The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don’t have to explain things with words.
A picture speaks a thousand words. These words by Fred Barnard haven’t been truer. Instagram does it effectively by making a picture tell a story. Advertisers and marketers are using this successfully to their advantage with well-photographed products thus helping promote businesses.
Instagram has the highest rate of User Engagement
Of the billion users on Instagram, 500 million use it every day. Instagram’s audience matters to brands as it has the highest rate of user engagements. There are 1.2 billion likes per day and 1,000 comments per second. The sheer number of users makes it ideal for businesses to boost their visibility. If the users like a brand, they’ll follow it.
User engagements with the top 50 global brands after analyzing 2,400 posts and 11.8 million user interactions.
Shoppable Posts
This feature allows businesses to tag up to five products in organic posts just like tagging people. The consumers can then tap on the product to find out more information like name and price and make a purchase.
Shopping will become seamless as users can go through Instagram without having to switch between apps and with just a couple of taps buy the product. This makes it a powerful tool as it takes a lot of friction out of shopping and will be an invaluable addition to brands’ e-commerce strategy.
Businesses must sync a product catalog listed on their Facebook business page so that Instagram can pull in all product catalog information from it.
Sell the INSTA way!
Make your posts shoppable by tagging your products. Users can tap the image, then tap the description, and be sent straight to the “add to cart” section on your website.
Don’t overload your audience with product-focused posts. Set it at a cool 40-50 percent of the post every 15 days. Watch how GAP is doing it in style here.
To measure the effectiveness of the campaign you should track the important metrics that have a measurable business impact – comments, engagement, click-thrus, most popular product tags etc. Owlmetrics, Instagram’s analytics tool can be used for this.
Content is King
What’s more pleasing than looking at a nice picture?
Create content that your followers will love by hiring a photographer. Posting images that are consistently high-resolution will give your feed a crisp and professional look.
Using high-quality images would help garner more views to your site, which means more chances to convert. It would also increase user engagement, so they end up spending more time on your site and eventually buy the product.
Influencer Marketing
The power of influencer marketing is becoming a permanent pillar in the marketing world. The new age of internet celebrities has immense power over a growing audience of untapped consumers. Social media celebrities have tons of influence over their audience, and can dramatically impact viral trends and shopping patterns.
Watch brand ‘Cluse’ uses a market influencer
Rather than marketing directly to a large group of consumers, you instead inspire or hire influencers to get out the word for you. Instagram has become a haven for influencers, as many have grown their following from zero to millions in just a few short years.
Where do I find a suitable influencer?
It’s critical to identify the right influencers to work with as a wrong partner can have negative consequences. Audiences can see through fake praise.
BuzzSumo is a great social listening & influencer searching tool. You can filter out trending content over the web, view sharers & no of shares on social platforms & more.
Hashtags World
You can take advantage of hashtags to expose your brand’s message to the public by using the most optimized hashtags within your community.
Categorizing content using the # symbol can be a powerful marketing tool. Among your list, include a signature hashtag, one that’s just yours as reinforcement of your brand. This not only creates a brand for the product but can also build a tribe around it.
Apps like Top Tags or Leetags can help you decide which hashtags that you should be using. The ultimate goal is to optimize your hashtags for optimum exposure. Appealing hashtags is one way for a small brand for getting that initial traction.
Instagram’s popularity is growing, and thanks to the creativity of marketers and social media specialists today, it can bring any-scale e-commerce business real revenue.
Start your own photo-sharing, video-sharing, and social networking service like Instagram.
