Instagram: How to Use it for Your Business
What can a photo say about your brand? A strategic photo can convey just as much as carefully crafted words. In fact, your audience can sometimes learn more about your brand from the right image than from written content. We are, after all, visual creatures.
Images play a huge role in all types of marketing, from brochures to websites. But with photo-sharing social media platforms like Instagram and Pinterest, the image isn’t just part of the message. It is the message.
With Instagram, you can make a strong statement without writing a word. But it does take some smart and creative thinking to effectively use it as a marketing tool. Learn how with these 4 tips:
- It’s not a catalogue: Don’t post photos of your products. Your customers already know what your company sells, makes or does. You need to give them a really compelling reason to follow you, something distinct. If you’re a clothing retailer, share photos of people wearing your clothes in really stylish ways. (See how Anthropologie’s Instagram feed does this well.) If you sell a gourmet food product, share photos of great meals prepared with your item.
- Share some secrets: People like to be ‘in the know.’ That’s what motivates them to stay loyal to their favorite social media sites and apps: They want to know something cool, before anyone else. Many companies do this by sharing how-it’s-made pics, meet-our-staff shots or sneak-peak photos. Even politicians use Instagram to share shots from the campaign trail. See how President Barack Obama’s Instagram page promotes behind-the-scenes photos.
- Stay on-brand: We talk a lot about tone when it comes to writing content. The same goes for photos. Remember your audience and stay true to your brand image. For example, see how Hamlet’s Vintage, a Greenwich Village clothing store, shares photos appropriately filtered to look like a ’70s Polaroid. It works. But if you’re a tech firm with a sleek, ultramodern logo, don’t start sharing sepia-toned photos. That type of clash will muddle your image.
- Cross-market your efforts: After all that work, make sure people know about you and find you. Tease your Instagram feed in your print, web and other social media marketing efforts. It should be incorporated as part of your company’s overall digital strategy. “Learn more about how it’s made” or “Meet our designers working on our spring line” will excite people and draw them to your feed.
Hava Leibtag has more than 15 years of experience in communications, and is the President of Aha. Ahava authors the popular blog, Online it ALL matters, as well as articles for the Content Marketing Institute and CMSWire.
KPCB Internet Trends 2013
by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers on May 29, 2013
The latest edition of the annual Internet Trends report finds continued robust online growth. There are now 2.4 billion Internet users around the world, and the total continues to grow apace. Mobile usage is expanding rapidly, while the mobile advertising opportunity remains largely untapped. The report reviews the shifting online landscape, which has become more social and content rich, with expanded use of photos, video and audio. Looking ahead, the report finds early signs of growth for wearable computing devices, like glasses, connected wrist bands and watches - and the emergence of connected cars, drones and other new platforms.
District III Highlights
June Spotlight
Under the leadership of its seventeenth president, James R. Ramsey, the University of Louisville has become Kentucky's premier metropolitan research institution. With an enrollment of 22,000, its academic programs attract students from every state and from 116 countries worldwide.
Researchers from the University of Louisville Health Sciences Center participated in the development of a highly effective vaccine against cervical cancer in 2006, the first fully self-contained artificial heart transplant surgery, the first successful hand transplantation, and the development of the Pap smear test. The University Hospital is also credited with the first civilian ambulance, the nation's first accident services, now known as an emergency room (ER), and one of the first blood banks in the US.
UofL is also known for its athletics programs, and will compete in the Atlantic Coast Conference starting in 2014. Several of the programs are among the most successful in the country, including the men's and women's basketball teams (2013 national champions and runners up respectively), and the football team (2013 Sugar Bowl champions). The baseball team, men's soccer team, and women's volleyball team are also at the top of their games.
The University is currently in a comprehensive campaign with a goal of raising $1 billion by June 30, 2014.
Note: If you would like your school or college featured, submit a very horizontal photo (jpg format) along with no more than 200 words of text about your institution.Send to: gcarroll@stetson.edu. In the subject line you must write: CASE FEATURE in all caps.
Make Waves in February 2014
If you hadn't heard, the Annual Conference will be held in Orlando, FL from February 16 to February 19. Make plans to be there! And if you would like to present at the conference, now is the time to put forward your ideas. You have until April 8 to get your proposal in. Go to the Annual Conference page for more information.
A Good Read
You should try your best, work well with others, and produce excellent work. Right? From author, researcher and consultant Jake Breeden, a former CASE III member by the way, comes an interesting book that just might help you become a better manager. He strings together a series of nuggets of advice, that in practice, have a dark side that can lead to career-limiting unintended consequences. Breeden reveals how to overcome the dangerous behaviors that masquerade as virtues at work, and how to lead with fewer self-imposed limitations and greater results. It's a guide for curious, courageous people at work. The book: Tipping Sacred Cows: Kick the Bad Work Habits that Masquerade as Virtues has great relevancy for those of us who manage a staff and think we are on top of our game.