Instagram has become one of the most popular social media networks in the world within a very short time. Every day millions of users upload and share content directly associated with brands, start ups and organizations, presenting huge opportunities for you to inspire and influence current and potential customers.

1. HASHTAGS

Hashtags are the best way to find people who are talking about your brand or startup, follow the conversations people are having. From there you can develop unique ways of engaging them.

Create their own unique hashtags when they post images of their products and encourage customers to use the same hashtags to share images.

Hashtags can help business by making it easy for people to find images related to the brand, improve the reach or engagement, and in making their Instagram content engaging on its own.

2. CREATE A STORY THROUGH IMAGES

The best way to get your customers to remember your brand is to create a deep impact on their minds. Through Instagram businesses can post images of existing products/services, share pictures taken during events, product launches and behind the scenes. This would give customers a glimpse into the inside world of the brand and intrigue a higher interest in them for the brand.

Businesses should also encourage customers to share the images that showcase the brand’s products through specific Hashtags. One of the brands that has received great success with this is Starbucks.

3. INVOLVE THE WHOLE TEAM

Employees are considered most important asset for a business, and when it comes to social media the best way to create a legitimate activity is to encourage your employees to be part of it. They should be encouraged to follow your brand, like the images, post the images and to comment on them. They must incorporate this into their routine. The constant involvement of employees will give customers entry into behind the scenes and create a community for everyone to share their ideas and images.

Employees must be encouraged to take photos with their iPhone, android and tablets. This will make photo sharing very easy for them.

4. TIMING IS EVERYTHING

Select the best times for posting and sharing. Simply Measured did an amazing study on Instagram engagement showing which times have the greatest correlation to comments on photos. The results of the study are as follows:

5. MAKE AND SHARE VIDEOS

Instagram was acquired by Facebook in 2012 and in June 2013 the company announced their new video feature which would allow users to share 15 sec long videos. Instagram has more than 130M active users and in the first day Instagram Video was announced, more than 5M videos were shared. With such large number of users, Instagram has made it very easy for companies to share videos. This video feature enables businesses to share intro videos of their employees, fun facts about their brand, how-to videos, address customer’s questions, FAQs and create cool contests to engage customers and drive interaction.