How to use Instagram to promote your business

Small Business no longer just create social media accounts just for the heck of it, but rather social media is a tool for small business to promote their brand and create a long term relationship with their clients. Social media is also used today to generate leads, promote products and service as well as customer service tool. Instagram has been introduced to mobile users for years now, but small business has just recently discovered what Instagram could do for their brand. Here are some of the reasons why you should use Instagram to promote your brand and get a head of your competition.

How to promote brand on Instagram

After reading this post you will be able to create Instagram marketing plan for your brand. Before we start on answering how to promote your brand on Instagram, you should first know these basic facts:

Facts about Instagram

Instagram was launched in October 2010, this application is mainly focused on mobile users as image and video sharing application. There are 13% internet users on Instagram on a regular basis, however there has been shared over 20 billion photos on Instagram and 60 million are shared every day.

Top Business on Instagram

Because Instagram is new to some businesses there are already some big brands who are doing better than others on this social media platform as for example:

·         Victoria’s Secret

·         General Electric

·         Sweet Pure Honey

·         Starbucks Coffe

·         McDonalds’s

·         Forever 21

And many more big brands can be found on Instagram. Not only big companies are found on Instagram but also Hollywood celebrities share photos everyday on Instagram. Why most celebrities prefer Instagram as their private social media platform over other? Because Instagram has great privacy features. Brands uses Instagram to interact with their customers just like on all other social media sites, however before doing any marketing campaign on Instagram, you need to make sure you have a smart phone or for businesses they use tablets to be able to use Instagram for marketing purposes.

How to get started

The very first thing you need to do is to download the application on your smart phone or tablet although you can access your Instagram account on desktop you will not be able to upload or share images from desktop.

Pay attention to these steps before you create an account on Instagram:

·         Use your business name as your username

·         Use your brand identity or Company Logo as your profile image ( some hire designers to create a specialized or customized logo which will fit perfectly for Instagram )

·         Add website link and Biography, do not forget to add your most important keywords in the latter

·         Link your account to other social media account you have such as Foursquare, Facebook twitter and other account which can be linked.

Images for Instagram

Here are some technical details you will need to remember once you are done signing up and start with sharing your products and images on Instagram.

·         Native image size for Instagram is 612px x 612px

·         The mobile application allows 15 second video recording

·         Your profile picture, if you decide to use your current Logo image it should be 110px X 110px

·         For new users Instagram cover up to 7 images at first

·         Your biography should be as short and direct, Instagram allows 150 characters long

·         Creatively you can add hashtags in your biography

These are the simple and basic details to creating an account on Instagram. Now let’s move on!

How to use Instagram for your business

Mainly Instagram for Small Businesses are created to visually share their products and services to anyone who are interested on following them. Creating an Instagram marketing plan is essential for success on the image focused platform.

·         Build audience – When your Instagram profile is ready for marketing purposes, you should then increase your Instagram followers. Make sure you make your images unique and attractive as much as possible.

·         Introduce your Instagram promotions – You can share your Instagram profile to your other social media sites letting your followers know you can also be found on Instagram for more images of your products and services.

·         Running contests – Instagram marketing campaign need to be run thoroughly to generate desired response from Audience.

·         Choose your brand to be hashtag focused for campaigns

·         Promote all your campaigns on all social media platform by linking your Instagram account with all your other social media profiles.

Instagram is about creativity

Instagram users are young, confident and love to share images, therefore when using your Instagram account you need to use it creatively. Instagram users always comes up with great ideas to connect with their fans, while big brands hire top Instagram marketers to manage their activities, while small businesses to not have the budget to invest on such you can get inspiration from this page : http://business.instagram.com/inspiration