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Instagram For Business

Rated Apple App Store’s number one app of 2012, Instagram took mobile devices by storm in late 2011. Now with over 100 million users checking in at least once a week, the photo-sharing and social networking service is one of the leading mobile social media apps worldwide. As Facebook and Twitter remain business staples for online promotional platforms IG, as the shorthand app users call it, is close behind.

I’ve been told I’m the Instagram Queen. I’ve helped my friends and businesses alike boost their accounts with just a few easy steps. If you follow these steps, you’ll see results. Pinky promise. So why isn’t your business Instagram account blowing up? Here’s why:

1. You Don’t Post Often Enough

It’s a bummer when I find one of my favorite brands, store or local concert venue on Instagram and I see that they haven’t posted a picture in over 2 weeks, even worse when the picture before that is over five weeks old. Frequently posting will boost your role in the Instagram community. I’d say three to four times a week is sufficient. If you are a product driven company, posting often is essential. New products can be posted and reviewed and will drive users to your website for purchase. For event driven businesses, posting upcoming events, pictures of an event currently taking place on location, and past photos of the event will give you ample material to keep yourself involved and ongoing promotion for your business will be easy and effortless.

2. You Aren’t Posting Pictures Relevant to Your Business

Posting pictures that have nothing to do with your business is a bad practice when it comes to business accounts. Since the app resides on a smartphone of an employee or owner of a business it’s easy to forget who your’re posting for. Make sure to know the difference between the two. If you have an account specifically for your business, keep your posts, likes and comments about the business. Keep your pictures of food, grandma’s 80th birthday party, and nights out with the girls for your personal account. It’s great for small businesses to have a face behind the brand, but know to keep the lives separate.

3. You Use Low Quality Pictures

Too often, I come across posts that are taken in low light, are overexposed, grainy, or are just bad quality images. Who wants to like that? Having high quality images are another piece of the pie in a great IG post. A good photo is a clear high-resolution picture that usually focuses on a specific object. When pulling pictures off sites online through Google searches or websites to save on your phone make sure the image is big enough. Instagram automatically stretches any image to the size of its screen, which is 612 pixels by 612 pixels; anything less than 500 will end up fuzzy or grainy. Using the filters provided by the app is personal preference. They can make a great quality image look better and a bad quality image look worse. I’ll leave the creativity up to you.

4. You Don’t Use Hash Tags

Don’t expect to lure users to your hilarious meme post if you don’t give them bait to find it. Use popular hash tags to act as a piece of bread on a bobber. Little fishies searching for popular tags will find you. If someone is looking for the hash tag #OrlandoMarketing, chances are they will find @ChatterBuzzMedia! Hash tags are an easy way to search other public accounts for images relating to the hash tag. Note: hash tags do not work with private accounts. Your business account should not be private; I think that goes without saying. So hash tag your little heart away. Let the users find you and you find the users, which brings me to my last point…

5. You Don’t Do Customer Outreach

Social media is not a one-way road. If you expect to get followers, likes and comments you better expect to do the same back. Doing outreach is important in any business on any social media platform. On Instagram, outreach can be done through searching hash tags, liking and commenting on pictures and following accounts that follow you. Find your competitors and people tagging hash tags that relate to your company. If you’re not nationwide, search within city tags, neighborhoods and community groups. Another tip is to link your Instagram account to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. This way people on these two platforms who also have a linked IG account will be easier to find and follow. Insta-friends! Having the accounts linked will be easier to share your posts across platforms. Killing three birds with one stone. Doing outreach can seem time consuming, but taking as little as 30 minutes out of your work day to post, respond and outreach to users will go a long way. Staying involved and active is key to any social media.

So, let’s review. Post often, relevant, quality photos with hash tags and don’t forget to reach out to your followers and potential followers. You are now five basic steps toward a rockin’ Instagram account that will boost your credibility, customer service and social presence online. Keep Calm & IG On.

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@ChatterBuzzMedia