From leaflets on local noticeboards to local
What Is Instagram?
If you have never heard of Instagram before, it is essentially a social media profile that revolves around images and videos. After posting an image with a caption, you can target specific groups and followers with advertisements and general information regarding your brand. Since we love to interact with images and videos, it can be a great way to become more personable to your audience. Before we get too ahead of ourselves by suggesting why Instagram is important, let’s look at some simple statistics.
Instagram Stats
From humble beginnings, Instagram now boasts 400 million active users every single day. From these, we see over four billion likes from 100 million different posts. With this in mind, it’s clear to see that Instagram is right up there with Facebook. For some reason though, we continue to exclude Instagram from our marketing strategies and this is a huge mistake. Without further ado, let’s take a look at some key reasons why!
Personable Brand
To start, let’s pick up on a point we started not so long ago. When you post images or videos of your brand whether it is a tutorial or a behind-the-scenes guide in your factory, people start to trust your name and you build credibility. If you sell entirely online, there is no physical store to impress potential customers so credibility is vital. Furthermore, we are advancing from the days where Facebook posts and Tweets were enough. Nowadays, we need something more, so pictures and videos are perfect.
Limitless Options
Next up, you have numerous options for what to post from infographics, tutorials for your products, behind-the-scenes footage, pictures of your team, and more. The more creative you become over time, the more interest you will see. For example, some people use Instagram to release new pictures of products and this generates excitement around your brand. Alternatively, you could use the platform to hold a competition; as people see videos and pictures of your product, it will be a hot topic for all on the site.
Target Potential Customers
Let’s not forget, this is a site that sees millions and millions of visitors every day. Doesn’t it make sense to advertise where the people are congregating? According to a recent report, one-third of all internet users have an Instagram account. If Instagram isn’t in your marketing strategy, you are missing out on 33% of the market instantly!
In response to this, people often say ‘well, the majority of people use Instagram with Facebook or Twitter’. However, this isn’t necessarily true. As those two giants of the social media world continue to age and lose their appeal, Instagram is seeing many unique visitors and this is an opportunity you cannot pass up.
Instagram Stories
More recently, Instagram introduced a feature called ‘Story’ and this allows a user to document their day in a series of pictures. Rather than posting permanently, they take pictures to put them on their story knowing that they will expire in a certain amount of time. Yet again, this is another way to catch the eye of visitors and the options are endless. Just imagine documenting the release day for a new product to thousands of followers!
Market Research
If you want to be really clever, you can even do some market research on Instagram. For example, you could ask your followers what they would like to see in the coming months and years from the company. If you have a young customer base, this becomes even more important because 90% of all Instagram users are under the age of 35. Away from your own brand, you could also keep an eye on competitors to see what they are doing at all times. As they say, keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
High Engagement
Of course, all of the above would be near enough useless without actual results. According to many sources, engagement on Instagram is well above 4% which actually puts the platform right at the top in terms of social media sites. Therefore, you can easily connect with users from all around on your pictures and videos.
Show Your Knowledge
Rather than just advertising constantly, Instagram allows you to show that you really know your stuff and this all comes back to establishing credibility. As you start to help people with their questions and talk about your industry, people will see your knowledge and you will become a more viable option.
Make Sales
Seeing as though the main goal of the exercise is to generate leads and make sales, studies suggest that Instagram has one of the highest average spends of all online platforms. Alongside Pinterest and Polyvore, people spend an average of $65 from Instagram accounts. With Instagram relying on visual content, users clearly see though the nonsense much easier than on other sites and make the purchases they require.
Room for Growth – We should finish by saying that the platform is growing around five times faster than all other social media platforms in the US. Even though the site has gained popularity in recent years, there is still enough room for you to make an impact. Unlike Facebook or Twitter where it can be hard to get noticed, new users are signing up every single day so now is the right time to start building your brand on the site!
Still not convinced about Instagram? Here’s an infographic from Gramlike which highlights many more important statistics about Instagram and sums up why Instagram needs to be part of your businesses marketing strategy in 2017.
Infographic courtesy of Gramlike
