Instagram marketing is the way that brands use Instagram to connect with their target audiences and market their offerings. Recently, it’s gained popularity as an exciting method for brands to show off their cultures, recruit new employees, engage with customers, and show off products in a new light.

Instagram allows users to upload photos and videos to their profile and edit them with various options. Instagram hosts dozens of original filters that users can add to their photos. These preset filters make various changes to photos, including adding light, giving the image a warm or cool tone, increasing or decreasing saturation, and much more. Additionally, users can edit images directly in the platform, as opposed to using a third-party photo editor. If they don’t like one particular filter, they can use Instagram’s editing feature, to individually change the contrast, brightness, structure, warmth, saturation, sharpness, and more.

How to use Instagram for business

There are dozens of social media platforms for marketers to choose from (such asFacebook marketing), with each and every one offering different features, opportunities, and nuances. For marketers, it’s all about understanding where your audience lives and what platform will enable you to best reach it.

With the growing popularity of Instagram marketing over recent years, the value is clear. If the features we listed above didn’t convince you of Instagram’s appeal, this might: the photo-sharing app recently celebrated 1 billion monthly active users. More importantly, these users are incredibly engaged, with more than 60 percent logging in every single day.

And that’s still not all. In this section, we’ll discuss the various other reasons marketers are flocking to Instagram to reach old and new audiences alike.

Instagram's high levels of engagement

Mentioned above, more than 60 percent of Instagram users are logging in every day. Do you know what that means? Your customers could already be using Instagram to reach you or to talk about your business without you even knowing about it!

If you’ve scrolled through your Instagram feed recently, I’d be willing to bet you saw at least one post of a tasty-looking meal from the trendy restaurant that just opened up down the street. In fact, you probably saw many more than just one post like that. It’s a fact – people love sharing their best life on Instagram. I don’t remember the last time I was at brunch where anybody took a single bite of their food before whipping out their phone for a picture.

If you work at an upscale, trendy restaurant or stylish boutique, it’s likely your offering has already been the subject of a customer’s Instagram post! Find more opportunities for engagement by interacting with customers who have tagged you, and don't forget totag people on Instagramposts you share, too.

These are excellent opportunities to engage with your customers, but they could be wasted if you’re not on the platform on which they’re happening.

Instagram reaches new audiences through hashtags

Instagram makes it exceptionally easy to reach new audiences.

When you include a hashtag on your post, it creates a link that leads to every post that has been shared with that hashtag. This is why it’s essential to take advantage of hashtags.

You don’t want to go overboard (between five to 10 hashtags on a given post is a good rule of thumb), but taking advantage of popular and related hashtags will make your brand easier to discover.

I need two hands (and probably some of my toes) to count how many brands I’ve discovered on Instagram, thanks to its use of hashtags and influencer marketing. Something as simple as taking advantage of trending hashtags can be an effective aspect of your Instagram marketing strategy.

STEPS

·Creating an Instagram Marketing Strategy

·Determine your Instagram strategy objectives

·Show off your brand’s culture

·Engage with customers and increase loyalty on Instagram

·Increased brand awareness

·Connect with Instagram Influencers

·Identify your Instagram audience

·Build content themes

·Establish your company's Instagram brand guidelines

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