Instagram has provided some new examples of creative ways to use Instagram Stories ads. Nowadays it is one of the best methods for generating traffic on your blogs or websites.

1. Don’t Use Banned Hashtags On The Post

Not all hashtags are created equal. Using one of Instagram’s banned hashtags can land you in hot water and ignorance is not an excuse.

While some banned hashtags are pretty common sense and align with Instagram’s terms of service, others aren’t so obvious. According to the HuffPo, the banned list includes #adulting, #citycentre and #eggplant. Research the hashtags you use carefully, make sure that they are relevant for your audience and don’t have a secret, urban dictionary or emoji meaning you didn’t know about… (Not that this has ever happened to me!)

2. Use A Third Party Posting App

Instagram has a closed API- it doesn’t allow third party apps to post directly to Instagram. You can still use a social media dashboard like Agorapulse to manage your Instagram account but the process is a little bit more complicated than for Facebook or Twitter.

Most legit social media management apps work around the challenge. For example, you can log into your Agorapulse account and schedule an Instagram post.

When the time comes, you’ll receive a notification. You can then log into the Agorapulse app which will take you to Instagram where you can hit publish. The key is that you have to be the one that hits publish.

But, while that’s how we do it, there are some apps like Schedugram that post directly to Instagram for you, using your user name and password to access your account. This is a big Terms and Conditions no no. Jumping through a few extra hoops can be frustrating but it keeps your account safe.

3. Don’t Post Too Much Content

Instagram favors real, human posters and all the dos and don’ts are meant to prioritize them over spammers and bots. Whereas Twitter has apps like Social Quant that can automatically follow and unfollow a bunch of people to build up your following, Instagram frowns on that kind of behavior. That’s why they have an unofficial cap on account activity.

What exactly are those numbers? While Instagram hasn’t released official numbers Ana Gotter did some in depth research and came up with the following:

Following and unfollowing over 60 people an hour

Liking more than 300 posts an hour

Posting over 60 comments an hour

4. Stay Away From The Robots

Look. In any other circumstances, I’ll be the first to point out the potential of bots in automating your marketing process but that’s not what Instagram is all about.

Bots that auto comment and follow/ unfollow people can be a tempting way to grow your account. You’ll be the kind of person that uses them responsibly, right? But, going back to Rule 3, this kind of behavior will get you noticed for all the wrong reasons. Keep your interactions human.

I received a telephone call a few days ago from a disturbed woman who fell prey to a psychic scammer. My blood boils whenever I hear about phoney psychics inventing new ways to cheat people. So, here's lesson number one – never let a psychic or medium choose you. You must choose to consult a medium or a psychic.

Claire (not her real name) told me she received an intriguing message from a "psychic" through her Instagram account. The bogus intuitive sent Claire an email saying she had seen Claire's Instagram picture and felt such "strong vibes," she had to contact her.

The fraud said she felt Claire was surrounded by negative energy, and if she wanted to rid herself of this negativity, she needed to buy "special" crystals for $ 200. The crystals, the "psychic" said, would help her determine what was wrong about Claire's picture. Claire ordered the crystals.

(Lesson number two – never buy anything to prepare for a professional reading.

During the next phone call, the shameful shaman told Claire that after examining her picture, she discovered that someone had put a curse on her because the person wanted Claire to be unhappy. However – if Claire bought "special" candles for $ 500, the psychic could begin "trying" to remove the curse. Unfortunately, Claire was scared into believing she needed help. She did not have the money readily available, and charged the purchase on her Visa.

(Lesson three – never give your credit card information over the phone !! Reputable workers use services like PayPal, or insist that clients make e-transfers through a bank.)

The scammer told Claire it would take a year to remove the curse, and she needed to pay $ 250 a week to ensure that the anti-curse kept working. When Claire said she did not have the money, the phoney said she'd help Claire out by arranging a convenient payment plan.

At that point, Claire got wise. She asked a friend who'd visited psychic mediums in the past, and brave Claire my phone number. Claire called in tears and after hearing her story, I gnashed my teeth so hard, I could've bitten though steel.

