Posts Tagged ‘Instagram’

Brands on Instagram: Its All About Getting Started!

Wednesday, April 2nd, 2014

Blog ImageJust like other social networks, brand managers and marketers have shown interest in Instagram too. The simple fact being that, Instagram can also help humanize your business and increase engagement for your brand. Businesses and brands are already capitalizing on this powerful medium. Instagram is highly interactive with a very high engagement rate as users are also active on the go. It allows you to showcase creative content to your customers who can in turn be powerful tools to build brand advocates as images shared on Instagram connect more creatively depicting the brand style and personality.

 

Nowadays, brands are gradually looking up to Instagram for increased engagement with their customers. They are invigorating a sense of excitement and visual treat for them. In fact, Instagram is slowly becoming one of the larger elements of a brand’s marketing mix. This can also be considered as the result of the rise of visual content progressively becoming popular amongst the masses.

What you as a brand or business can do on Instagram?

  • Firstly, have a plan!
    – You can hold an employee Instagram photo contest
  • – Create your company’s Instagram account & share unique photos
  • – You can share these photos on Facebook and Twitter
  • – You can also spread awareness by encouraging customers to take photos of your product or service

Instagram is really good for your Business! You can:

  • clip_image004Promote your products through images and put your message across effectively
    Engage with your followers as customer engagement is very important
  • Competitions and giveaways for those who follow you can be a means of showing some appreciation to your loyal followers
    Behind the scenes pictures of your organization can be shared as people are curious about them
  • Hashtags can be very useful in showing that who is using your products and also promote your brand

 

Not all industries have joined the Instagram bandwagon. But, according to Socialbakers’ latest Instagram performance report, FMCGs and Home goods are leading, followed by alcohol brands which produced the most engagement on Instagram in January, but a drop was witnessed in February. Have a look below:

instagram-jan-feb-2014

Socialbakers, in its report, also mentioned two other brands active on Instagram and climbing the engagement ladder, General Electric and National Geographic.

General Electric (GE) invited six fans and influencers to come up with a marketing campaign and National Geographic plunges into the high-quality photography from the magazine, giving Instagram followers a magnificent look through the lenses of the magazine’s photographers.

For brands to be on Instagram, its not just about being there, but a lot depends on how close you are to your following and what is the interaction rate of your brand with your audience followed by how much you make them a part of whatever you are doing. Here’s something you can follow:

examples

There are a few reasons and tips on why your brand should be on Instagram as mentioned below:

It is easy to find targeted users using keywords. You can search the targeted hashtags and engage with the users who posted it.

It is easy to communicate with your followers as you can mention any user that you follow and they will see it. For example you want to thank your most engaging users on Instagram and give them a 50% discount code of any product in your online store. You can just post it as a picture and mention targeted users using @ (at) sign in the comment section: @username

You can make beautiful marketing messages as pictures. You can share your products, promotions or blog posts through pictures. Few things you should keep in mind are:

  • – Don’t post pictures ONLY about your company
  • – Be creative
  • – Engage users with every picture by asking questions
  • – Reply to all comments with @username sign
  • – Use as many hashtags with targeted #keywords as possible in the caption to a picture

   Source: newmediaforce.com

How much engagement are top brands getting on Instagram?

– Instagram says it has 90 million active users
– Top 3 brands on Instagram are NIKE, MTV and Starbuck
– 23% of active Interbrand 100 companies post more than 50 times a month
– Brands are seeing more than 5600 engagements per photo
– 98% of Instagram photos posted by brands are shared to Facebook
– More than 2 million likes, comments and shares of Instagram photos have occurred on Facebook since the network   bought Instagram
  Source: wishpond

Brands need to set one goal in mind when on Instagram, that is, creating loyal customers who are genuinely interested in your brand. By using Instagram, brands and organizations are able to shift perceptions by showing different aspects of the brand, it tells your brand story in a different way!

Instagram for Business - Copy
Source: sidequik

You might be wondering how images and short videos can work wonders for brands, but think about the lasting impression it creates on the minds of is audiences. With Instagram, brands can showcase their culture, special, offices, new products, events and the faces of the wonderful employees who make it all happen.

Another great thing we can’t ignore is networking. Brands can connect to people and other brands on Instagram through images and engagement. Following back your followers and interaction with them associated with hashtags can help brands reach out to their specific target audiences. Keeping the interests of audiences intact through interesting promotions and not direct selling is very important. Ignoring this fact may lead to an unfollow chain.

