Every new place you visit, new memory you create, new and old friends you meet, or even the newest dish you eat, deserves an Instagram post! Why, isn’t that what all youngsters today swear by? If you are not using Instagram, you’re too old school. If you don’t know the famous hashtags, you are missing out on most part of the fun. In fact, we’ve reached a stage in life, where people even talk in hashtags! In fact, many people (read teens) today prefer using Instagram over Facebook, yes you read that right. In fact, according to a survey by Investment banking company Piper Jaffray, 72% of the surveyed teenagers were active on Facebook as of April 2016, but it sharply reduced to 45%. On the other hand, Instagram usage jumped from 69% to 76%.
Source: www.instagram.com
Brands today are as social as their customers and hence being present on Instagram has not remained a choice but instead is a necessity. With growing Instagram’s popularity, here’s a list of 10 Instagram hacks to market your business better:
1. Regram and Tag
After retweets, it’s now time for some “Regramming”. Although Instagram does not allow this directly though their platform, you can always add a plugin to avoid those not so perfect screenshot edits. If it is a celebrity you are reposting, do not forget to tag them. This only helps in increasing your visibility; also, if they acknowledge the tag, there’s no denying that you might just get a little more famous.
2.Tags, Tags and more Tags
Facebook Check Ins are so old school; now you can “geotag” your images on Instagram. This helps people who are in and around you, or even looking out to research about a destination discover you and follow you.
How is this useful for brands? Well let’s say a particular shoot was conducted at a certain location, you could geotag the post and avail higher chances of being discovered. This way you are not just visible to the audience who are directly searching your brand, searching for the products/services you sell, the celebrities associated with your brand but also the destinations you shoot in.
3. Set the timer right
Yes, keeping track of time is important even here! It’s important to know when people use Instagram the most and post accordingly, to ensure maximum visibility and interactions on your posts. According to a post by Times of India, Latergramme’s analysis concluded that the best time to post a picture is 2 a.m. (EST) (3:30 p.m. IST) and 5 p.m. (EST) (4.00 a.m. IST) and the worst time to share an image is at 9 a.m. EST (7:30 p.m. IST) and 6 p.m. EST. (4:30 a.m. IST).
4. The Filter Expert
A lot of filters are doing better than the other filters on Instagram. Filters help in increasing the essence of the photograph and provides depth/meaning or even emotion to a photograph. Most brands have started evaluating the same and applying filters based on its success rates. According to a research by TrackMaven, from analysis of over 6 million Instagram posts, they observed the success rates of each filter and here’s what they found:
Source: TrackMaven
5. Make videos
Whether on Instagram or on Facebook, video content is the “in” thing! Your customers are bored and are hungry for interesting content. If you can strike the chord with an amazing video, you are sure to get the loves. Incorporate a celebrity for better performance, especially if your TG is the younger generation. Or choose topics of interest based on your target market and make videos which are appealing to them, and watch the engagement increase!
For example, youngsters often copy celebrity fashion, their workout regimes, their food habits and more. If you are a brand associated with any of these genres, it’s time you start making more videos. Also, these videos don’t need to be long, great quality videos, in fact it can be something as simple as a video of makeup being applied, food being cooked, a road trip in the process and what not! Just make sure to add a branding angle to it and voila, you are all set.
6. Brand Logo
Brands can be easily visible to all people if it has some attention-grabbing visual elements which represents the brand and this element is called a logo. The logo of any brand is easy to remember and has a huge contribution to the branding of a buiness. You can create a stunning and impactful logo with a logo maker app, there is a large number of free logo maker software are available on the market.
7. Inspire with quotes
Research has proved that brands who threw in an inspirational quote every now and then always received better interaction. If you are a fashion brand, use something that Coco Chanel had to say or if you are a food and beverages company try something that Gordon Ramsay said. People often identify with quotes and reciprocate with likes and comments.
Source: Instagram (Prime Way of Life)
8. Talk to them
Befriend your customer and talk to them, ask them for suggestions, make the most out of an engagement. Don’t just ask your customer what they wish to see, instead use their ideas to create more content. Tag them and say thanks for the idea, that’s even better! They in turn will tag their friends and that’s how you play the word of mouth game!
9. Be consistent
Confusing your customer with content around various genres is not a great idea. Finding a connect squaring back to your brand identity is extremely important to maintain brand identification. A lot of times, brands produce generic content which results in mistaking a certain brand for another. Make sure to add your signature to all content and stay lead the league!
10. Describe with a link
Instagram allows only one link to be incorporated to your whole profile, so why not use it intelligently? Keep your profile bio short and crisp and paste that extremely important link right beneath the bio. Wondering how many people will actually go and check that? Well it could be a lot! All you got to do is add a description to your recent posts pointing people to the link in the bio. This is especially effective for fashion brands. Eg. “Click on the link in bio to shop for this look” and watch your sales surge after!
Source: Instagram (Ajio.com)
11.Share more, spread love
Instagram also allows posting content in collaboration with other social platforms. Make sure you are choosing the “share on Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr” option to increase content visibility and make it more sharable.