"I feel like I'm being scammed," Claire said. "But she talked to me on the phone for hours, and treated me like a friend."

Of course the con woman spoke kindly like a friend, I thought. That's how they get you to trust them.

Claire continued, "But I have not given her money yet to proceed with my cure."

"Claire, you do not need any cures," I said. "This person you're talking to is not a doctor, and you are not sick! No one can curse you – a 'curse' is nothing more than believing something outside of you is emotionally and spiritually stronger than you. – do you believe this so-called psychic is more powerful than you? "

After a moment's hesitation, Claire said, "N-no …"

"Good girl." I then advised Claire to change her credit card number immediately.

We chatted awhile longer, and Claire seemed to feel better. After she hung up, I was saddened to realize that some people exist just to make others feel bad about themselves. I keep a little piece of newspaper clipping by my desk to remind me of this. It's from the classified section, under "Astrologers / Psychics." Here are some of the ads:

"Mr. W- solves all problems quickly." Work, Love, Health, Depression, Enemies, Sexual Problem, Bad Luck 100% Removal of Black Magic. "

"Spiritualist Mr. K- solves problems related to love, court, business, family, money, enemy.

Lesson four – and probably the most important thing to remember – a reputable psychic or medium never promises to cure your problems. That's your job. Life can often be tough and, for sure, we encounter challenges. But we grow spiritually and emotionally when we learn self-empowerment, and are able to reject those who say they can cure our ills for a price of crystals and candles.

Your customers want instant information and gratification, and Instagram stories provide that. Instagram stories allows you to post a photo or video onto Instagram that will only be viewable for 24 hours, after which it will disappear altogether.

The concept behind Instagram stories is that they are readily shareable and because they are only accessible for 24 hours, people are encouraged to view them quickly.

For businesses, stories have great possibilities and can be used to boost your business if they are used correctly.

Present A Normal Day In The Life Of Your Business

One smart way of making use of Instagram stories is to simply post videos of the regular, day-to-day procedures of your business. You can add useful captions to describe what is going on to viewers. This works best for businesses with interesting products that can be presented in photo or video. For instance, a restaurant can publish an Instagram story of them creating a popular dish, which will attract customers.

Share Discounts Or Special Offers

You can use Instagram stories to offer discounts or special offers to customers. Just publicize the discount through an eye-catching image or you create a quick promotional video and upload it. Ensure that your audience know that the offer is only good for 24 hours. This will motivate people to share your Instagram story with as many people as they can.

Demonstrate Your Product Being Used

Upload photos or videos of your product actually being used. Lots of businesses use this strategy already. If you upload a great video, you can really make people want to buy your product.

Celebrate A Business Achievement

If your business wins an award or achieves a major milestone share it with a story. Even a simple video of a member of staff talking into the camera can really help sell that your company has achieved something. This is a great way to give your business a bit of personality and spark some customer interest in your business.

How To Create Instagram Stories

Click the plus sign at the top left corner of your Instagram feed. Then touch on the circle button that shows up at the bottom of the screen to take a photo from your smart phone, or hold it down to record video.

To add a filter, just swipe left or right and select from the different choices supplied. Tap the check mark at the bottom of the screen to add your story. You can choose on who can view your story by clicking on the three dots in the bottom right corner and selecting “Story Settings”.

I want to talk about a fast growing social media site that is really growing fast and offers real good online promotion potential for any business. I'm talking about Instagram!

Before we get to that, when it comes to marketing a business online many of the old paid advertising online still work. Pay per click ads on Google, and Yahoo / Bing still work. PPC ads on Facebook really work.

However, there is no condemning the power of Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and so on. The same is true for Instagram

Instagram is barely 4 years old and has over 150 million users worldwide. Meaning, displaying your business products and services online through Instagram photos has a wide reach all over the world.

Here are some important Instagram tips for an online business.

1. Share your photos on other social networks. Ideally, you want your business to be popular along many people, including those that are not on Instagram.

To achieve this, share the important information regarding your products and services on other social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. Doing this allows people who are not Instagram subscribers to see your photos and click on your link, which may lead to improved sales and profit.

