Social media has become a driving force in marketing today. What is better than having the ability to directly communicate with your customers and get instant feedback? Well in marketing not much. That is why more and more companies are using social media. The main question is what social media to use for your company; Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, Pintrest, Instagram, or any other. It all comes down to what is your target audience. Each social media mainly attracts different types of audiences with some over lap. Facebook is if you want to reach mainly middle class mid 20s-40s. Twitter is a mix of a millennials, corporations, and people in corporate world. Linkedin is all business all the time.
Instagram is one of the largest social media platforms out today. Instagram has become one of the second largest platform next to Facebook (which owns Instagram) It may seem like one of the hardest platforms to understand since it is photo and short video based platform. Instagram’s audience in mainly consist of 20s – 30s year olds. Today Instagram has been able to adapt and not become stagnate like Twitter has become. They have now added stories which are a Snapchat competitor and added live streaming which every platform has added throughout all of 2016.
Instagram as a Brand Builder
All social media platforms can and should be used to help build your brand awareness up. Instagram is a great platform to do just this. With only using pictures and video you can say a lot without having to write a long post. Also using hastags allows you to go directly to any audience on Instagram of people who are looking exactly for those tags. These are some of the basics that anyone can use and have used while using Instagram in their market. Recently Instagram has innovated and reshaped itself recently. This includes the addition of stories and live video. Stories are pictures and videos that you can send to your followers that will only show up for 24 hours. I can hear you now; Why would I ever want to do that? Well it will give your audience something that they will feel exclusivly apart to and if you do it enough people will come looking for it. Also Instagram added Live video to its platform in 2016. This allows people to communicate directly with you while on a live video. This can be used in a Q&A format or to show people some of what goes on behind the scenes.
Instagram Storytelling
The best new feature everyone should be using in Instagram is hands down stories. With these short little pictures or clips that disappear after 24 hours it may seem like a waste of time. The fact is doing this not only can bring awareness to your brand but also can help people see behind the scenes of how your business works. If used right you can show people things about your business they only would be able to see things they would only be able to see if they worked for you. This can get people to interact with your brand more and convert more. If they see what goes into making one of your products or services it will make a deeper connection then posting one post a day saying “here buy this”.
Lets give an example. Say you make wicker chairs and are wanting to use Instagram stories. You go show what goes into making a chair in multiple stories for an entire day using a combination of video and pictures. Another day you could show all the orders that are going out. Once you start playing around with it and figuring out how to use it to engage your audience it will feel more natural.
There is an other way to use Instagram stories and that is using as a vlog platform. If you do not know what vlogging is; well it is video blogging and that is the best way to explain it. Basically it is someone standing in front of a camera and talking with you.Vlogging has become wicked popular over the years and it is not slowing down anytime soon. You can use stories to substitute your vlogs on other platforms. If you have wanted to do vlogging and have not it is a great platform to start doing it and see if it will work for you.
Lets give an example. Say you are a motivation speaker and are wanting to use Instagram stories. You can use it in multiple stories throughout the day in a vlog style telling people about your motivational talk. Maybe every day you work it around one of the main of your topics.
Going Live on Instagram
Before we go on about Instagram live and how you should be using it; can we 
have a talk about live streaming in general? Live streams are not a fad and they are hear to stay. So stop thinking it is something just people do at concerts or at events. It is the next step of webinars. Webinars will soon be replaced by live streaming and become the most popular platform for live presentations in videos. Now that we got that out of the way.
Live streams may be one of the hardest things for older marketers to understand. Well what if there was another wrench thrown in? Like right after your live video is done it will be deleted…forever. Well that is exactly what happens when you use Instagram live. I can hear you know; why is that a good thing? Well it is simple it makes it something exclusive that your audience can have with your business. Imagine having a private party for your entire audience that only happens whenever you decide. That is exactly what Instagram live is like.
So you are probably asking now; what is the best way to use Instagram live? Well you can use it as a question and answer platform. You could set up the live video every week, month, or at random times and have your audience ask questions about your business and you answer. You could also set up the video as an additional live stream to make sure that you can have a larger audience.
Conclusion
Well wrapping everything up; the basics are that Instagram is one of the most versatile and innovating social media platforms on the market today. It not only is a great visual platform with using pictures and videos mainly. It can help you target your audience by using hashtags to help reach niche audiences. On top of all of this Instagram now has new features like live videos and stories to interact with your audience.
