Can businesses improve their marketing with Instagram? Should businesses participate in mobile photo sharing?
Facebook’s $1 billion purchase of Instagram is accelerating one of the fastest social media trends – mobile photo-sharing. Founded in October 2010 and now part of Facebook, Instagram is already on 40 million mobile devices.
Instagram is free and easy to use: simply download the app, take a picture with your Smartphone camera, and choose a filter to change its look and feel. Then share it on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare and a variety of other social networks including Instagram itself.
How to Use Instagram for Marketing:
- Start taking relevant pictures with your Smartphone. Then share them with your followers: people from all over the world who can share your unique photos with their friends, family and other followers. These followers could become customers someday.
- Get your fans to take pictures. People love Instagram, so they won’t mind the suggestion. Ask your followers to use a hashtag and then create collages of their pictures on your website for everyone to view. You can even continue the theme by adding a filtered look to existing pictures on your website with Instaflare.
- Share pictures with your customers. Choose pictures that have meaning and people will share them with their followers. For example, you could share behind-the-scenes pictures of your employees helping customers. This helps build a stronger emotional connection between your customers and your brand.
- Follow the people your favorite Instagrammers are following. Build your reach and learn from the most active mobile photo-sharers. Learn new approaches and explore your creativity.
- Participate in themes related to your business. Take theme-appropriate photos and share via existing hashtags to participate in trends. For example, people sharing photos of Discovery’s final laps from Washington, D.C. shared them with the tag #spottheshuttle.
Images have always helped bring companies to life. Pictures are eye-catching and contribute to higher conversion rates. For example, people who replace logos with photos of themselves in social media profiles report improved response. And Bloggers, who add quality images to blog posts, report increased readership. Now mobile photo-sharing includes filters that can allow businesses to evoke feelings, and those emotions can drive business opportunity.
I’ve always disliked the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words”, but now it’s even starting to sound understated. What do you think the value of a picture is?
Please provide any thoughts or ideas in the comments section below. If you liked this post, please subscribe to our e-mail newsletter!
About David Chevalier
David Chevalier is a founder of SalesBlend. He helps small businesses grow with creative marketing strategies and consistent execution. You can follow David on Twitter @davidchev or on Google+.