Tag Archive for: Instagram

The Increasing Power of Instagram

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As marketers, we are constantly on the lookout for the latest and greatest marketing technologies. New gadgets and gizmos come and go, but few can withstand the test of time. One that has achieved this honor is Instagram.

A Brief Instagram History

Instagram’s success has been gaining ground ever since the platform launched in 2010. Only 2 months after its release, Instagram had already acquired over 1 million users. But they didn’t stop there.

Instagram continued improving and innovating itself. Users loved uploading their photos, applying all kinds of professional filters, and adding witty captions to explain their images.

The team at Facebook saw the incredible potential that Instagram possessed, and so they made a move to buy the company in April of 2012. For more information regarding the history of Instagram, please visit wersm.com.

Recent Accomplishments

Today, the social media platform boasts an enormous network of 800 million active users, according to Statista. Instagram also recently announced that more than 25 million business profiles exist through their platform.

These incredible numbers are a direct result from advertisers catching the Insta-wave. Advertisers have started to notice that there is no slowing down for the platform as it continues to increase the size of its network year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter. This produces an incredible base for many different ad campaigns.

Social media marketing has been proven to be incredibly useful because it is a more native form of advertising. As consumers continue to reject pushy and annoying advertisements, platforms like Instagram become more and more attractive to them.

It is likely that businesses and marketers will continue to flock toward Instagram. As the platform goes on to increase its user base, it also increases its appeal to marketers.

Latest News From Onimod Global

Keep up to speed with the digital marketing industry by visiting our blog! Our content creation team is constantly releasing new information regarding industry trends, state of the art technologies, and expert digital marketing advice.

3 Deadly Digital Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

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Digital marketing is often much more difficult than many people think. You can’t just hand over a marketing department to any millennial with a laptop and a Facebook account. You need a trained professional. Onimod Global is here to help with a quick list of marketing mishaps to steer clear of.

1.) No Clear Marketing Strategy

This is without a doubt the most effective way to sink your company. Moving ahead with digital marketing initiatives without any type of real game plan is detrimental. Not only will it waste time and money, but some of the damage may be irreversible. It can be very hard to change a consumer’s perception of a business once they’ve already interacted with it. After all, no one gets a second first impression.

Make sure to develop a real strategy before making any major moves. Consult with real professionals outside of your business. You may also want to seriously consider hiring someone full time to run your marketing campaigns. Digital marketing is not something that can be learned overnight. It requires real experience and education to be implemented successfully.

 

2.) Limited Social Media Exposure

First of all, you need to make sure that your brand exists on social media. Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and Instagram are just a few to get started. If you aren’t on these 4 basic platforms, then you are most certainly missing out on an enormous customer base.

Being present on these various platforms is invaluable to your brand’s identity. They are also completely free, aside from the time it will take to get them up and running.

If potential customers cannot find you anywhere on the internet besides your website, they may think that your company is a scam. Social media is a perfect way to build up a solid foundation and spread the word about your business. It is also a great way to push your content.

 

3.) Not Enough Content

The more original content you generate, the better. Whether in the form of a tweet, blog, or newsletter, these all have the potential to gain more traction for your business. This is a great way to get people interested in what you have to say.

Every extra minute you spend inside of a particular platform helps you gain more knowledge and credibility. Engaging with others is a great way to prompt them into engaging with you. The more time that you spend tweeting, retweeting, hashtagging, and following major influencers, the more recognition your brand will receive.

9 Intriguing Digital Marketing Stats From This Week

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The past few days saw the digital marketing world awaken from its post-holiday slumber and really put out some eye-opening stats.

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Ignore the Uproar. The Instagram Algorithm Change Is a Good Thing.

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Instagram recently dropped the news that it will be adapting a non-chronological newsfeed order, similar to its big brother, Facebook. Instead of sorting posts in a familiar linear order, the new algorithm will weigh in a variety of social signals, such as a number of post engagements. It will also consider content you liked before in an attempt to sort images in the order of “relevancy,” or as what Instagram perceives to be of most interest to you.

Instagram has already carved out its place among top networks for businesses, thanks to its almost exponential growth. What started as a teen photo-sharing app bought by Facebook in then-incredible $1 billion deal, the network is projected to rack in $1.86 billion in revenue this year as its user base growth outpaces general social network usage.

The update, however, has caused a storm of complains. It went as far as to prompt a petition on Change.org asking Instagram to leave its chronological feed alone. The outrage was mostly caused by comparing this change to Facebook’s algorithm. Notorious for discriminating business pages’ content, it upset many business owners when organic post reach plunged to unbelievable lows. In a lot of cases, Instagram was their network of choice because of its chronological order and an unlimited reach of posts.

However, the comparison of the two networks is unfair. Unlike Facebook, Instagram does not separate “personal” from “business” accounts. As of right now, a profile is a profile, independently of its use. So, this move is not discriminatory of businesses (I am looking at you, Facebook).

So let’s examine what this change in algorithm really means and whether it’s as scary as it looks to marketers.

Chronological newsfeed was truly effective only in two instances: businesses posted to Instagram every half an hour or their followers had a very limited number of handles they followed. This cannot be a widespread trend, because according to Optical Cortex data based on 20,000+ Instagram users, average number of people they follow is 822. So, for a majority of brand’s following those images most likely weren’t the first thing they saw; and that chronological order didn’t really matter anyway.

