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How To Be Successful On Instagram

Posted on July 18, 2018 by NextJSjointviews

If you are looking for ways to be successful on Instagram, you have come to the right place. There are more than 800 million active accounts, on a monthly basis, on Instagram. However, it is still possible for you to be successful on this social network.

All that you have to do is put in a little bit of effort to gain some targeted following. You have to take the trouble to implement a few strategies, but it is worth the effort. Read on to know more about how you can apply the strategies to personal or business accounts.

1. Provide A Proper Bio

It is very important that you include an attractive bio on your Instagram account. The bio should make it clear to your audience as to who you are and what is it that you do. It should definitely include a clear call-to-action to follow you on Facebook.

In fact, it is mandatory to include an impeccable bio if you want to be successful on Instagram. The audience that you are targeting will not follow you if they don’t see any value in what you are offering. Finally, your bio should be clear and concise.

2. Create Interesting Content

Now that you have sorted out your Instagram bio, you can start thinking about your content strategy. This social network is all about sharing interesting and high-quality content. If your content is not interesting and/or attractive, you cannot expect to have many followers.

The content should also not have too many words in them. In fact, you should include high-quality, eye-catching images and/or videos if your goal is to be successful on Instagram.

There are a number of tools such as Photoshop, Typorama, Canva, and Adobe Spark Post that are available on app stores and the World Wide Web to help you create superior content.

3. Add Content Regularly

Posting content on a regular basis is a prerequisite for succeeding on this social platform. This is to say that you need to be reasonably active on Instagram. Ideally, you should submit at least one post every day. If you are able to submit two or three posts in a day, you can expect to get a better reach and engagement.

It is not easy to post many times in a day, but you can use Schedugram to make it easy for you. It also helps you to automate your posting by setting up a content queue. In addition, it is important to identify the best times to post on this social network.

4. Identify The Best Hashtags

People make little mistakes ranging from not using hashtags to using non-related and random hashtags when posting content on Instagram.

When you share content, it is very important that you make use of the right and best hashtags. This is because it will help you to maximize your chances of reaching across to the target audience, keep them engaged, and ensure growth.

It is, therefore, a good idea to make use of all the 30 hashtags permitted to ensure maximum exposure. Further, it is also important to do in-depth keyword research regularly to identify the best hashtags so that your post shows up in the top nine contents.

5. Make Use of Stories Feature

You can use Instagram Stories feature in many ways. In fact, it is highly recommended that you use it on a regular basis, especially if more than 10,000 people are following your account.

It helps you to add hyperlinks within your posts. Actually, this is a great way to not only attract more traffic but also to generate more business through this social media platform.

In addition, you can create Instagram story polls to gather specific information as regards your followers. For example, you can create a poll to find out as to what type of content your followers prefer. You can also use this feature for announcing your new or next post. This will also help you to increase engagement quickly.

6. Make Use of Highlights Feature

If you have a fairly big account, then you should think of connecting with other large accounts as well as Instagram influencers. You can find out as to whether they are interested in collaborating with you.

However, if the size of your account is not as big as the other accounts or have the required engagement ratio, then you must consider providing value prior to asking them to collaborate with you.

This is really helpful in improving follower engagement and growth. It is also possible to effectively implement this strategy through Instagram Stories.

8. Instagram Live Streaming

Instagram Live has the ability to bring in a great deal of engagement as well as new followers. However, you need to provide value and share the same across your social networks.

If you promote live streaming well before the actual streaming with the help of hashtags through your stories and posts, then you are likely to add on a few new potential followers that are curious to know as to what you have to offer.

Instagram’s live streaming feature can also be used for driving traffic to your website if you have a large number of viewers. You can consider providing a few call-to-actions. For example, you can ask the viewers to click on the link included in your bio for receiving exclusive content.

Here are a few suggestions for making Instagram Live more interesting

Share a few things that happen behind-the-scenes.
Have a question and answer stream once in a week or month.

These will help your audience to get to know you better and you will also be in a better position to find out what they would like to know about you. This, in turn, would help you in generating more content ideas as well.

9. Engage with Your Targeted Audience and Followers

All said and done, if you want to achieve success on Instagram, you have to engage well with your followers. You need to show it to them that there is no bot and that you are the person operating your account by actively replying to your audience’s queries and comments through direct messages on a regular basis. This will encourage them to recommend your content and you to their family, friends, and followers.

The same applies to the content provided by you as well. You can leave a few likes, comments, and follow back your audience to build positive and healthy relationships. This will not only encourage engagement but also builds trust. This is an effective way to grow your account.

Final Thoughts

Summarizing, the nine tips discussed in the post will help you to become successful on Instagram. However, you need to put in some effort and experiment with many different kinds of content and hashtags. You should never be scared of experimenting when it comes to marketing.

