Crowdbooster Blog

The Forgotten Social Network: Exposing Your Brand on Instagram

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:00:00 -0800

When brands set out to establish a social media strategy, they automatically gravitate towards the "Big Three": Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. While this is certainly more than a sound gameplan considering the majority of one's audience will be found on these major networks, one shouldn't overlook the other up and coming niche networks. Since its launch in October 2010, Instagram rapidly expanded to over 10 million users in only a year. Clearly, it's here to stay.

Still don't belive Instagram is catching fire? Check out the iPhone Instagram phone case.

What's so attractive about Instagram? As a mobile app, it makes perfect sense. Snap a picture, choose a filter, and post. Human beings are visually stimulated individuals. It's visual content in seconds. Although it's rather easy as a brand to dive right into the action, we want to lend a few tips that will help you capture and maintain the attention of your audience on Instagram.

Lose the Shameless Self-Promotion

Users flock to Instagram for the visual experience. The top users on the app create artistic shots that their followers find interesting and worthwhile. Don't badger your followers with countless shots of company logos or coporate headshots in every filter available. Instead, work to cultivate a community through brand culture. Leverage the visual nature of Instagram to create a story for your followers. Take candid shots of team members working on the prototype of an upcoming product. Snap a few pictures at the co-founder's birthday party. Keep it interesting.

Shots like these have earned Starbucks over 200000 followers.

Starbucks has done a wonderful job in this department. On Instagram, they're telling the story of coffee in fun and creative ways. From a lone coffee cup in a pumpkin patch to baristas making all sorts of drinks, Starbucks keeps its followers asking for more.

Integrate Across Platforms

Although it's discouraged to blindly cross-post between networks such as Facebook and Twitter, Instagram allows brands the opportunity to share content on a variety of networks. Upload a shot of the company lunch onto your company's blog or tweet out a link to a picture of Friday fun at the office. This allows you the opporunity to expand your audience on Instagram by leveraging existing audiences on other networks. At Crowdbooster, we keep a Tumblr account (Backstage at Crowdbooster) to offer users an opportunity to enjoy our daily office antics.

Engage the Community

As with all other platforms, sustained engagement is a key to social media. Don't become a compulsive uploader. Draw in users by commenting on their pictures, even if the pictures have little or nothing to do with your brand. Establish a regular stream of content that followers can come to expect and even anticipate. Call on users to submit shots of their favorite moments with your product or service.

Couldn't get any crazier than this shot.

At nearly 99000 followers, Red Bull has fully leveraged Instagram's potential. The brand posts a "daily awesome picture" from their sports playground in order to stay true to its audience's nature. In addition, despite its large fan base, it regularly likes and comments pictures posted by users.

Keep Working at It

While zero followers on Instagram may seem disheartening compared to the thousands of fans and followers you might have already established on Facebook and Twitter, it's important to keep at it. At the end of the day, you should value the quality of your brand community over the quantity. As a social media manager, challenge yourself to orchestrate the most creative and interesting shots your company has to offer every once in a while. Ready, Snap, Post.

Crowdbooster Blog

The Forgotten Social Network: Exposing Your Brand on Instagram

Small improvements to celebrate Crowdbooster November

4 Ways Social Media Will Rock Your Next Event

Delivering Your Brand's Culture Through Social Media

Social media speak: stylish headlines and seasonable advice [AskMen case study]

A look back at early days of Twitter, Future of Social Advertising [link recap]

Reasons Why Your Content Isn't Shared, Young Women Social Media Power Users [link recap]

Crowdbooster launches today, and it's just the beginning...

How to street-team social media like a global nonprofit [Hillsong case study]

Happy Birthday Hashtags, Tips for Effective Facebook Community Management [link recap]

Oxford Dictionary Picks Up "Retweet", Altimeter Group's Latest Report [link recap]

“Ignoring people is painful.” Lessons from a Twitter Robot, Turn ME into WE [link recap]

“Nix the marketing jargon.” Tweet Tidbits from The Bay Citizen [video]

Foursquare Adds Businesses, 10 Tips for New Community Managers [link recap]

“It’s not all about YOU.” 7 Reasons Blogs Fail, 5 Social Media Chrome Extensions [link recap]

Knock Out 5 Rookie Mistakes of Personal Branding

The Facebook Effect on Relationships, 7 Deadly Sins of Community Management [link recap]

6 superstar Twitter insights from Britney Spears, OneRepublic, Kate Voegele [Crowd Surf case study]

5 real-time lessons: engage readers from the schoolroom to social media [Education Week case study]

7 Types of iPhone Users, 10 Things Google+ Can Do to Wow the World [link recap]