Whether you run a brick-and-mortar store or sell products 100% online, you need to be social media-ready. To help, we’re creating a guide to social tools, starting with Instagram tips for business. Since Instagram is a key player with younger generations—it’s one of the most powerful tools for your social growth.
Instagram: Visual Storytelling
Instagram is a social platform that’s perfect for highlighting your company culture, your team’s hobbies, and your general brand lifestyle. Instagram provides a visual narrative to help users understand the essence of your brand and products. When users connect to your product and view it as authentic, they’re more committed to it.
Why You Want Instagram
1. It’s Addictive — Today, 59% of Instagramers user the platform daily, and 35% visit it several times a day. This means lots of views for your brand here.
2. Demographics Using It — Instagram has overtaken Facebook and Twitter as the networks with the greatest population of young users. This is a key demographic for many products, and the demographic will age with the platform.
- 55% of adults using Instagram are 18-29.
- 28% of all adults are on Instagram for social media.
How to Start on Instagram
Sign up with an email address, your name, username, and password. You can also log in with Facebook if you prefer. We recommend you make your account public. You want people to find your organization!
Set up your bio with a brief description of your business and a link to your site. The only way visitors will end up on your website is from the link in the bio. That being said, the link in the bio should always be the most relevant link on your site for visitors. This may be a landing page, a product page, or perhaps a current campaign.
Instagram recently launched Business Profiles as well. Business Profiles are open to those who already have a Facebook page for their business. This allows customers to get in touch and either: call, text, or email with a tap of the contact button—and even get directions.
Insights on Instagram is another new feature that is gradually rolling out. Insights will give businesses actionable information about who their followers are and which posts resonate better than others—all from within the mobile app. This can be extremely helpful for business owners, since learning more about the customer behavior and demographics of the audience will help you create targeted, relevant, and timely content.
Using Insights, you can also see metrics like top posts, reach, overall impressions, and even engagement around posts. This will help you collect data on your followers soon like their gender, age, and location.
Instagram’s top post Insights will show overall reach, impressions and even engagement.
Posting Tips for Business Instagram
Post photos of your team, behind-the-scenes shots of your business, screenshots of your website, product pictures, or other engaging imagery that speaks to your company culture. Instagram will humanize you, so don’t be afraid to be human here. Include hashtags that are relevant to your brand since they help people discover your product.
Brands Really Killing It with Instagram
- Intel’s Instagram may not have a huge number of followers, but their account is really filled with creativity, images of the Lego man wearing an Intel shirt and “rising above the bar,” and robots on the bottom of the pool. It’s fun, and it’s engaging.
- Virgin America images on Instagram make their flights look more like parties than airplane rides. The lighting and the cocktails being handed out to cabins full of passengers create excitement about travel on their brand.
- Red Bull has a super cool Instagram filled with snowboarding, skiing, moto, music, gaming—you name it. Not a big surprise, but the quality of the action shots is actually quite impressive.
- Macy’s does a great job showing off merchandise and behind-the-scenes exclusive images of parades and runway shots. They have lots of creative angles and up-close images of the floats.
- Sharpie floods their Instagram with images of drawings done with Sharpie by fans. Most of the drawings are really impressive, check out the super realistic looking Scrabble board or the cool rock art.
- General Electric uses photos to give you an up-close look at their machinery and their process. The account uses creative photography to make those beautiful engines look photogenic.
- Free People turns their customers into their models. It’s a popular Instagram strategy. They ask their users to post pictures of themselves wearing Free People clothing, add a hashtag, and then they include them on their Instagram—even their official website sometimes! Buyers love knowing how a pair of pants actually look in real life.
- Taco Bell shows off a good variety of food pics and creative usage for their products. Check out this wreath made from Taco Bell sauce packets.
- Starbucks has over 1 million followers on Instagram. The majority of images are submitted by fans and focused on their coffee. Starbucks really hands the reigns over to fans as far as content goes, which leads to it feeling authentic.
- Adidas Originals Instagram account reached four times more followers than Adidas’ main account. What’s the secret? The company’s main account is rather dull—shoes, conservative culture—while the Adidas Originals account is cool pictures of people living in the shoes. For some that’s playing DJ, exploring a city, or other activities with personality.
Conclusion: Business Instagram & Authenticity
Post photos of your team, use original (preferably inventive) content and don’t be afraid to bring in photos taken by your users. Originality on Instagram is key and over-controlling it will kill its authenticity. Let it be a true window into your products and the joy they bring users.
Need help getting your Instagram or content strategy rolling? Reach out anytime. We can craft a content plan to help your organization grow.