How to Use Customer Reviews to Leverage Content Marketing

Posted on January 8, 2018 by NextJSjointviews

Word of mouth has always been important for businesses small or big. The word-of-mouth channel has even more reach because of the internet today. This is good news for businesses that deliver on their promise and take care of customer service.

It is common for users to search for a business and look up its reviews and ratings before making a purchase. E-commerce websites know that customer reviews of products greatly influence sales.

According to BrightLocal, 72% consumers say that positive reviews make a business more trustworthy.

Customer reviews obviously affect your online conversion. But is there a way to use them in your content marketing too?

Adding customer reviews in your content gives it authenticity and social proof. Customers are more likely to trust words of other customers. Here are ways to leverage your customer reviews for content marketing.

Social Media Posts

Social media is a place to connect with other people and get social. You can also share the experience of other customers instead of just posting your own blogs, ads and graphics. Thrive, a nutrition centre, posts their customer reviews on social media to gain confidence of other members in community. Seeing others successfully complete the program makes other readers more likely to give your product or service a serious thought.

You can also run a campaign to invite written or video testimonial for your business. LuluLemon, a Canadian athletic apparel retailer, encourages its customers to tag them in Instagram posts. Customers promoting your brand in their personal posts give a boost to your brand authenticity on social media.

Blog

There are many ways to use positive customer reviews in your blog posts.

You can display testimonial in your blog or on side panel on your blog page. This can be done by inserting relevant customer review in a highlighted box.

You can also request your most loyal customers to write a guest blog for you. This is especially good for a B2B company. A blog from a marketing head explaining how your system improves marketing ROI for them can do wonders for your conversion.

Case Studies

Case studies are a great way to use customer reviews for storytelling. Case studies can be a part of your presentation or content on your lead page. They also go well in e-books and email campaigns.

Case studies weave customers’ words into a relatable story. Pick a demographic that is closest to your target market and recount the problems that the customer had before. Like any good story, a case study must have a clearly defined character, struggles, solution to problem and a renewed life after the use of your product, service or advice.

Testimonial

A testimonial page to display all your customer reviews is great when you have accumulated many reviews. Alternatively, you can also display your testimonials in a scrollable carousel format on the home page of your website. Simple plugins like Slidervilla allow you to display your testimonials in a tasteful manner.

Email Campaigns

Emails are another place where you can use user generated content. Using customer reviews and ratings will make your promotional emails more compelling and actionable.

Shape FX uses this beautifully to drive their leads to a purchase.

Lead Page Content

Lead page is the most important page in content marketing. It converts visitors to leads and leads to customers in the sales funnel. An account from customers who have made this transition and happy with the result is a must have on your lead page.

You can also display your ratings earned on third party review sites such as Google seller rating, Yelp or other local business rating sites. Video testimonials and celebrity quotes do even better on lead pages.

Final Thoughts

Customer reviews can be used in many different ways in content marketing. They form the social proof that is needed to convert your leads into customers. Use them in different formats mentioned above to make your content more authentic and your brand more trustworthy.

10 Best Ideas to Promote Your Business Using Instagram

Posted on March 7, 2017 by NextJSjointviews

Instagram is gaining popularity as a mobile social platform. At present, Instagram has about 80 million users, which is likely to increase in the coming years. This popularity has increased the platform’s importance in social media marketing. If you are planning to put your business on Instagram, here’s how you can give your business extra visibility and improve customer engagement:

Set up a separate business Instagram account

If you plan to promote your business through Instagram, it’s important to have a separate account meant only for it. Remember, your business is all about what you offer and your audience. It has got nothing to do with your personal details or photos. Since the idea is to improve customer engagement, here’s what you can do:

Include the link to your website

This is a great way to improve website traffic. Include the link to your website under the name and description at the top of the Instagram page.

Stay recognizable

As a brand, it’s important to have your own identity. If you fail here, remember, all your efforts will go down the drain. Avoid such situations by choosing an account name similar to that you have used in all other social media platforms. Your interactions and engagement in the account go along with the profile image. Therefore, make sure that your profile image is identifiable and professional.

Provide a catchy and informative bio

If you want people to follow your brand, make sure that they are enlightened about what you offer. Provide an attention-grabbing but informative bio with all necessary details. At the same time, try to make it light and interesting.

2. Show off your products

Information in the form of visuals tend to stay in people’s mind more than words. Use this to your advantage with Instagram, which is an image-centric platform. Post photos of the products you offer and that can really help to boost your sales. Here are few tips to make the users follow you through your Instagram posts:

Do not annoy them

Remember, Instagram is just a platform to promote your business and not to sell your products. Therefore, you must try to grab attention without being annoying. Try being creative with the photographs of your products. Let the customers feel how great a product is through the images and make a decision, instead of you insisting them to buy your products.

