Instagram Social Media Marketing | Do You Need An Instagram?

Do You Need An Instagram?

When it comes to Instagram social media marketing, Instagram is the relatively new guy on campus (launched in October 2010). The photo sharing application has taken the world by storm and is now considered one of the best platforms to visually connect with your consumers. So, should your brand jump on the bandwagon and take advantage of the multitude of business opportunities that Instagram offers?

The obvious answer is yes, every business should be on Instagram. Instagram is one of the most powerful tools used to reach consumers in the moment. In the past few years, Instagram has surpassed other social media platforms in terms of popularity and there is a much higher percentage of active users on Instagram than on other popular social platforms.

It’s estimated that Facebook has 1.1 billion monthly visitors, while Instagram has 500 million. It’s also noted that Instagram users tend to be younger than those active users on Facebook. Keep in mind, that Instagram is relatively new, compared to Facebook, and it’s growing at a rapid rate in a short amount of time.

“On April 9, 2012, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger sold their 13-person startup, Instagram, to Facebook for $1 billion.” – Business Insider

So, why is Instagram so important to businesses like yours? 

Instagram is instant, engaging, visually compelling, and rapidly growing.  If your business is currently not active on the visual world of Instagram, don’t rule it out for the following 4 reasons:

1. Instagram Has Unusually High Engagement:

With over 500M+ active monthly users on Instagram, businesses should start to recognize the need to have a presence on Instagram and the enormous potential behind the social platform. Instagram continues to have rapid growth year over year (see chart below), and is starting to follow in Facebook’s footsteps – it’s parent company.

I wanted to test the engagement of Instagram versus that of Facebook, by sharing the same image across both platforms (keep in mind our current Facebook following is higher than our Instagram following, 627 versus 146). Interested in the results?

2. Visual Content + Creative:

Visual marketing is everything and therefore it should be a part of your content strategy. Visual content tells a story better than any type of copy [text] ever will. Instagram makes it easy for brands to take a plain old image and transform it into a shareable story that consumers can connect with. [See image below]

3. Show your personality:

Build your brand personality [put more YOU] on all social media platforms, including Instagram. Show your customers who you are, so that they can fall in love with you, your product, or your service offering. It’s all about connecting with your customers and continuing to build the relationship.

Instagram Tip: Market your personality not your product or service offering 

4. Analytical Tracking:

Analytics is extremely valuable for marketers and brands. The data behind Instagram allows brands to better understand who your followers are, when they’re online, and what content is performing best. Instagram breaks it out so that you can see where your followers are located, their gender, and their age range. With the data that’s available to you, you’ll soon learn what the best time is to schedule an Instagram post for the highest amount of engagement.

In the end, if your brand is not on Instagram, it should be.