Author Bryden McGrath of the Social Media Examiner recently put together a fascinating article that explains how marketers can get the most from their Instagram accounts. It should come as no surprise that Instagram is one of the most effective forms of social media for marketers, but there are many individuals who aren't fully taking advantage of what this tool can do for brand image and consumer interaction.
Instagram was primarily created to showcase mobile photography, or pictures taken on a mobile phone. However, it is now possible to use Instagram as a website rather than a smartphone application, which has huge implications for marketers. For one, they are no longer restricted to creating accounts and taking photos from their smartphones or tablets, which makes it much easier for those in an office setting. Unfortunately, there are some drawbacks to these new Web profiles. Since they aren't geo-tagged by your phone, there is no location, which makes images you load less popular among location searches. You also can't change parts of your profile from the Web, and hashtags as well as some links won't be automatically linked to searches like they are on Twitter or on Instagram's mobile version.
The top things to keep in mind when using a web profile on Instagram is to share your links as often as possible in various forms of social media. If you take a picture, share it on Twitter, but also display the full instagram link. If users click on the link and are already logged on to their own Instagram accounts, they can begin interacting and commenting right away. Marketers should also take care to include their company's information on their Instagram profile, which allows interested users to be directed to your blog or product page. Since most Instagram accounts start out as private accounts and pictures are only accessible to followers, be sure to remove that and make all pictures public for greater exposure.
To learn more about using Instagram's web profile to your advantage, read the complete article on the Social Media Examiner website.