Be creative and professional with photos and product description

Product photos and description play an essential role in the decision customers makes with regard to purchasing the product. As I said before, Instagram is not a market place but just a medium to promote your business. Therefore, your product description should not sound salesy. Instead, try to post photos that are unique, striking and full of personality.

Let your images reflect professionalism

An improperly cropped or a blurred image isn’t going to impress the audience. Instagram automatically makes your image square (612×612 pixels). Consider this while choosing a photo to post. The best way for an image to show professionalism is through its quality. You can maintain the quality of your photos by saving them at double the resolution size. For example, if you save your photograph at 1024×1024 pixels dimension in Photoshop, it won’t lose its quality when reduced to Instagram’s image dimensions.

3. Show what your products can do

You can showcase different ways to use your product. Also, you can improve user-engagement by asking your followers to post photos of the innovative ways in which they use your products. If the followers feel that they are getting attention, they tend to engage more with your brand.

4. Give your followers the “behind the scenes” experience

The “behind the scene” look may not be aesthetically pleasing, whether it’s a product launch or a photoshoot. But, it adds to the content for promoting your business. Your followers may be excited to have a glimpse of what happens at the backstage and therefore, you must post photos regarding the same. This helps to build a close relationship with your followers.

5. Create lifestyle photos that scream your brand culture

Instagram is not a place where you can make direct sales, pushing your customers to buy your products. Instead, you have to influence your audience and make them feel that your product is what they need, by adding value and appeal to your posts. You can do this through lifestyle photos.

A life style photo consists of real background and models to create a scenario for your product. It lets the customers visualize how well the product works for them if they were using it. Famous brands like Nike and Adidas had already tried this and saw about 8 times better interaction on social media.

6. Offer incentives

Majority of users follow a business or a brand depending on the freebies and discounts they offer. Therefore, do not hesitate to provide special offers, discounts and bonuses whenever you can. This is going to improve customer engagement.

7. Promote events

Hold events and promote them through Instagram. This is going to hugely benefit your business, earning you more followers. You can inform your Instagram followers about the location of the event by geo-tagging and invite them over to join you. Yes! Geo-tagging is a rarely used tool in Instagram; but, did you know that posts with geo-tagging get 79% more customer interaction?

8. Strategize to expand your audience

Posting outstanding photos alone cannot earn you enough followers. It’s also important to devise strategies to widen your audience and earn potential customers.

Use hashtags

With lots of feeds being created on a daily basis, your post may go unseen or forgotten quickly. Using hashtags can help to improve visibility of your posts since those containing the same keywords gets grouped together and remains discoverable. However, make sure that you do not use more than five hashtags for one post since such posts seem to have had fewer engagement. You can look for popular hashtags and use them in your posts. It is okay to create your own hashtags if you want; but, make sure that you use keywords and phrases relevant to your brand.

Share your follower’s content

Make your followers feel good by sharing their posts on your profile. You’ll see them coming back to see their posts on your feed and may even suggest their friends to do so, thus improving customer engagement.

9. Nourish customer relationships

Remember, you are not here to make some followers and be forgotten. The motive is to convert your followers into loyal, potential customers and you can do this by adopting techniques to boost engagement.

Open up conversations with your followers

When you post a product photo, you can add a catchy caption to it that compels the followers to engage and respond. Include a call-to-action or ask a question to start a conversation with your followers. While adding a caption, be careful not to repeat what’s in the image. Make it interesting so that once the customers see the photo and then, the caption, they start seeing the product from a different angle. Also, make sure that the captions are not too long. Make it short but attention-grabbing that makes the customer want to participate.

Hold contests

Holding contests help you to gain followers and improve user engagement. This, you can do in 4 simple steps:

1. Decide what the prize will be

2. Post a catchy photo of the prize along with details of the contest in the caption.

3. Post a second reminder few days later

4. Announce the winner

Respond to notifications

Remember, the response shouldn’t be one-sided. Whenever a follower mentions your brand in a comment, you must respond to them. Thank them when they appreciate you and answer their queries without fail. This is how you can engage them and build a relationship of loyalty and trust.

10. Keep track of your Instagram success

The best way to succeed is by learning from your mistakes. Therefore, it is necessary to keep track of your business’ growth in Instagram. Analyse your successes, keep track of the audience and repeat the content that is working. Find the followers who interact with you often and target them to make them your potential customers. Analyse the timings when the customers are more likely to be engaged in your feed and schedule posts accordingly.

Since Instagram is a part of Facebook, this photo-sharing social platform has active user base that businesses can utilize to their promotional needs. To start your Instagram marketing campaign, you can either hire experts in-house or assign the project to an independent team.