Excusing the punny title, this is a question that many business owners are asking themselves at the moment “What can Instagram do for my business, and how will I know if it will work?” to which the age-old answer remains true: “Well it depends”. And that’s fine, it is just understanding what ‘it’ depends upon.
Instagram: The Numbers
Just to give you an idea of how popular Instagram is these days I thought I’d pull together a few stats…
- 500 Million Active Users (per month)
- 20% Of all Internet Users use the social media network
- 300 Million Daily Users
- 16% Average Follower Growth
The milestones that Instagram has achieved in recent years has been astonishing. Take a look at the screen grab below to see one of the many milestones that have been reached over the 2015/2016 period. Kendall Jenner’s single post has the most ever likes – reaching 3.6million…amazing isn’t it?
Don’t worry though, I’m not about to suggest that everyone should start lying on the floor and shaping their hair into hearts. What this does show though is that there is a huge relationship between Instagram and growing your brand.
Every profile will vary.
Before I start I must explain that Instagram doesn’t work for every business. Each industry has its own strength and Instagram lends itself to some more than others. So before attempting your campaign activity, it’s a good idea to do some research and see if there’s a big scene already out there; otherwise you’ll have a real difficulty to see a return on your investment.
Instagram is all about building your brand and creating a connection to your audience.
Theme your profile.
If we take Cariad for example. I’m sure there’d be a lot of cake! But there would also be a lot of photos of our clients, laughter as well as videos and pictures of the team and of course, lots of red, because that’s our brand.
Because Instagram is so visual, when people look at your profile or see your content, you’ll want them to feel something, whether it’s assurance, happiness or motivation.
It’s all a load of Hash(tag)!
Before you start concerning yourself with the relevance of Instagram, as with all your online activities, you should be strategically serving a business objective. This could be: awareness through ‘share this competition’, conversations through call-to-action heavy sponsored posts or a remarketing campaign or maybe brand building through photographs of the behind the scenes of your business.
The beauty of Instagram – and what makes it such a force to be reckoned with – is its ability to target the demographics you want to see your posts. With Twitter, you are much more limited to experimenting with your hashtags because of the small character count and the little information that Twitter gives you. On Instagram, you can hashtag to your heart’s content, but let’s not over do it…
There is also a neat feature which allows you to see how many posts have used that hashtag. You can use this as a guide as to what gets the most traffic enabling you yo tailor your content to the right audiences whilst making sure your posts will be seen.
Check out this list of Case Studies where Instagram has produced that return on investment that everyone looks for.
Are you in the camp where you’re toying with the idea of Instagram but aren’t sure if it’s worth it? Come and chat to the team, we can talk about where you are now, where you want to be and how we can get you there. You can call the office on 01992 582 824 or email us and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
