Marketing Strategy: Boost Your Brand with Instagram

Top Orlando companies are hopping on the hottest new social media bandwagon: Instagram. Orlando leaders such as Arnold Palmer Hospital, UCF Arena, Full Sail, Orlando Weekly, Thornton Park, and Central Florida 13, to name a few, are using the social network to tell their stories in revealing and personal ways.

What is Instagram?

Instagram is a hipster-approved mobile application that allows users to capture and share moments in real time. Already a Millennium generation staple, popularity for this photo-sharing platform increased after Facebook acquired the company for a whopping $1 billion. Now more than 5 million photos are uploaded each day – that’s a mind-blowing 58 photos per second. When you’ve got stats like that, top companies with keen marketing departments pay attention.

No need to worry if you’re late to the Instagram marketing party, we are happy to show you the ropes. With a little knowledge and a few creative ideas, you’ll be using Instagram to promote your brand in no time.

Here’s how to get started:

Create Your ID – Login on to your iPhone or Android device and create an account. The most important part of this process is to choose a username that best represents your business. Make sure it’s something that will be easy to find in a search. Add a profile picture, bio, and link to your website. Keep your company’s mission statement and corporate brand top-of-mind when developing your online identity.
Merge Social Accounts – Connect your Instagram account to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, and Foursquare. Good news for those of us who use HootSuite to manage social media accounts: Instagram was just added to the App Directory.
Get Followers – Add Instagram to the social network icons on your homepage. Tell your friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter your username. You can also use the Friend Finder tool to add friends.
Create Hashtags – Just like Twitter, Instagram uses hashtags. A hashtag is a word or short phrase preceded with the # symbol that allows contributors to categorize content. Creating great and memorable hashtags to categorize your content gives you another opportunity to be found by your audience. Instagram allows you to add up to 30 hashtags per photo!

Are you ready to start sharing socially on Instagram? Here at Appleton Creative, we help you by effectively branding your social media and developing regular content to blog, post, tweet or pin. Appleton Creative is a boutique award-winning advertising agency in Orlando. For more information call 407-246-0092 x7# or e-mail Amy at amy@appletoncreative.com.