We know that social media is important in sharing and pushing your message to a large audience. A message that takes off virally has an even greater potential for reaching an audience. Having a platform that allows that and being able to implement it effectively can have a massive impact on a business.
In many ways the challenge for a business is to know which social media to engage with. By it’s nature social media works best when there are large numbers of people engaging with it, and Instagram certainly fits the bill.
If you know any teenagers, or for that matter anyone under thirty, you know that Instagram has taken over the planet. Not only that, but Facebook recently recognized this as well, and bought the company. And even though this may seem like a ripe opportunity for marketers, (it is) there are some major differences you need to be aware of before attempting to market on Instagram.
First begin with digesting two important facts: Instagram’s younger audience profile and your own market. The demographic facing you when marketing with Instagram is distinctly younger, and may not be a good fit for your business if your target audience is over 30. Plain and simple. If you are marketing to the 15-28 crowd you’re golden — if the products you market are found in images on Instagram. If you’re selling gear for an SLR camera, you may have to get a bit creative to find any traction there.
5 Tips for effectively marketing on Instagram
Check out these 5 tips for marketing your business on Instagram.
- Use Video On Instagram – This newish feature in Instagram is a lot like Vine, but their videos are a monstrous 15 seconds as opposed to 6. Way more canvas to paint on.
- Use lots of hashtags – While engagement drops significantly on Twitter if you use more than 2 hashtags, the opposite seems to be the norm for Instagram. Load them up!
- Don’t post incessantly – Unlike many other social networks less may be more here. You don’t want to fill up your follower’s feeds and be less special. Shoot for a few times a week and post great content.
- Optimize your Instagram Profile – Like other social networks, you’ll want to make sure your business profile is complete and utterly devoted to finding you and doing business with you.
- Follow other brands on Instagram – Finding and following related brands on Instagram is a must. Thankfully there are some good tools that help with this, like Statigram.
Of course it stands that some businesses or business offerings just won’t be suitable for the Instagram model. In this case it’s important to understand that there are many other social media channels that may be a perfect fit.
Having said that if your audience demographic fits within the Instagram model and you can effectively market to them, then it can be an absolute monster and implementing an Instagram campaign should be an important part of your overall social media strategy
