advantage of the audiences celebrities have for your personal gain can only be achieved by constantly liking and commenting on their posts. On most occasions, celebrities and their audiences will not ignore your efforts forever. A time will reach when these notable public figures will recognize your efforts. This happens particularly when they find your promotional materials relevant to their personal interests. In order to win the hearts of celebrities and notable public figures, you should take your time to study their posts in order to identify their specific desires and interest. Ensure that you are keen enough to recognize what might piss them off as well. After a comprehensive analysis of these trends, you can go ahead and forward seductive posts that will capture the interests of these celebrities. It is highly likely that they will follow you back if they are interested in your content. Page | 32
This will therefore mark a turning point in your Instagram marketing efforts because the followers of these celebrities will come rushing to your Instagram page. Following celebrities and other notable public figures sounds lucrative especially after noting the varied advantages associated with this strategy. However, you must be vigilant while taking up this task. It is imperative to follow celebrities who are relevant to your brand. Do not go ahead and follow celebrities simply because they have managed to cultivate an enormous following for themselves. You ought to ensure that the operations of these celebrities go hand in hand with the products and services you intend to promote through your Instagram promotional efforts. It is only through this that you can achieve the desired results from using celebrities’ and other notable public figures’ following to achieve your marketing goals. As a result of this, making use of networks of celebrities and other notable public figures is an effective way of succeeding in business Instagram marketing but only if done in the right way. Page | 33
Partner With the Local Brands in Your Business Niche
On most occasions, people have always viewed competitors as enemies in business while this is not the case. With Instagram marketing, your competitors can turn out to be your most valuable allies. The fact that they might be promoting and selling the same products and services as you own does not necessarily mean you should hate them. You can take advantage of their presence in your market niche to achieve your promotional efforts on Instagram. With a cordial relationship with your competitors, you are able to leverage their support and use their existing networks to your advantage. Partnering with your competition in an attempt to meet marketing goals on Instagram can involve reaching out to them with the aim of cross-promoting each other’s brands. When this is properly executed, it amounts to a win-win situation in which everyone gains on comparatively equal proportions. It is important to note that this intuitive kills two birds with a single stone because it not only enhances the Instagram visibility of both brands involved but also reinforces a sense of togetherness in the business niche despite being evident competitors. Drawing from this, you can further your business promotional efforts on Instagram by partnering and crossposting content on both your pages. Partnering with your competitors with the intention of cross-posting each other’s content on Instagram pages is a clever over more of achieving marketing objectives on Instagram. Nonetheless, this strategy might pose a myriad of challenges if not handled with care. For example, the partnering brands must share common interests which are increasing their visibility on Instagram. In addition to that, both brands must have related products and services. This is Page | 34
required in order to enable the participating brands to make relevant posts on their Instagram pages. One of the most prevalent disadvantages that come with this initiative is the fact that one brand might have a limited number of following while the other might have enormous following. In this case, one of the brands will gain more from the other’s promotional efforts. Page | 35
Make Good Use of Photo Map to Promote Your Business on Instagram
Photo Map is an incredible feature that allows you to publicize the exact locations where your photos are taken. This feature works best when you geo-tag the images in relation to the places where they are taken. The feature has been used successfully on other social media platforms like Facebook and is currently one of the newest features on Instagram. With this amazing feature, your followers are able to tell exactly where your photos are taken. Even better, recent studies have found out that photos with geo-tags get over 80% engagement as compared to other ordinary photos. This implies that photos that are amalgamated with geo-tags are more likely to attract engagement from your audience as compared to plain photos. Thus, the use of geo-tags on your Instagram posts can play a significant role in not only wooing traffic to your Instagram page but also ensuring that your audiences participate on your posts accordingly. The use of Photo Map is obviously a major advantage when it comes to telling your audience about the location of your business. It is important to the local marketing perspective because it readily informs your audience about the location of your business. In addition to assisting earning the loyalty and trust of your audience, this provision also authenticates your brand as a one that has a physical location and can be readily accessed. Even though this feature helps your followers know your location, you cannot post images from the same location on a daily basis. This is perhaps the only setback with Photo Map. You will at times need to post images from a different location that might not necessarily be your place of business. The flipside to this, however, is that it could lead to some degree of confusion among followers. In order to avoid scenarios such as these, you can make and attempt of using geo-tags only when you are at your desired location of work. Page | 36
