How To Get started With Instagram Marketing - By Pam Dyer

Instagram is a powerful tool for establishing a visual brand identity.

It enables businesses to improve engagement and increase sales by showcasing their products in creative ways and implementing interactive hashtag campaigns. With more than 300 million active users, it is now the most popular photo-sharing social media platform, surpassing Pinterest by more than 250 million. If you haven’t tried Instagram marketing yet, it’s time to get started.

Create a stunning Instagram profile and story

Instagram profiles are minimal. They are limited to 150 characters and are not indexed by search engines. Your story is really told via the use of photos, so make sure you use high-resolution images to grab attention and create engagement. Whether they feature your customers, products, or personality, they need to deliver a clear cohesive message that will resonate with your target audience.

• Decide on a visual theme to represent your brand
• Use your products to tell a story that will interest your audience
• Ensure that your photos provide value to your followers

Here are the latest Instagram profile image dimensions:

Find your audience by researching and listening

Hashtags are the lifeblood of the Instagram community. Hopefully you’re already aware of the hashtags your customers are using. It’s vital to tap into that power to learn how your audience is talking about your products and industry, as well as how your competitors are leveraging the platform for success.

You can search relevant hashtags and follow users who are already engaging with your brand and products, have a large following, and are engaging regularly. Other ways to find followers include using “Find Friends > Suggested Users” and employing Instagram’s messaging system, Instagram Direct.

Make sure you have 5-10 images in your Instagram stream before you begin following people.

Engage and add value to your community

A Forrester study dubbed Instagram the “king of social engagement” and found that the platform blows others away in this area. Their findings indicated that top brands’ Instagram posts generated a per-follower engagement rate of 4.21%. That means Instagram delivered these brands 58 times more engagement per follower than Facebook, and 120 times more engagement per follower than Twitter.

Starting conversations with consumers is one of the most valuable aspects of social media marketing, and the previously mentioned Instagram Direct offers that functionality out of the box. Use it to:

• Enable your audience to send customer service questions and product inquiries and receive a visual response from you
• Send customers “thank you” pictures when they make purchases
• Send coupons, press releases, surveys, etc. to your top followers

Be sure to respect your users’ privacy and use these tactics in moderation so you don’t come across as a spammer.

Create your content

To successfully engage on Instagram, you need to contribute.

• Use high-resolution images and a third-party editing app to enhance your images before you upload them to Instagram
• Use a mix of Instagram filters. No filter — i.e. “Normal” — is the most popular filter on Instagram, but “Mayfair” elicits the most interactions.
• The most engagement comes from photos that feature the product in only 2/3 of the picture

Make sure you don’t update too often with redundant pictures. Your goal should be 2-3 new photos per week. You can increase your cadence as you grow your followers.

Tips for raising the profile of your product photos:

• Share your customers’ photos
• Make it easy to purchase your products by including a link to the product page
• Mobile coupon usage continues to climb as the world becomes more digital, so it’s important to provide offers and discounts along with a picture of your product and a reason that people should buy it.

Instagram videos

Instagram videos are very popular with brands because they enable more creative storytelling and can generate exponentially more inbound links than written posts. They can be 3-15 seconds long and edited with built-in tools that enable you to apply unique filters. You can also choose your own thumbnail image.

Engage like crazy

Create off-page engagement by liking and commenting on popular photos. @mention both the creator and other commenters.

Engage people on your page by:

• Adding questions in your captions that encourage comments
• Replying to all comments and @mentioning the commenter in your photo
• Running hashtag campaigns through your followers and featuring them in your photos

When to post on Instagram

Posts on Sunday, Monday, and Thursday create the most engagement. Make sure to use a mix of:

• Brand-specific hashtags
• Industry-specific hashtags
• Trending hashtags, e.g. #throwbackthursday
• Use Populagram to find popular hashtags, filters, and people
• Use Websta to find the best hashtags for your posts and more

Leverage your other social networks

One of the best features of Instagram is that it is connected to Facebook, which makes it easy to share content across all of your social media platforms. If your focus on Instagram is product photos, you can embed your stream on your website for maximum exposure.

Reward your Instagram followers

Turn your engagement into brand loyalty by rewarding your most active followers and brand ambassadors.

• Post “first looks” and “previews” of new products and upcoming events
• Offer coupons and contests to incentivize engagement and brand promotion

Related Posts:

• Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks for Facebook,…
• Optimize Your Posts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter,…
• A Comprehensive Guide to Your Social Media Image Sizes

http://pamorama.net/2015/04/11/how-to-get-started-with-instagram-marketing/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

The Essential Social Media Image Size Cheat Sheet - Infographic

The Essential Cheat Sheet for Social Media Image Sizes

Every so often, popular social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus change the format, layout, and style of their networks.

