5 Instagram Articles Every Marketer Should Read

It's no secret that Instagram has incredible reach. It grew more than 400 million users just in 2015. Here are 5 Instagram articles to help your brand. 

Does your business have a presence on Instagram?

Instagram has doubled its user base, to 700 million monthly actives in two years, fueled by Stories, web signups and better onboarding on low-end Android phones. Instagram’s growth rate is actually speeding up. It took just four months to add the last 100 million users since hitting 600 million in December , while it took six months to go from 500 million to 600 million.

However, not every business has jumped on the Instagram marketing band wagon and we understand why.

At first glance Instagram seems like it’s really only beneficial for those in e-commerce. Some businesses struggle with figuring out what they could post in Instagram that could really help grow their brand. And for many, it’s just one more social network to manage. Now that Instagram lets users manage multiple accounts from one device, it will be even easier for marketing managers to use.

All that aside, there is some true potential and value in Instagram, and the businesses that are taking the plunge are quickly seeing results.

Whether you’re active on Instagram, are thinking about starting your business profile or are reminded every once in a while that you should look into Instagram, these five articles can help you leverage the power of the platform.

1) How to Build Your Brand With Instagram:

    4 Tried-and-True Tips

HubSpot just got done helping a business grow their Instagram followers by 400,000 people which resulted in 70,000 email subscribers in just 12 months. It’s safe to say they learned a thing or two from their experience and we love that they’re sharing it with the world.

In this article they discuss four surprising ways that you can use Instagram to build your business and brand. The ideas include:

1. Grow your Instagram following with strategic partnerships Instagram,
2. Build your email list by converting your followers into subscribers
3. Create compelling content that’s worthy of being shared by others
4. Foster a community of highly engaged followers

Each strategy includes a variety of additional tips that any business can start implementing on their Instagram profile today.

Original article: How to Build Your Brand with Instagram Marketing

2) 5 Ways to Grow Your Instagram Following

Most businesses on Instagram report that it’s their most engaging social media platform. That’s exactly what Jess Ekstrom, CEO and Founder of Headbands Of Hope, explains in her article, even though her business’s Instagram profile has fewer followers than their Facebook Page.

Jess has found a strategy that allows her business to grow their presence and in this article she shares her five tips.

1. Put your handle on your packaging and marketing materials
2. Send products to Instagram influencers
3. Comment
4. Tag a friend
5. Give people a reason to follow

Two nuggets really stuck out to me in this article and those were put your Instagram handle on your packaging and marketing materials and send your products to Instagram influencers. Both of these strategies gives people a reason to upload a photo of themselves wearing your product to Instagram and tag your business, resulting in more eyes and followers on your profile.

Original article: 5 Ways to Grow Your Instagram Following

3) Never Designed an Instagram Ad?

  Here Are 7 Things That Will Make You Stand Out

Once you have a presence on Instagram you may want to look into your advertising options. According to our friend, Jeff Bullas, the two most important elements of an Instagram ad are inspiration and information.

In Jeff’s article he discusses seven tips that businesses should keep in mind when building their Instagram ad. The tips include:

1. Think about composition
2. Decide on a focal point
3. Create an intimate perspective
4. Don’t be aggressive with your logo
5. Use the power of color and contrast
6. Pay attention to consistency
7. Go easy with text

Jeff has an image example to go with each of his tips so that you can see exactly what he’s referring to. This article will help you get your Instagram ads up and running and seeing success in no time.

Original article: Never Designed an Instagram Ad? Here are 7 Things That Will Make You Stand Out

4)The 5 Best Free Instagram Analytics Tools

Now that you know how to build your Instagram presence and create beautiful ads, you need a way to track your efforts. You may or may not know that Instagram does not have native analytics. This means you have to use a third party tool to track your efforts, but knowing what works and doesn’t work will be worth it in the end.

In this article from Pete Schauer from SEMGeeks, he discusses five free tools for Instagram analytics. The tools include:

1. Iconosquare
2. SimplyMeasured
3. InstaFollow
4. Union Metrics
5. Crowdfire

Keep in mind that free analytics tool with come with some limitations, but they’re a good place to start. If you’re looking for some more advanced analytics consider paying for a software such as Postano or Unmetric.

