Before the first iPhone dropped almost seven years ago, you probably wouldn’t have guessed that today, social media marketing company people would use smartphones for photography more than they use cameras. And if someone told you back then that people would use this advanced technology to take pictures that look like they’re old and faded – well, you probably would have thought they were crazy. Instagram is becoming a serious player in the social media marketing world, but for the uninitiated, the whole thing can seem a little…well, a little silly. That’s why today, I’m focusing on how you can use Instagram to market your business – and whether or not you even SHOULD.Even if you’ve never used it, most people have at least HEARD of Instagram. The thing about apps like this, though, is they don’t exactly come with instruction manuals – so even if you’ve played with it long enough to slap a filter on your favorite picture of your cat, you might not see its full potential.First things first – if you’re NOT one of those 200 million monthly users, Instagram is an app that allows you to take and/or edit photos on your phone (most notably by applying filters that automatically give them a vintage-y glow).
More importantly, though, it’s ALSO a social network, and one that gives you opportunities that other networks don’t. social media marketing world Think of it like Twitter, but with pictures – you follow people, and the images they take show up in a feed you can access on either your phone or a web browser. You can write captions for your own images, and you can comment and like other people’s posts, but you can’t share another person’s image like you would a tweet.This shows you who has liked your photos, comments other users have left on your photos or mentioned you in, and posts you've been tagged in. Switching to the Following tab will show you recent activity from the users you're following — you'll see photos they've liked or commented on and users they've followed. Your Profile tab is where you can see all of your posts and, as previously mentioned, edit your profile and update your settings. Under your profile's biography section, you'll see four buttons. From left to right, the first is the default view, where you see your photos and videos as a collage. The second allows you to see your posts as a stream, as on the home page.
HubSpot, the Cambridge-based marketing software platform, benefits of social media marketing is bordering on 5K followers and maintains an active stream of updates on their page with photos from events like their well-known Inbound Conference in September, but typically posts day-to-day interactions around the office. The photo collage below is a great example of how they gave their followers an inside glimpse of the office with two HubSpot employees debuting their client, Green Plus’s, product. This serves many purposes such as strengthening the relationship with their customer, showcasing that their customer is indeed a happy customer (listen up leads!) and giving a personalized human touch to their business (yes, there are real people behind their marketing software machine). The third button allows you to access your photo map (if you use geotagging on your posts), and the last button shows you all of the photos you've been tagged in by other users. Instagram allows users to post two different types of content: photos and videos. To post a new photo or video to Instagram, tap the camera button on the bottom of your screen.
No, these tools are not perfect, but they’re a start into getting a clearer picture on how effective your posts are performing. social media marketing strategies Lastly, stay Insta-smart. Instagram is young, hot, and growing fast, and with the success advertisers have seen thus far the platform is only going to keep catering to businesses since this is how they’ll make money as well. Instagram has already done a lot to support businesses on the platform with a whole section of their site dedicated to business owners and marketers. I’d recommend subscribing to the Instagram For Business blog to stay ahead of the game. This will open your phone's camera, and you can choose to either take a new photo or video, or select one from your camera roll. Once you've either taken a photo/video or selected one from your files and tap the next button, you can start editing. If the photo you upload is not already square, you can move it around and zoom in to fit it into the photo square before you hit Next.
More importantly, though, it’s ALSO a social network, and one that gives you opportunities that other networks don’t. social media marketing world Think of it like Twitter, but with pictures – you follow people, and the images they take show up in a feed you can access on either your phone or a web browser. You can write captions for your own images, and you can comment and like other people’s posts, but you can’t share another person’s image like you would a tweet.This shows you who has liked your photos, comments other users have left on your photos or mentioned you in, and posts you've been tagged in. Switching to the Following tab will show you recent activity from the users you're following — you'll see photos they've liked or commented on and users they've followed. Your Profile tab is where you can see all of your posts and, as previously mentioned, edit your profile and update your settings. Under your profile's biography section, you'll see four buttons. From left to right, the first is the default view, where you see your photos and videos as a collage. The second allows you to see your posts as a stream, as on the home page.
Find the beauty in your brand (even if your offerings are ugly)
A lot of B2B companies have already ruled Instagram out as an unusable platform for their business. marketing social media Their mind-set being that they don’t sell food, beer, or clothing; their products are either unattractive or intangible so why would they use a photo-sharing application? I get it, perhaps you sell software, so images of your product aren’t super attractive to your Instagram audience. I feel your pain, but I will not be sympathetic if you rule Instagram out all together because there are so many other ways to build your brand without directly showcasing photographs of your products. Take photographs in the office or of your work environment to give your followers a sneak-peak into the day-to-day of your company’s unique culture. Get your employees involved so all of the work doesn’t fall on your shoulders; for example create a unique hashtag for your company’s holiday party and have all of your employees add the hashtag to the pictures they take at the soiree. This way you can repost pictures taken by employees and create buzz around popular hashtags.HubSpot, the Cambridge-based marketing software platform, benefits of social media marketing is bordering on 5K followers and maintains an active stream of updates on their page with photos from events like their well-known Inbound Conference in September, but typically posts day-to-day interactions around the office. The photo collage below is a great example of how they gave their followers an inside glimpse of the office with two HubSpot employees debuting their client, Green Plus’s, product. This serves many purposes such as strengthening the relationship with their customer, showcasing that their customer is indeed a happy customer (listen up leads!) and giving a personalized human touch to their business (yes, there are real people behind their marketing software machine). The third button allows you to access your photo map (if you use geotagging on your posts), and the last button shows you all of the photos you've been tagged in by other users. Instagram allows users to post two different types of content: photos and videos. To post a new photo or video to Instagram, tap the camera button on the bottom of your screen.
Utilize all the tools Instagram has to offer
Since Instagram’s birth 4 years ago they’ve continued to make changes to the application at a decently fast pace (although, take a deep breath, I’m not talking about a Google algorithm update pace). using social media for marketing There’s a lot you can do on Instagram to beautify your photos, track performance, and stay on-top of changes. Get to know all of Instagram’s filters, special effects, and editing tools. Utilize your creative team to help manipulate your photos to get the most visually compelling result. If you’re a one-man-band, and not skilled at photo-manipulation, seek alternative opinions. Some of the most popular rated filters include Low-Fi, Valencia, and X-Pro II.Three months ago Instagram released a suite of business tools to help brands analyze the performance of their posts. The highlight of this release is that these tools are available to all businesses, not just the select brands with advertising capabilities. The tools include account insights like impressions, reach, engagement, ad insights – this feature is for paid advertisements only, but gives the advertise more detail into brand analytics, and ad staging, which allows businesses to work together to preview, save, and collaborate on their ad creative.No, these tools are not perfect, but they’re a start into getting a clearer picture on how effective your posts are performing. social media marketing strategies Lastly, stay Insta-smart. Instagram is young, hot, and growing fast, and with the success advertisers have seen thus far the platform is only going to keep catering to businesses since this is how they’ll make money as well. Instagram has already done a lot to support businesses on the platform with a whole section of their site dedicated to business owners and marketers. I’d recommend subscribing to the Instagram For Business blog to stay ahead of the game. This will open your phone's camera, and you can choose to either take a new photo or video, or select one from your camera roll. Once you've either taken a photo/video or selected one from your files and tap the next button, you can start editing. If the photo you upload is not already square, you can move it around and zoom in to fit it into the photo square before you hit Next.
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