HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR BRAND ON INSTAGRAM

We are pretty impressed with how Instagram is growing here in Tanzania. In fact, it’s growing at a higher rate than in many other countries. The Tanzanian people shows a special interest when it comes to visual content and Instagram is all about that.

The social media platform is growing by 300 million active users per month, that is 15 times more the participation of Facebook users, and by 40 compared to those of Twitter.

WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO MAXIMIZE YOUR EFFORT?

• Publish regularly to keep your followers engaged.
• Photos are 26% more appealing than the videos on Instagram.
• The pictures in which a person appears, work 32% better than the images in which no people appear.
• Do not use more than 5 hashtags to avoid saturation of irrelevant information to the user.
• The use of the Mayfair filter increases the user’s participation by 2% compared to other filters.
• The use of images of real people who make use of the product to be promoted, increase participation by more than 30%.

WHAT TOOLS CAN WE USE TO BETTER MANAGE OUR INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT?

• Manage your Instagram account with Iconsquare, it is a paid tool that allows you to view all information at a glance. It is an analytical tool that allows you to monitor & manage the activity and participation of your community. Within the tool, you can see people connecting, commenting, sharing, deleting and adding new followers, etc.

• Share content from your followers with tools like Repost, an external application that allows you to browse the content of your Instagram, and republish that content that interests you. You can like, comment or re-publish an image to share it with your followers.

• Analyze what your competition does with Metricool, which looks for your competitor based on keywords. You can identify the Keywords to track and once they are identified, it gives you general statistics. It analyzes the frequency of publication of your competitor, the number of followers you have, how many followers they get by update, etc.

• To know which hashtags are most used, use Stagram that gives you a list of the 100 best hashtags that are used at every moment of the day.

• If you are not an expert in photography but you like to make good photos, Pomelo or Camera+ are perfect allies that can help you improve your photos.

HOW TO CONVERT INSTAGRAM USERS INTO CUSTOMERS?

• Highlight new products. You can use Instagram to highlight new products that you’re about to launch.  You can also go a step further and use it to give your users an inside look at the business. The step by step process to the making/launching of a product. Doing this can leave your followers with a desire to get the products in their hands.
• Repost it. Is there a customer who uploaded a funny photo with your product? Repost it and let him/her see that he/she is important in your community. This simple gesture helps to keep the user loyal and to create a more direct relationship with him/her.
• Give them that moment of relaxation. Use images that evoke emotions in your followers. A great example of a company that does this well is Coke.
• Share, connect, and interact. Once you’ve uploaded your photos, add a link to your store, respond to comments and use hashtags, to get broadcast on other networks like Facebook and Twitter.
• Not everything is the product. A brand is nothing without the team that creates it.  Show your staff and share how you create what you do.

And always remember, social media networks are all about relationships. Try having a dialogue with your users, bringing them value. Your audience and their needs and likes are everything.