2. Use hash tags. Use specific hash tags as they will help you get more followers on Instagram to share your photos with.

When using hash tags be sure to avoid general statements such as #television, instead say #Samsung #LCD. Try as much as possible to engage your followers by using effective hash tags.

Also, be sure to check what other firms in your industry are doing. They might have new ideas that you do not know.

3. Only Share important content. Intuitively, many people will only want to know the most important information about your business, goods, and service.

When sharing information on Instagram be sure you only share important information regarding the business, its goods, and service. Avoid using sharing of information that can not add value to the business.

4. Be consistent. Consistency is very important when it comes to increasing sales and business popularity through any social network.

Be sure the photos you post and share on Instagram tell the same story about your business. Posting inconsistent and incoherent information can be costly, so always make sure you stick to the same information you want to tell people regarding your business.

Follow these Instagram tips for an online business to get in the photo sharing social media game. They work!

Instagram can be highly effective, but you have to be smart about how you use it. That’s where Instagram hashtags work so well.

Hashtags help you manage and look for appropriate content on Instagram. They make it simple for your target audience to find you and add interest to your shares. One Instagram study showed that adding at least one hashtag to all of your Instagram posts will, on average, generate over 12% more engagement.

Expand Your Reach

The great things about hashtags is their capability to get to a wide range of people that may have absolutely nothing to do with your account and don’t specifically follow you on Instagram.

How Do Instagram Hashtags Work?

Let’s say a user searches for the term ‘gardening’. Instagram will show all the latest posts that contain the ‘gardening’ keyword. By using #gardening as a hashtag on your posts, you are telling Instagram to put forward your post each time someone lookups that term.

Hashtag all of your posts with related keywords. Use words and terms you think Instagram users will be searching for. Always use the # symbol before the word, use no punctuation, keep it as short as possible and use letters and numbers.

The Best Hashtags For Instagram

Throwing up haphazard hashtags all over Instagram won’t work the magic for you. You’ll have to carefully pick out the best and most popular hashtags to reach to the right audience for your business. They should be appropriate to the keywords searched by your target market, and you’ll need to keep an eye on which ones perform best for you.

It will take time to find the best hashtags to use. Some strategies include:

• Check out the hashtags your competitors use on a regular basis to market their business.
• Test various hashtags and evaluate your results.
• Use an app for hashtag ideas (like TagOMatic).

Making The Most Of Trending Hashtags

When an event occurs, a hashtag is often created. If you can associate your post to the hashtag, you’re more likely to get seen by those who are following that specific news item.

The key is to watch for when a certain hashtag appears to be popular, and post content using that hashtag to take advantage of the large number of viewers the hashtag is receiving.

In the Instagram search engine, look for other hashtags that are comparable to your page. Use these hashtags when you post new content. This is another way of reaching out to Instagram users that are still on the site, but don’t follow you so would not have seen your posts otherwise.

Instagram continues to host millions of photos each day and if you're a business owner looking to promote your products, you need to add this photo-sharing platform to your social media channels. With 300 million monthly active users and more than 75 million daily users, there's no doubt that Instagram is an effective marketing tool to use to attract potential customers.

Keep in mind, however, that using Instagram for marketing should be more than just taking photos, applying filters and publishing them on your news feed. You can still take several steps to ensure your photos stand out and you attract more attention.

Design Your Photos

When you're sharing images of your products, it is best to be more creative when taking shots of them. Look for a different angle from the usual or you can include another item together with your product.

You may also add text to your photo to grab more attention.

Proper lighting is a must. Whether you're snapping photos indoors or outdoors, do keep lighting in mind. Lighting is critical in telling a story about your product so make sure to use light properly.

Decide also whenever you want to share certain photos in color or simply in black and white. And consider using Instagram's filters as well.

Choose your filters well to ensure you create the right effect on the story you are telling through your images.

Include a Caption

While a photo already speaks a thousand words, adding a well-written caption can attract more attention from Instagram users. Think of a caption that best describes the image and the story you would like to convey.

Include a Call to Action

Including a call to action to your post helps encourage your followers and potential customers to take action. This step is also effective in gaining new followers.

