A Simple Introduc1on to Instagram A Beginners Guide Didit Social Media Didit.com Sensi&ve and Conﬁden&al ®2014 Didit Table of Contents Welcome to Instagram! 3 Keeping Up Appearances 4 Incorpora&ng Your Brand Logos Inser&ng Hard Links 5 6 Engagement Tac&cs Timing Your Posts Hashtagging Being Interac&ve Run a Promo&on 8 9 10 12 New Follower Acquisi&on 14 Sensi&ve and Conﬁden&al ®2014 Didit 2 Welcome! Success on Instagram Instagram is an excellent medium for sharing your company’s informa&on with the web. Its combina&on of aesthe&cs and social networking allows photos and ads to be shared across mul&ple pla\orms. Posts can be synchronized among networks such as Twi]er, Facebook and the blogging pla\orm Tumblr using Instagram's "share" tool, making it easier to streamline your brand and market yourself in crea&ve ways. Instagram can be instrumental to client acquisi&on for a business. A crea&ve post that is aesthe&cally pleasing and sharable can eﬀec&vely draw in a demographic that will be interested and “follow” your product. Gaining interested followers is the key to success on Instagram. The more followers a page gains, the more interest it gains. The best way to increase the count of these followers is to provide valuable, interac&ve posts. When customers feel that they are gaining something by following you, (such as knowledge, sales, or self-‐
promo&on), they will follow your page. Sensi&ve and Conﬁden&al ®2014 Didit 3 Keeping Up Appearances Simple, Unique Posts • The clean layout of instagram allows for crea&vity when developing ads. Photo-‐heavy ads with easy, shorter links provide more hits to a site. • The power of Instagram is the speed at which consumers take in images; this makes it extremely important to consider the appearance of each image you post. • It’s very simple to scroll through (and pass) posts on Instagram feeds. This makes it impera&ve to create bold and unique posts that will cause a user to pause on your post. Some&mes having a candid, less polished photo can a]ract more views. Users are deﬁnitely more excited by unique posts, making it important to have a large database of imagery. Sensi&ve and Conﬁden&al ®2014 Didit 4 Incorporate Your Brand Logos are Important • It’s important to have the name or logo of your business on each image. Some&mes users ﬁnd photos through the “explore” feature or while viewing hashtags, and the name of the product should really be somewhere on the picture. Some&mes the logo can even become the centerpiece of the post. @nike makes sure that its logo is front and center. Sensi&ve and Conﬁden&al ®2014 Didit 5 Incorporate Your Brand Insert Hard Links • Currently, Instagram doesn’t oﬀer posts that include links. Your main page can have a website URL, but the average user will be seeing your posts from their home screen. • A workaround for this is to use the “loca1on” feature to share your direct URL to your product (how-‐to on next page). This will appear under your handle on your post. Use bit.lys to make the URL easier to remember. @nastygal creates its own short links and shares them using loca&on Sensi&ve and Conﬁden&al ®2014 Didit 6 How To Use Links in “Loca&on” Step 1. Ajer choosing your photo and ﬁlter, ﬁnd the “photo map” sec&on on your share page. Select “name this loca1on”. Sensi&ve and Conﬁden&al ®2014 Didit Step 2. Type in the URL you wish to share. Ajer fully typing it, select “Create custom loca1on”. Once you create this URL it will always be an op&on to use it again. 7 Engagement Tac&cs Timing Your Posts • By pos&ng and featuring at least once or twice daily, you can keep followers interested and constantly checking your site. • Instagram relies heavily on the &ming of your post. Users have to get the impression that the Instagram is interac&ve and up-‐
to-‐date. • “Down1me” hours provide a lot of likes and shares. Normally these &mes include lunch &me, dinner, or even before users go to bed (when the average person checks their phone). Sensi&ve and Conﬁden&al ®2014 Didit 8 Engagement Tac&cs Hashtagging • In the same manner as Twi]er, customer interac&on is really easy through the use of hashtags. Using hashtags that are trendy and memorable can help make your page more popular. • Using a hashtag that is in widespread use and trending allows for a larger audience to ﬁnd your post. It also a]racts the millennial crowd, which places importance on being up-‐to-‐date with online trends. • Many of the popular tags use allitera1on (#tbt = ThrowbackThurday, #of= FlashbackFriday, etc.) or humor to make them easier to remember. Not only will your account use these hashtags, but interested customers that follow you may use these hashtags if they are interes&ng enough. @starbucks has a viral hashtag for the introduc&on of their holiday red cup Sensi&ve and Conﬁden&al ®2014 Didit 9 Engagement Tac&cs Being Interac&ve • Double your following: In a way similar to Twi]er, self-‐promo1on is an important factor in gaining interested users. By interac&ng with users and customers, you can gain a very loyal following. It’s key to interact with popular pages that agreed to promote you. Pages enjoy being featured because they gain followers, and they’re usually happy to tag your product in return. Sensi&ve and Conﬁden&al ®2014 Didit @topshop featured @elliegoulding endorsing their product. 10 Engagement Tac&cs Being Interac&ve •  It’s key to check tags that apply to your company. By just liking posts that use tags that relate to your page, it could spark interest in a poten&al follower. • Follow tags that relate to your brand or have your brand’s name. By keeping up to date, you can ﬁnd valuable info about who is using an enjoying your product. • By interac&ng with the average user, you can gain trust and support in your followers. Like or feature posts that endorse/
tag your product and encourage users to like and follow your page. By featuring users (that aren’t necessarily celebri&es), you encourage brand loyalty. Plus, you get unique imagery that a customer has willingly created for your product. Sensi&ve and Conﬁden&al ®2014 Didit 11 Engagement Tac&cs Run a Promo&on •  Add value to your posts. When users have something to gain by following and checking your instagram, more users will follow. Whether it’s a chance to win something, be featured, or even just be the ﬁrst to know about a sale, followers will ﬂock if they’re let into a special promo&on. • Try letng users know about sales and promo&ons by pos&ng a special code and the link to the sale page. • Instagram contests are very popular. Run a contest where if users like or follow, or perhaps feature your product in their post. Even if the reward is featuring the winning user on your page, it could encourage new users to follow. Sensi&ve and Conﬁden&al ®2014 Didit 12 New Follower Acquisi&on Popularity= Followers • The more followers you gain, the more your presence will a]ract even more followers. It’s important on Instagram to be perceived as a popular and ac1ve page. • The number of likes on a post can directly aﬀect the number of people that view it. An ideal situa&on would be for your post to make it to the “explore” page, which is Instagram’s featured photos page that shows pictures that are the most interes&ng and have the most likes. • It’s important to have an eye for your demographic and to be crea&ve with tagging. If users perceive your page as relevant and interac&ve, they will become customers. All in all, the hits on your website/online store will be directly aﬀected by your Instagram following. Sensi&ve and Conﬁden&al ®2014 Didit 13 Do you have more ques1ons about Social Media?
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