29 Oct The Ins and Outs of Instagram
If you haven’t heard of Instagram, where have you been hiding! Since its inception in 2010, the picture based social media platform has grown worldwide to over 1.3 BILLION users! That’s a lot of people that you have the opportunity to get in front of.
In its 11 years, the platform has released an array of tools, which, as a business, can be used to advertise your service/product in a fun and creative way.
To help, we wanted to give you a quick breakdown of each of the tools, and how you can use them!
POSTS
At the heart of Instagram is its feed made up entirely of images with a caption. The more eye-catching your image is the more attention it will gather, which in turn means better engagement and (fingers crossed) your target conversion; whether that’s a sale, an enquiry or a sign up etc.
STORIES
In 2016, Instagram launched stories, and they’ve become an incredibly popular feature to the platform. So much so that they’ve almost superseded the traditional posts. Stories allow creators to engage with users in a more fun and creative way, but they only last for 24 hours. A quick snapshot into the life of a business, whether it be a product launch, behind the scenes, introducing new staff etc.
STORIES HIGHLIGHTS
Created a story that you want to be able to refer back to at a later day? (remember, stories only last 24 hours). Then the stories highlights feature allows you to save any particular story and it will be available for both you and users to watch again and again.
Want to know how to save a story highlight? On the relevant story, click the three dots on the bottom right hand side of the screen and click save. You will be asked if you would like to add this story to an existing highlight or a new hightlight. Story highlights are visible on your profile page and sit below your bio.
REELS
Reels are short (15 second long), entertaining videos, where you can express your creativity and bring your brand to life. People use Reels to participate in cultural trends, collaborate with the community and discover new ideas.
LIVE
Launched at the same time as the Stories feature, Instagram Live was initially received with trepidation about how it could be used, but businesses have jumped on it to create urgency and excitement about announcements. They encourage your audience to be there at a certain time to avoid missing out. It is also a great way for your audience to be interactive with you in real time, posting questions into the Live, reacting to comments etc.
SHOPPING
If you are a product based business, you can now sell your products direct through Instagram! Once you have created your shop in Facebook Commerce Manager, your audience then has the chance to buy your products on Instagram or they can be directed to your website to buy their chosen product.
We’re not suggesting that you should be using absolutely every tool that we’ve mentioned above, but the opportunities are almost endless! If you’re someone who loves to be in front of a camera than Lives and Reels are for you! For those of you who would rather keep your face hidden, Posts and Stories are perfect! Basically Instagram can work for your business, you just need to know how to harness which tool is best for you.
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