Now what really made a difference, and still will continue to do so, is getting ahead of the game with smart strategies. What you have (to continue) to do as a smart marketer is to focus on quality content that drives engagement.

Instagram was so gracious to let marketers know of its algorithm change before it kicked in. Use the little time that’s left with chronological newsfeed to jumpstart your new marketing strategy. Make an extra push to increase engagement now. Start to finally notice those comments people leave on your images! Respond to them! Use this as an opportunity to strike a conversation.

A lot of people who follow brands and celebrities will deliberately go to the handle to see what’s new. People follow Nike, Lexus or Kylie Jenner, because they know that each new post will be amazing (whatever their definition of amazing is). So, strive to make your Instagram account a mecca for striking visual content. This is the only way to ensure people won’t stop engaging with your content, whatever the algorithm is.

There are also a few other tactics you can employ to stay ahead of the curve. For example, if you are seriously using Instagram to grow your business, you already track and analyze results. You already know when your audience is online. You can still schedule your posts to go out at those times and increase visibility of fresh content.

Another reason to dive deep into analytics is to see which hashtags perform the best. Always test which hashtags improve engagement, always vary them to improve your odd of being discovered by a new group of people. Finally, constantly monitor trending hashtags (didn’t you already?) to see if any of the applicable and relevant hashtags are popular, giving you the opportunity to enjoy a remarkable rate of impressions. Yet, don’t go for an overkill. Don’t spam people with irrelevant content and thirty hashtags – that won’t increase your engagement or chances of being lovable.

Plus, while being strategic about your visual content (that has to rock their socks off), you should also become extremely strategic about your captions. It is proven that captions with a call to action are beyond effective in getting desired results. Do you want more engagement? Just ask for it! Foundr Magazine, for example, ends a lot of their captions with “double tap if you agree,” or “tag your friends.” What’s an easier way to gain numerous shares and an audience insight than to simply ask for their opinion?

Businesses that enjoy high engagement rates know their respective audiences very well. They know what type of imagery is catchy, what content needs to serve; and these companies have also figured out a context for consuming this content. They cater to their audience, so the latter wants to stick for the ride ahead.

Finally, don’t shy away from occasional boost. Employ the power of Facebook advertising capabilities on Instagram and target the right people.

So, after all, the change in algorithm might be for the better. If you post amazing content, it’ll be waiting for your followers in their newsfeed even if it was posted a few hours ago. Instagram user survey indicated that 60% of Instagrammers learn about products and services on the network and 75% take action after being inspired by an Instagram post. Now is the time to bring your A-game on.

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H/T: Entrepreneur

Here Are 9 Eye-Opening Digital Marketing Stats From the Past Week

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Instagram and Snapchat continue to heat up in the digital marketing world. Check out the gaudy numbers those social players are pulling as well as six other stats from the space in the last week that we found particularly interesting:

1. New York researcher eMarketer said today that 32 percent of U.S. companies with 100 employees or more will use Instagram for marketing this year. That number will increase to 49 percent next year before jumping to 71 percent in 2017. What’s more, eMarketer said, Instagram may be more popular with marketers than Twitter in two years.

2.  CEO Evan Spiegel and his team forecast that Sponsored Selfie Filters—a new ad unit from Snapchat—will reach up to 16 million viewers a day, BuzzFeed reported. The ad purchase will cost a maximum of $700,000 per day.

3. According to Fast Company, Snapchat earlier this year discovered that between 60 percent and 70 percent of users stopped watching its video ads after just three seconds. Coca-Cola, however, has evidently cracked the code by simply making content tailored for the app. Working in concert with Snapchat, the magazine reported that the soda giant is getting a Snapchat video completion rate of 54 percent for 10-second clips.

4. Twitter has started offering Conversion Lift, which helps brands measure the effectiveness of Promoted Tweets, enabling them to better target ads. Referencing Conversion Lift data, the San Francisco tech company claimed that people who see Promoted Tweets are 1.4 times more likely to interact with a brand than those who don’t see an ad.

5. Millward Brown polled more than 13,500 multiscreen viewers—i.e., people who own a TV and either a smartphone or tablet—in 42 countries on what they think about video advertising. The researcher found that the average consumer between the ages of 16 and 45 watches 204 minutes of video a day, split equally between TV and online. Indeed, the tube and digital video are now on equal footing for both Gen Y and Gen X consumers. What’s more, 45 minutes of the average online viewing time is done on a smartphone, while desktop accounts for 37 minutes and tablet for 20 minutes.

6. The aforementioned eMarketer study also found that 88 percent of U.S. companies will utilize at least one social-media network for marketing this year.

7. P.F. Chang’s is running a user-generated content effort around National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October called #PFChangsPink. The brand saw a 1,300 percent bump in UGC from the goodwill initiative in its first eight days.

8. During last week’s Democratic presidential debate, Hillary Clinton’s Twitter handle got 293,696 mentions on the microblogging platform, besting challenger Bernie Sanders’ 278,405.

9. Mode Media, formerly Glam Media, said it has streamed more than 1 billion video views in the past six months. Mode.com’s channels include Glam (women’s lifestyle), Brash (men’s lifestyle), Bliss (health and wellness), Tend (parenting), Foodie (recipes and restaurants), among others.

Bonus stat: So far in 2015, only 14 percent of initial public offerings have been done by tech companies, per a Wall Street Journal article citing stats from Dealogic.

H/T: AdWeek.