I love Instagram and I think it is an invaluable tool for anyone who is creative. I am starting a few different series on my blog. One will be about Instagram or IG. I hope that is is useful or helpful to anyone who doesn’t know or understand Instagram.
Social media is so popular it is almost unmeasurable. Millions of people log onto these sites all day every day, 400 million people according to data from December 2015. Daily that is 75 million and 20% of internet users will use their IG accounts.
What is Instagram? It is a free application for mobile photo sharing, video sharing and social networking service that enables people to take videos and photos and share them on IG and facebook, twitter, tumbler and flicker. Originally the images were a square shape similar to a Polaroid. But in August of 2015 photo ratio can be changed. I was launched in 2010. Facebook purchased it in 2012 for 1 billion cash and stock. It has continued to grow whereas facebooks growth has slowed to 3% growth. Many people like this app because of the ability to alter the pictures with filters, text or stickers.
It was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger and launched in October 2010. The app is available on all mobile devices.
Instagram announced that 100 million photographs had been uploaded to its service as of July 2011. This total reached 150 million in August 2011. By May 2012, 58 photographs were being uploaded and a new user was being gained each second. The total number of photographs uploaded had exceeded one billion.
On February 27, 2013, Instagram announced 100 million active users, only two-and-a-half years after the launch of the app. As of September 9, 2013, the company has announced a total of more than 150 million monthly active users.
How does it work? You take a photo. You can take it with the app or take it on your phone and upload it to IG. Then you can alter the photo with the filters. Then you can share that photo with other people. By the use of hashtags it makes it more accessible and findable by other people in the IG community if that is what you are looking for. So, yes, users can also follow other Instagram users’ photostreams. This means that business owners can use this feature of the app to reach a wider audience.
So in business IG is a great way to market yourself with so many active users every day. That equates to potential customers that can be found on the social platform. These reasons make Instagram a very effective tool for marketing a business.
Here are some of the ways that business owners can use Instagram to market their products and services:
- Give your business a face through your photos
Internet users are more likely to become interested in your business if you post visually stunning images on the site. The more creative your photos are, the better you chances of gaining more customers. As such, it will do you some good to post photos of new products, activities, or things that area related to your business. Just remember the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words”.
- Use hashtags
On Instagram, hashtags give searchers an easier time looking for photos that they are searching for. The hashtags categorize search results on the search feature of the site. An example would be a company selling shoes. That company can include the hashtag #trendyfootwear or #shoes so that people looking for pictures of shoes will find the photos belonging to the company.
- Hold contests
This will work really well if your business has something to do with selling stuff. What you can do is let customers take pictures of themselves while using the product. The customers then have to upload the photos to be eligible for a prize. A good way to pick the winner is to involve other user and make them vote for their favourite snapshot.
Instagram is not just a tool for editing and sharing photos. It is also an effective tool for marketing your product, service or brand.
It should also be considered for increasing your creativity and thought processes, but more of that in my next IG post.
Don’t forget to check out my IG feed @ajmonger28
