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Instagram is a rapidly evolving powerhouse for content creators. We look at how to make the most of the platform in our latest infographic & trends report. With more than 700 million active monthly users, Instagram has emerged as a platform that publishers and brands alike can’t ignore. New reports suggest that the sought-after Generation Z is flocking to the platform, some of them even skipping Facebook entirely. To stay ahead of the need-to-know trends on Instagram, we rolled up our newest research and insights into our “What You Need to Know for Instagram” report. Read the report for: - The top publishers on Instagram and their strategies - How Instagram stacks up against Facebook for brands - Why influencer posts are making a big difference for brands - How top creators are using photo vs. video posts. The growth of Instagram video and the perfect video length And for a quick look at what’s winning the day on Instagram, check out our handy infographic below...
Instagram has seen incredible growth since it was acquired by Facebook in 2012 -- in fact it’s grown by 400 percent! That's why for marketers, it can be an extremely helpful tool. Why Instagram? First, Instagram is easy to use, which is a big plus. Also, it’s not (yet) as ad-driven as Facebook, making it a friendlier option for those who prefer to spend marketing funds elsewhere. Since Instagram is visual, capturing someone’s attention on Instagram is much easier than on Facebook. Plus, the meaty part of this, is that it drives 58 times more engagement per follower than Facebook, and 120 times more than Twitter. That’s significant to anyone who likes numbers! Creative Instagram strategies By its very nature, Instagram leaves lots of room for creativity. But, if you’re planning to use the network as a marketing channel, it’s best to put some strategy in place before leaping into the fray. Beyond the obvious items like having a solid bio with your URL, a great profile photo and connecting your account to Facebook, I’ve pulled together several ideas worth considering....
Do you know how to use Instagram to market your business? Do you get enough interaction with your brand? Do you know how to get more followers on Instagram Instagram is a cool way to connect with your socially engaged consumers. There are more than 400 million active users on Instagram every month, and every day 3.5 billion photos are liked. Use Instagram for business purposes in the right way, and you could have an instant viral marketing success. Use it wrong, and your efforts on the site could be a big empty fail. Do you use Instagram to tell a visual story about your brand, instantly engage with your followers wherever they are, and even get very real user-generated content through photo contests on the app Whether you are new, you want to find out how to get more Instagram followers or just want a few more pointers, we’ve put together 52 tips to market your brand more authentically on Instagram....
Who could have predicted when Instagram first came on the scene five years ago that it would have experienced such skyrocketing popularity? The platform, which has gained over 300 million monthly active users in such a short time, clearly made some correct assumptions about the future of social media usage.
Whether due to the increasingly visual nature of social media or users’ growing displeasure with the bombardment of sponsored content, political opinions, and negativity on some other platforms, Instagram is truly in the right place at the right time with its photo and video-focussed offering.
In fact, according to content marketing company TrackMaven, Instagram has a much higher engagement ratio over time relative to all other major social networks. Their findings echo those of Forrester research, which noted that Instagram’s ratio of interactions to followers was 140 times greater than Twitter’s....
Instagram is by far the sexiest social platform on the mainstream market. Its entire design behind its existence is to expose content in its purest form with simplicity and consistency. Until just recently was it virtually free of sponsored ads, but even now that the floodgates have opened for brands to promote, the experience hasn't been rattled.
Sure, it has its bumps and bruises. Some seemingly intentional, others just plain frustrating (come on multiple account login and multiple hashtag search). But overall, Instagram has totally proven to be the purest social platform, especially for us visual learners.
As we've learned with being successful on social media, with great product comes great demand. And with great demand comes high competition. As the platform grows, the harder it is to be heard on it. And even if you do generate tons of followers, if you're a brand, the next question is, how do I convert and actually get a return on the time I'm investing in building this account? So, instead of giving up hope, thinking you'll never have an Instavoice, here are 7 steps to producing a stunning Instagram account that actually converts....
In its own way, it's been as defining a restriction as Twitter's 140-character limit. Instagram photos (and videos) come in one format: square. It forces the service's photographers into choosing thoughtful compositions, and provides an aesthetic link to the square snapshots that folks once took with Instamatics and Polaroids.
Except . . . Instagram users have stubbornly ignored this limitation. Actually, 20% of the photos people see on the service are portrait or landscape images that have been padded with white or black borders to fill out unused space, especially images that involve buildings, large groups of people, and other subjects that tend to be tall or wide. There are whole apps and tutorials designed to make this easy.
So maybe it's not that huge a deal that Instagram is taking this workaround that its users have embraced and turning it into a standard featurse. Henceforth, the service's iOS and Android apps will allow folks to share images and videos in a variety of aspect ratios....