Here’s an Instagram secret recipe that might help!

fun facts - Copy
Source: Techcrunch, Followgram

Few examples on how brands leveraged Instagram

1) See how FOREVER 21 got to 1.4 million followers on Instagram in this Infographic

2) Starbucks leverages filters and hashtag functionality to connect followers with the products. Artsy product shots, promotions and discounts are all shared exclusively via Instagram.

Starbucks

3) MTV is a content machine. It utilizes Instagram to drive viewership by showcasing elusive celebrity photos and important announcements

MTV

4) No engagement tactic is left unused on the Red Bull photo stream. The brand initiated promoting athletes, events and sparking relevant brand conversations with hashtags.

Red Bull

What brands need to do is, take advantage of the fact that there are a lot of brilliant people out there who create powerful visual content and learn a lot from them. Are you an Instagram fan? What do you think about this powerful visual marketing element? How do you think will brands explore its complete potential? Well that remains an interesting thing to watch out for in the times to come!

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Posted in Blog Content, Blog Visibility, Blogs, Facebook, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Twitter | 1 Comment »

The Impending Surge Of Social Realtors

Thursday, August 16th, 2012

selling-your-home-with-social-mediaToday, when any industry that one could possibly come across has chewed on a slice of social media, what are the odds that housing and real estate would lag behind in grabbing a piece of the same? In fact, it often poses as one of the most lucrative of all industries to monetize and mobilize buying and selling of properties through social media.

A new generation of tech-savvy home buyers, sellers and real estate agents are increasingly taking to social media to expand their scope of visibility and amplify their reach to potential customers. In fact, our understanding of the space is such that social media has reached a stage where merely having a presence on a social networking site does not assure success for a brand. For real estate and housing too, it becomes imperative to have the right mix of platforms and strategy to drive in engagement and eventually returns.

A Stellar Click:

In order to understand how deep this industry has spread its roots into the social media and how tactfully this space can be used to a firm’s advantage, let’s take into account a recently conducted campaign by Qatar Coral for Real Estate Development L.L.C. The campaign was driven through Instagram for Ramadan (a holy month) titled ‘#Ramadangram’. Leveraging on this popular photo-sharing social networking forum, the weeklong contest invited users to capture and showcase their special Ramadan moments through their eyes. The winners stood to win fabulous prizes including iPads and a Nikon D-90 DSLR camera. Participants entering for the contest were required to have an account on both Instagram and Twitter. The winners were contacted through a direct message on Twitter and announced on the company’s Facebook page, which had by then become an interactive forum for Qatar Coral to engage with its fans. All this happening in the wake of their recently launched twin plush towers for contemporary living at the heart of the state of Qatar just worked wonders for the firm. Qatar Coral

The result was most commendable. It served as a boost to the company’s image and helped it in forging a lasting bond of trust and mutual admiration with its existing patrons and prospective buyers and this campaign bags an ace in our books.

Zero Down:

An emerging trend for a handful of real estate firms on social media is the use of the geo-location function. By employing tools like Hootsuite, keyword searches could be made and a targeted pool of potential buyers, sellers, and investors etc. who are looking for properties in a particular area could be tapped into. From here on, people who tweet with search queries could be directly engaged with by the firm.

The Audio-Visual Boost:

Talking about the right mix of platforms, here’s how a certain real estate firm made an impression on the social media. YouTube channels, that have become quite a rage lately due to the audio-visual nature of the platform fetches Coldwell Banker quite a few brownie points. The real estate firm has enabled the geo location function on their channel that upon having granted permission, uses the user’s computer’s IP address to pinpoint his/her location on the globe and then displays the most relevant videos. In our opinion, it’s quite an ingenious move on the firm’s part. What’s more? Through channels such as this realtors could provide a sneak peek into a property by adding walk around or slideshows of the interior and various features of the property. This not only improves the visibility but also the increases its chances of appearing higher up on SEO.

coldwell banker

Base Camp:

Facebook, the largest social networking platform too, has a lot in store for housing and real estate industry. Say for instance, way back in 2008, Jonathan Rivera created one of the first Real Estate Referral group as a way to find agents to refer and exchange property cues for ‘out of area’ leads. The page has tabs such as ‘get referrals now’ and ‘how to’s’ which have videos that provide a know-how of generating referrals. If numbers are anything to go by, the page currently boasts of 59,343 fans and reflects on how successful the venture has turned out to be. Ever since then, many such property referral groups have come into foray.

