This crisp, clean, visually-focussed social network is perfect for clients with eye-catching imagery to share. Instagram sells the concept of an experience, which is why brands often employ popular Instagrammers to share images of themselves using the product: faithful audience members – in an effort to mimic the Instagrammer’s lifestyle – will shop for the same products that they see featured in the photos.
While Facebook draws attention to and offers information about your brand, Instagram aims to do this visually by instilling a desire within your audience to acquire the items or places promoted in your eye-catching images. For this reason, Instagram would be suitable to a brand who are selling a product that can be displayed and – if possible – styled (such as shoes, headphones or skincare). Neat places such as restaurants and tourist attractions do very well in Instagram, too.
Instagram is not a ‘wordy’ social network, so it’s not ideal for any client intending to communicate a lot of information to their audience (not as ideal as Facebook, of course). You can highlight the occasional competition or sale on Instagram, but you’re limited to the amount of detail that you can include with your eye-catching images.
A few noteworthy features that Instagram brings to the table are:
- a clean, crisp social network with limited ‘noise’ from advertisements etc
- strong emphasis on imagery (will showcase a place or product beautifully and efficiently)
- an effortless tagging feature that allows you to tag people and places in a clean – yet obvious – way when sharing photos (encouraging a sense of community and drawing the attention and endorsement of your audience and other brands)
One other characteristic of Instagram that we have noticed throughout the management of our client’s Instagram accounts is that it seems to be a healthy environment in which to gain the interest and ‘likes’ of local audiences. You’ll often receive the encouragement and occasional endorsement of local (sometimes bigger) brands too, as they tend to like, comment or reshare your posts.
There is an underlying sense of friendly endorsement between certain businesses and organisations which you might not achieve – to the same ‘casual’ extent – on Facebook or any other social network.
You can check out the Tailgunner Instagram fore more tips and tricks on Social Media Marketing and Web/Graphic Design.
Many of the clients we work with have signed up for Pinterest accounts that they hardly or never use. Pinterest is a fantastic online tool for certain types of businesses, and knowing whether or not you’re the perfect fit for Pinterest prior to making an account could save you and your brand a lot of time and effort (be that wasted or invested).
You should invest in Pinterest if:
- your brand promotes lifestyle related products or services (such as fashion or interior design)
- you are promoting a product or service that compliments the commonly appreciated content shared on Pinterest
- you have visually stimulating imagery of your products that you’d like to share in order to direct traffic to your website (ideally for online shopping purposes)
A perfect example of a Pinterest-promoted client would be a brand selling sheet sets. You might find it challenging getting your sheet sets noticed on their own, but nestled among several ‘Bedroom Design’ boards on Pinterest…you could soon find your sheets become a staple for shoppers looking to achieve the bedroom aesthetic they have accumulated visually in their Pinterest board.
Pinterest features delightfully simple organisational elements that sort content into neat boards. It’s the perfect place for an inspiration-seeking audience to sign up to, so keep that in mind when considering signing up yourself. If your brand isn’t there to offer visual stimulation or inspiration then Pinterest won’t be a suitable social network for you to dedicate precious time to.
Social media marketing for business in New Zealand has become a powerful tool for brands to use to their advantage. The best part is that this medium of marketing is constantly evolving and improving, so we’ll only see things get better for businesses on social media as time goes by.
The key to successful social media marketing is effectively understanding and managing your audience – this includes knowing where (and through which social networks) we can help you reach them.
If you’re looking to take advantage of social media marketing for your brand then Tailgunner can help you there. We can work with you to create effective profiles: seeing your business networking online in the right places, while maintaining consistent branding across all platforms.
If you’ve got any questions about social media for marketing then you can give us a call for a free (no-obligation) chat on 0800 932 101, or send us an email to hello@tailgunner.co.nz.