How to include Instagram in your social media strategy
Since its launch in 2010, Instagram has seen a massive increase in popularity and has slowly become an essential part of our everyday lives, simply because it provides the perfect platform to showcase what we want our followers to see, whether that be our personal or our professional side.
Given the importance of humanizing the companies that exist in our current society in order to relate to customers at a more personal level, Instagram allows you to be part of the life of your target audience in a non-intrusive and relatable way.
But, what’s so special about Instagram? Well, Instagram’s principal medium of communication is the image, whether that be through photography or video, emphasizing the visual over the narrative unlike other networks, such as LinkedIn or Facebook.
And how will this help us? Simply put, it attracts a society that every day reads less and less and prefers to receive information through attractive, quality images over blocks of text.
For those not yet familiar with instagram, it is a social networking site that allows you to upload photos and videos of your daily life, trips, projects, etc, onto your own personal profile, keeping in mind that the higher the quality and the more creative you are with your uploads, the more followers you will receive.
In 2016 Instagram also added a new feature called Instagram Stories, which allows you to upload photos and videos that are only available for 24 hours and has the ability to broadcast live video, as well. When released, this new functionality was warmly received by the Instagram community, and everyday more and more people are using it.
Still, though there appears to be no disadvantages to using Instagram, it is necessary to understand how to include this site in your social media campaign, since as we exposed in our previous article, X, not all social networks are created equal. You need to know your target audience, and you must set clear goals for your strategy.
“How do I include Instagram in my social media strategy?”
Every time we include a new social networking site to our digital strategy, we must first know what characterizes it, the target audience, whether it uses a formal or informal tone, the features that differentiate it and allows us to integrate it in a way that is coherent with the rest of our strategy. There lies the key to any social media plan. We need to find what attracts the public to Instagram and use it to our advantage.
1.- Know the consumer behind the screen. If you do not know your target audience, you do not know the type of content you should publish.
2. Say goodbye to improvisation. It is vital to have a valid strategy for publishing content, both on this social network and any others. Only then will we achieve the coherence we are looking for. 3.- Be creative. Whatever the content you post may be, you must get your viewer’s attention. Many brands already have profiles in social networking sites like Instagram, so to get more likes and increase the number of followers of your surf camp, you will need to publish content that both excites and connects with the community.
4.- Be consistent. It’s no use being creative if you do not publish content regularly. This is easily solved by creating a strategy for publishing content.
5 .- Your followers are a part of your surfcamp. Use this social network to create a stronger community and to bring your audience closer to your world. In addition to uploading photos and videos, the new Instagram Live feature can be the perfect tool to cover your camp’s events, show off your camp or broadcast live classes.
With these five tips you are ready to take your first steps into the world of Instagram. See you next week!
Tags TotalSurfCamp Instagram Estrategia digital Social Media Redes Sociales
Originally published at totalsurfcamp.com on April 19, 2017.