Remember to create a call to action that easily grabs attention and can prompt people to act immediately while viewing your image.

Add Hashtags

Hashtags are vital in Instagram since, do include several of them in each image you share. The most ideal is to include three to five hashtags only for each photo you post.

Adding relevant and popular hashtags helps your photo to be easily found by other users. You can even start a hashtag campaign using your brand which your followers can use in their posts.

Take note of these tips every time you post an image on Instagram and you can be sure to attract more potential customers and improve your sales moving forward.

How to explore Instagram as a social media marketing platform

To boost your Instagram marketing, first of all, you need to boost your followers on a constant and stable basis. The more people are aware of your brand, the greater your chances are to potentially reach your target audience. Let’s run through the tips and tactics how to explore Instagram as a social media marketing platform to make your brand more popular.

1. Use unique, crisp, and attractive hashtag

Hashtags are not only important for Twitter; they also play a prominent role on Instagram. It’s a big way of how users can find you through their mobile Instagram searches. As compared to Twitter, here you’re not restricted by character count. You can include a few tags in your posts to get connected. While deciding on hashtag for branding, it is advisable to create brand specific hashtags. Try to keep it as unique and crisp as possible. Try multiple variant of hashtags such as brand specific hashtags, general hashtags, and trending hashtags, to get noticed in searches.

Examples of brand specific hashtags are:

#PutACanOnIt-Red Bull

#TweetFromTheSeat-Charmin

#OreoHorrorStories-Oreo

#WantAnR8-Audi

An ideal general hashtag should be prepared with two words over a single word to make it meaningful e.g. rather than #QL, #AskQL is a better hashtag.

2. Consistently interact with your followers

Once you get follower/s, do not shy away to stay engaged. Constantly post impressive content which your followers find relevant to their interest and business. Avoid throwing random posts, i.e. once in a week or ten in a go, as far as possible. At least, twice a day posting is requisite. Once your followers start increasing, you can start posting three to four times a day. Consistency matters most! According to Anthony Carbone, “If you stick to a niche and show authenticity and passion in your posts, you will find a strong following”

The more people you can dynamically involve and persuade to comment on your content (images/videos), the better for you. Since, it will inculcate the interest for others who want to contribute or comment on your content as well.

3. Do not bore your audience with information overload

No doubt consistency is inevitable, but if it lacks harmony and relevancy of content, it results in either spamming or information overload. Keep your frequency correct and consistent. Rather than preaching them, engage with them. It’s better to ask sometimes, they should feel being valued. Dig out meaningful interaction from them.

The ideal proportion of posts based on followers suggested by industry experts are:

4. Make the most use of tools that are free

Instagram also provides free analytics tools for business profiles; wisely make the most use of them to market your products and services. For example, “insights”, an analytical tool, provides you access to engagement data. If your account is initially signed up as a personal account for your business, do get switched to a business profile. That’s how you can cash advantage of the free tools that businesses use to track the shape of their brand on Instagram. ‘Insights’ assists you understand your audience, provides you data on posts with most impressions, engagements, and shares. Ultimately, you will conclude which posts are effective and which ones are not working well with your audience.

5. Repurpose content from other related sources

As stated in earlier paragraphs, effective and successful Instagram marketing needs consistent posts related to your products and services. It is well obvious that every time coming up with creative and engaging posts is not as easy as it seems. That’s where re-purposing content or curating content offers a hand of help. Providing you either tag or mention the original poster, this is a completely ethical marketing practice and does not fall under the black clouds of plagiarism. You need to ensure that the posts which you wither repurpose or curate are relevant to your followers.

Conclusion

Social media marketing via Instagram can facilitate you achieve your targeted business goals with much of the ease. Use Instagram extensively and appropriately, and grow bigger!

There are various other tips and tactics to market your products and services better on Instagram, over and above these top 5 which you should keep handy.

Live video is finally getting the attention it deserves. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter have already jumped aboard the bandwagon, rolling out their own versions of this feature. Now, we see Instagram doing the same thing, with “Stories.” This is going to take social media marketing to another level for companies that are already on Instagram.