Come Up With Local Brand Ambassadors
The social proof of your brand is a powerful tool of confirming to your audience the credibility of the products or services that are offered. Coming up with brand ambassadors for your business is an incredible way of showing social proof of your brand. Brand ambassadors will praise your brand on their Instagram pages with the intention of marketing your brand to their friends. This will definitely promote your brand equity amongst the second level audiences of your brand ambassadors. There are a number of ways that you can implement to transform your regular customers into brand ambassadors. For example, you can make an attempt of encouraging your local consumers to take and post images of themselves making use of your products. They can also be encouraged to take photos visiting your product outlets. When they post these images on their Instagram pages, their followers are more likely to develop interest on the brand and the products on offer. This initiative thus plays a vital role in promoting your business on Instagram. There is one worrying problem that comes with creating brand ambassadors and giving them the freedom to promote your brand on your behalf. Since they are merely customers and have absolutely no shares in your business, there is little surety that these ambassadors will always have the interests of your business at heart. They might gain the trust of your other followers on Instagram and use it against you in future. Despite this challenge, brand ambassadors can be influential when it comes to promoting your brand on Instagram because of the social proof that comes with their engagement in your brand promotion. Page | 37
Hold an Offline Event for Your Instagram Audience
One impeccable way of building your local community on Instagram is holding an offline event. Make an attempt of breaking the online monotony and hold an actual physical event that allows you to meet your Instagram audience face to face. Inviting your Instagram followers to a physical event is highly likely to make them feel recognized by your organization and by you as a person. Additionally, this initiative can make your audience feel like they are part and parcel of your business thereby enhancing their loyalty to your brand. Therefore, you can decide to break the online monotony and treat your Instagram family to a physical event. Offline events can either be held at your place of business or any other location that will accommodate the varied interests of all the stakeholders. While such events might not require specific locations, it is important to note that the offline events you decide to hold for your Instagram family must be relevant to your products and services. What’s more, you must recall and acknowledge that these events act as promotional activities of your brand and hence must always go hand in hand with whatever you are offering at your place of business. This is yet another instance of killing two birds with a single stone. Inviting your Instagram family to an offline even promotes your business. In addition to this, treating your audience to an event that is relevant to your brand also markets your business to your audience. All you need to do is to post a date, time and place of your offline event and invite all your Instagram followers to attend. While this is an impeccable initiative of creating brand loyalty amongst your Instagram audiences, it is worth noting that this strategy only works for audiences who are close to you. Such events might be very helpful to your audience in terms of monetary
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value. For this reason, only the followers who will be in a position to come to your event with limited expenses will make it to your function. Unfortunately, those followers who will be required to undergo a considerable expense in order to attend such events might not make it to the events. Therefore, this strategy only works for loyalists who are close to you or your business for that matter. Page | 39
Conclusion
Instagram is a rich platform that people use to share photos, short videos and information about their day to day lives. Interestingly, the platform has over the years caught the eyes of investors and marketers who have continued to design ways of promoting their products with their followers. It is a proven fact that, just like other social media platforms, Instagram possesses the potential to create awareness among users (followers) about products and brands out there. As a savvy marketer, there are hundreds of ways that Instagram can be tapped into to get the best out of it in terms of product and brand promotion. While on one hand you could use geo location on your tagged Instagram snaps and short videos, you could, on the other hand, adopt a followcelebrities strategy that could equally promote your profile and product ultimately. What’s more, you could even go to the extent of partnering with other competing organizations and brands to leverage each other’s products. In a nutshell, each organization and brand is unique and it is upon the management, and the marketing team especially to come up with the most appropriate strategy for Instagram and other social media presence.
