6 Ways You Can Promote Your Brand On Instagram

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Having a social media campaign in any business is vital—from startups just getting its feet wet to large corporations who have been around for decades. As times change, so does the strategy you need to implement. Instagram is one such social media tool that came and took the world by storm.

Instagram has 150 million active users on a monthly basis. Users also spent more time on Instagram than they did on Twitter. And now the photo-sharing app has expanded to provide users with the ability to share videos.

According to Unruly Media, 40 percent of the 1,000 most shared videos came from brands. That’s a powerful statistic to take advantage of.

1. Have A Healthy Balance Between Snapping Pictures For Your Business And Snapping Fun Pictures

If you only take pictures of your business, it gives little incentive for others to like it. Starbucks has always done this very well, and is currently the second most-follwed brand on Instagram. You probably aren’t as big as Starbucks or other largely-followed brands like Nike, but you can certainly take a look at those key players and see how they attract so much attention with their photos. Starbucks could easily be a very bland Instagram; they sell coffee. But they’ve found unique, interesting ways to portray it, taking advantage of the filters to make their photos appear vintage and less corporate.

2. Pick The Right Captions And Hashtags

You want to be able to optimize your brand’s photos for searches. As with pictures, you should’t be too direct or boring when it comes to captions. Humor and uniqueness, coupled with fun or beautiful imagery, is what gets shares on Instagram.

3. Share Your Images. Sure your Platform Is Instagram

But it doesn’t end there. From Instagram, you can share on Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, etc. You want to get your pictures and your Instagram name out as much as possible. Keep in mind that when you’re sharing on different platforms, change your captions. What’s fitting for Instagram might not be perfectly fit for Facebook, where you can write a little more descriptively.

4. Interact With Customers And Create A Community

When you post a picture, monitor your comments so that you can respond to questions or just acknowledge compliments (or complaints). Consider creating a hashtag for your brand or for special events. This way, if you are getting a lot of customer interaction, you can easily find who is mentioning your brand.

5. Create events And Competitions, Utilizing Your Hashtags In The Process

For example, Forever 21 had a contest where users could enter using the hashtags #21DaysofLA and #Forever21. To enter, all you had to do was photograph stylish ways to wear their item of the day and you could win a $1,000 gift card.

Similarly, Heineken created a campaign for a scavenger hunt and posted pictures containing clues to the mystery. Users could hashtag the right answer in the right photo to win tickets to the US Open Final.

6. Consider Hiring Someone With A Large Following To Promote Your Brand

For example, if you sell shirts, contact someone with a 5K plus follower count and ask them to wear your shirt and post it in exchange for a price. If the person actually likes the shirt, or whatever product you want them to promote, then there’s no harm done.