“In general, consumer brands love Instagram, local businesses obsess over Facebook, e-commerce companies pine over Pinterest, B2B companies love Linkedin, early adopters use Snapchat, and no one expects much from Twitter anymore,” says Pete Caputa, CEO Databox.
“In talking with agencies and companies all day, the pattern is pretty clear. Unfortunately, they’re all wrong.”Caputaadds.
Different social media platform works for different brands well, is an old-school though. The key is to study the user behavior, clearly comprehend their algorithms and requirements to catapult your ads, posts and interactions and use each social media platform strategically and effectively such as the Instagram.
Despite all the hype a lot of B2B marketers still disagree that Instagram is not relevant to their strategies. At times it seems to be true.However, the roaring number of 800 million users a month and growing as your read cannot be ignored.
Here are a few tips to up your B2B marketing game in Instagram by many levels.
User Generated Content
Going real time is the key. Chuck those stock photos and promotional pictures, Instagram leads yearn for an up close and personal look of your brand, its culture, products and their offerings – Live videos / live streaming that are organic, true and unfiltered giving a 100% glimpse of you. Adding a human element to your approach helps the crowd form immediate connect and potentially convert them to consumers. Too much of professional content results in a cold and unassuming response. The current consumer expects real stories and real people than models and celebrities to endorse the brand on social platform.
It is important to generate likes and develop followers on Instagram. Your B2B marketing cannot produce great visuals all the time. Users can become employee advocates and employees will be brand ambassadors of your culture.
Use Hashtags to Interact
Giving hashtags varies from using user-generated content. When you allow your niche audience to participate, you are not interacting or sharing their story or content. For e.g. PayPal used @PayPalIt on Instagram and there are almost 8,000 users who use the same hashtag on their post; primarily conveying a shared core value. While it is the PayPal that has a brand narrative, it has influenced its niche audience to push it through Instagram.
Involve in your Niche
First things first! Identify your niche audience. Sounds simple yet twisted to browse on your exact niche crowd and interact with those who would be honestly interested in your offerings. Stimulating them will develop brand awareness and fetch commercial results.
Once identified, its time to involve them, engage them.
Do not be an onlooker, hop on the bandwagon. Just like other social media platforms, posting feeds and video would not suffice, be a part of the latest conversations. Take some time to peek into what other Instagram profiles are saying or why are they famous and if you genuinely like something, comment and share it.
Engaging with other profiles creates opportunities for those brands or people to reciprocate and visit your profile.
Be swift, mix it up
There are easy options on Instagram to upload photos and videos from your phone using their application. Be fast, choose the add button and select the pictures and videos to be uploaded.
This avoids the strenuous hours to be spent on creating content. Uploading the content without prior plans, without the hassles of edit and re-edits. Variety of content is always welcomed, it not only helps to createan appeal among different members in the audience but also showcase different facets of your business.
People are not interested or have time to spend on same photos, quotes and profile entire day.
Have a Story to Tell
Your audience are interested in your content if they can relate with it or find it engrossing as an engaging story.
Look at some of the Starbucks posts, one of the leading brands with millions of followers. Everything they do or launch, they convey it in a very engaging narrative through photos and videos. Not only are they showcasing but also have a remarkable simplicity. Businesses who are wonderful storytellers have large followings and bigger audience.
Cut through the noise and let people know your story, be consistent in your visuals and let your story roll. Your audience will connect and engage with you on organic level.
Instagram has features to create slideshows, montage or videos; move past from general photos and feeds and stretch your focus to tell your tale. These initiatives will knit a story that will allow your audience to connect on a personal scale.
Don’t get caught in Metrics
Fancy metrics fetch no story, vanity is not simple and current trend is simplicity is more. Though several clicks and likes create visibility but not necessarily mean that those people are interested in your offerings. As opposed to measuring the number of likes and clicks, focus on other indicators such as real time engagement – who has commented, followed and shared your post. These parameters are clearer in conveying your performance and exposure of your business on Instagram.
Conclusion
Instagram user count is ever-growing, proving to be currently the highly popular social media platform. Instagram is not just another platform for bloggers, travelers and merely posting fancy pictures. It is much more than that, an opportunity for B2B companies to gain visibility and enhance their marketing efficiency.
Numerous brands are turning to Instagram to develop brand awareness, engage the prospective consumers and finally attract them. Having said that it is imperative as always that marketers should have a clear strategy.
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