Not all social media platforms are created equally. As a marketer or business owner it’s important to decide which platforms make the most sense for your brand. This decision could be based on answering various questions about how you can best market your brand. For example, do you have a visually appealing product or service? If so, Instagram may be your best avenue for exposure. If you want to reach your target demographic and gain exposure with the right potential customers out of the 700 million active monthly users on Instagram, here are five tips for your posts.
1. Produce High-Quality and Relevant Content
This may seem obvious, but it’s important to mention. When using Instagram to gain brand exposure, you have to stand out above the rest by producing visually appealing and stimulating content. There is a lot of competition on this platform, and a lot of marketing noise to cut through. Therefore, it’s extremely important that you keep your photos relevant to your brand, and make sure that you are only using the highest quality visual representations of your product.
2. Find the Influencers in your Target Demographic & Industry
Finding influencers for your specific industry and product may require some extra research. You will have to search either on Google or through Instagram to find the right people who can gain the respect of your target client base. Make sure the influencers you choose to interact with are legitimate, and don’t have relationships that may compromise the integrity of your brand. Pay attention to follower numbers, but also to the amount of engagement each influencer has with his/her following through their Instagram account. When you find the right matches, influencers can greatly amplify your brand exposure by promoting your products through Instagram.
3. Hashtag, hashtag, hashtag
We’ve talked about hashtags before on the blog, but it’s important to mention again. Use appropriate hashtags that will help potential customers find your brand by searching key words and phrases on social media. Make sure that you are choosing only relevant hashtags, and pay attention to trending topics that may have to do with your brand.
In addition, you may consider using hashtags to form a creative campaign that will lead people back to your posts. Engage with followers! Ask them to post their own pictures using your product or service with a catchy hashtag, with the goal that your campaign will go viral—greatly increasing your brand exposure. (Valium)
4. Use Instagram Stories
Instagram’s “story” feature now has 200 million daily users. This is a great way to showcase high-quality videos or photos that will only last 24 hours on your profile. The stories feature can be used to highlight a sale or promotion of your brand, or to show a “behind-the-scenes” daily look at your brand’s personality. The more engaging and entertaining the content is the more that people will be excited about viewing and sharing your content with others.
5. Paid Ads
Most of the marketing done through Instagram is free, unless you do want to boost a post through an ad. You can do this for an Instagram post or a story ad, and you can choose which demographic to target on the ad creation page through your Facebook account. Ads are definitely a great way to target specific customer demographics, and through your Facebook account you will be able to view the analytics for your paid ad. As a marketing tool to gain brand exposure, ads are almost guaranteed to bring you more engagement on your posts.
If you are marketing a product or service that can be visually represented, it’s important to use Instagram as part of your marketing strategy to increase your brand exposure. For any assistance with your social media marketing strategy, contact Miss Ink for more information on how we can help you gain maximum brand exposure through social media.
References:
(2017, May 10). 5 Reasons Why Instagram is Beating Snapchat at its Own Game. Retrieved May 15, 2017, from http://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-networks/5-reasons-why-instagram-beating-snapchat-its-own-game?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue%3A 2017-05-10 Social Media Today Newsletter %5Bissue%3A10249%5D&utm_term=Social Media Today
(2017, May 10). An Essential, 3 Step Guide to Hashtag Marketing. Retrieved May 15, 2017, from http://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/essential-3-step-guide-hashtag-marketing?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue%3A 2017-05-10 Social Media Today Newsletter %5Bissue%3A10249%5D&utm_term=Social Media Today
