How Can You Use Instagram For Your Small Business?

Instagram_Advertising
Today, many companies are using an array of social networking sites in order to create brand awareness and different experiences with their followers – Twitter and Facebook being the most popular. However, we’re starting to see more-and-more businesses hop on the Instagram bandwagon.

Why Instagram?

Instagram has continued to grow in popularity. If you check out their statistics there are 100 million monthly active users, 40 million photos per day, 8,500 likes per second, and 1,000 comments per second. Now that’s a lot of pictures.  All of this activity creates easy opportunities for businesses to connect with customers on a personal level.
 

Instagram_PHOTOiD

 
Major companies are using Instagram to connect with their customers on interactive level than the other social networking sites. For instance, Nike recently came up with a new way to customize Nike shoes using Instagram photos. With the new Nike PHOTOiD you can choose your favorite Instagram photo and PHOTOiD will customize the shoe based on the colors in the photo. From there, you can either purchase the shoes or share the photo of your customized shoes. Thanks to Instagram this personal experience encourages individuals to interact with Nike that will help their company create awareness and leads.

How  Can  Insatgram  Help?

Create contests:Instagram_For_Businesses

Contests on Instagram can help your business gain a substantial amount of followers, but also keeps them engaged. You can offer a free give away through a contest that requires followers to post their own picture of a product/service/ or image with a custom hastag or the company’s username.  You can run large contests to build your follower base while running smaller contests to also keep current users engaged.

 Hashtags and Tagging:

Hashtags are a great marketing tool for reaching your target markets . For example if you own a coffee shop and you include the hashtag #coffee in your posts, then users interested in coffee are more prone to find your posts on Instagram.  Hashtags are also useful to identify your specific contest entries. Having followers tag your business username in a post will increase the amount of people that see your advertisement.  Say one of your followers has 200 people following them and they post a picture for one of your contests and tags your username, now 200 other people have seen your advertisement and may even interact with it.

Instagram_Hashtag

 Personalization:

Instargram allows you to get creative with your photos and helps create a personality for your business. Since this site is all about visuals try to take picture of your product in a unique, eye catching way. Or capture pictures of your service that can highlight the passion of your company.  Even sneak peeks of how your business works behind the scenes can keep followers intrigue and fascinated with your business. The right photos on Instagram can go a long way and help your business build its own personal brand and put an actual face to a name.
Can Instagram help personalize your own business? Will social media for your business increase interactions with customers? Tell us what you think!