Instagram is owned by Facebook, so it’s no surprise that they decided to go this route. Whenever someone goes live on Instagram, you will see a “live” icon show up in the profile’s Stories bar. Only followers will be able to see this alert.

Unlike Facebook and Twitter, Instagram Stories doesn’t hang on to the live footage you shoot. Instead, the video disappears after 24 hours. This was to accommodate folks who are worried about their videos becoming a part of internet history, which may one day come back to haunt them.

So how can you start using Instagram Stories for your brand? You can either hire services from social media marketing companies or follow these instructions.

Quick Guide to Using Instagram Stories

This is a simple step-by-step guide for setting up your live feed on Instagram:

1. Click the plus sign found in the left corner at the top of your screen.
2. Next, hit the round button to capture an image, or press down on it for 10 seconds to start capturing video.
3. Now, you can use one of the three pen types to start drawing on your photo/video and adding emojis. Color filters are also available.
4. Once you’ve done, click on the check mark icon.

This will publish your video to your feed. You can check out who’s seen the video by swiping up on your story. If there are people viewing that you’d like to block, just simply click the “X” next to their name.

Building Credibility and Followers

Regularly creating Instagram Stories can drive more followers to your channel and make your profile more discoverable. Just make sure you’re promoting your company content on other social media channels you’re marketing on. If you need help in this area, you can hire an internet marketing agency to handle this for you.

What makes Stories a neat addition is that it fits perfectly with Instagram’s ideal of showcasing beautiful, curated content from your daily life. With the right strategy, you can come up with creative ways to use images and video to enhance your brand.

Instagram has gained tremendous popularity over the last several years. It is popular with people of all sorts of demographics and from all walks of life. In the case with Instagram, the number of followers that you acquire is what is most important.

Number of followers equals Instagram success

It is important to be aware here that there is a lot more to Instagram than just the number of followers you can acquire. However, your number of followers is one of the important measurements (or metrics) of the social media tool. If you have a large number of followers, other people will have the perception that you (and your business) are a success. That lends itself to your professional credibility and trustworthiness.

A strong number of followers also gives you the confidence that your message is being received by other people online and it allows you to increase your reach to a large number of good-quality connections. It also goes a long way to strengthening your relationship with your target audience, which is essential to your success.

• Appropriate use of hashtags: When it comes to gaining increase exposure and visibility, hashtags are a great way to do that. However, it is very important that you do not get carried away when it comes to using hashtags. The reason that you do not want to overdo it with hashtags is that your target audience will not appreciate it and they may not stick with you as a result. There are some guidelines that you should follow when using hashtags so that you get the best results possible from your target audience members.
• Use very specific hashtags
• Customize the hashtag to the particular social media channel that you are using
• Make sure that your hashtags are strong but not promotional
• Make your hashtags clear and concise
• Do not use too many hashtags
• Create an event: Putting together an event in which you gather influencers, brand Ambassadors, loyal followers, etc., is an excellent way to increase your Instagram followers. The results of such an event can be multifaceted, such as acquiring an increased number of followers, building increased brand awareness, and increasing engagement with your target audience members.
• Run and appropriate contest: People love contests, especially if they win a prize that they felt was worth their effort to participate. A contest can generate a lot of buzz about your business, make people feel excited about being involved, and build relationships that are solid and enduring. It is important for you to provide incentives that are worthwhile. Some of the ways in which you can get people involved in your contest is by getting them to "like" the contest, getting them to make comments on your contest (people love to voice their opinions and to feel that their opinions are important to you ), and other creative ways to get people involved.
• Get loyal followers involved: Another really good way to gain Instagram followers is by getting loyal followers involved. Let them help you to run your event or contest. Give them a voice and make them feel that you truly value their participation. There are many benefits to doing this, such as giving your brand an emotional / human feeling, making your reach wider, increasing your reputation, increasing your traffic, and making more people aware of your brand.
• Connect with a social online community: Having a sense of belonging to a community is critical to your ever-increasing success as a business person. Not only is it important to be a part of a social community but it is also essential that you interact with the members of that community (or communities). You will want to interact in the following ways:
• Share your story: Everyone has a story (probably more than one). Share yours because it will resonate with the other members of your social community. If people can relate to what you are sharing, you will be successful at forming relationships with them. That is critical to your success.
• Make sure that others want to share your content: It is one thing to write top-quality content but it is another thing entirely to get people to want to share the content that you have shared with them. If your content is shared, you will be able to engage a larger number of people and so increase your Instagram followers.
• Clearly understand the reasons behind your social community: It is extremely important for you to have a clear understanding of why you needed to build your social community. There are so many reasons but each one is important and each one should be in your head at all times.
• Post content in a way that makes sense: From the beginning, you have had a marketing strategy that makes sense for your business. It is part of your business plan and you need to follow that roadmap so that you can achieve the milestones that you have set out to accomplish. What was important in the beginning is still just as important for your business.
• Get involved with other people on Instagram: It is not enough to have established an Instagram account. You need to interact with people. That means that you need to "like" the photos that other people are posting and leave comments. Get involved in the discussion. It is critical to your success.
• Pose questions: Just like on other social media channels, you should ask questions on Instagram. Ask thought-provoking questions that make people want to jump in and start interacting. That is exactly how you form relationships.

