How to Play your Marketing Jam on Instagram

As ludicrous as it sounds, only 123 of the Fortune 500 companies have embraced Instagram as a pivotal accouterment to their core marketing strategies. Your company has a blog—fantastic. You update your Facebook page regularly, tweet daily and share your blogs through LinkedIn social groups—phenomenal. But if you aren’t using Instagram as a tool for luring in a larger consumer base, your company has missed the train to “Marketing Mecca”.

Remember when Facebook switched over to their timeline format that included a large visual wallpaper at the top of the page? According to ‘Simply Measured’ a visual marketing study revealed that engagement with businesses went up 46 percent per post, and that companies on average reported a 65 percent increase in consumer engagement. That being said, just imagine the kind of power Instagram can have over consumers who are visually stimulated (pretty much everyone) by pretty pictures and sepia filters. However, launching a successful Instagram campaign extends beyond the parameters of “mobile phone point and shoot”. By learning how to market productively with visual images, your business can expect to knock down the local competition and capture the attention of your adoring public.

Choose Your Name

Shakespeare once asked, “What’s in a name?” and concluded, “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”. I don’t have the ego to argue words written by one of English literature’s greatest minds. However, if the Bard would have been able to use Instagram while lounging in the presence of King James, he would have likely shouted, “Zounds! Thine blood stireth to name’s embrace so sought”! The Instagram name you choose to represent your business should be catchy, easy to remember, and incorporate “the visual” in your brand. For example, you can use “your business name + Illustrated” or “your business name + Portrayed”—any combination is fine so long as you use a playful synonym of “photo” to express the pictorial.

When deciding on a name remember that your Instagram marketing abilities just expanded, as the social media site now allows direct messaging. This will allow you to form communities and send private promotions to individuals, so make sure your name shines with all the glitz and glamour you can muster.

Be a Game Show Host

This is not to say you must wear loud polyester suits and kiss your clients on the cheek. You can take on the “game show host” persona and bombard the public with your energy and brand by holding Instagram contests. For example, retailer H&M launched an Instagram contest for Xmas in 2013 in which participants could win gift cards. Instagram users simply had to enter #HMHolidayGiftCard with each photo submitted.

When launching an Instagram contest you can profit from the tactic on multiple levels. Obviously, it will increase awareness to your brand, products and services. But you can also keep the photos and use them for your website, off line marketing, blogs or social media endeavors. Just be sure to publish a press release on a site with a high Google page ranking (you might as well get a strong back link while you are at it) and outline the terms and conditions of the contest. Then direct your clients to the press release and website for the contest rules.

Choose Your Contest #

A hash tag allows all images, links, content, and remarks to be pooled together for a single viewing, and as such you will need a hash tag for your Instagram contest. The best hash tags will include your brand and the prize. For example, if you own a travel agency called T&A Travel, and you are asking contest participants to send in their vacation photos to win a free vacation to Sierra Leone, your hash tag could be #SierraLeoneTripT&A. Just be sure to capitalize the first letter of each word so everything doesn’t run together in a jumbled mess.

Practice What You Preach

Encourage your employees to open an Instagram account and post daily images. Show them how to use the various filters for special effects, how to capture natural light, and promote quirkiness. We have all seen those artsy photos of the first morning cup of coffee. Encourage your team members to think more creatively: a photo of a cup of coffee next to a remedial drawing of a collapsed camel with the words “Wednesday Hump Day Warrants Coffee” will provide an image that is far more memorable. But don’t stop there: have your employees create a hash tag where people can respond to the challenge “show us how YOU plan to make it through YOUR Wednesday”. This will encourage a heightened level of interaction between the business and a domino effect of image-hungry consumers chomping at the bit to show their creative eye.

via Business 2 Community http://ift.tt/1hj3E0O