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Edu4Sure Admin
- April 3, 2019
If you have not posted your lunch on Instagram today, then are you even living in the present? Instagram’s evaluation was just 100 million but Facebook brought it for a whopping 1 Billion which tells you Instagram is THE next hot thing. This blog will teach you how to use Instagram as a marketing tool.
What is Instagram?
Instagram is an online mobile photo-sharing, video and social networking platform. Instagram was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger and launched in October 2010 as a free mobile app. In just two years, the service rapidly gained popularity, with over 100 million active users.
Why is Instagram so famous?
So, what makes Instagram so famous and happening. Well, there are many reasons for it. And, because of these reasons, it can be used as a marketing tool.
1. Photo Sharing
You can take pictures within the app or use photos that already exist in your camera roll. You can give your photo a fun title. Photos can be instantly shared, not only on Instagram but on Facebook, Twitter also.
2. Photo Editing
Instagram also offers photo editing services. They have 11 different filters you can use to up the interest of your photos. Even boring photos can look amazing with some of these filters. Not only filters but editing options like crop, focus and many more makes it very useful. Oh, and Did I mention it is FREE!
3. Social media
As mentioned before, Instagram is a Social Media platform where you can socialize with other users. It is based around having followers like Facebook friends. On Instagram, you ‘follow’ people. When you follow someone, their photos show up in your stream.
The only other things you can do are ‘like’ (in the form of a heart <3) photos and ‘comment’ on them. You can also add information like ‘where was this taken’ or ‘when was it taken?’.
Once you get into using Instagram, you will see how laid back people are and how much fun they are having. It’s a very friendly experience.
4. Instant easy and fun
Just install the app, click photos, edit and upload. That is all! The fact that the user interface is simple and easy to use makes Instagram a very handy app.
5. Community
Lots of people come together for a common interest. To greet, meet and socialize. Suppose you have an interest in Calligraphy.
We all know how it can be difficult to find people with similar interest especially if the interest is a niche one like this. Enter Instagram just look for #Calligraphy
Why Instagram?
You are probably thinking, are Twitter and Facebook not enough? Why Instagram now as a marketing tool? Well, let me ask you a counter-question. How often do you engage in a Facebook post? Don’t lie! You just look on the post and scroll down with an occasional like.
But What if I were to say you that interaction can be increased by 300%. And that is why Instagram is such an important tool that can be used for marketing. Instagram offers 4% User interaction than Facebook which has 0.1%. Let us dive into the world of Instagram Marketing.Â
What is your aim with Instagram Marketing?
What do you want to achieve with Instagram Marketing? You must be very clear about it because this will define your account.
The aim can be
- Display your products or services
- Build a community
- Increase awareness of your brand
- company culture and values
- Advertise
- Increase brand loyalty
- Share company news and updates
It is not compulsory to have a single goal, you can have 2-3 goals too.
To whom to target?
Golden Rule of marketing
You cannot sell everything to everyone. Therefore, it is important to focus on a segment of users that you want to target. Like Fastrack targets, youth or ShopCues sales target people returning from office.
You can segment people on basis of Demographics (Age, Gender, Income), Psychographics (Lifestyle and Attitude), Geographical (City, Country).
Your account: High Recall Value
It is THE most important part of your Marketing Plan. The first thing a user will see is your account and you must make sure it leaves a lasting impression. Generally, when we see a page has a huge following then it is a famous page and we also follow it.
Your description is very personal to your brand, what you choose to share here should be representative of your business and show your followers what you do as a company.
The profile picture should be your logo or name which people can identify distinctly.
Content: It is said that a picture speaks a thousand words. Post content according to the latest news and trends. Post something related to your services. Make it minimalistic and fun. See what is happening in contemporary news and how will it affect your services.
Frequency and time: Do you know if you post in the morning then it will have 50% less effective than the evening. So, post when your target audience is online. If your target is youth, then the ideal time will be 6-8 in the evening and 11-1 in the night. Similarly, if your target is school going kids then you should post more frequently during 2-6 in the afternoon. Also, make sure the number of posts is not too low. Put at least 4-5 posts on average.
First engage then market: One must take care that one should not directly start marketing otherwise users will get a bad perception. Instead one should first engage with the user and when you have a strong base then start marketing in some of your posts.
Use of tags: Trending tags
You need to have the right tags which will highlight your post to your target audience. Tags should be carefully selected as they can make or break your campaign. There is no limit on the number of tags but more than 12 seems like you are spamming.
Followers: Organic, Paid
Your followers are your base. The more followers you have the more your post reach. There are two types of followers:
Organic: The ones who are genuine and have followed you through your post without any external push.
Paid: They are mostly fake but help increase the number of followers.
Organic users are more important but sometimes paid users are used initially to gain some followers which increases organic followers also.
Attract Users:
Your main aim to expand your reach. So you must attract the user with activities like a contest, quiz with some incentive to make them visit your account more frequently. You can also use social media management tools like Hootsuite to better manage your account.
Top Instagram account followers
- Selena Gomez
- Taylor Swift
- Ariana Grande
- Beyonce
- Kim Kardashian
- Cristiano Ronaldo
- Kylie Jenner
As you can see most of the accounts are of music singers and entertainers because they have a huge fan following of youth.
Bottom-line
Instagram is a platform that no marketer can ignore. With the right strategy, you can make your business boom with Instagram. In this blog, I tried to throw light on Instagram as a marketing tool.
Similarly, you can learn how to use Facebook as a marketing tool as well.
If you want to learn more about it then you should enroll in Edu4sure online marketing platform. Please connect with us at partner@edu4sure.com or call at 95.5511.5533.
