Social media is not slowing down, and businesses need to be serious about their online presence if they want to build brand recognition. From start-ups to traditional empires, understanding digital marketing, from website optimisation through to social media exposure and advertising is imperative. For many, the best starting point is to build a strong Instagram presence.
Why Instagram?
Strategically, Instagram is an effective marketing medium because it allows brands to create a personality. With its wide reach and popularity, it can surely amplify your business dramatically, especially among the younger audience. Currently, the platform has over 800 million active monthly users with more than 60 million photos posted each day, and 1.6 billion daily “likes” (e-commerceceo.com).
It is also significant to note that Instagram has more engaged users and a wider reach with 115% increase in organic marketing reach since 2012 compared to Facebook which has been on a plateau for the last 7 years.
Currently, Facebook has also turned into a resource site with businesses spreading information about what they do and sell, while Instagram has become a place for ads — more like a modern version of glossy magazines filled with nice-looking photos and aesthetic-built shots.
Now the next question is, with Instagram being a crucial part of branding, how do we make it work for your business?
Just like Facebook, Instagram also utilises online algorithms. This means that posts show up based on what Instagram thinks people want to see and not just based on chronological hierarchy.
This can be a huge challenge for many marketers especially those who have just recently joined the Instagram bandwagon.
Where to start? What to post first? Is there a schedule for posting? How do we capture the market?
It’s natural that businesses who are new to the Instagram game have lot of questions, so to get you started and to help you win over Instagram’s online algorithm, we’ve put together these 6 useful tips to get more from your profile. Whether you’re brand new or a pro IG user, you’re sure to find a lot of valuable information here.
Instagram introduced Business Profiles in 2016. Since then many businesses and even personalities have chosen to switch their Instagram accounts from a personal (private) profile to a business profile.
Changing your account set-up will help you in many different ways. Aside from getting access to your insights (analytics and performance statistics), the mode can also help you identify your industry business and help people connect with you through a business contact number and email.
Your Instagram bio represents you and all your assets in 150 characters (or less). It summarises the entirety of your brand so it’s important to include all the specs of your business such as:
- Description
A brief description (can be catchy or informative) that speaks about your brand - Hashtag
A branded hashtag to encourage for sharing - Bio Link
An Instagram-specific bio link pointing to your web homepage or a current running promotion
As a visual platform the look and feel of your profile is imperative. When selecting to post Instagram photos, don’t just look at the resolution of the image – look at the entire composition.
Because Instagram is all about aesthetics, it’s very obvious that the most-liked and shared content is often visually striking.
Beautiful landscapes, amazing portraits, bold colors — these are the aspects that people usually engage with.
Instagram stories differ from regular Instagram posts because they come in a “slideshow” format and are only accessible for 24 hours.
Stories can be a valuable help in giving audience updates, behind the scenes and other quick information about the brand. The feature also allows collaboration and tagging and it also helps in search for hashtags and locations.
Initiate engagement, encourage interactions and make meaningful captions to capture your audience’s minds. Let them tag their best friends or share your content on their stories by appealing to their senses.
Also, take note of your grammar and sentence construction. Make sure that your captions can be read and understood easily.
Traditional marketing is all about celebrities and endorsers, but today’s era is more focused on a new breed called “influencers’.
Generally, social influencers are social media users who have established credibility in a certain industry or niche. They are considered “thought-leaders”, they have access to a large audience and usually get a good amount of engagement online.
Influencer marketing has been a huge thing today with brands maximising on reach and relevance, targeting niches through the use of the powerful influence of key people.
A crucial question for brands starting out in the game, is where to find, or how to connect with influencers? There are a lot of influencers online but it is quite a challenge to find the right fit.
The most important thing to consider is that these people will represent your brand so they have to like the brand and be able to speak for the brand.
Influencer Marketing with PR Galleria
Basically, you won’t find strategic success just by sending free things out to everyone who asks — we get that.
This is the reason why we’ve created a platform that will help brands connect with key influencers, VIPs and media people through the power of real connection.
Unlike other influencer marketing platforms, PR Galleria is more focused on building genuine relationships by encouraging influencers to try products that they need or that they’re very interested in. The goal is to let them share their authentic experiences on social media thus creating reciprocity between brands and members.
Currently, PR Galleria is present in 12 countries and collaborates with influencers from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines and Vietnam.
Aside from social media stars, we’re also linked up with VIPs (prominent celebrities, models and other personalities) and traditional media people, this gives brands a wider reach and a whole yard of people network.
This is how authentic influencer marketing works and this is how we do it.
So, are you ready to level up your Instagram game?
