Instagram for Business

There are a number of benefits to using Instagram as a marketing tool for your business. Instagram is particularly beneficial for brands or companies that have a lot of visual content to share – good examples include food retailers, clothing brands, and any other company which is selling visually appealing products. Marketers should give Instagram consideration before implementing a marketing strategy as it can be used as an effective platform to market from providing a way to communicate directly with customers, who will subsequently be influenced into purchasing products.

Source: blogworld.com

A recent study has shown that the top 5 brands on Instagram include Nike, Starbucks, Forever 21, Adidas and Victoria’s Secret – brands which all produce visually appealing products and have focussed on the way that they can use Instagram to tell a story to their audience and entice them into buying their products or support the brand. These brands use Instagram as a way of showing off their products but also as a way to engage with their potential customers. For instance, Nike has used the Instagram platform to further connect with their audience asking Instagram users to tag their photos with their tagline #justdoit in order to have the possibility of being featured on the channel. This shows that the use of the hashtag on Instagram is an important marketing tool as it allows greater audience engagement and helps brands to find people who are talking about the product or brand and means that you can follow these people or their conversations.

Brands who bring a bit of originality into their images tend to be most successful on Instagram, for instance, Starbucks who is second in the rankings for top brands on Instagram. Starbucks posted the image below in order to advertise their fall special ‘Pumpkin Spice Latte’ which featured the caption, “Ready, steady, #PSL #stackit #pumpkin #love# Fall #boots”. The image has been liked by 73,800 people – showing the real power that an original image can have on a brand’s fan base, helping to create a stir and excitement over a new product or a seasonal offer. The message is to get creative in whatever way you intend to use you Instagram account for your business – through this it will be more likely to attract a positive fan base, whether your company is large or small.

Another way in which brands can engage with their audience is through creating compelling stories or content on their Instagram pages. Brands need to create a balance between fun images and their business images which will help sell their product – this makes sure that the customer is drawn in and doesn’t always feel like they are being sold something. Anthropologie are a great brand for striking the correct balance on their images – a good example is that every September they hold an annual Sit. Stay. Love. campaign, which is a pet adoption event and pet supply drive for animal centres across the U.S. They feature images of dogs and hashtag  #SitStayLove to get their audience engaged with something that is slightly different from their products but still represents their brand ethos.  These images are juxtaposed with those which advertise their products, and effectively strike a subtle balance between their product placement and other interesting images. The two images below are both featured on the Anthropologie Instagram site and show the variety of visually appealing content that they post.

Geo-tagging Instagram images is another great way for local businesses who use Instagram to get the most out of the application. Geo-tagging lets people know where you are and can help specific campaigns link with certain locations. It can be particularly valuable to advertise the brand’s presence at a marketing event that the company is hosting or when the company attends a particular conference. By sharing a specific location with fans, it can help develop the relationship that is built up with customers and allows it to become more personal. This is often a feature which is not used enough by businesses.

What do you think?

What are the best ways you have seen brands advertise themselves on Instagram? Would you consider using Instagram as a marketing tool for your business?

Rowena Cormack  

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