Instagram a General Guide & Recommendations

Instagram is a natural fit for your marketing strategy. You want to be where the consumers are. In order to do this successfully we have put together a series of tips to make your Instagram account the best it can be. Think of it as a general guide to help you get started on your Instagram journey.

Know your audience.

Learn what people love about your brand, and explore how can you capture the imagination of new customers. @missionbicycle takes the beautiful simplicity that customers love about its bicycles and uses imagery on Instagram to turn these everyday objects into works of art.

What would Instagram be without Hashtags?

Hashtags are the only way to search on Instagram. This means that if you want to be found you are going to have to use Hashtags. People follow hashtags and there are a bunch of tags to use if you want to increase likes and comments right off the bat. Our advice is to stick to hashtags that make sense for the image you are sharing.

This is also your opportunity to create your own hashtag which can be a great branding tool. You can encourage others to use your hashtag too.

Post Regularly

Consistency is very important to keeping your name out there and connecting with as many people as possible. Instagram works in the same manner. Post as least 3 times per week. If you have interesting posts and images on a more regular basis then go ahead and do that.

Comment & Like

Instagram is a community and it relies on your involvement. We think its a good idea to comment and like other people’s posts too. Not only are people reciprocal and will probably share and comment on your posts, it is just good form.

Tag People

Tagging people is a great way to show up in their feed and on their profile page. You can tag people inside the image and you can tag people in the comments. One way to really grow and get a little variety is to ask people to tag those who the image reminds them of, or who they want to share in the experience with, or so on. This is a really great way to get others to see your images and to increase your following.

Share Compelling Content

Post photos that users can’t see anywhere else – behind the scenes photos or sneak peeks of what’s to come. Don’t be afraid to experiment, and pay attention to what users like and comment on most.

Be True to Your Brand

Ensure that your imagery expresses a clearly defined personality and voice. Photos from eyeglass retailer @warbyparker, never feel overly staged or serious, but instead draw from trends in the instagram community to reflect the company’s quirky creativity.

Geo-tag Your Instagram

Attach your images to a specific location, especially if it is your own store or restaurant. Not only do people search places on Instagram, it can encourage them to stop by if they like that they see. This is a great way to start following local people. The odds are pretty good that they are local if they are sharing at a location near-by. As a small and local business, gathering a following of locals will be important to increase your foot traffic and gather support.

Inspire Action

Start a movement around your brand, whether that means inspiring people to capture photos while running like the #runfree campaign from @nikerunning, or to celebrate a delicious yogurt concoction, as @chobani has done with their #creationaday hashtag.

Do you have any thoughts or inspirational recommendations for using Instagram for business? let us know in the comments below.

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@yellowdesignnz