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For Instagram, gaining its 80 millionth user on the 26th July this year cemented its role as one of the most dominant social media platforms in the world. It comes as no surprise that consumer-facing companies are flocking to the photo sharing mobile app as a fun and quirky way to capture the lifestyle of brands and products. Using Instagram with Facebook and Twitter allows users to take advantage of the favoured share-ability factor and there’s even an opportunity to be checked-in by Foursquare. Instagram’s focus is on its use as being a ‘storytelling service’. Using Instagram you can tell your audience what you do, and also SHOW them by snapping photos and adding fun filters. This platform appears basic and easy to use, but the power of the visual image remains the strongest means of explanation – in the most simple of forms.
There’s undoubtedly a huge fixation on pictures, with other successful photo-sharing platforms like Pinterest growing ten-fold over the past year and there’s certainly no lack of options when looking for platforms to reach a specific brand audience. Either way, we can all benefit from tips about how to use Instagram, so here’s some Instagram best practices regardless of where your company fits in in terms of Instagram and all it has to offer on a far wider scale.
Experience Instagram as a consumer – Ensure you sign up with a personal account to experience what the users will experience. Get to know how they’ll consumer content, and what’s their interaction is like with other users.
Share compelling content – Put yourself in your consumer’s shoes. Would you find your own content interesting? If not, don’t publish it…Think outside the box, be creative!
Tell your story – Leverage photos to tell a story about your brand or product through use-cases, with the goal of demonstrating to people how it could fit into their life.
Expand your audience – Connect your account to your other social networks and share the content you post on Instagram to those platforms. This way your followers on those platforms know you’re active on Instagram, and it increases the likelihood they’ll follow you there.
Post consistently – In the same way as with other social platforms, you need to post a variety of content regularly. Be cautious not to bombard people with photos, but post one compelling photo a day or every few days. Otherwise there’s a chance people will forget about you and/or lose interest.
Engage with the community – In your caption ask questions, respond to questions, and leverage hashtags and encourage users to use them for submissions and/or at events.
Here’s some great pics taken on Instagram to illustrate the power of visual image:
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
If you’re still unconvinced about why you should join Instagram, here’s some stats about it that you may not already know:
30+ million registered users
1 billion+ photos uploaded
5 million+ photos uploaded per day
575 Likes per second
81 comments per second
Don’t forget to leave us a comment on what you think of Instagram and other hot topics up for debate. You’ll also find us on Facebook and Twitter for all the latest industry news and social media developments so check them out!
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