Right off the bat, Instagram makes itself more difficult than other social media networks. Instead of posting anything you please, you’re forced to use a picture or video with every post – and that picture or video is the main focus of your post.
That means you’re constantly creating new visual content – if you’re not, others who are creating new eye-catching Instagram content will pull right ahead. Especially in the jewelry and fashion industries, Instagram has fierce competition for viewers’ attention.
The best way to get ahead is to do something truly unique and creative that your competitors aren’t doing. But everyone needs to start somewhere.
We’ll go over three general Instagram marketing strategies and give you real examples of brands using each one so you have the resources to get started right away....
For the past year, American Express has experimented with turning over its social accounts to influencers for short bursts of time to pick up followers and buzz. And it appears to be working—at least based on some results from a recent two-week Instagram campaign.
On Nov. 9, AmEx gave six Instagrammers the keys to its account as part of the #MyAmex campaign. The posts were created by graphic designer Ann Kim, chef Christina Tosi, Patrick Janelle (who won the CFDA's first-ever Fashion Instagrammer of the Year award this year), fashion designers Oleema and Kalani Miller, Team Epiphany managing partner Coltrane Curtis and designer Timo Weiland.
The group posted a series of pictures (see examples) depicting how AmEx impacts their businesses.According to AmEx, the #MyAmex posts generated 23 percent more engagement than the brand's other Instagram pictures. AmEx also doubled its average number of daily Instagram followers for two weeks. In total, the campaign generated more than 10 million impressions and 40,000 engagements....
Seen through the filter of Instagram, the world is a beautiful place: high-contrast blue skies; sepia-tinted sunsets; exquisite plates of food and raindrops sliding down windows in perfect formation. It may be a manipulated perspective on life, but 200 million people across the world now use the photo app, sharing 60m pictures a day. Yet for some users, Instagram is generating more than appreciative likes and comments as they document their lives, travels and eating habits on their smartphones.
From Nike to the Namibian tourist board, brands and organisations are turning to the most followed users in the pursuit of a broader and younger audience – and are paying handsomely for their services.
Cue the rise of the Instagram professionals, users who began using the app for fun but are now earning six-figure salaries and being flown around the world to take photos to share with their thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands, of followers....
The Guide to Instagram for Business is an in-depth tutorial on how Instagram works and how brands (including yours) can integrate it in their social marketing mix to increase their online reach and attract new business.
In it, you’ll find all the basics on getting started with Instagram, as well as recommendations on advanced campaigns that provide a meaningful experience for your Instagram community....
New technology breeds brand experimentation. Here, RPA's J Barbush provides a brief troubleshooting guide for Instagram's new time-lapse app, Hyperlapse.
Participation leads to inspiration, so whenever a new social tool comes out, I test it myself before introducing it to clients. While I was at a photo shoot in downtown L.A. this week, I took some time to play with Hyperlapse, a new app from Instagram that lets you convert video to time-lapse. Here are some things brands should keep in mind when using it....
Instagram can be a fun way to stay in contact with people and push branding in a very visual way, but it isn’t much more than a steady stream of images and video, or is it?
In IKEA’s latest innovation, they have taken the idea of an Instagram feed, turned it upside down, and used it to showcase their very own catalog as a very stylish website, right from Instagram.IKEA and Russian ad agency, Instinct, have hacked Instagram to create their very own catalog-esque website; complete with a series of interconnected accounts, right from the Instagram feed....
Do you want to attract more followers on Instagram?
Are you using Instagram to its full potential?
Instagram engagement is 58 times higher per follower than Facebook. Don’t underestimate its marketing potential.
In this article I’ll show you how to make your brand stand out on Instagram to gain more followers and bring better exposure to your business....
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Influencer marketing has become the hot topic on many marketer’s lips, and when you think about the potential, it’s not hard to understand why. With its community of over 400 million active users, including many incredible content creators, Instagram has become a top visual marketing platform for all kinds of businesses—start-ups and huge global brands alike. The latest algorithm update by Instagram (posts are now shown based on engagement rather than in chronological order) means that paid advertising and influencer marketing have just become more important than ever before....
Jasmine shares one of her favorite quotes from author Simon Sinek, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” In her opinion, there’s no better platform than Instagram to showcase why you do something. She believes Instagram’s powerful storytelling components give you the ability to make customers loyal before a purchase has been made. If you can tell a powerful story in fewer than 87 characters (the caption limit), along with a photo that matches and elevates the storytelling component, you’ll win at Instagram....
B2B Instagram accounts tend to have a bad reputation. They usually feature a lot of employee group shots, maybe some at industry conferences, or even office images if they’re lucky enough to have a sleek design. Unfortunately, many of these accounts are not very exciting. The surprising thing is, however, that many of these brands have great content marketing hubs.