Jonathan's real estate referral group page

Acquire and Expand:

Last but not the least, when it comes to housing and real estate, how can one possibly not consider the biggest social media platform for professionals. Linkedin presents a unique platform to property dealers and investors to hold discussions and establish connect with potential customers. Landlords, property developers and builders could get a great start with the ‘groups’ feature. A quick search in the ‘Groups’ search bar for properties, real estate or housing and the results it throws up is not even funny. Basis these, potential connections could be formed and further information about properties could be discussed through various other forums for more details.

Closer home, developers have already started championing the benefits of social media. Take for instance, Lodha Developers Senior Marketing VP, Samujjwal Ghosh. According to him, his company’s involvement in the social media platform is fueled by its intention to leverage the large pool of active social media users, inform, engage and interact with them and their peer groups, causing for a positive perspective of their brand and subsequently influencing purchasing decisions over a period of time.

Social media has most definitely arrived but it appears that although some housing and realtors have already started utilizing this goldmine of a platform, there are some who are still wary about it.

Do you think in this age of burgeoning infrastructural development, social media could prove to be the key to unprecedented growth for realtors? Share some of your opinions in the comments section below. It’s always a pleasure to hear from you all.

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The Mighty Olympian Social Network

Saturday, August 4th, 2012

120720053901-tower-bridge-olympics-story-topIn social media, all kinds of community events have found their second wind, and it’s a powerful one at that. The pics-or-it-didn’t-happen phenomenon coerces the most reluctant/ clueless of users to document major developments around them online. There’s no reason for me to wax poetic about the sheer strength of social media, except to remind you that if you’ve ever done something remotely stupid in public in the past few years, chances are you’re an internet celebrity and you don’t even know it.

The kind of publicity that social media affords brands is mind blowing in itself, and for an affair such as the Olympics, the possibilities were endless. Thankfully, the Olympics committee acknowledged this and, much in advance to the events, put the following plans together, apart from updating the usual Twitter and Facebook feeds:

1) Athletes Hub – An aggregator app allowing users to follow athletes and gain badges combined with a live feed of users’ interaction dubbed ‘Live From The Village’.

2) Instagram – With over 400 Olympians already on Instagram, and scores of users feverishly sharing anything remotely Olympics-related, setting up an Instagram profile was an obvious step. The profile has gained extreme momentum, rising from the 25,000 followers before the Games began to the current 95,000 (and counting).

3) Tumblr – One of the most exciting and rewarding steps taken by the committee are its 4 official Tumblr pages – Faces of Olympians, Olympic Fashion, Olympic Moments (highly recommended!) and the feed aggregator.

4) Foursquare: Specials introduced enabling 4sq users to win free tickets to the Games, upon checking in to a venue.

Google+ was duly ignored despite the 1.6+ million users the IOC boasts. Just as well.

That isn’t so hard to believe since the opening ceremony that threw every single British thing against the wall in hopes of something sticking, and it did. Apart from a bazillion farm animals, this Danny Boyle-designed psychosis incorporated a model of Glastonbury Tor, two mosh pits, and the largest harmonically tuned bell in the world. But the fun didn”t stop there, because it”s not an Opening Ceremony unless a 40-foot-tall Voldemort does battle with 30 Mary Poppinses.

Also, when Mr. Bean helps you open the ceremony with the theme from Chariots of Fire? That, dear sir, is a thing to behold.

Did it outdo China”s terrifying show of synchronicity from 2008?

Well, the opening ceremony alone resulted in more than 9.66 million related tweets, which is more than the entire Beijing Olympics in 2008. To be fair, the social networking giant was in its infancy back then, but the massive numbers means it”s safe to say this Twitter phenomenon might have some staying power.

Olympics have been brought back to life via a slew of YouTube videos, too, although most of them focus largely on the more important facets of the Games, such as an over-enthusiastic Games’ worker who you’d heart, the rollercoaster-esque (and HILARIOUS )expressions of a US gymnast’s parents watching her compete, or an Olympic-themed water-gun fight. However, live feeds of various news broadcasters have proven more than sufficient to stay updated constantly, while Indian media takes a fast-and-loose approach towards TV broadcasting.

The fervor with which the interwebz have dived into everything that’s Games’-related, from the severely unfortunate uniforms of Spanish Olympians to the mega-wave of joy that went through all of Facebook and Twitter in India over winning the only medal we have yet, this year, (Gagan Suneja – shooting) is far from astonishing.

Although, if it gets tiresome after a while you can always take pointers off of this gorilla.

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Posted in Brand Promotion, Social Media, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »