This blog post is part of our Lessons from SMSS15 series. Legendary Social Media is taking part in Social Media Examiner’s Social Media Success Summit, which is the world’s largest online social media marketing conference. This blog series covers the points and ideas we’ve taken from the course that we’ve deemed to be eye-opening and highly useful for other marketers and for small- and medium-sized businesses. To discuss any of the ideas in these blogs or other ideas about social marketing, please don’t hesitate to contact us here.
For those of us who have been using Instagram for a long time, the app is clearly well-loved and well-used (we find it sometimes replaces Facebook!). But for marketers, Instagram remains one of the least understood marketing tools available.
Some businesses have truly nailed Instagram marketing while others are just starting to figure it out. During her presentation at SMSS15, Insta expert Sue B. Zimmerman gave a multitude of amazing tips to help marketers and businesses understand how Instagram marketing works and master it for their own business.
Here’s a little caveat from us at Legendary Social Media, though: Instagram is not the ideal marketing tool for every business. Being that it’s a photo-sharing tool, businesses that don’t have a ton of visually appealing content to post may not see a ton of response on Instagram. That said, some businesses you wouldn’t expect to do well have blown away experts and used creativity to make Instagram a great platform for communicating with their customers and clients.
If you’re thinking of using Instagram for marketing your business, here are 14 super easy tips to follow to get the best engagement, the most leads and get major brand recognition.
- Take your photos using interesting/unusual angles. They’ll draw more attention.
- Use the description space provided to put out “microblogs.”
- Use emojis in your description!
- Answer every comment and question under each photo.
- Get super specific with your accounts. If you’re a bar-restaurant, try having one account for drinks and another for food.
- Post daily, but run some tests to see if posting four times daily, or just three times a week works better with your audience.
- Use the geo-tag!
- Use hashtags. Up to 30 are allowed. Save them in a Note on your phone so you can copy and paste them in.
- Put hashtags in the description, not in a comment.
- Check what your competitors, or similar Instagrammers are using for their hashtags. Which are working and which fall flat?
- Collaborate with others and tag them in your photos.
- In posts with calls to action (sign up, etc.), have someone using a phone or tablet in the photo. It can help the user connect better with the intent of the photo
- Use Instagram’s video capabilites as a teaser to promote your YouTube video or channel. Include a link!
- Be mobile friendly. Always.
