<a href="https://www.silkstream.net/blog/2015/06/the-importance-of-instagram.html"><img title="The importance of Instagram" src="https://www.silkstream.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/instagram-infographic.png" alt="Instagram Infographic: The importance of Instagram" width="100%" height="auto";Created by <a href="http://www.silkstream.net/">Silkstream</a>
Do you overlook Instagram marketing?
‘It’s only used by young people..’
For those of you who haven’t heard of it yet, Instagram is a popular image and video sharing platform. It’s built mainly for use through the app, but Instagram do also have a website where users can browse through their feed, or view their own profile. According to TechCrunch, Instagram is the fastest growing social site globally, and It’s not at all surprising. As stated on our infographic above, Instagram has 300 million active users each month, after launching just 5 years ago. Impressive right?
Although it’s success is recognised by most marketers, others are still skeptical of the platform. In 2014, 53% of Instagram’s users were age 18-29, meaning the audience is dominated by a young demographic. But does this mean Instagram marketing is a waste of time? I think not!
70 million photos are shared on Instagram daily, with a whopping 2.5 billion new likes each day and the average user spending 257 minutes of their time each month choosing to explore the app. Although Instagram isn’t yet as big as our familiar friends Twitter and Facebook, it can be the perfect platform for some brands, specifically those which are Ecommerce based.
Many brands have success on Instagram. Although as previously mentioned, Ecommerce brands perform the best on the platform, this doesn’t rule out the use of Instagram for other types of businesses. For businesses who’s focuses are not on Ecommerce, Instagram is beneficial for brand awareness, much like other social media platforms. Instagram may not be the perfect platform for your business, but this doesn’t mean you can’t have an account which is updated every so often, for users to browse through if and when they please. The use of an additional platform opens up the potential to attract a whole new audience, and can consequently result in more website traffic and/or sales.
Links on Instagram
Unlike Twitter and Facebook, links are unable to be used within Instagram posts. Although links can be pasted into the descriptions and comments of a post, they are only made clickable when used in a user’s bio on their profile. Despite the fact this may be an inconvenience for businesses who want to link the images they upload on Instagram to product pages on their website, the main link provided in the user bio can still generate traffic. It’s a good idea to use the clickable link you have in order to direct any potential traffic to the homepage of your company website. This will allow potential customers to find the products/services which they have seen images and videos of on your Instagram profile for themselves. This way they are encouraged to browse to find what they are looking for, and may also find other products which they like the look of, and hadn’t previously seen before.
The use of Hashtags
Likewise to Twitter, hashtags are very important on Instagram. Research has shown that posts on Instagram with 11+ hashtags earn the highest interaction, meaning you can go pretty much hashtag crazy and it will actually benefit your engagement. Thanks to Instagram’s hashtag search function, the use of hashtags will increase the visibility of your posts, and bring in relevant traffic (if you hashtag relevant things). In order to increase your visibility through hashtags, it’s always beneficial to conduct a little bit of hashtag research. Hashtag research can increase your impressions, as well as allowing your content to be made visible for relevant search terms.
Forrester research found that Instagram actually generates 120x more engagement per follower than Twitter. What are you waiting for?
https://instagram.com/press/
We’ve been debating whether to use Instagram for our website for a while. How does Instagram work better for websites that are Ecommerce based?
Hi Dave. Instagram can work well for Ecommerce based sites as it is a great way to showcase your products. By using the in-app instagram image editor, you can adapt images to make them look however you want them to feel, whether this be through the use of a filter or just simply adjusting the brightness levels etc. In your case I would recommend, if possible, to use images/videos of products in use, or installed. There are many things you could do on Instagram for your sector of work, all it takes is some brainstorming, which can be very exciting! If you would be interested in coming in for an hour or so for a chat about Instagram or any other social media platforms for Ecommerce, feel free to email me some dates you would be available to chloe@silkstream.net :)