Can Instagram be used for Business?
First of all, for anyone who doesn’t know, Instagram is a new social network centred around the premise of sharing classy looking photos with your followers instantly. Basically, you open the app, take a photo, choose an effect and then click ok, and your photo is live on Instagram right there are then on what is similar to the Facebook Newsfeed, i.e. you’ll see your picture and all the recent pictures posted by your friends and the people you follow. No photo-uploading step necessary. Also, you can now choose to post it on your Facebook page and Twitter feed at the same time too (Facebook recently bought Instagram for 1 billion dollars). You can also Like or Comment on photos, and Tweet other people’s images that you like.
So what’s the point of Instagram? Well, because its focus is purely photos and images, it’s cleaner and more focused than Facebook, and the special effects are quick and easy to use and they make ordinary photos look special.
So how can Instagram be used for a business? Simple! Use Instagram to share images related to your business. If you have an interesting product or service and you share interesting photos, you should attract followers. People like to see images in posts. Facebook conducted a study that showed that journalists’ pages with images were far more popular than those without images.
You can Geo-Tag your images to quickly and easily let your followers know where the photo was taken. This could work if you’re at a conference and you post an image related to the event, then your clients see from this that you are present at the conference. They may then seek you out.
You could ask your followers to post images of your product or service and then you could Tweet those images, creating a sense of community.
Try not to appear to be only advertising your product. Let people see the human face behind your business. So instead of just posting catalogue-like photos of models modelling your new line of sportswear, for example, post some images of your average everyday normal guys and girls having fun at the office Christmas party, for example.
For more detailed advice on these topics, check out this article: 4 Ways to Make Instagram Work for Your Small Business.
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