A company that aims to promote its image has no choice but to focus its communication strategy on the many social channels available.
Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google Plus refine brand affirmation through continuous interaction: regularly publishing posts and photos inviting comment and share with the goal of turning users into potential customers.
Behind social activities lies a intelligent web marketing strategy, which aims to strengthen its image and promote sales, based on:
- launch their own brand;
- Building an online reputation;
- Approaching users and building their loyalty;
- selling.
Every strategy, therefore, revolves around the four verbs: launch, create, approach and sell. But I would like to dwell on the third point. How do we “approach” the user?
Instagram: getting closer to users in 5 steps
The “business mindset” of a company should be able to put itself on the same level as its users, communicating with the same language and using the same tools. For example, Instagram responds perfectly to this need to “get down” by stripping the brand of the unreachability that often characterizes big brands. This should not be understood as a loss of quality but simply as a real desire to get closer. Let us clarify that Instagram is not a social network but a free application that allows you to take photos, edit them and then share them on the Social Networks to which it is linked, imprinting its success on visual impact. I have identified 5 important steps by which a company could organize its image gallery on Instagram to increase credibility with consumers and increase their interaction.
Look around. Analyze the competitors
As a first step, after registration, it is important to analyze competitors in the industry. Identifying and studying your competitors is needed to be able to understand their strategy and strengths, or even weaknesses. This will enable you to understand how to move effectively.
In a second step, analyze followers: when they are online, their posts and their interests.
Through these two analyses it will be possible to outline a profile in line with the tastes of the fans and, if necessary, redesign your targets.
Stimulates users’ interest and touches their sensibilities
To be successful on Instagram you need to not take yourself too seriously. Your business will have to follow the logic of funny, amazing, exciting and interesting.
How? Through photos that manage to make the user smile.
People want to be able to get excited and entertained; it would be a great thing to be able to associate your brand with these feelings.
For example, one of the most successful brands on Instagram is Ben & Jerry.
This brand’s forte is precisely sharing news, photos, posts and more with fans.
If we were to look superficially at the image we would certainly say that it is a picture of a pumpkin and a tractor. But it is more than that. The intrinsic meaning is more than that. It is the wanting to communicate a certain feeling with an accommodating atmosphere of: autumn, coziness, tradition, ancient values etc.
The goal is to be able to touch the user’s imagination and emotions through images that want to be translated and not just observed, thus creating an aspect of trust and credibility. Does it stimulate the same for you?
It arouses curiosity … kick off the contests
The acronym UGC, user generated content, is used to identify that portion of users who produce multimedia content on web pages, taking the place of specialized companies. It is recommended to get users involved by giving them the opportunity to upload amateur photos directly to your brand profile. Being able to get closer to users also means making them participate in publications; therefore, giving your fans a voice andorganizing photo contests are welcome initiatives.
The purpose of the contest is to create word of mouth that can generate more traffic and intensify engagement, but of course you need a final prize to motivate active participation. If you created a good contest with a tantalizing prize … the game would be in your hands.
Ask fans to submit photos that can somehow be traced back to you, you’ll see the numbers! For example, Momondo, the flight and hotel booking search engine, held a contest last month in collaboration with Instagram, raffling off a GoPro camera. Participants were asked to:
- Follow @momondo ‘s profile on Instagram;
- Taking pictures of places or details;
- share, tag momondo and insert the hashtag #WinGoPro.
Followers soared as did online bookings. Bingo!
Help yourself to other Social
The fourth step ties in perfectly with the previous one. Momondo publicized the contest several times on social channels with a promise to officially announce the winner on Facebook. Why? Clearly, to take advantage of the maximum visibility provided by an increasingly high-performing social media.
The choice to make is to inform your fans step by step about the progress of the contest at hand with posts or photos that attest to the truthfulness and authenticity of the project.
Once the contest is over: post the winners, or losers, or consolation prizes, in short, be active on a daily basis by taking advantage of the visibility. This, of course, also applies to any other type of promotion. If you have an offer to propose and want to launch it in the market, feel out the ground on social media through Instagram images: they come more easily.
Try to think and do a test: if you were to sponsor an ice cream, would you notice more a photo of it, perhaps with a seascape, or a message explaining its goodness?
Introduce your “bizarre” team.
This last strategy is probably the easiest but also the one that builds your company’s image; therefore, you have to be careful how to adopt it to avoid sinking your online reputation. First of all, if your company has only “sourpusses and sourpusses” it is strictly forbidden to consider this point.
Why? Because succeeding in creating a welcoming, fun and engaging business look requires you to establish a conversational dialogue with your users.
How? Through posting photos that capture the “backstage” of your work:
- Witty videos during lunch break;
- Photos of witty faces at meetings;
- Snapshots of the products being processed.
Such a virtual approach allows you to enhance the brand and make it authentic through the experiences, albeit bizarre, of employees. In this way, your brand will take on a familiar appearance that can reach the hearts of millions of people.
“Sharing is good.”
Sharing and engagement represent two important actions. Imagine that you are a business and publish sporadic posts of uncertain interest: users will never have any desire to keep following you and eventually share your content. In case, on the other hand, you spur user mentality with inspiring photos, interesting posts and thematic articles, within a few months you could achieve good results. If the premise is to approach users, you need to talk to them, for them and like them. Exporting to the market in a cold and detached manner, reducing marketing activity to pure presentation of material, makes you look backward and old-fashioned. And these days that is not ideal.
Still haven’t landed on Instagram? What are you waiting for?
