Instagram Marketing
What Instagram gives brands
Instagram in terms of its potential is an “un-plowed field” of various opportunities for both B2C brands (aimed at the final consumer) and companies targeted at business audience (with a well-designed business strategy). By the way, unlike the methods, the goals that can be achieved with the help of the service are in many respects identical to those set in a standard social media marketing campaign, namely:
Awareness
Although there is no advertising in Instagram, you can pinch some of the fame out of here: you need to give this content so that users subscribe to you (it’s important not to slip into an account with funny pictures). Everything is complicated by the absence of a viral effect, since a special application is required for sharing (placing someone else’s posts in your feed). In what situation will the user rush to install it? Perhaps, if only you take a picture of him and he wants to get a picture of himself. Only one way out: to become the very best, most interesting, most useful.
Loyalty
This is such an interesting thing when people love your brand. Not products, not employees, but simply a brand for what it is. Yes, not every online bearing store can repeat the success of Apple. But to fall in love with a buyer you can and should try, and here the visual content will help you. Today, when people have no time to read, communication through pictures can be considered the beginning of flirting.
Reputation management and feedback
Any impact on the opinions of others gives rise to instantaneous opposition, as in the mechanics of Newton. You can make the most wonderful product (which we have no doubt), but critics will still be found. You need to respond to angry reviews (whether fair or not). Answering questions about the company, products and services is your sacred duty and the ability to attract a potential client.
Difficult to process the limited functionality of searching on Instagram. Here the principle of “hashtag or nothing”, which also gives good results.
Lead generation (receiving targeted calls to the company)
Let’s start with disappointment: selling directly from Instagram is quite difficult. Of course, indirectly, the service can present a product to a potential client, only the question of switching to an order / purchase will have to be solved indirectly (a personal appeal to the account moderator, a call to visit the site, a return call, etc.) The main difficulty is the inability to perform the target action directly from the service.
As such, you can not read links. Yes, and the active link, in principle, put only one – in the account description in the profile. But no one bothers to sign under the photo that the product appeared on the site or in any store, to tell about the new model, etc.
How to keep an account
The main difference with Instagram is that people come here exclusively for nice-looking content, while other social networks serve several purposes: communication, entertainment, and getting information (for example, consulting with friends, which pan to buy as a gift). That is why to promote a brand you should do anything, but give the user the very tasty picture. To help you a few tools.
Strategy
Before you sign up for an Instagram account, you need to understand what could be your “chip”. If you plan to upload photos of your product from different angles, you will not achieve anything by doing this (it’s better to give the budget to someone who urgently needs money). At this stage, you can not do without a coherent digital-strategy, sharpened by this social network. Consider its main components.
Idea
Look at successful brand accounts or just instagram bloggers with many thousands of subscribers who may not be famous people. Each of them has some idea. Perhaps the most famous example is the account of photographer Murad Osmann and his project “Follow me”.
Of course, some Madonna would be enough just to take a picture of yourself in the mirror in the bathroom. If you are not Madonna, you will have to work much, much more. You have to provide really interesting content, as a last resort – useful, and at the same time do not go far from your brand. Suppose you have an online store of sweets: do not take pictures of the counter or copy the catalog of sweets. Remove a lot of beautiful still lifes with different moods and lay out a couple a day.
Content plan
This life-simplifying thing is usually always prescribed when drafting a strategy. So, no matter how promising advertisers promise you, remember: an Instagram account is when less is more. Just imagine yourself in the place of a user who, while yawning, opens an Instagram tape in the morning and instead of a selfie of friends, in every second photo he sees, in fact, the advertising content of some brand. Remember what a news feed looks like on a smartphone. This is really a tape, where you need to flip through photos from one to another, from interesting to even more attractive, and everything will immediately fall into place. That’s right: everything boring and intrusive will only cause irritation and the desire to immediately refuse such a subscription.
As an example, we give the account manufacturer of household appliances Korting. According to the concept and content plan, several times a week, photos of delicious dishes with pleasant wishes were laid out in the community and only on Thursdays – branded content designed in the style of the company.
The target audience
It is important to reach your audience so that your content is interesting and useful to them – this rule applies to all social media marketing, and it also applies to Instagram.
Be sure to make your profile photo – your business card – vivid and memorable. It will be the company’s logo in its pure form, some of its variations or an image within the framework of the chosen account strategy – you decide. But remember: the vast majority of users are watching the tape from the screen of their smartphones, but they are quite small. You definitely will not have a second chance to make a first impression on potential clients – think over this moment in advance. As an example, let’s take Forever’s brand “21: a bright, recognizable and at the same time concise profile photo, which fits perfectly into the overall concept of the account.
Content
In Instagram, there are two types of content: photos and videos. The ability to shoot video appeared not so long ago, the timing of videos is limited to 15 seconds, and nothing can be done about it. Undoubtedly, at the moment the photo has a huge advantage over the video, as it requires less cost when creating and viewing.
Uniqueness. We have already talked about the uniqueness of your content as the defining feature of a successful promotion on Instagram. So this is actually very important: the content should be really original. If you already take some existing pictures, at least they should not be hackneyed. Here you can use various photobanks, of which there are a great many on the net.
Description. It is often useful, in addition to hashtags, to add a description to each photo (some brief explanation, question or comment). Of course, the option of simple posting photos also has the right to life, but it is better to somehow manifest itself. The main thing is not to confuse Instagram with Facebook and do not write long posts. A couple of offers are enough. But remember: users prefer to like rather than comment.
It can be interesting to everyone or narrow-topic, useful or extremely entertaining. One thing is important without doubt – it must be of high quality both in meaning and in the quality of photos. Yes, there are individuals who create content for Instagram exclusively through the camera of their smartphone. Of course, this is a personal matter for everyone, but in your branded account there should not be any blurry shots, pixelation and other joys of the pseudo-photographer.
Use different options – still lifes, collages, portraits – anything that may attract attention. Do not focus on photographing your products, think a little more. Play charades with your brand, act on associations. See what accounts of various western brands look like, for example, the very “tasty” page of the Oreo company:
Do not place the image of your logo instead of photos. Even if your boss is happy about it, who else is interested in it? And in general you should not overdo it with branding: remember, the viral effect on Instagram is negligible. If a person subscribes to your account, it means that he has already expressed a certain degree of trust and you should not disappoint him. For example, the Red .Bull Energy page reflects the brand’s concept and emotional message:
Video content
This format, which appeared not so long ago, in principle, is already popular, especially among brands that have everything necessary for its creation. Western accounts of Oreo, Lego, National Geografic, Go Pro and others are famous for the most interesting videos.
Additional features
Hashtags
Hashtags are one of the main magical powers of Instagram, so let’s talk more about them. It is with these words, and sometimes phrases, that the inhabitants of this kingdom communicate.
Why do we need hashtags? This is a kind of cataloging within the social network. When you search for a text, for example, facebook, theoretically you can find it by the words it includes. With photos all the more difficult. Therefore, arbitrary hashtags are placed under each snapshot: they can refer to what is depicted in the photo (# cat), display any mood (#happy), season, weather, event — anything. Top hashtags can be seen here.
With the help of hashtags, you can both search for images and tag your images so that you can be found. You can put a hashtag with the name of the brand under your images or come up with some kind of your own in the current advertising campaign. Each hashtag is an active link. Clicking on it, the user sees all the images that they marked.
For example, the well-known western brand of youth clothing Forever 21 maintains its account under the motto Wear it. Share it (“Carry. Share”), realizing it with your own hashtag # F21xMe. It is also interesting that this hashtag is not just voiced by the brand. It helps customers feel their connection with him, as if to say: “This is Forever 21 in my performance.”
Locating
The Instagram functionality allows you to determine where the photo was taken. You can choose the current location or create a new one, using the suggested options (directly in the service interface, at the stage of preparing the photo for publication).
How can this be used in marketing? There are many options. Let’s give an example: has a new store opened in your network? It is very convenient to take beautiful pictures and mark the location. Also, under an interesting photo of the goods, you can note in which store it is sold, etc.
Going beyond Instagram
Instagram “outside of yourself” provides ample opportunities for placing existing content on other sites. You can:
Post photos from the account on the company’s website.
It is very easy to do right from the Instagram web interface (it is from the official site, not from the mobile app). In this case, you will receive a clickable photo from Instagram with a link leading to your profile. In order to get this link, you need to open the desired photo, click on the button with three dots and select Embed – a window opens with a link that can be inserted into the code page of the site.
Instagram Promotion Techniques
After you have decided on strategy, content and other main points, a natural question arises: how to make everyone see it all? Yes, advertising will soon appear on Instagram. However, no one names exact dates, and it is impossible to evaluate its actual effectiveness at all. However, million-plus accounts exist. How did they achieve such results?