Just when you feel comfortable with the most recent updates, along comes a whole new round.

One area that continues to evolve is social media images. From cover photos to the exact right dimensions for posts, keeping up can feel impossible.

To help you make the most of your online presence, I’ve put together an essential list of social media image sizes for the top eight social networks.

You’ll also find best practices and examples that show you how to leverage graphics to build awareness, interest and engagement.

To make it easy, click on each link to skip to your favorite social network, then save or pin the Infographic via Set Up a Blog Today.

2015 Social Media Image Size Guide

Skip to a Social Network

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Google+
• Instagram
• Pinterest
• Tumblr
• YouTube
• LinkedIn

Twitter

• Header Photo: 1500 x 500
• Profile Photo: 400 x 400
• In-Stream Photo Preview: 440 x 220

Your Twitter profile offers several ways to use images to stand out. First, you have your header photo. Just like your cover photo on Facebook and Google Plus, Twitter’s header image is your branding opportunity.

Use your header image to align your look and feel, marketing message and company tagline. And before you throw away a chance to brand your business, know the answers to a few questions.

• Who is your target market?
• How do you help solve their problems?
• What is your call to action and what next step do you want them to take?

Additionally, the Twitter in-stream photo is a great way to brand your tweets and grab the attention of your followers. Are you using images within your tweets? If not, now is the time to get started.

Are you using images within your tweets? If not, now is the time to get started.

While the Twitter preview size is 440 x 220 (a 2:1 ratio), I’ve found that an image size of 1024 x 512 pixels works perfectly within the feed.

To determine what text will show up within your image, you could use this formula from Laura Rhoeder:

“Divide the width of your image in half to find the 2:1 ratio and the number of vertical pixels you have to work with. Now divide the in-stream preview height in half. Using the same example as above, you would divide 1024 in half to get 512.

From the horizontal line in the center of your image (the Y axis), move up that number of pixels (e.g., 512) on the Y-axis and draw another horizontal line. Do the same thing again, but moving down the Y-axis from the center of the image.

Everything inside that blue box is the in-stream preview. The blue box aligns with Twitter’s 2:1 template and is centered vertically to keep the best part of your picture visible.”

Or, you can make it easy on yourself and create your images in a tool like Canva or QuotesCover that will help you determine where to place your text.

Facebook

• Cover Photo Dimensions: 851 x 315
• Profile Image: 400 x 400
• Shared Images: 1200 x 900

Are you ready to turn up the volume on your business and gain the edge over your competition? Then get visual on Facebook!

Meaningful Facebook conversations begin with great content, this includes the images you share.

Use your Facebook cover photo and newsfeed images to connect fans to your brand. Whether it’s a picture of your latest business offering or one that promotes your recent blog post, make sure the look and feel best represent who you are offline and online.

Google Plus

• Profile Image: 250 x 250
• Cover Image: 1080 x 608
• Shared Image: 497 x 279

When was the last time you updated your Google+ profile or page? If your answer is, “I don’t know,” then now is the time.

Did you know that posts including an image are 87% more likely to get shared than posts without?

Peg Fitzpatrick, author of “The Art of Social Media” and social media power user seconds that,

“You can’t be guaranteed a share if an image doesn’t pull through on the Pin it button or onto Facebook or Google+. Help people help you by providing an image that they can share. If people can look like a rockstar sharing your content, it’s a win!”

Just take one look at her beautiful images and it’s easy to see why her content gets the shares it does.

Instagram

• Profile Image: 110 x 110
• Photo Thumbnails: 161 x 161
• Photo Size: 640 x 640

With more than 300 million users, Instagram has become a visual marketing social leader.

Whether you’re sharing your latest blog post, business quote or helpful tip, Instagram has marketing super powers, no matter the industry or niche.

While completing your profile is incredibly important with any social network, this is especially true with Instagram since you’re limited in the amount of information you can share.

That’s where the right visuals come in very handy. Use your graphics to better connect with your audience, tell your story and brand your business.

But keep in mind; you will need to crop your photos to fit within the social apps square dimensions. If you’re adamant about keeping the original dimensions of your photo, there are apps that can help.

Ann Tran has great success with images that aren’t the traditional Instagram square. As you can see, her engagement on this post proves that mixing it up just makes sense.

Pinterest

• Profile Image: 165 x 165
• Board Display: 222 x 150
• Pin Sizes: 236 / 600

Are you interested in marketing your business with Pinterest?

Not only can a persuasive Pinterest image attract attention, but also inspire action and drive traffic to your website or blog.

Don’t miss the opportunity to optimize your images for maximum engagement!

What you need to know:

Pins in the feed will have a width of 236 pixels and expanded pins have a minimum width of 600 with the length adjusted to scale.

