Using Instagram for business.
April 9, 2015
Pictures are important aren’t they? Let’s be truthful, when we were younger we may have chosen that book from the library from the pictures it had within the centres pages… Maybe it was the cover that attracted you? Throughout the many years of marketing, images have been a powerful tool to attract people’s interest and nowdays we have dedicated social media platforms that are geared for the uploading and sharing of images. Let’s look at Instagram and some key tips in using it for your business:
- As with sharing any content on social media, make sure that you have both business images and fun / engaging ones too. Just because you are an estate agent, you do not necessarily have to share photos of property, think about topics surrounding your industry such as gardens, swimming pools, architecture, furniture, artwork… This could lead you on to cars, trees, flowers, animals, clothing, watches and other well loved topics.
- Try and be varied with what you share, but a good idea is to also find a niche. Think about highlighting a specific topic or subject, ie architecture within your town/village.
- Sharing content is always best when it is your own, this makes you unique and far more interesting in the eye of other Instagram users. You need to be careful if sharing images that you do not own, one for copyright issues, but two you may find that the same image as been shared many times before making you appear boring.
- Hashtags can be used on Instagram so use them wisely and highlight the important words which you wish to be found for ie #property #swimmingpool #prestigeproperty #luxuryapartment etc.
- Videos can also be shared on Instagram so think about doing some mini videos to enhance your timeline.
- Network on Instagram as you would on other platforms. You can follow and be followed, make comments on other people’s photos and reply to comments on yours. Look to follow people that you search keywords for and try and seek those who are local. Liking other people’s photos will also get you attention.
- Try and be active daily. My advice is to use your mobile phone to take photos when you are out and about as much as you can and as Instagram is a mobile APP platform, you’ll easily be able to upload the better photos you take directly to your account.
- Instagram is very addictive and though it may sound quite basic to those who’ve yet to use it, you can find yourself spending a lot of time on the platform so make sure you stay productive – Look to see what other estate agents are sharing photo wise, look at keywords and the photos that appear in the search results, see how people use the caption and the wording they use to describe the photos.
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