Social Media is your best friend when it comes to internet marketing. We all agree on that. Every business has a social media page, be it Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Gigantic corporations, software companies, e-commerce sites, supermarkets and small local businesses have that in common. And no doubt they do, companies are always looking for customers in their natural habitat which in this age is social media.
The problem arises when a business decides to actually reach out to their customer. Many simply don’t know how to attract people to their brand, website or store. They’ll try, fail and start all over again; it’s a long and disappointing process if you ask me. The simple solution is just paying for advertisement on social media, which is indeed a good way to attract customers, but it’s awfully expensive. Advertisements are also easy to spot, many people will mentally filter out your ad unless it’s very relevant.
Is there a solution? Yes there is, the solution is interaction. It might be ambiguous at first, so we’ll focus solely on Instagram in this article. We’ll examine how interaction with users builds up your brand as a whole and attract new customers. Analogous methods can be used for other social media as well.
Instagram is a wonderful idea. A picture is worth a thousand words they say, and that is indeed true. Let’s focus on what we’re here for - marketing. Using images, animations and videos to appeal to human brain isn’t something new or revolutionary. But delivering that marketing masterpiece to your followers not as an advertisement material, but as a beautiful and friendly picture on their following feed. That’s genius!
Stand out
First rule of Instagram is: you do not talk about Instagram. You brag about it! Make your account attractive by taking your time with content that you post. It’ll be the face of your business. Taking nice pictures isn’t as hard as people think, especially now that you’re carrying a wonderful camera in your pocket. Contrary to popular belief smartphones can take wonderful pictures, there is no need for a professional camera.
Taking genuine pictures of your businesses and activities is a great way to stand out, but sometimes you just don’t have a possibility to take a nice picture. No worries, there are many websites that offer thousands of royalty free pictures to the public. You can use one of these pictures straight away or edit it with image editing software like Photoshop to make it more relevant.
Stay active
Second rule of Instagram is: stay active. This is what many companies and users forget. Having a great gallery is not enough, you must be persistent with your actions, you have to post often enough for your account to stay relevant. Multiple pictures should be posted every week, mark it down in your calendar if you need to or use one of many Instagram scheduling services.
Don’t forget to upload Instagram stories. These can be less thorough Snapchat-like images and videos that will keep your followers at bay. Stories can be used for temporary promotions, and to express or tell information that mightn’t deserve a post of its own. According to Iconosquare, an Instagram analytics platform, around 22% of users prefer viewing stories over feed browsing1. This relatively new feature is taking over Instagram by storm and you should be there, ready to make use of its popularity and advantages.
Interact
Here we are, the last but definitely not the least part of having a successful Instagram account. Engage with your followers! Feel free to delve deeper into hashtags and explore images that are posted by other users. Like, follow and comment; this will make your brand seem to be everywhere. After all, it’s rather flattering to interact with a business. People will go out of their way to like and follow you back. After all Instagram is built around interaction.
Engaging with potential customers on Instagram could be a full-time job. That’s why big companies have social media managers. What about smaller businesses that don’t have that much time or money on their hands to browse social media? There are solutions for them too. Automation services commonly referred to as Instagram followers and likers will do these things for you. Replacing social media manager with a machine isn’t the ultimate solution, but it works well for our basic marketing purposes.
Other types of engagement as giveaways and contests are also a great way to engage. It doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive, but has a potential of reaching out to new users and acquiring a bigger follower base.
1. Lydon, E., 'Are Instagram Stories Killing Your Engagement on Traditional Posts?', Iconosquare, 2016.