Instagram | Michelle Pircher

Instagram’s latest Improvements

September 2, 2015

Instagram has become a top contender as one of the most popular social media platforms in 2015. Next month marks Instagram’s 5th anniversary since it was first launched in 2010, and in those 5 years has managed to reach 300 million active users per month.

Instagram is a photo sharing social networking service that allows users to share pictures with others. Users have the option to set their profile to private if they don’t want the world to see their pictures, however most users are more than happy to share their pictures with others who have similar interests outside of their circle of friends. Photos can be easily searched by adding descriptive hashtags to each image. Because of this, many businesses have turned to this popular social media platform to reach and engage their audience.

Say Goodbye to Square Images

Recently Instagram has made a few changes to its app that has improved user experience. Last month they announced that they would no longer be restricting posts to square images. You now have the option to post both portrait and landscape images and videos. While square images has been an acceptable Instagram format for years, they realised that people were being cut out of pictures and some images were losing their overall effectiveness due to being cropped. Recently it was possible to use other apps to edit images beforehand by creating a white border, which then allowed users to post landscape images to Instagram, now this is no longer needed, making it even faster to share pictures.

Improvements to Direct Messaging

Instagram has also just announced improvements to the direct messaging feature that allows users to post images directly to specific people, rather than everyone who follows them. Users can now name their groups and share their private images with each other even faster than before. Replying to each other is also easier now as the conversations will be kept in one thread rather than having to create a new message each time.

These simple new changes have been welcomed by the Instagram community, and we look forward to what is install for them in the next 5 years as they continue to grow.

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Content Marketing Social Media Social Media Marketing

Instagram and Marketing

June 18, 2015

Most people overlook the potential of using Instagram to promote their brand. You can post pictures of anything that is related to your brand which has the potential to strengthen your brand’s image.

Let’s look at a restaurant for example. You could post pictures of the interior of the restaurant, pictures of popular meal choices, or specials of the day. If celebrities come to dine, snap a picture (with their permission) and upload it. Or even snap pictures of everyday diners and ask them for their usernames so you can tag them in the pictures. You could post pictures of the staff out in the community helping out, or even of them out buying fresh ingredients for the days’ menu.

The list is endless on what you can take photo’s of and post, it’s up to your creativity and imagination to come up with different ideas that will engage followers and encourage new followers.

Here are a few things to know about Instagram and how to make it work for you:

Instagram is visual

As the old saying goes ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’. Our brains are mostly visual so we tend to remember more of what we see rather than what we read or hear. Looking through pictures on Instagram is effortless and many people check it out during their free time.

Hashtags

Hastags are important to each post because they allow users to find your pictures in a search as well as placing the image into different categories. This in turn will increase your audience by making it easy for people to discover you and become new followers.

Tagging ability

Along with each picture you can tag people and add a location. Going back to my example of the restaurant, this allows followers to know the restaurant location as well as where you are when out and about working with the community.

Interactive

Instagram allows you to interact with your audience. People can both ‘like’ and comment on your pictures. So it is important to monitor people’s comments and respond back. Don’t forget to include their name in your response so that they will receive a notification of your mention.

Contest tagging

Because Instagram is so easy to use and has over 300million users, it’s worth considering incorporating Instagram into your next contest. It is as easy as getting people to upload an image on a particular subject that links to your business and asking them to tag you in it. Not only does it get people interested in your brand, they have fun in the process.

Instagram is linked to other Social Media Platforms

It is easy to link your Instagram account to both your Facebook page and Twitter account, taking the effort out of having to update all three accounts. Or if you prefer different content on each you can easily promote your Instagram account on either of the two of them to attract more Instagram followers.

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