3 Instagram Best Practices For Brands
In last Thursday’s blog, we identified simple ways to beef up your social media presence. One way was to visually engage your followers with cool images by using Instagram, a hot, new application. Brands are already joining the fun and yours should too.
Before I jump right into the good stuff, let me warn you that Instagram is not a tool that will work for every brand under the sun. You must have a visual component to your business and it must be interesting. This works best for B2C brands that have products and services that lend themselves to photography.
Here are 3 Instagram Best Practices for Brands:
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Create a Hashtag Theme – The great way to organize your photos is by coming up with a way to categorize your own photos that your followers can also use. For example, if you own a coffee shop, your hashtag theme could be #cupofjoe or something else that is general enough to be broadly applied.
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Interesting & Consistent Posts Only – The worst thing you could do as a brand is to make random, uninteresting posts on Instagram. The same way you see people using Instagram is NOT the way brands should use it. Whether you choose to post in the morning, lunchtime, evening or night, make sure you stick to consistent time frame and number of photos. Posting 15 photos at once has the potential to overwhelm your followers just as boring, unrelated photos can produce negative comments or unfollows.
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Create a Contest – getting your customers involved through a contest is a great way to generate buzz about your business. Creating a contest using Instagram is pretty simple. Just have your followers submit photos that correspond to a themed hashtag, choose a winner, and feature their photo. It’s that simple.
Does Instagram Hold Value for Businesses?
Honestly, it’s still too early in the game to decide whether or not Instagram has true value for businesses outside of social media engagement. Below are 3 businesses who are doing a tremendously good job of engaging followers by posting awesome content. Study their strategy and follow suit.
Sharpie
General Electric
Goincase
The only real way to know what value Instagram could hold for you is to try it yourself. If you're still miffed by social media marketing as a whole, we're here to help you navigate the unknown.
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