Listen to the full episode here: Hi, welcome to the new episode of Make Marketing Yours.
Before I go into today's’ topic. I just wanted to share a couple of things with you. I was out for a month and didn’t do my podcast because my parents were visiting from overseas and I haven’t seen them for 4 years. Before they came, I have 8 episodes ready, and I just need to record them. I thought I am going to do that before they arrived. And of course, things happened, and I didn’t get a chance to do it. I had two choices – do it or leave it. At the end I have decided to leave it. Why putting on so much stress when you just know that you couldn’t do it. Is the sky going to fall or is the world going to disappear? Nope. I have learnt to just do what I can do. Then I got flu on the day my parents left, so another week without doing any podcast. The only thing I could have done better is to announce it at my last episode and to let my listeners know that I will be off for a couple of weeks. I did receive a couple of messages and asked me if I was ok. Thank you for those who left me messages.
Ok, back to today’s episode. I am going to talk more on Instagram.
Instagram is a huge social network with over 1 million active users – a user base that is continuing to grow even now with no signs of slowing down. It is quick to manage thanks to its largely visual nature and has some of the best engagement on the web.
Many companies use Instagram to boost their products and services to extraordinary popularity. There are countless ‘Instagram celebrities’ who make a living from posting to Instagram alone. Some of them get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single post.
That tells you something about how much big companies value Instagram!
However, there are many businesses still failing to gain any momentum on the platform. That’s because they’re stuck posting the same content day after day, not providing any value for their audience, and not quite ‘getting it’ when it comes to what sticks or what strategies work. So stay with me, I’m going to change the way you view Instagram and the way your business operates.
First, we’ll see how you can create a real movement by understanding what makes Instagram tick. Then we’ll get into details – the tips and tricks that make any Instagram account grow faster. We’ll start with the big picture, then get down to the details. And speaking of big picture, that’s what Instagram is all about for business. It’s about selling a dream or a ‘value proposition’. Being very visual, Instagram lends itself to promoting feelings over figures – it shows people who are successful, who are happy, or who are very trendy.
This creates an excitement reaction in the viewer, who is socially motivated to want to do the same things and feel the same way. That’s why we follow aspirational accounts, and it’s why Instagram posts have the potential to influence more so that anything you can accomplish on Twitter.
Like people say: a picture is worth a thousand words!
The simple filters that Instagram offers allow anyone to take an ordinary everyday moment from their life and make it look ‘beautiful’ or at the very least, artistic. In doing so, they alter our focus and find the beauty and the appeal in our lives. And to this day, Instagram is filled with hipsters taking photos of their food, or of glasses standing alone on tables. Then there are photos of journals, carefully placed on desks surrounded by coffee and potted plants. There are other corners of Instagram of course. There is a huge fitness community, for example, filled with photos of people looking tanned and muscular while jogging down the beach. Travel is absolutely huge. Beauty and beauty products likewise have a big place. And fashion is perfectly suited to this visual medium.
Art and photography do well on Instagram too. And there is a larger silver-surfer contingent than you might think, made up particularly of people who enjoy activities like hiking, bird spotting, sewing etc.
Then there is also a concept of ‘stunting’ on Instagram.
What is stunting? It’s the act of creating an account in order to portray a particular image, that actually isn’t authentic. Most often? It means looking extremely wealthy and successful. For example, then, someone might post an image of their hand on the wheel of a Lamborghini, wearing a Rolex and with a stack of cash on the seat next to them. In reality though, they are testing the car at a show-room, the Rolex is a knock-off, and the cash is just $100 that they withdrew in small notes. Believe it or not, people actually make a living from being stunting! I personally think this goes too far. I don’t believe in ‘fake it till you make it’ kind of concept. You should be who you are, no matter where you show up.
It is the same for your business. You can post about the lifestyle and usin
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