Instagram Marketing 101

How to use Instagram mobile application to advertise your business!

Most entrepreneurs and smart phone users must have heard of Instagram at least once.

It is one of the most popular photo apps, which allows you to take awesome pictures and share them with others.

It is a "global" app that is used by people from all over the world: U.S., Japan, Europe, Korea, China, Taiwan, Thailand.... you name it!

And if you dive deeper into the app, you see that there are many many users who have more than 1000 followers and have uploaded more than 500 photos. Many of them use Instagram daily, uploading pictures of their daily lives, places that they went to, food they ate, clothes they love, and so on.
Good pictures receive a lot of comments and a lot of "likes" (just like Facebook), and people do it because they love it. No, most of them are not professional photographers, but there are ways to make your pictures look a little more professional. So, on Instagram, anyone can be a quite good photographer. All you need is a smart phone to download the app and take pictures.

If you own your own business, you have to take advantage of this opportunity to advertise your company.  Most people wouldn't think that Instagram can help bring in more customers to your business, but you are wrong! It can be a quite powerful source of marketing.

Here are steps you can take to do a successful Instagram marketing:

First, you download the app and register: make your name your own name or your business name. For example, Teen Vogue has an Instagram account, and their name is shown as "Teenvogue."

Second, you upload photos. This can be photos of food, fashion, or whatever your business is related to. If you work for Teen Vogue, you might want to upload photos of fashionistas, trendy items, and so on.
But you can also upload photos of your company. What's happening inside the company? How do the employees look like? Are they happy? how is their office organized? Any photos that give viewers a clue about how your company really operate inside will gain popularity. People like to see insider info/secret scenes. (Have you ever looked into a Facebook profile of someone you don't know? Are you following someone's Twitter page secretly? Same for Instagram.)

Third, you follow people who seem to be popular in the area of your interest, or people who seem interested in it. They will be your potential followers, and possibly your potential customers in the future.
Most people you begin to follow will look into your profile and photos, and if they like the photos, they will easily click "like" and comment on it, and start following you back.
Make sure to upload at least 2-3 photos daily. Most Instagram heavy users use it daily, more than once..
So you want to update them constantly. This takes some work, but not that much. All you have to do is take some pictures (good ones). With a few clicks, done! You uploaded a new picture on Instagram.

As I said, Instagram is global, so this is a great way to make your business better known globally. People from all over the world will see your photos.

oh, and make sure that you fill out your profile page in detail.
Leave a link to your business (like "teenvogue.com" or your twitter address) so that people can visit your website.
And introduce yourself or your business "politely" so that people will like you more.:)

It takes a while to gain followers, but you should at least try.
Even if you fail, it's a great way to figure out what people like to see or do these days.

Pinterest marketing for your business: start now before it's too late!

(source: www.pinterest.com)

Pinterest is an interesting social media site. It is kind of like Stumbleupon, but it's much more visually appealing, and also easier to use. And businesses are starting to notice Pinterest's fast growth and open their own Pinterest account.

It's actually not that difficult to do. It's great for businesses, especially e-commerce businesses, because all you have to do is to pin anything that interests you (a person who will be in charge of Pinterest marketing.)
No, it's not like Facebook or Twitter in which you have to think of what to say. You don't have to set up any games or contests. And yet in my opinion, it works just as efficiently as Facebook/Twitter marketing.

Here's what you need to do:

First, you set up a Pinterest account (you request "invitation"). When you are approved, you start creating new "boards" (=categories).

Let's say you sell chocolates through your own e-commerce site "Chocochoco." (I just totally made that up. Not sure if it exists for real.)  Then you might want to create boards on food, desserts, baking, fancy restaurants, inspiration, recipes, DIY, or whatever. But it should be related to chocolates to some extent.

You are almost done. Now, you start pinning. You install a little bookmark bar that Pinterest asks you to put on your browser, and you start pinning anything you think is relevant to your boards. You only need about 15 minutes a day to do this. Just google the right keywords and Google will take you to blogs filled with great posts that you would want to pin, such as "recipe on how to make chocolate-covered strawberries."

What you have to be careful though, is that you can only pin photos. So, the page you are pinning should have at least one photo so that you can pin that photo. People who see your pin will click on it so that they can be directed to that web page.

Sidenote: You might want to pin a page that has an "interesting" photo. In this case, your pin should show  a plate filled with chocolate-covered strawberries that look so delicious that people can't help but repin it.

As you start to fill in your boards with a full of yummy food photos, people will start to notice your pins, repin what they like, and "follow" you. Having a lot of followers is important just as in Facebook or Twitter, because whenever you go to Pinterest, it shows you pins from the people you follow. Your pins will be seen by more and more people as you gain followers. You should also follow people who have boards similar to yours. They will often follow you back if they like your boards too.

So how does this turn into profits?

Well, let's say you have 10 pins on your "Desserts Board." You allow 1 or 2 of those pins to be on chocolates you sell on your e-commerce site. In other words, you can pin a photo of one of your chocolate sets from your site. However, you shouldn't pin from your website too often. 1 out of 10 is usually a good bet. Why 1 out of 10? so that people won't think that you are doing Pinterest only to advertise your products, or so that people will think that you are doing it for fun, not really for your company.

Your followers and people who see your boards will click on the pins that come from your website if they are curious about them, which direct them to your website, and if they think your product is excellent, they will buy it! There, you just made profits.

In my opinion, this is much easier than Twitter or Facebook. There's always too much going on on those websites. What you just posted can disappear from your followers' feeds in 5 minutes. They won't even notice that you posted something if they don't check their feed consistently. But if you can do Pinterest marketing well, you can get people's attention quite well. Pinterest is growing fast, but it is still relatively young compared to Facebook and Twitter. So why not take advantage of Pinterest and create your own boards now?