Oh, Instagram… the ultimate source of distorted reality. This social platform opened up shop in 2010 and has been pushing brands/businesses to present the very best version of themselves ever since. As almost everyone knows, Instagram is an image and video based social media platform. For businesses, using Instagram to create brand awareness and find your brand’s voice can be extremely tough. But never fear, we’re here to help.
Instagram tends to sneak into the mindless scrolling category but if you’re doing it right, your business page will put a stop to that. We’ll run you through a few ideas but there’s a few key things you need to know first.
What does all of this mean for YOU? In our opinion, it means businesses need to take a hard look at whether or not it would be worth it to take the time to cultivate and maintain a business account on Instagram. If your audience/customer is somewhere in the ballpark of 45-60+, will you really be reaching them by creating and Insta account? Probably not.
There may be exceptions for highly visual or even humanitarian brands such as nonprofits, fire rescue, emergency services, disaster relief, medical service providers, etc. In our experience, brands with even a meager amount of their target audience on Instagram can perform well when the brand’s initiatives appeal to more than just their customer.
National Geographic and the American Red Cross are excellent examples of highly visual and humanitarian brands that have found success on Instagram. Though you would expect these brand audiences to be vacant from social media, they have both found great success on the platform. National Geographic (a highly visual brand) was listed as THE leading business instagram account in 2018 by HubSpot.
They’re highly impactful photos and videos have been successful in driving audience conversations on topics such as conservation, endangered animals and nature based cultures. They’re Instagram page currently has an impressive 91 million+ followers.
The American Red Cross is another one of those brands you’d expect to have a majority audience outside of Instagram (seems like they’d be more Facebook material if you ask us). Would you be surprised to know that their page has 118,000 followers? We were. Yes, the brand is massive on its own. But the key insight here is that though their audience is primarily of an older age range, they have still managed to use the visual nature of Instagram to get people talking and to follow their brand.
In contrast, if your brand’s target audience IS within the prime Instagram user age range (18 to 29 years old), this social platform could be a gold mine for engagement. Product based brands generally find wild success selling their wares here as they are able to post the best possible photos of their items and provide direct links to buy them.
Should you decide that it would be worthwhile to create your own Instagram account for business, there are a few key tools you should be aware of.
Instagram has partnered with music labels to allow users to incorporate music into their story videos or photos. Simply shoot your photo/video then swipe up and choose the “music” selection. The chosen track will them play over the photo or video posted to your Instagram story. As an added bonus, users are able to select a specific snippet of the song and click on the music sticker to learn more about the song and artist.
Photo credit - Instagram for business blog
All in all, Instagram is an industry leading and diverse tool that can really drive up your overall user engagement. The amount of tools available can be overwhelming at times but definitely aid in the creative process. We encourage you to give it a try. Instagram may be an easy means of creating brand awareness, getting your products out there and increasing sales.