Let’s admit that the flow of user engagement with branded content is the best on Instagram. There is absolutely no comparison to the reach and engagement to photo and videos achieve on Instagram compared to other social media platforms. Looking into the social network’s background, Instagram became popular when it was released in mid-2012 and has been popular ever since.
Features that have made people embrace Instagram were the trending feed, high definition photos, digital artists creating exceptional graphics. The opportunity to engage and connect with their favourite sports teams, athletes, celebrities and much more has led to users embracing Instagram.
Brands have been following the trend and have begun to create impressive graphics for their Instagram handle for better engagement. That’s not all, here is a list of reasons why Instagram is best suited for brands to be creative and drive more sales.
1.) Hashtags
Talking about hashtags, the use of them is widespread on Instagram. Hashtags can be anything, based on location or based on the content of the image, seasonal tags or sponsoring or spreading events in a local town. There are endless possibilities for hashtags and they are very diverse. Brands have the option to use popular hashtags on their posts or create their own custom hashtag and have it go viral through engagement and enticing others to share photos with their hashtag. Using the help of internet and other social media tools, a viral hashtag on photos uploaded to Instagram by various users give a greater reach to the brand and helps to attract new users and increase sales.
2.) Location tagging
People checking in the movie theater, shopping mall, night club, stadium, cities, neighbourhoods and various places around the world helps other on the feed know what they are doing and where they took the photo. Hence brands having a location tag for their store and letting people check in the store would let everyone on the follower list know about the store and the brand the person has checked in. Users can click on the location tag and see every photo that was uploaded and tagged at that place.
3.) Content creators and influencers
Instagram is full of exceptional artists and performers that are found nowhere else. Artists display their work on Instagram via photos and videos. This helps brands to discover artists with large following that are a good fit with their brand and to reach out and collaborate and make great content for their feed.
4.) Lots of engagement
Once brands have posted great content that was made in collaboration with an influencer, all they need is audience to like it. Most of the time, the audience would love it as the work from the artist would be new and eye-catching. Instagram supports content, rewarding photos that get good engagement from their followers by giving a wide reach, when compared to the same content being posted to other social media platforms.
5.) Instagram TV (IGTV)
The new IGTV feature on Instagram allows users to post longer videos than 1 minute, which can be used by brands to post a story of how they come up with ideas for content or show things that have been going on behind the scenes to create their content. IGTV content lets brands show how they have collaborated with artists, putting in efforts for new commercial video and what different trends the company is following.
6.) Fancy feed
Instagram profiles show photo previews as squares, lined up 3 in a row. Users and brands have found a way to plan their posts so that the previews on the profile looks like a pattern. So, when a user who has never followed the brand before stumble upon the profile, they are likely to like the pattern and fall in love with the brand, following them and seeing their future posts.
7.) Instagram Stories
Stories were introduced later by Instagram, which show us a quick view of what brands are doing. Stories can show messages, polls and current events and news from the brand. The one good thing about story is it lets users engage with it and then gets auto deleted in 24 hours. This is a cool feature that is all about timeliness and showing current events!
8.) Shareable posts
Instagram posts are now shareable through private messages and groups chats in Instagram, so that the person who first saw a post can send it to someone else to discuss how good the post is. Brands can take advantage of this by posting great content that people want to share and this will increase the brand’s popularity and reach very quickly.
9.) Behind the scenes
Behind the scenes, peeks into personal lives behind brands and posting funny things that make people laugh and they could relate to are posted on the Instagram profiles of brands which will build emotional connections between brands and their audience. This creates a trust factor that looks more authentic and relatable to users who follow the brand.
All of the features listed above are factors in why so many people have embraced Instagram as their go-to social media platform. Since there are so many people of all ages using Instagram every day, brands should be sure to create content for the platform to gain a following there. If your business is looking to get started with social media marketing, get in touch with Web Geeks to let us help build your brand.