Are you planning on launching an online business presence on Instagram? That will be a smart choice for so many reasons, which we will be discussing later on.
In this write-up, you will learn—- why choose Instagram?, the lingo and language of Instagram, getting your business profile overall setup and uploading your first photo.
But for a more in-depth submersion of completely mastering Instagram, then you might want to visit socialproof.xyz to get a handle on that.
What Is Instagram
So I suppose the first big question we need to answer as usual is ; what is Instagram? Instagram is an online photo and a short video sharing social network service that enables its users to take pictures and video clips, apply digital filters to them, and share them with a very active community.
Facebook also worth noting, happens to own the Instagram sharing platform. It's more or less Facebook's many photo service—so to say.
A distinctive attribute is that Instagram confines photos to a square shape similar to an old kodak camera or an Instamatic camera, in contrast to the four by three aspect ratio typically used by mobile device cameras.
It is also essential to keep it abreast, as this is a big thing, that this platform is entirely mobile-based. You cannot use it on your computer—that is officially anyway.
You can, however, look online to check other people's Instagram profiles, but you cannot make use of it actively. It must be on a mobile device or an ios, that is, iPhone, Android, and Windows mobile.
You can now also download Instagram to the apple watch, but you can't take photos from the apple watch, if you could, I imagine they would be off-putting chin photos.
The Need To Put Your Business On Instagram
In June 2011, Instagram announced that it had five million users and that it had surpassed the ten million user mark by September of the same year. As of January 2013, it had 130 million users. These days their number is well above billions of users.
So What's Different About Instagram?
Obviously, we have noted earlier that compared to other social networks in this dispensation, this one is entirely mobile.
Secondly, it was one of the fastest ever-growing social networks, almost twice as fast to reach 100 million users as opposed to facebook.
Thirdly, it is incredibly addictive—in my humble opinion—probably more so than
Facebook.
So why should you use Instagram? In a nutshell, it boils down to user activity, period! Instagram users, as of today, have already published billions of photos, and that is growing at a rate of around three hundred on average per second—that is a pretty big community.
People tend to like more photos and content, and every second, Instagram users perform 575 likes and 81 comments.
So, of course, you can leverage this to promote your brand, but you can also use it to promote your business as well. And since visual content is by far the most shot online, way ahead of video and text by a nuclear mile.
If you must Instagram, then you are onto a good thing, especially in terms of engagement with your brand. Starting fresh in any social network is like entering a foreign country.
There is a new language to learn, new customers, and a culture all of its own. Instagram, like every other social network, has a learning curve to it, but the lingo, on the other hand—comparatively speaking, is pretty easy. Instagram is a snap literally.
Lingos
There are five basic interactions or pieces of LINGOS you need to be conversant with. They are;
Like
Following
Comments & captions
Stream
And lastly, we have the almighty hashtag.
Like: this is both similar in the way it works on Facebook, and it acts as a thumbs up. When you like a photo, the user is notified, and you are added to the right account.
Following: like on Twitter, notifies a user that you are following them. And following other users causes them to show up in your stream. Again like Twitter, Instagram accounts can be set to private, so sometimes you may have to request to follow an account.
Comments: you can post comments on photos or add captions to the photos that you post. It is, however, important to note that if you add a link to an Instagram comment or caption, this link won't be hyperlinked. Now a hyperlink is when you click on a link, and then it takes you to a website.
Hyperlinks are removed as a means to reduce spam on Instagram and at the same time used as a medium to keep marketers on their toes by forcing them to think more creatively.
Stream: this shows off all of the photos of people you follow as they are uploaded to Instagram. So following people that interests you will be the main idea because that's the best way to get something out of the network quickly.
Hashtag: this is the power tool for Instagram. It is the way photos are grouped, and moreover, Instagram users love hashtags. As you can imagine, as with everything, a hashtag is a labelling tool, and if you are familiar with Twitter, this is no problem.
If you aren't, it's really all about indexing, If I take a picture in Michigan, I will hashtag it with the term Michigan so that other users might find it and it will show in the Michigan stream.
Getting You setup
Download the app into your mobile phone either via google play store, windows store and apple app store.
Go for the standard setup procedure on the application. Once you have downloaded it, you have the option to log in with your facebook account as you wish, but remember that your facebook account is linked to your personal account.
So unless you are setting up an instagram account for yourself, then you will probably need to just register with your company email address and go through the process.
It is however recommended that before you start using for business, that you check it out as a personal user, so you can kinda get a feel for the functions and layout, thereby also reducing your potential for mistakes.
Instagram doesn't have an explicit business page, what you will learn will be entirely useful when you switch into business mode.
Note, for the business account, it is worth using the same username for your twitter. This is awfully helpful.
Enable all your notifications, initially not a single person might be following you, but it's nonetheless a good idea to enable them straight off. So that when people do interact with you, you will know about it
This will enable you to engage with them faster, just like a lot of companies do on twitter.
Once you have gotten the app, add a bio as you would on twitter, facebook, or a Google Plus profile and a profile photo. You can in your bio add a link to your website, and this is one of the few places on instagram where links actually work.
Connecting to your other social networks is a staple for growing your Instagram and improving the likelihood that you will actually get people responding and engaging with you.
In conclusion
So go ahead and link your Twitter and Facebook account to your Instagram. And if you have already established a business on your social media networks, then utilize them in publicizing your new instagram. It's as simple as that.
But I strongly recommend you start taking some interesting photos while setting up your account.
