Social media is a great tool to market your business. However there’s a common problem since the rise of this new marketing tool – companies want to be engaging with their clients, and use their social tools to get more people to walk through their doors, but they just don’t know how. Adding social media to your marketing mix can hugely increase awareness about your company and get more customers in your door. One of the tools you can use is Instagram, but ‘why?’ you might wonder.
Furthermore, it’s a free mobile application that allows you to share photos & videos with your target audience. The fun part of it is that you can use different filters to enhance them which will make you look like an expert photographer, plus it will help you tell a story and get quick interaction going. Without any doubt, people connect easier through images than words – it’s not for nothing everyone knows the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words”. This is one of the main reasons why the engagement with this app is super high!
But what is in it for your company, really?! It’s pretty simple: you can reach people who are interested in a specific topic by using hash tags that are related to the context of the photo. For instance if you own a restaurant in Phuket and you post a picture of your place during dinnertime, you can use the hash tag #PhuketRestaurant, or just simply post #Phuket #Restaurant. Once you grab the viewers’ attention, they will head over to your Instagram profile. If your profile is likeable – which means you have plenty of engaging photos – they will start following you, making it that much easier for you to communicate what’s happening with your brand.
Even if you don’t have a profile yourself, people might have already started posting photos of your company. Just take a look on the Instagram app, head over to the search option (find the icon that looks like a ‘magnifying glass’ in the bottom of the screen) and type in the name of your company. The number of photos of your company that are already on there might surprise you!
The best thing about all of this is, that when you offer a great product, and clients are happy with it, these same clients will be advertising your product and services to their friends and followers by posting a photo on Instagram. Giving you free promotion for which you don’t have to pay them one cent!
Some interesting facts about Instagram:
- Every second 8,000 users like a photo on Instagram
- 60% of Instagram users say they use this app on a daily basis
- 25% of photo’s on Instagram are of people’s food
- 72% of customers trust online reviews – even more if it is accompanied with a photo.
So what are you waiting for? Claim your business’ username before someone else does! And if you need help on creating interesting content, you can always contact us for help.