Methods of attracting subscribers to your account, strictly speaking, only two. Conditionally divide them into artificial and natural.
Artificial attraction of subscribers
In this category, you can include both quite effective methods of paid posting in popular accounts, as well as meaningless cheating subscribers (and likes). We will understand in more detail.
Cheating the number of subscribers
The way, frankly, controversial. It consists in the purchase of subscribers, and simply works. These accounts are either initially registered for promotional purposes, or bought out or stolen from their owners. And if at first glance, especially to a non-specialist, they may seem completely natural, for the most part there is no sense from them, but your account may be blocked for cheating.
If we resort to this method (for example, for promotion of a “zero” account, creating the appearance of activity), then this should be done very carefully, and it is better to refuse at all.
Paid posts on Instagram
If you already use Instagram and are subscribed to some public pages or celebrity accounts, you probably have seen paid posts. But even if you have not encountered anything like this, pay attention to such a promotion format – it showed itself quite well in practice.
In fact, it is quite simple. Similarly, advertising on public pages on other social networks, whether Facebook, VKontakte or Odnoklassniki, is bought. First you need to make a list of thematic accounts (find them by hashtags or in the list of popular ones) and contact them. The second option is to use the Instagram advertising exchange, a website that will act as an intermediary between you as an advertiser and owners of popular accounts that interest you.
Further – easier. In the necessary account post is placed, you (your account) are marked on the image (in the description). As a result, you get coverage, subscribers and other bonuses – depending on the goals, the quality of the content and the correctness of the site selection. For example, promotion account service Oh, My Master! in the official profile of a well-known model, a leading and fashion-blogger, Victoria Boni gave excellent results (including on attracting new subscribers).
Internet advertising
The most traditional of the paid types of promotion is promotion on blogs, using PR articles, on websites. These are all kinds of promotional materials, the inclusion of your account in the collections of the category of “10 most fashionable Instagram accounts for which you need to subscribe” on any popular resource. This can be an active link to a photo from your profile inside the material or on the site where your target audience is concentrated. It is desirable that the resource on which you host, has an adaptive layout for mobile devices.
Natural ways of promotion
If all the previous methods were united by the fact that you usually have to pay for them, the situation is the opposite: it all depends on your skills and your coolness. But in any case, such methods of promotion require certain labor costs, please note.
Use popular hashtags
We already talked about where to look at this list, but you can resort to other methods, for example, use search engines. We don’t dare to bring TOP 100 hashtags right here: it is constantly changing and from the time of writing the book to reading it will have time to become obsolete several times.
Searching hashtags works great – it is loved by users, it is convenient for brands. When placing any content in accordance with the chosen strategy, it would not be superfluous to put the hashtag from the list of popular ones. So you can significantly increase the coverage of the publication, get new likes and even subscribers if they like your content.
Also, too-common hashtags like #happy may not give a clear effect. It is difficult to find your target audience when every third user around the world uses such tags.
Subscriptions and likes
If the mountain does not go to you, then collect a backpack and go to the mountains. Go to subscribers, like their photos found by thematic hashtags, subscribe to their accounts. Too hard? However, it works more than efficiently: advertising personalization is an excellent reception. At a minimum, the user will go to see who subscribes to it.
Impossible to measure and such an important metric as coverage. Here we would recommend resorting to the use of various statistics collection services, for example, J.conosquare, a well-known SMM specialist. Due to the novelty of this type of promotion, similar tools for Instagram are much less than for other social networks, however, from the available ones, you can choose the one that is more convenient for you.
Contests, discounts, bonuses
Pleasant “buns” are still a good means of engagement, because everyone loves to receive gifts. Discounts, bonuses for subscribers, draws of an invaluable prize – here fantasy is unlimited. As for the methods of conducting competitions, at the moment most often there are two main ones:
Using a special hashtag
The main condition of the competition is to post any (specified in the rules) photo in your personal account with a specific hashtag.
It’s great if it contains the brand name. Also one of the mandatory conditions for participation may be a subscription to the promoted account.
But in such contests a weighty motivation (a good prize, a bonus) and a simple task are obligatory. Few people want to sew a costume of Batman and climb into it on the skyscraper because of the brand lighter.
Using the application for repost
In the wake of the proliferation of such applications, popularity has begun to gain popularity and contests of the form “Make a repost of this record and get a pink elephant”. Actually, this phrase describes the whole point. In this way, you can get a large coverage, but there is one “but”: the user must have the same application for repost.