Social media opens up so many doors for you to promote your business, basically you’re getting a platform used by billions of users around the world that you can communicate with and establish relationships, these connections are so powerful for promoting your business.
These free to use social media sites are more than enough to establish great communications. There are amazing things you can do with the power of social media to spread the word and brand awareness.
Online promotions simply stay incomplete without the use of social media platforms, and the more skilled you get in using them, the more you can create a wider, better market for your product.
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Why use Social Media?
We would love to use social media because it works, and it’s a free open platform on various social sites that offer opportunities to get connected with people.
For starters, its free and billions of people around the world are also using the very same platforms to build relationships and promote their businesses to a large audience, so the power of social media in creating awareness is immense.
Facebook and Twitter at one time got the highest limelight. Then came services like LinkedIn. Pinterest and Instagram have also spread their wings gradually over time.
Through the increasing popularity of voice and video marketing, we have seen the rise of social media networks Snapchat, TikTock, and Clubhouse.
The initial days of social media, when Twitter and Facebook ruled, were the days of microblogging, small text comments, and image social sharing.
Facebook gained popularity at that time, and Twitter gained popularity too for small apt to the point quick comments.
Lots of Celebs use twitter from all over the world. Facebook also had that importance. But one thing which online marketing experts and even average people should understand is the appeal of images. Social media sites which dealt with images started rising in popularity.
Why Image Marketing on Social Media?
Image marketing today is a vital part of social media marketing. All social media platforms get a lot of image posts just because images grab the attention of the viewers the fastest. And for this reason, online marketers, SEO experts and website owners all try to create stunning image files.
It may be a photograph, a banner or poster, a message with text and colours or some combination within an image or animation.
It’s not just a case of creating an eye catching image, it also must contain a message, and when you can successfully combine and create the two, that catches the attention of the viewer instantly and creates an emotional connection, this is what engages users to interact with your brand gathering likes, shares, comments, and more sales then you know that your image marketing is becoming a success.
Social media is all about being social, so don’t just go in with a plan to promote all the time. Focus on building connections and engaging with your audience.
It’s all about providing value to your audience, this builds trust and forges good relationships with your brand.
Your audience will form a positive impression within their mind, possibly enticing them to follow you and even click the link in your bio section to visit your website to learn more about you and your brand.
Images do so many different things, such as:
- They draw people in
- Create good first impressions
- Helps with brand engagement
- Helps form consumer relationships
- Encourages website traffic
- Help make sales
When used correctly, images are golden strategic brand elements, but you must know,
- How to use images correctly
- Where to use them
- How to post them correctly
Understand your target audience where they hang out online. You need to find them, don’t rely on them to discover you.
Using Instagram
Using Instagram is the best way these days to create traffic to the website, get a good mailing list, generate leads, make a list of followers and fans, and brand your website or service.
Instagram is used for photo sharing. This means it can generate great traffic if you share the right interesting, engaging photos and branded images.
It’s important to make sure your images are of good quality, and communicate your brand values and message.
- Focus on providing value and not selling
- Tell your brand story to get people invested
- Address user pain points and show your solution
- Show personality and have fun – People buy from people they like and trust
- Make the journey of your viewers worth remembering or worth taking note of
The great thing about Instagram is that most users are using the app primarily on their mobile devices that they have with them all the time.
Photo-sharing social media networks like Instagram accept image uploads mainly from a mobile device such as a smartphone. Hence, you can take pictures from your smartphone, edit, and instantly upload them to your IG profile, but that’s not all, your audience is actively scrolling at all hours of the day with access at their fingertips.
You can do so much more with Instagram:
- Keep users entertained throughout the day with stories that are basically second-long glimpses of people’s lives, shared on Instagram for only 24 hours.
- Add Videos to IGTV – This allows creators to upload high quality, long-form, vertical videos between 15 seconds and 10 minutes long, and 60 minutes for larger accounts, allowing you to create more compelling content to engage with your audience.
- Go Live! – Instagram live allows you to stream live videos to your audience, the great thing is that when you go live you’re bumped up to the first place in the stories that are shown above a user’s feed putting you at the front of the line and in your audience’s face.
Use of Hashtags
One of the most sensitive issues about Instagram are the Hashtags which govern how much popularity and views your post may get.
With the correct use of hashtags, it can help your post be seen by more people. Posts can be assigned a maximum of 30 hashtags, these help the post to be seen by a niche group of viewers.
There are some high demand hashtags, and then many averages and low demand tags, and you may also create your own hashtags.
Generally, brands create their own hashtags which with time gets the recognition and popularity they are seeking.
Otherwise, hashtags that are most used and searched for can be found and targeted. Don’t just include all the high volume hashtags, including mid-range, and some lower in popularity will help with better results.
You can learn more about the most used hashtags by searching for them through Instagram’s own business account tool, and also through third-party tools.
Once you get to know what the most searched for and most viewed tags are, you may use the apt ones with your content to get good views.
Instagram Business Account
Having an Instagram business account is an even better approach to social media marketing. If you get a business account, you will be able to get many tools and features which you don’t get in a simple account.
These tools will help you evaluate the views of your posts, public reactions to your posts, etc. Switching to an Instagram business profile is possible from a normal profile. This gives you more views, and the opportunity to establish yourself as a brand.
Finally
Whether you use Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, you will get great returns from your social media marketing campaigns if you follow the marketing rules and best practices religiously.
Instagram has cross-platform compatibility. This means not only can you share your post on Instagram, but also Facebook and Twitter. This is a great feature which helps minimise your effort and helps you stay active on all vital social sites right from this one account.
You will be able to post ads too on Facebook using the Instagram ad editor and vice versa, thereby making your advertisement campaigns of these leading social sites easier, synchronized and organized.
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