Original article: The 5 Best Free Instagram Analytics Tools

5) 15 Hidden Instagram Hacks & Features Everyone Should Know About

Everyone loves a good social media hack. They save us time and usually show us some interesting things we didn’t know were possible.

Whether you’re a business using the social network or an individual perusing Instagram when you’re bored, these 15 hacks from HubSpot are what they call “game changers”

1. Get notifications when your favorite people post
2. See all the posts you’ve Liked
3. See the posts your friends have recently Liked, commented on, and so on
4. Look through pictures without worrying about accidentally Liking them
5. Clear your search history
6. Reorder the filters, and hide the ones you don’t use
7. Use Instagram as a photo editor (without having to post anything)
8. Insert line breaks into your bio and captions
9. Hide photos you’ve been tagged in
10. Adjust your settings to approved tagged photos before they show up in your profile
11. Remove photos from your photo map
12. Browse photos taken in certain locations
13. Drive traffic to an external website
14. Hide ads you don’t relevant
15. Send photos privately to your friends

Original article: 15 Hidden Instagram Hacks & Features Everyone Should Know About

If you’re ready to get started building your Instagram profile, check out Short Stack’s latest template, the Interactive Gallery Template. For e-commerce businesses, the Interactive Gallery Template allows you to create a shoppable gallery. However, the template is also designed to feature links to external pages, contest entries, newsletter sign-ups, downloads or even other pop-ups from within the Campaign. Use it as a landing page where your fans can click through to learn more about what you’re posting on Instagram.

Start improving your Instagram business profiles. Connect with your customers and increase sales. If you want more marketing suggestions and a way to generate conversion-ready prospects each month, then click here and learn more about my done-for-you system.

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Online Marketing Myths You Probably Believe

Marketing online is already incredibly difficult. Sure, you have the entirety of the internet to appeal to, but it also means that you’re competing against countless other online marketers. The internet is a vast place and standing out against a sea of competitors isn’t an easy feat, but a successful online marketing campaign can easily bring you the customers you’re looking for.

Unfortunately, many marketers are far too misguided about what they think works and doesn’t work on the internet. Many marketers go barking up the wrong tree so to speak and end up wasting time and resources on fruitless endeavors. Here are just a few commonly held myths that end up hurting marketers:

Myth #1: We need to be on as many social media platforms as possible.

It’s true that you certainly want to get your message out to as many people as possible, but not all audiences equally deserve your attention. There are countless social media platforms to take advantage of–Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.—but that doesn’t mean you need to use all of them.

Each social media platform has a different audience and those audiences are all interested in different things. Do you think a company like Tastemade that markets by making cooking videos would have as much success on LinkedIn as they do on Facebook? Would a company for elderly people like Life Alert want to market on Snapchat where 71% of its members are under 34?

Rather than trying to spread yourself thin, choose the most ideal platforms and focus your efforts there. You can expand your marketing efforts when you can acquire more overhead, but it’s best to play to your strengths while still starting out.

Myth #2: My company needs to be #1 on SEO results for important keywords.

SEO can be a difficult game to play and it’s never easy to get to the top of a Google search for popular keywords. For example, if you are running a shoe store, it would be very nice to be the first result when someone types “shoes” into Google.

However, it might be more beneficial and realistic to aim for mastering long tail keywords—that is longer and more specific phrases. Long tail keywords make up 70% of Google searches and generally indicate that a consumer is more willing to convert and purchase than a short tail generic search.

For example, “shoes” is a short tail keyword that might be used for someone who’s simply browsing the internet while someone who uses long tail keywords like “black dress shoes,” “good running shoes,” “cheap sneakers,” or “sandals for summer” are probably ready to buy.

Myth #3: This other company is doing it, so, why can’t we?

It’s tempting to look at successful companies and try and imitate what they’re doing. Sometimes it works such as when Instagram copies Snapchat’s story features and ended up beating Snapchat at their own game. However, this isn’t always the case.

Take the example of the Amazon Fire Phone: Amazon’s short-lived attempt at entering the smartphone market. The phone’s multiple flaws and inability to stand up to Samsung or Apple means that its obituary was written rather quickly. On the other hand, Amazon has been instrumental in killing Borders and has companies like Sears, Macy’s, and Best Buy on the ropes.

