Free website created on
instagram wisdome
instagram growth tips
source:here
A CMO study indicates that marketers plan to double their spending on social media over the next few years. Yet studies also indicate that they are not equipped to manage all the challenges that social media presents. With new tools and platforms emerging constantly, businesses can easily fall into the trap of viewing social media through a tactical lens rather than a strategic one.
Search “social media marketing tips” on Google and you come away with over 56,000,000 articles to choose from. Yet despite all the tips and advice, there is no one-size-fits-all social media branding strategy. You need a process that leads to individual solutions.
Wherever you are with your social media branding strategy, this process will fix and build an authentic and strong brand image on social media to amplify your media strategy efforts.
The social media presences of many companies suffer from a lack of focus. Too often, companies allow the platform to define the content rather than choosing the platforms that best serve the brand. Companies do this because they think they must have a presence on every major social media platform to be relevant.
So, what is a brand?
As Jeff Bezos says, a brand is what people say about you after you leave the room.
Every decision related to your brand matters, especially in an age where information is so easily accessible and opinions form very quickly.
Volvo, for example, focused for years on safety and building the safest cars on the road. A decision that continues to affect how people think about the brand. Take their new ads, such as the one below:
You can better communicate your niche through the following steps:
To be successful, your social media branding strategy must be built around reaching the right audience at the right time with content that is insightful and valuable to them. To achieve this, you will need to improve your listening skills before your communication skills.
Listening to what your audience says on social media is often referred to as social listening. Hootsuite defines it as:
“The process of monitoring social media channels for mentions of your brand, competitors, products, and any other ideas or themes that are relevant to your business. The next step is analyzing that information for actionable insights. Those actions can range from engaging a happy customer to shifting your overall brand positioning strategy.”
In other words, you want to understand the context and larger trends around what people say on social media about your industry and brand. But going through each message and assessing it is impossible. A better way is to assess a collection of social media messages to become aware of trends and issues.
Lululemon, for example, was forced to withdraw women’s pants from its shelves because they were too transparent. People took to social media to discuss the issue. But the brand did not address the issue on social media or on its website.
This, in turn, affected the fitness retailer’s stock price because it ignored the issue.
Why should you use social media listening to fix your brand strategy?
By using it to:
How do you engage in social listening?
Step 1 – Use tools to set up a social listening system.
Step 2 – Listen when anyone talks about your brand.
Step 3 – Listentoo conversations about your competitors.
Step 4 – Respond to comments (either negative or positive) and join in on relevant conversations as quickly as you can.
Step 5 – Take notes on patterns and other observations about what people say and how they react to your brand.
Step 6 – Act on the information and insights.
Source: http://pheromonesinc.com
Instagram is a very powerful social media tool, and it’s not just millennials that are targeted by this platform. The demographic is growing, as the future of social media is trending towards the Instagram-like interface and away from Facebook. Instagram is arguably the most powerful social media platform currently when it comes to sharing images.
Of course, Instagram now has Snapchat chomping at its heels, but when it comes to the business world, Instagram is king of branding businesses using images. Don’t forget hashtags, too. Now that you’ve had a better introduction to Instagram if you’re not as familiar with the social media platform as you’d like to be, it’s time to discover these 7 Instagram marketing secrets that can help brand your business and connect you with more customers.
Instagram is a powerful marketing tool in and of itself, by producing great content. NOT the usual BUY HERE B.S but good quality images that will engage users and you will build a following of potential buyer fast. The last Instagram campaign i built gained 2700 followers in 3 weeks.
Let’s look at those hashtags. Whether you use your business name in a hashtag or go about things a different way, hashtag branding is key to building a following on Instagram. The use of hashtags on Instagram can also translate into expanding your Twitter audience. Failing to get creative with hashtags, however, is going to make your efforts look outdated. Play around with certain hashtags, and the ones that stick and help brand your business should be part of your business profile.
Currently Instagram allows you to use unto 30 hashtags. I often find this tactic results in poor quality user interactions. Instead you should try to write more detailed descriptions of the image you’re posting.
Just like hashtag consistency is important to branding your business, image consistency is one of the key tips when it comes to the 7 Instagram marketing secrets. And, you can look at your competition to get a good idea about what to do when it comes to image consistency. That doesn’t mean using the same images over and over again of course, but instead the same types of images. Naturally, you’re going to keep searching out new ideas and expanding your base, but you want to focus on your niche to build that foundation.
Expanding your brand and customer base has been mentioned, but of course you also have to stay focused on brand relevancy. At the same time, you have to reach out to those customers, but you have to strike a balance between doing that and keeping true to your brand. You don’t want to overreach because that’s going to make your brand look less trustworthy.
