Pictures Worth 1000 Words

While attending IRCE 2014, our team listened to several sessions detailing how companies can improve their social media presence. Connecting with your audience on a personal level is crucial to a brand’s strength and can increase both reach and  customer loyalty. Therefore, we have compiled a quick article for you with the most useful and informative tips about one of the biggest social media engines today: Instagram.

Instagram has over 200 million users, providing potential for extended reach for companies (and especially retailers) looking to implement the Instagram strategy for their business. The AIDA Model (Attention – Interest – Desire – Action) gives your company a greater understanding of how to target a market effectively, and Instagram’s vibrancy and reach encompasses all of those aspects.

Attention – Vibrant images and promotional messages capture your viewers’ focus (the visual center of the brain is the most receptive, connecting images to ideas and memories).

Interest– Now that you have gained your audience’s attention, you may insert promotional offers, or even start a campaign that counts down each day toward a new advertisement or product, building suspense.

Desire– The brightly-colored or compelling images have worked their magic, and the promotions have piqued significant interest  – now it is time to give your viewers what they want! Display a new product, coupon code or exclusive offer.

Action– The entire process has been completed, and your campaign is over, right? Not quite! To create a sense of urgency, a company may stress the importance of immediate action with a CTA message on the image itself, or in a quick description under the image.

Tip: Create a specific hashtag unique to your company to associate a message with your image or product.

Leveraging UGC (User-Generated Content)

7 Quick Tips
1) Establish your corporate profile (a clear, crisp image and description underneath)
2) Share quality images regularly (brightly colored photographs will catch your audience’s attention)
3) Choose a few tactics to test (investing too much time in all possible tactics can slow you down)
4) Invite your existing fans and followers (on other social media platforms) to follow you on Instagram
5) Integrate it into your social sharing buttons and invitations
6) Add images to Instagram first, and then share them to your other social media pages
7) ID, score and then engage with UGC (respond to comments and “likes,” showing your viewers that you value their input)

Added points:
Use Instagram to capture what’s going on in the background of your company!
Partner up with Instagram influencers to expand your reach and audience!

Remember: QUALITY > QUANTITY. Make sure that any content you post is relevant and interesting to both your audience and yourself!