The takeaway is that what works for one company doesn’t work for everyone else. If it did, every company would be doing the same thing. You have a different audience, different brand, different mission, and a different set of values. Find your own unique voice.

Myth #4: Email is dead. Long live the new social media king.

Social media might be the new big thing, but don’t count out email just yet. Believe it or not, a study from McKinsey & Company found that companies acquire new customers via email 40 times more than they do on Facebook and Twitter combined.  The study also found that 91% of consumers check their email every day, make purchases three times more often via email than via social media, and that they order 17% more when ordering via email.

Clearly, there is a lot of misinformation in the air as to how online marketing should be done. Knowing what works and what doesn’t work can mean the difference between life and death for your company. For more handy internet marketing tips, check out my done-for-you system.

Using Images to Improve Your Content Marketing

Whether they are inserted into the header or placed within the main body of text, images are an illustration of you contents core idea. Including simple images that relate to as wide an audience as possible will help maximize the work your content can do.

Where Can I Find Photos? 

There are a number of places on the web you can find royalty free images that are free to download.  Even more where you can pay to download. The easiest way to find the latest resources is to do a search for “Royalty Free Images.”

No matter where you go for images, it’s vitally important to give proper attribution when required. A good rule of thumb for attribution is to credit the contributor of the image and include the website where you found it, ie: “Photo Courtesy of ABCD from FreePics.com.”

The same goes for a registered trademark or trademarked product. For example, if Nike Swoosh or an actual Nike product is seen in the photo, include a statement like, “Nike, the Nike logo, and Nike Products are trademarks of Nike Inc., registered in the U.S. and internationally.”

Image SEO

According to most experts in the SEO field, Keywords appear to be the end all be all of SEO.  Primary Keywords, secondary Keywords, Google “Keyword” and the list of sources of info will probably go on forever.  With Image SEO the first location to use your primary keyword will be the image filename.

The right filename will let a search engine know what the image is about.  This means if your image is a women’s top in a specific abstract design, the file name shouldn’t be DSC12345.jpg.  Instead, you want to rename it “ann-monique-womens-top-abstract-v.”  This gives the search engine spiders something to grab onto and take back to their part of the web.

Start a file name with a lowercase letter or a number and remove all spaces.  For multiple words, join them with a dash. 

Loading times can be crucial for websites to maintain traffic. The faster the site, the easier to visit it. Images can have a huge impact on this.   Standard resolution for a screen image is 72ppi and most web pages won’t need an image to be more than 1000-1200 pixels wide.  To put that into perspective, a typical smart phone camera today will give you an image at 72 ppi but the file will often be over 3000 pixels wide (or more).

There are a few online image editors that work quite well and often don’t cost a thing or have a minimal membership fee with added benefits.  Two are PicMonkey and Pixl.

When uploading your image, you will often be given an option to add “alt text” or “alt tags.” This is also another good place to use your keyword placement.

In most e-commerce catalog pages, the product is shown in a specific place on the page that doesn’t overlap any other image or text.  JPEG images are most commonly used for this.  I’m adding this quick highlight in case a need arises for you to remove the background of a photo.

JPEG images include a visible background showing behind any curves or irregular lines. If you’ve taken the trouble to remove the background of the photo of a product but save it as a JPEG (JPG), you will still be stuck with a background color when you re-open it.

PNGs allow you to make the background transparent so it can be used over any color, texture or other text.  This can be helpful if you decide to show multiple products in one virtual shot but don’t have the means to retake the photo.

GIF images are a much lower quality than

JPEGs or PNGs. Best for small decorative images and icons it is doubtful you will have a reason to use them on a product page.   Most often they are used to float basic logos over pages or header graphics since they can be saved with transparent backgrounds, like PNGs.

Even if it takes extra time to find just the right image for a post, the increase in SEO and lead generation make it worth your time.

Monitoring the social media marketing landscape is vital to your success. If you’d like to have access

to even more powerful marketing tips, as well as a way to generate conversion-ready Internet marketing prospects each month, click here to learn about my done-for-you system.

Take Your Products To The Next Step With Image SEO

This video gives a step by step instruction on the best way to use images for your business. 
From choosing your filename to adjusting the image size or resolution, to using Alt-text/alt-tag, and choosing between jpeg, gif or png. It’s made simple and easy to follow to make those images work best for you and your business.

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