Have you ever been on Instagram and Twitter and noticed that a business or person is posting over and over again? Your whole feed can be taken up by attention hogs. As a business, you absolutely never want to do that. There are other ways to get the job done. You do need to make regular posts, but you never want to do too much. There are other parts of Instagram marketing that are equally important. Work on getting people to see what you have posted through other means than simply filling their feeds with everything under the sun.
If you don’t know Instagram well enough as a social media platform, then you might not know about Instagram filters and other photo editing tools. Editing your photos gives you an advantage because you can make your brand look better that way. Don’t make your photos look fake, but instead accentuate their beauty with the tools that are available.
Instagram marketing is all about building that foundation as mentioned, and once you’ve established that foundation, your brand presence online is ready to grow. Now sometimes it’s hard to keep things fresh. You’ve been told to study the competition, and one of the 7 Instagram marketing secrets is to copy them. However, you have to know how to do that and when in order for it to work.
Furthermore, you don’t exactly have to get the ideas directly from your competition. You might get ideas from other businesses not even in your niche by simply taking a look around on the social media platform. Social media, especially Instagram, is about what’s hot, what’s new. You might find out something about current events that is trending on Instagram and somehow tie it back into your brand. That being said, don’t just pay attention to posts from businesses but also regular people and powerful Instagram users who have branded themselves.
Also, while images rule Instagram, don’t forget about the use of videos. These are videos that you can use on multiple platforms, not just Instagram. Videos are a powerful marketing tool these days, increasingly so, which means you can reach forward by pursuing videos on Instagram. Instagram just opened their video system to allow users to post 60 second video’s.
Remember that Instagram is a social media network. As a business, you need to be interacting with your customers and with other business professionals. Leveraging those relationships with other businesses can be your best marketing tool on Instagram.
When you see images that catch your attention on Instagram, are they stock photos? Of course they aren’t, even though some people do try and get away with doing this. Be creative, get help with your pictures by hiring a photographer if necessary and share images that captivate your audience. Instagram is as powerful of a marketing tool as you allow it to be for your business.
source: here
A quick Google search reveals that there are thousands of people online who want to give you advice about how to run your social media program.
They have opinions about whether or not to follow back, which platforms are right for your business, how many times a day to post, when to post on which platforms, and whether or not paid posts are a worthwhile investment.
I will not be weighing in on any of these specific topics.
Instead, I spoke with two of my savviest social media friends in order to get their thoughts on the basics of establishing a social media program for your business.
1. Keep it short, sweet and saucy
The first rule of thumb for any social media program is that when it comes to social media, less is always more, and—to the extent that it makes sense for your brand— it’s best to keep content “saucy,” says Amy Vosters, a social media and growth marketing strategist.
“You’ve got 140 characters to work with on Twitter, but tweets of 100 characters or fewer are ideal, as that leaves room for people to add their two cents or hashtags to yours before reposting,” says Vosters.
2. Adhere to the dos and don’ts of engagement
Do ask questions, and use trending hashtags.
Vosters recommends Hashtagify to explore the ecosystem of hashtags relevant to your company and suggests including a maximum of three in any given post. If you include more, your posts will look cluttered and unreadable.
The list of don’ts is a bit more extensive, however:
Don’t be overly loud or competitive. Avoid being too aggressive.
Don’t use too many exclamation points. Nobody likes a shouter.
Don’t congratulate top engagers. As Vosters puts it, “Keep the cheese to a minimum.”
Don’t send new followers automatic messages. However, actual messages—when appropriate—are fine.
Don’t do “ask me anythings.” They go wrong far more often than they go right.
It is also best to avoid contests, generally speaking, and “fluff.” People have enough garbage in their feed. You want to offer them some value. If you don’t have anything smart or interesting to say, it’s probably best not to post at all.
3. A quote card is worth a thousand words
It goes without saying that images should be a crucial element of your social media strategy. If you don’t have the budget to pay for a subscription to Getty or Shutterstock, there are many less expensive options, including a handful of free sites that may or may not be useful, depending on what sort of imagery your content requires.
A handful that have proven helpful to me at various points in time include:
Pixabay — a great, searchable database of stock photos
Unsplash — when you need something moodier or artier
New Old Stock — vintage photos from public archives
Pic Jumbo — another great free resource with a very affordable paid premium tier
Free Images — largest repository on the web, with both free and paid photo options
Pexels — another searchable option for arty photos
Foter — 335 million free photos that you can search or browse by category
But quote cards are another effective visual element to keep in your social arsenal and are a great way to highlight company credos or CEO quotes. There are a few online tools available to easily create them. Ruben Ramirez, longtime social media guru and current Bospar account director, has a distinct preference:
“Use Canva. Its platform is very user-friendly, and you have all the tools you need to make a great quote card quickly and easily.”
source:here
|