As Sprout Social says,

When adding a pin to your board it’s important to remember that Pinterest puts a limit on the width of the image but not the length. This gives you the opportunity to add a photo that’s square or one that will scale to be even taller. Just remember to make sure you’re creating large images because they add more value, not just because you can.

I have had great success with larger images over the last several years, finding that larger images receive more repins, likes and clicks.

My perfect size is 735 x1200. However, don’t be afraid to mix it up and see what works best for you.

This image, created over one year ago for the article, “10 Steps to Creating a Winning Social Media Strategy,” is 600 x 900 and still sits at the top of Pinterest search for the keyword “social media.”

Tumblr

• Profile Image: 128 x 128
• Image Posts: 570 x 750

With over 420 million users and over 113 million posts per day, Tumblr is no lightweight when it comes to visual marketing.

So, what do you need to know?

Aside from the profile photo, which should be square, your second biggest concern should be the images you share.

Disney is a great example of a brand that understands the importance of creating network specific content. Rather than sharing the same piece of content across multiple platforms, Disney tailors their content for this specific audience.

Learn from their example. Whether sharing a photo, video or GIF, think engagement and awareness when sharing your business content on Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook, Google Plus or Twitter.

YouTube

• Channel Cover Photo: 2560 x 1440
• Video Uploads: 1280 x 760

Since YouTube is a video-sharing site and not a photo-sharing site, your graphic focus will be your channel’s profile image and cover photo.

What do you need to know about YouTube videos?

• In order to qualify as HD quality, they must be a minimum of 1280 x 760.
• Videos must maintain a 16:9 aspect ratio.
• Make it a point to choose the most catchy video thumbnail.
• Your videos tell a story. What are yours telling about you? Keep the most relevant videos at the forefront of your YouTube channel like my interview with Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn’s continued growth and move towards visual marketing make this an important place for your business to be.

With over 332 million members, LinkedIn is growing at a speed of more then 2 new members per second. Does that sound like a place you can afford to forget about?

Spruce up your LinkedIn profile by adding a new cover photo (did you even know they allowed cover photos now?) and add consistent status updates.

As Constant Contact points out,

While some may consider LinkedIn one of the least visual social networks, reports have shown that you can increase your LinkedIn views by 11 times when you include a photo. We have found that including a photo with the content we’re sharing on LinkedIn from the Constant Contact page typically doubles the engagement rate.

Mike Allton with The Social Media Hat makes this suggestion for a perfect LinkedIn cover photo,

“Don’t just upload an image you like — make sure that image communicates something about you and your business to prospects, and add text to help contextualize the image, or at least add additional information.”

And his cover photo is an excellent example of making the most of this branding space:

Final Thoughts

I use images to brand my business in a consistent way. From my cover photos to my social media graphics, it’s easy to recognize my signature orange.

How are you using images to brand your business? Think about what purpose they’re currently serving.

Now decide how you can update your social media image sizes to create a memorable experience, no matter where anyone chooses to connect with you.

Pin the Infographic

http://rebekahradice.com/social-media-image-sizes/

Instagram To Improve Ads, Open Them Up To Businesses Of All Sizes

Instagram made a big advertising announcement recently as it prepares to add new formats and targeting options, and perhaps most significantly start letting businesses of all sizes buy ads. 

Instagram first launched ad a year and a half ago on a limited basis, and has since expanded formats most recently to include carousel ads. The company says that across over 475 campaigns measured globally, ad recall from sponsored posts was 2.9x higher than Nielsen norms for online advertising.

Instagram will begin testing direct response ads in the coming months. These will enable users to buy products or download apps from the ads. 

“People come to Instagram to follow their passions, from travel and fashion to cars and entertainment,” the company says in a blog post. “They want to see ads that reflect the things they care about. Advertisers also want to target their messages in more effective ways and reach people not just because of their age, location and gender, but because of the people, places and things they love.”

“Later this year, we will continue to connect businesses to the right people through expanded targeting options,” it adds. “Working with Facebook, we will enable advertisers to reach people on Instagram based on demographics and interests, as well as information businesses have about their own customers. We will also improve the feedback mechanisms within Instagram to give people greater control and improve the relevance of the ads they see.”

The company is working to make advertising available through an Ads API and Facebook ad buying interfaces over the coming months in an effort to open op ads to businesses of all sizes. It says it will leverage the best of Facebook’s infrastructure for buying, managing, and measuring ads. 

They’ll be opening the API to a select group of Facebook Marketing Partners and agencies at first, and will expand globally throughout the year.

http://www.webpronews.com/instagram-to-improve-ads-open-them-up-to-businesses-of-all-sizes-2015-06