There are over 500 million Instagram users around the world — many of whom use Instagram every day to share an average of 95 million photos and videos. There is a massive audience available on Instagram comprised of different ages, genders, locations, and occupations. Corporate Instagram has huge potential for marketers. It’s important to make your brand stand out among all the content available on Instagram by leveraging the platform effectively. The following is a marketer’s guide to corporate Instagram success.
Make A Good Impression
Use your corporate Instagram profile to maximize your online presence. Corporate Instagram profiles serve as your homepage and provide a space to share information about your business as well as guide traffic to your website.
Perfect the Corporate Instagram Bio
A corporate Instagram bio or description is personal to your brand and should show followers what your company does. Most businesses include their tagline or brand slogan and/or an outline of who their company is. Corporate Instagram is a great opportunity to initiate a brand hashtag so that followers know what to tag pictures. This can make it easier to curate user generated content and to track mentions of your brand on your corporate Instagram.
Link to Your Website
Since your corporate Instagram bio should be kept brief, providing a link is a convenient and effective way to direct people to your website. Instagram doesn’t allow you to include links in individual posts, so if you want to direct people to your homepage, this is the way to do it.
Pick a Corporate Instagram Profile Photo
A profile photo that is easily recognizable is key. When someone clicks on your profile or views your posts, the photo is your opportunity to have your brand instantly known. Many corporate Instagram accounts choose to feature their logo or logo mark (the logo without words) or their brand mascot. It’s good to keep your photo simple and clear since the photo will be fairly small, especially on the mobile platform.
Curate Successful Content
Your posts on Instagram (and any social media platform) should be built on solid pillars of content that are based on your key company values. This can include behind the scenes content of your team, user generated content, product demos, customer stories, and more.
The success of marketing on corporate Instagram relies on a clear brand vision and strategy. Using your company values, come up with the things that define and differentiate your brand. Figure out what kind of content you want to share — it varies from brand to brand and there are no hard rules. The important thing is to focus on content that aligns with your brand and appeals to your audience.
Best Practices for Sharing
1. Post Consistently
With so many Instagram users, it’s easy for posts to be lost in the crowd. A consistent and scheduled posting strategy improves the chances that your photo will be viewed. Brands that go weeks or months without posting can confuse your followers. If you aren’t posting content weekly, it might be worth rethinking whether or not you should continue using the platform.
On the other hand, you don’t want to annoy your followers with too many posts. Stick to 1 or 2 photos/videos per day. This will keep your corporate Instagram visible in your followers’ feeds without harassing them.
2. Know Your Instagram Audience
Instagram has built-in analytics for their business account users that can help you find out your follower demographics as well as the best times to post for maximum engagement. Learning from the tools available will help you adjust your strategy to post effectively.
{See our post: What We Love About Instagram for Business to see all the ways you can track and leverage Instagram analytics}
3. Develop a Visual Style
If you don’t already have a social media style guide, it’s important to have one for Instagram. Choose a color palette, font, caption style, and hashtag guidelines. Sticking to this style guide will strengthen your brand’s image and make your visual content flow. Don’t just choose things that you like — choose colors, fonts, and composition styles that match your brand and your values. These elements are a useful way to show your brand’s personality in addition to creating lovely visuals.
4. Face It ’till You Make It
If you find you’ve been posting lots of images of nature or your products, consider sharing a photos with some faces — whether it’s a model, user content, or your team. Photos with faces receive 32% more comments and 38% more likes than those without.
5. Hashtag like There’s no Tomorrow
Photos with over 11 hashtags tend to receive more engagement. Do not underestimate the power of a hashtag campaign; this is how people find the brands they love. If you don’t want to put too many hashtags in your caption, consider adding them in a comment to get the benefits without the clutter.
Getting the most out of corporate Instagram means knowing your brand’s personality and values and leveraging them when you share content. Consistent sharing, great visuals, and a clear profile are all ways to attract followers and drive engagement with your brand.
What has made your corporate Instagram a success? Help your fellow marketers out and share your ideas in the comment section below!
