Leaving no stone unturned, what better and fun way is there to advertise your brand through Instagram! With over 500 million daily users, and 95 million photos and videos shared daily, it’s hard to miss the not so very old photo sharing, video sharing social networking website – Instagram.
Instagram Instantly Strikes Your Connection With The Masses
Instagram derived its name from the instant camera and telegram; as it provides you instant photos and just like a telegram to people, it sends out your message to your near and dear ones with just a click.
A huge platform for ordinary citizens, social media lovers, models, designers, celebrities, gym freaks, foodies, travelers, video bloggers and creative people. A place for knowledge, laughter, inspiration, places to go to, food to eat, the latest fashion trend and a lot more a super enjoyable mobile-friendly app.
It is a platform where you can showcase your lifestyle, share funny memes, tag people and make comments on the post and the best of all instant messaging.
Why Instagram?
It’s open for all : It doesn’t matter if you are running a small business or large one. If you have something to show and sell to the world you can very well make use of this amazing platform.
Creating connections : It allows businesses to share and express what they want to communicate with their audience in the most simple and fun manner.
Going with the trend : The need to go with the change is the utmost important technique for the survival, expansion and growth for any organization.
No screen bombing : Viewers get the feel of their home screen while looking at the ads just like any other shared image.
Less competition: Most of the marketers tend to use Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus. There is still far less competing as compared to those social media platforms.
Targeting of the audience : You get to target your choice of audience, as per age, gender, like, etc.
Visual marketing : People like to see, share, tag and buy. With Instagram filters and advertisement options, this just becomes a bag of goodies to showcase your audience.The user can simply move forward by going to the ad, liking it, following it.
Reaching out : You get more opportunities to connect with people and interact with them as the followers in your network add up.
Potential of Instagram
According to Selfstartr, organic marketing reach of Instagram is on a consistent growth. In 2012, 13% of the adults were reachable via organic promotion; that is – without any paid advertisements. In 2015, this increased to 28%. This confirms that there is 115% growth in organic marketing reach.
The user’s engagement is critical for conversions. 68% Instagram users engage with advertisements on a regular basis. If we compare this with Facebook, only 32% user engagement is seen.
Instagram is relatively a new platform when it comes to marketing your products. This means, there is a considerable growth for the early birds. As of 2015, only 36% marketers use Instagram for promoting their brands.
Therefore, there is immense scope for business expansion and growth. Talking about per post reach on Instagram, it has a success rate of 100%, that is, every follower reads the post of the followed brand. Higher the reach, higher the probability of conversions!
Instagram Ad Formats:
Single image ad: You can show your ideas through still photography.
Carousel ad: Showing multiple images which viewer needs to swipe to see; related to one advertisement
Video ad: With the use of videos, showing your product to your audience is much more fun and interesting.
The recommended image size for your Instagram advertisement is 1080 x 1080 pixels; videos should be less than 30 MB in size and a maximum of 30 seconds long.
What Can You Showcase Through Ads?
- Your products
- Teasers or sneak peek into your brand new products and services
- Behind the scene photos and videos
- Photos shared by your customers
- Showcase events
- Sale / clearance slots
- Special offers on your products or services
Once you have the attention of your audience, the following things can be done:
Links to your website: You can add links to where you want your audience to go to.
App download: Download your app and related app.
Mass awareness: People will engage and start doing what they love most i.e. sharing and tagging while creating awareness and spreading the word about your brand.
How To Be Different With Your Instagram Ads?
Use of hashtags: This is the most shared and useful technique to have users finds you, in their usual way.
Engage with your followers: Keep a check on what your followers like and share. Share your follower’s post, and make them feel special. Personal interaction is the key to success. It helps in building trust and improves public relations.
Ask for feedback from customers: You can always ask your customers directly to comment on the ads, what they feel and if they have to share any feedback. This always helps in improvising, and it will provide an insight into customer’s needs.
Have contests: Various contests such as a hashtag contest, best picture contest, and biggest fan contest are there to engage with the users.
Conclusion
Connecting with your audience is the backbone of any advertisement. With a single picture or a small video, you can spread information about your products or services. While showcasing to the world, you have the joy of connecting to the lives of your customer directly by seeing what they like about you, share about you, comment and give feedbacks to you.
The trend for Instagram advertisement is still new, and people are still trying to find out ways to do it, but one should go on and have their very own Instagram moment and feel the connection!
