Why Your Business Should Be on Instagram in 2016
Instagram has made incredible strides as a social media dominator this year, having transformed from a trendy hangout for teens into a promising networking site for businesses. It has grown to 400 million active monthly users, and an impressive 34% of all US Internet users use it. Those US users alone spend 12 billion minutes a month on Instagram!
If you’re looking to market your business, you should definitely be interested in the opportunity to establish yourself on this amazing image-centric website. What’s more, these statistics aren’t the only compelling reasons why you should be on Instagram in the New Year! Let’s look at what Instagram really has to offer your business.
- Instagram is beating out Facebook AND Twitter in brand engagement.
A recent report has revealed that while brands tend to have a larger following on Facebook and Twitter, it’s their Instagram that has the most engagement. What makes Instagram so successful? The fact that it centers around visual content, which leads us to the second reason you should be using Instagram…
- Instagram puts emphasis on visual content first.
Visual content is the most successful content today. Unfortunately, Twitter doesn’t make it easy to upload images since it takes up part of your already-tiny character limit. Meanwhile, Facebook puts the text before the images and makes viewers wait for the visual instead of offering the instant gratification they crave. With Instagram, the visual easily takes center-stage and it doesn’t limit your picture dimensions either.
- No need to worry about character limit.
While visual content is the key, it’s also important to describe it with words. Unlike Twitter, Instagram has a robust character limit of 2,220. And as we mentioned above, Instagram puts your text below the image so that views don’t have to wade through it first.
- Instagram won’t hide your content with algorithms.
A huge drawback of using Facebook for your business is the ever-changing algorithms that work against you getting your content in front of people. It isn’t enough to just post content on Facebook and expect engagement. Organic reach has been declining, with a greater emphasis on promoted posts. Instagram does not utilize algorithms to limit what users see. If someone follows your business, your posts will appear on their feed.
- Instagram uses #hashtags and other unique features that get you found.
Instagram has several tools that are great for marketing. The Explore feature helps users find relevant content based on the current trending hashtags, as well as what followers are currently “liking”. While Twitter allows you to look up hashtags, Instagram has streamlined and improved this feature. Meanwhile, the Search function can help you discover what content is performing well in areas you’re interested in.
- Instagram was born on mobile.
90% of all US mobile users spend time using Internet on the go. Instagram was designed as a mobile app, making it the most successful social media app today. Mobile use is only increasing, so if you want to increase your mobile presence for 2016 you should establish your business on Instagram.
Instagram is an incredible social media platform that has easily evolved beyond our expectations, and we see it only growing stronger in the New Year as it continues to make improvements and grow. It already offers an array of valuable features, and has proven itself to be a competitive networking platform even compared to the giants of Facebook and Twitter. If your business isn’t on it already, we recommend getting an account and including it in your marketing strategy for 2016.
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