Is Instagram part of your social media marketing plan? How familiar are you with the platform? Here are 4 tips to effectively wrap Instagram into your social media marketing plan.
4 Instagram Tips for Social Media Marketing
1. Set up your profile strategically. Don’t just add your company logo and website and call it complete. Really think about how you want to present your business. Get creative as you think about your profile picture and bio. How can you reflect your organization’s personality in this space? Make sure you include a link to your website, too!
2. Be imaginative with your photos and videos. No one wants to see the same images over and over again. Mix up the types of pictures or videos you post on your Instagram account. Show off your latest product, or a picture of a happy customer using it. Give a sneak peek video into behind-the-scenes at your business or post a few pictures of your employees having fun on the job. You can also use websites like Canva to add a few words of text to your pictures or create an inspiring image of a quote that fits well with your brand. The possibilities are endless!
Instagram’s blog has some fantastic advice for businesses:
- Be true to your brand: Use imagery that expresses a clearly defined personality and voice.
- Share experiences: Offer a view into the world that your brand makes possible.
- Find beauty everywhere: Show how your company sees the world and make it meaningful to followers.
- Inspire action: Start a movement around your brand (hashtags are great for this!).
- Know your audience: Learn what people love about your brand and explore how you can capture their imagination.
3. Use hashtags. These little words and phrases following the pound sign (#) are important in social media marketing on Instagram. In addition to creating hashtags as a way to inspire your followers into action, they’re a great way to participate in trends and make your brand more visible.
4. Engage with your followers. As we’ve said before time and time again, your business’ social media marketing needs to be social. That’s the whole point! As followers interact with you, engage! Mention them by their @username (the @ symbol will turn it into a link and make sure Instagram notifies them of the mention). Like and comment on other users’ photos and videos. Ask questions or host giveaways. Remember to be a human and showcase your business’ personality as you interact with followers.
As you can see, there is no shortage of ways to use Instagram as an effective part of your business’ social media marketing efforts. It all comes down to setting up your profile strategically, being imaginative with your photos and videos, using hashtags and engaging with your followers. Do you have any additional tips to add to my list?
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