Should you use Instagram for marketing?

In a recent study released by E-Marketer, the photo sharing application Instagram has over taken Twitter in popularity among smart phone users. E-Marketer claims nearly 35 million Americans use Instagram at least once a month compared to 30.8 million using Twitter’s mobile app. Since Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012, the app has grown sixfold and has more than 200 million monthly users.

The concept of Instagram seems simple and quite easy to understand… for most people anyway except Vince Vaughn:

When I first heard what Instagram was in 2011, I thought the idea was stupid and sounded like only girls would enjoy it. “Sharing photos in filters and commenting on them? Why can’t I just see photos on Facebook?” was basically how my thought process was. Little by little, Instagram started gaining popularity within my group of friends and I finally dove in to begin using it. As smart phone cameras get better and better, Instagram generates more users. I am a daily Instagram user even though I still am amused when people only post pictures, take selfies, or overuse hashtags.

Something that has always puzzled me is looking over accounts on the popular page. Some users will have hundreds of thousands of followers and I never understand how or why. Do they pay for followers? Are they just attractive women who post revealing photos? What is the secret to generating followers and popularity on Instagram?

A couple different people have seemingly rose from obscurity to popularity on Instagram by the way they market themselves.

One is Jen Selter, a 20-year-old with over 2.2 million followers. What once was an account of Selter posting photos at the gym, turned into something much more. Selter started posting many photos of her backside in yoga pants and her popularity took off. One positive she says is being a fitness inspiration for women (even though when I heard her say this I rolled my eyes). Selter herself used the power of her prominent tush to earn herself an endorsement deal with Cirruss Fitness. At least she owns up to the fact she is famous due to her butt and not anything else. “I don’t really post a lot of face pictures… they don’t want to see my face.”

Another popular Instagrammer has been called the “Most Interesting Man on Instagram”. This title belongs to former US Marine and current professional poker player/actor and adrenaline junkie, Dan Bilzerian. I hadn’t heard of Bilzerian until recently one of my good friends sent me a text begging me to check out his Instagram feed. One look at Bilzerian’s IG feed and it looked like he was living the life that Leo DiCaprio portrayed in his latest movie, The Wolf of Wall Street. I was so fascinated by Bilzerian I watched a short documentary about his Instagram usage and Googled him to figure out who the hell he was and how he had so much money. Currently, he is worth over $100 million, which gives him the freedom to do whatever he damn well pleases and often in the company of various guns and gorgeous women.

Now I’m not promising by using Instagram you can achieve the popularity of Selter or Bilzerian, but the photo-sharing application has become a godsend for companies to promote products or services.

First, let’s start with the basics. Make yourself a profile that has the same name as your company and has a bio that reflects what your company is about, as well as a relevant profile picture. Next, you might as well connect your IG account with Facebook. Your photos will be shared on both platforms extending your reach to potential consumers.

Create your brand strategy. Do you want to bombard users feeds with multiple photos per day? Or do you want to only post once a day or even a few times a week, but with higher quality pictures. The use of hashtags is a huge draw for accounts. Speaking from personal experience I run an Instagram account for a small business and if you want to gain followers, use relevant hashtags! Use a few researched hashtags and trust me you will draw likes, comments and most importantly more followers.

Another good suggestion is to follow relevant accounts. If you are a sporting goods company, you would want to follow other competitors accounts, certain athletes and teams. By liking their photos and commenting you can draw attention to yourself and generate your account showing up more.

To increase interaction with your account on Instagram, one of the easiest ways is to have a contest centered around a hashtag. This means that users can upload their own photos and tag them with the hashtag. This generates competition among many users and you can get a lot more buzz around your product. All it will cost you is some sort of reward like a free t-shirt.

The reason people like following their favorites brand on Instagram is it humanizes them. I follow a lot of my favorite sports teams or athletes to get behind the scenes photos that I normally wouldn’t see. A brand that has humanized its product is eyewear company, Warby Parker. Instead of just posting pictures of different frames, Warby Parker is much more creative and artsy.

Another popular company on Instagram is Red Bull. The energy drink company has evolved over the years into an action sport supporting giant. Their Instagram truly gives the viewer an inside look into the world of Red Bull and takes you all over the world.

One Instagram marketing campaign that went viral within minutes was when Beyonce simply posted a 15 second video announcing her new album on Dec. 12, 2013 shortly before midnight. No one was expecting a new album from her and all she did was announce it via Instagram before the album went live on iTunes. The campaign was wildly successful; Queen Bey sold over 600K in three days and locked down the No. 1 spot on the iTunes chart. Surprise!

Instagram is an amazing tool to show off your visual creativity and give viewers a different perspective on your brand. The best part is that Instagram doesn’t take much time, but makes quite the lasting impression and is invaluable as a marketing tool.