Conclusion

Instagram is one of several effective social media tools that you should consider leveraging for your business. With Instagram, it is all about the number of followers that you can acquire. The fact is that without a large number of followers, you and your business will become obscure. You need to gain a foothold with the tool and become popular so that your business will become more successful. It is important to understand what needs to be done so that you can bring your business to the next level.

The Rise of Instagram.

Why?

Since 2010, Instagram has proved itself to be the fastest growing social media platform around! It has a user base of around 300 million and that is set to rise further. So why is this seemingly simple app growing so quickly? Well it all comes down to creativity really, Instagram has found new ways of sharing content across its platform and making users experience more seamless. For example, Instagram stories were launched to rival snapchats, allowing for users to provide disappearing pictures or videos.

Sounds simple right? Well that's because it is. Instagram now has more sway over all its users who may have been using snapchat in tandem to own own app, reducing the need to use both and stream lining these users to its own services.

This aggressive tact has paid off as Instagram has surpassed snapchat in users. Instagram stories also encourage more sharing of content and giving it a chat element to its app, allowing it to compete with all the other direct messaging platforms. Innovation like this is the reason for Instagram's sudden growth.

What's all the fuss about?

Instagram is the perfect app to share content via visual imagination. Its audience are young, educated and very into shopping. This makes content creative, exciting and fast moving. It has a different feel to platforms like Facebook and Twitter, with focus on visuals rather than words. However, studies have shown that, like Facebook, it is used daily, this makes for a loyal and highly active user base.

This ability to capture a younger more creative audience is sounding the alarm bells of major companies looking to advertise on social media. With high usage, there will certainly be increased interest in advertising on the app. However, competition will be ripe and businesses will have to find creative ways to out compete their rivals in the visual world of social media.

How can you use it for Marketing?

Of course, if you wish to use this to market your company or a product, then one must consider how. This is a visual platform and so products are in general easier to market that services. But services are not impossible to promote on the app, finding exciting ways to bring to life your service will catch the eye of the Instagram user.

Hashtags are frequently used on Instagram and getting in on trends or even starting your own is a sure way to engage an audience, in a similar way to Twitter. However, one must be careful to match the hashtag to the visual content you provide, so it is not as simple as other apps that use this technique.

Instagram is typically a mobile app, so content must be easy to read and continuously updated for a mobile data, hungry demographic. Only new and fresh content will attract attention.

Finally, Instagram stories are a great way to personally engage with your audience, thinking only 24 hours. Stories should be used to keep potential customers updated daily on your business and reveal behind the scenes content to make the user feel like they are part of the company.

Instagram can be used to market almost anything, with a creative mind and a committed team, you can create quite the buzz around your brand!

The Future

With a young, educated audience using the app on their mobiles daily, one can only predict sustained growth and loyalty from its users. There will be increasing opportunity to use this app for business purposes and the advice from this writer is to get in while its hot! It will only get bigger so get into the market place before it gets even more crowded.