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Using Instagram for Business

Now with over 150 million users sharing 45 million photos a day, Instagram is becoming increasingly important for brands. The nature of Instagram means it is a natural way to promote your company culture and show your personality and human side of the brand. 
 
There are a few things to bear in mind before getting started though. Think carefully about what kind of tone you want to present. Don’t be too promotional as Instagram is about beautiful, engaging images. It’s worth having a look at some of your customer’s Instagram feeds so you get an idea of what they are posting and are interested in seeing.
 
 
 
What to post?
 
• Occasional pictures of employees to put faces behind the brand. Likewise images of your offices, lunches, events or the surrounding area.
 
• Relevant things that you want to associate the brand with – e.g. Burberry regularly post London skylines with a weather update.
 
• Be creative in incorporating your products and services into posts so it won’t come across as an advert and people will be interested in what you have to post. For example, people using your products in an unusual setting.
 
• You can use short videos too – up to 15 seconds a post.
 
 
 
Tips
 
• If possible use the same handler as Twitter so people can find you easily.
 
• Add effects and filters to your pictures – as well as enhancing your images, it makes a surprising amount of different to engagement levels.
 
• Use hashtags and ask people to upload photos and tag them with the same hashtag.
 
• Theme your photos, thinking about what you want people to associate with your brand.
 
• Showcase different ways your product can be used – the more creative or interesting, the better.
 
• Connect your Instagram account to your Twitter and Facebook ones. When you upload an image to Instagram you can then choose whether to share it easily on these other channels too.
 
• Don’t forget to write brief captions whenever you upload a photo.
 
 
Get people involved…
 
• Show sneak previews or behind the scenes shots to interest your followers and provide them with something they wouldn’t be able to see otherwise.
 
• Offer promo codes to reward your Instagram followers and maintain loyalty. 
 
• Ask people to submit photos with a branded hashtag and then you can choose the best to repost or offer a prize to.
 
 
The top brands on Instagram by levels of followers and hashtags are Nike, Starbucks, NBA, Adidas and Topshop. It’s worth having a look at what the top brands are doing successfully to gain followers and what sort of posts are popular. Oreo is a good example of a brand encouraging engagement by regularly posting interesting images of its cookies being used in imaginative and amusing ways.
 
 
Instagram started trialling advertising in November 2013. They released case study data on two brands, Levi’s and Ben & Jerry’s which showed an impressive amount of people was reached in each case. The company has said that they want any ads to be enjoyable and natural to Instagram and representative of quality content. It’ll be interesting to see how future advertising will change the way brands are able to use the platform.
 
 
Further Reading:

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