So why the disconnect? Perhaps the reason for this has to do with the fact that they may be using the channel for a different business case, something like recruiting. In reality, any social channel, whether it be Instagram, Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest, should be viewed as an extension of and a distribution channel for your content marketing program.
Some of the content may be created specifically for that channel, but the tone, messaging, and overall look and feel should remain consistent. Here are my favorite examples of B2B brands who get it right when it comes to using Instagram as an extension of their content marketing....
While it is undeniable Instagram has become an indispensable social network for brands, few of them are able to benefit from their digital communication strategy!
Whether through lack of content, ideas or time (or all that at a time), many brands on the social network decide to give up or abandon it in favor of more platforms generating benefits, such as may be a Facebook or Twitter.
But the app, which now has 300 million active users worldwide can prove to be a showcase of the DNA of a brand, allowing it to sublimate its products / services and create its own visual identity so instant and creative, to the delight of its customers and / or clients!
When we know more than 46% of its users follow brands, we can understand the interest and the need to read the following 20 tips. So here we go!...
If you're in the business of selling food products -- or drink products, for that matter -- then it's incredibly important to know how to take appetizing pictures. Today's consumers expect you to use visual platforms such as Instagram and Facebook to promote your products, offer recipe ideas, announce events and promotions, and show off the human side of your community and culture.
But what does a great food brand Instagram account look like? To give you a little inspiration, we've found 15 food and drink brands that are getting noticed on Instagram. Check them out for examples of how to use the visual platform to and gain fans, followers, and loyal customers....
Lately it seems like more and more social media managers are enthusiastic about Instagram and the opportunities there to engage with fans and share great photos and videos.
And the opportunities are big! With more than 300 million active users, Instagram is giving brands some great results. A Forrester study found that top brands’ Instagram posts generated a per-follower engagement rate of 4.21%—58 times more engagement than Facebook and 120 times more than Twitter!...
As the fastest-growing social network, Instagram is a must for brands looking to boost their social presence. At her recent webinar, social media consultant Jenn Herman discussed the best strategies and tactics to effectively engage your audience, promote your brand and create effective content on Instagram.
Before the webinar, Jenn took the time to answer a few of our questions on using Instagram effectively. Now, Jenn, along with Cision’s social media manager Shirien Elamawy, look at some of our webinar attendees’ questions, which weren’t answered during the time frame of the webinar....
How close is Instagram to Facebook when it comes to brand activity? Probably closer than you think.
Social media shop Shareablee pulled the following numbers, which illustrate that marketers—while most of them cannot run ads yet on Instagram—are highly active on the social-mobile phone app.
The intriguing stats below are for United States brand pages during the second quarter. Keep in mind that Facebook went live in 2004, and Instagram hasn't been around for four years yet.
Facebook garnered 2.5 million brand posts, a year-over-growth of 22 percent.
- Instagram had 493,000 of such posts, a 49 percent year-over-year jump.
- Facebook accrued 6 billion actions (likes, comments or shares).
- Instagram totaled 3.4 billion actions (likes, comments).
- Facebook had 2,396 actions per post.
- Instagram racked up 6,932 actions per post....
This made me think: how can I replicate Dan’s Instagram success,but with a much more toned-down version?
The toughest part of any marketing campaign is getting it off the ground. Once you have a proven model, scaling it becomes easy.
To get a head start, I hired Branden Hampton who has over 30 million social media followers among all his accounts. My goal was to pay Brandon to leverage his profiles and get his followers to come over to me.
But Brandon had a better idea. Why not start with an existing account that already has over 100,000 followers and then leverage his follower base?...
If you are marketing to teens (and college-age youths), the time has come to beef up your Instagram presence, as this recent SocialTimes article demonstrates. Here are tips for using Instagram to build your fan base and generate sales revenue, based in large part on what we learned during the successful launch of our sister company, Pro Stock Hockey.
A few quick stats on the company’s Instagram results to date: - 1,972 (highly relevant) followers
- 21,740 likes
- 260 likes/photo
- 99.9 acclaim value
- (BTW, Followers for Instagram is a great Instagram management app)...
The Adweek/Shareablee Instagram Video weekly chart is back after a brief hiatus, as we've tweaked our approach and will now regularly call out only the top-of-the-heap winners.
The chart below features eight categories (auto, beauty, consumer electronics, retail, fashion, celebrity, sports leagues and TV show), which will appear every week....
If you’re worried that your brand’s Instagramaccount is one of the ones currently buried in coffee cups or that you haven’t updated in awhile, now’s the time to revamp it and give your customers an up and personal, stylishly filtered, look at your business....
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Newswhip report on Instagram is worth reading.