This is the era which connects the individuals through social media more in comparison to face to face interaction. Invariably, marketing teams must use social media to amplify the brand reach. Instagram is an engaging platform that has come up with features that not only appeals to the users, but also allows polls or votes as a form of feedback from the audience.
Merely having an account on the social media handles are never enough, you will be amazed to know what all you can do with Instagram. It offers various features that could be excellently put to use for promoting your business. Here is a comprehensive list of features and ways to use them right that can help you get your business going.
Algorithmic View
After Facebook and Twitter, Instagram is also following the trend of using advanced algorithms to display the posts on the newsfeed. This feature will display the news that is deemed relevant by the software instead of showing them chronologically. Now this will control what the users would see on their newsfeed based on their activity on Instagram.
How can this be used by the companies to market their products better? The companies must realize that their task is not just to attract the users to follow their account. They have to ensure that the posts shared by the brand are constantly liked by the viewers. This will increase the visibility of your posts on their newsfeed.
Attract with Visuals
To lure users to like or comment on your posts, the trick is to create content that are visually attractive. The stats reflect that 93 percent of the users consider the visual images before buying the products from a firm. About 40 percent users are attracted to visual posts as compared to simple texts. One interesting finding is that the visuals that has a blue overtone, receives 25 percent more likes than the ones which don’t.
The posts that contain caption with mentions are 56 percent more appealing to the viewers. Besides, the Instagram posts that contain the locations, increases viewer engagement by 79 percent. So to continue being in the newsfeed of the users, the companies require to create a high quality and attractive video for them.
Instagram Stories
One of the most appealing features of Instagram involves the stories that you can create. It is a medium where you can generate short and fascinating visual or even go live! There are number of stuff that could be done with the stories.
For example, there is a feature that customizes the colour of the stories. The companies can use the colour of their logo as a theme to attract the users. A background colour can also be added to the Instagram stories. This will allow the marketing team to keep the insignia in the background and add a simple plain text, still being able to gather likes from the audience.
There are certain aspects that must be considered while uploading Instagram stories. These stories are only visible on the newsfeed for 24 hours and can only be viewed through the mobile phone application. The stories can record a video with maximum length of 15 seconds, the images can be viewed up to 10 seconds, and unlimited stories can be uploaded by the users.
The companies can record the number of views in each of their Instagram stories. The user name of the audience is also displayed on Instagram, further helping the promotional team of the firms to identify their targeted customers.
The crisp and remarkable visuals can be created by the marketing team to engage the viewers and attract them so as to improve their brand image. Boomerang and Hyperlapse can be used to upload content that is visually appeasing. The links to the Instagram stories can be shared in other social media platforms to enhance viewer rate on the posts.
Carousel Posts
This feature of Instagram is not a new one but is less explored by the users. The feature is very useful for marketing purpose as it permits to upload multiple images in one post. This increases the interest of the users due to its visual appeal. The blend of bright and high quality images or videos is the new thing that is fairly less known and can be put to the advantage of the organization.
Right Hashtags
Hashtags are the most popular stuff related to Instagram and Twitter. Hashtags permit you to follow the posts that could be used to benefit your company. The group that exhibits similar issues or likeness towards a trend, is followed by the company through the hashtags.
Each firm must have their own hashtags which would be followed by other users. These hashtags must be regularly followed or monitored by the promotional team of the organizations. The customary update of the hashtag page and communication with the customers assist the company to enlarge its size and networking capabilities.
Polls on Stories
Instagram features various ways to interact with the users that are beneficial for the companies. The polls feature pertaining to Instagram stories allows the viewers to give their vote or feedback. The organizations must choose wisely the questions that they wish to ask.
The popular view of the users will enable the firm to strategize their actions efficiently. The poll stickers permit you to customize the choices offered to the users and can be placed anywhere in the image.
Highlight the Stories
Usually, the Instagram stories that are made with so much caution and are a resultant of brainstorming for a while, disappear after 24 hours. Instagram created a feature called ‘highlights” to mitigate this issue. This will allow the users to retain their stories permanently on the timeline.
The users can select the Instagram stories that they wish to preserve from the achieve by naming it and choosing a cover for the same. The viewers will be able to see the stand-alone story whenever they tap on the circular icon.
Caption It Well
The users of Instagram are not accustomed to writing long captions which can depict an interesting story. Instagram has incorporated this new feature to write lengthy captions that permits the marketing team to create brand awareness. There are certain techniques that would come handy while writing the captions.
The social media marketers need to identify the targeted audience. The content has to be aligned to the preferences of the viewers. The content should not be very lengthy which might bore your audience.
The caption must contain certain key words and the first sentence requires being captivating. Finally, it has been correctly put that “to err is human”. So, rewrite as many times as you wish, till you get the perfect caption.
Keep a Tab
It is important to understand the reaction of the viewers on your stories. Instagram has the feature to ascertain the performance of the marketing campaign. Instagram offers a bit of analytical feature by displaying the number of views and likes received by the stories. This will assist in identifying the posts that capture the attention of the users. The marketing team can engage more audience by analysing the feedback on the previous posts and uploading the next ones accordingly.
Instagram can genuinely alter the face of social media marketing with its quirky features that appeals to the youth. The marketing team can connect to the generation which is known for its impulsiveness, by using the Instagram features accurately.
