As most of you know, among being a wannabe fashionista and foodie, I am a public relations professional by day. I eat, live, and breathe PR! Not even kidding right now. When I attended this session at the 77th Annual Florida Public Relations Association Annual Conference on “Best Practices for Leveraging Instagram as a PR Tool,” I began to become consumed in a PR high and SO excited to share what I learned.
8 Tips for Instagram Success
- Get creative with your content – Nobody wants to see the same content every day. Have fun!
- Humanize your brand – People love to learn about people! Go behind-the-scenes and share successes of your team or client stories.
- Post frequently – But don’t get crazy! Posting 3 times a week should be your max unless it’s event oriented.
- Reward the behaviors you want to repeat – If someone posts about your product or comments on a IG post, engage with them by commenting back or regramming.
- Be smarter about hashtags – Create and use hashtags that are unique to your brand and relevant to your audience.
- Increase engagement – Once again, engage in online conversation with your followers.
- Create an Instagram style guide
- Be professional
According to a study conducted by Simply Measured, brands received 12% higher engagement on photos with hashtags and 76% higher engagement on photos that are geotagged.
8 Examples of Insta-creativity
- Themed content campaign – Create a theme that is eye-appealing and be consistent throughout the campaign.
- User-generated content campaign – Have followers use a specific hashtag on their photos and regram them. This helps generate content and engagement!
- Influencer takeover – Partner with industry-related influencers to have them do an Instagram takeover. Celebs oftentimes do this for brands they love! (Example: Jessica Alba with Honest Company)
- Insta-mob – Have influencers use hashtags with photo on certain day/time.
- Filter-driven storylines – Microsoft is an excellent example of this!
- Cross platform – Share via Facebook and Twitter to increase exposure.
- Insta-zine – Created a magazine on Instagram! Example here.
Other helpful links…
20 BEST Instagram Tools – bit.ly/GEBPRtools
Simon Sinek – Start with Why (Awesome video!)
Instagram Metrics – Simply Measured
All of this genius information was given by Heather Whaling, President of Geben Communication. She was full of Instagram knowledge! I hope you got as much out of this post as I did. I look forward to using her tips to expand my own brand!
You’re welcome & Happy Instagramming dolls!
– BRANDI –