Our Top Tips For Insta-Success

Whether it’s sharing a photo of our cat with a hat on, or liking that gorgeous banoffee pie on our favourite food account, Instagram has secured it’s place amongst many social media enthusiasts, as their app of choice. It’s also become an integral part of many marketing departments strategies.

The use of Instagram by companies has skyrocketed in the last few years. It’s difficult to find a B2C company, which hasn’t got some presence on the platform. By combining filtered visuals, collages and innovative captions, companies have more freedom than ever to target their desired audience. A double-tap from a customer is all it takes for a user to demonstrate an interest in your image/product. This engagement also offers companies a great way to monitor the success of a particular post.

Competition on this platform is substantial, and with more than 75 million daily users it’s becoming an essential platform for many brands when showcasing new products and services. Below we’ve pulled together some tips to highlight how Instagram can compliment a multi channel marketing strategy.

1. Follow a theme

It’s important to create an account which reflects the personality of your brand or company. This helps re-enforce the brand values, which your company has worked so hard to create. Coca Cola is an example of a brand, which successfully uses colour to communicate the brand’s ethos. The company have also utilised the ‘bio’ option by promoting their latest campaign. All of these elements combine to create an effective cross-channel strategy.

2. Competition, Competition, Competition!

Everybody (well, almost everybody) loves a bit of competition, and Instagram is an excellent channel to capitalize on this. By allowing photo-sharing and an extensive use of hashtagging, brands can attract thousands of new followers in the hope of winning a prize. This not only adds an element of fun to the app, but also generates brand awareness by encouraging new followers to join in by sharing a hash tag. A musician who did this to great effect was Jason Mraz, with the #iWontGiveUp hashtag. By promoting his new single, his fans were asked to visually interpret the song title in an Instagram photo coupled with the hashtag “#iWontGiveUp”. With over 10,000 submissions including those from fellow celebrities such as Randy Jackson and Selena Gomez, this is an excellent example of how photo-sharing can generate a huge buzz. Jason Mraz then chose 25 winners himself to meet him, with their winning photos being printed large scale at a gallery event in New York.

3. Promote your customers – not just your products

Many of us now seek online reviews or opinions of products before even considering a purchase. The growth of websites such as TrustPilot and Tripadvisor have made it the norm to appreciate the opinions and experiences of other consumers more than ever. An effective way to showcase how great your company is, is to Insta-photo your users. Whether it be retail customers in bricks-and-mortar, or an online email praising your service, don’t hesitate to boast about your successes! (With permission, of course). A company, which uses this method of promotion with great results, is Virgin, who often offer their customers on-flight upgrades or extras with their flight package. This conveys the message to consumers that the company values its consumers, and goes the extra mile to accommodate them.

Here are just a couple of ideas to help maximize Instagram as part of your strategy, and as this post has shown, it really can work across multiple sectors.
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