The evolution of various social media platforms has led to the foundation of this amazing app. Instagram is mostly based on visual content. Many people share their social lives with this app making it fun. The majority of people have an account on this app thus it’s a great way to interact with your loved ones. To connect with your best buddies that you are missing is actually an amazing feature.

With its inception, many things have been revolutionized. The way of businesses, present on their social account takes a lot. The days of traditional marketing are gone. Nowadays, every business has an Instagram account. Increased interaction on these kinds of apps has led to decreased real-life talk. Today people judge another person’s life by seeing their social media accounts. However, there are both pros and cons of Instagram.

Today we have enlisted the pros and cons of Instagram, to make our readers more cautious about how to maintain their social presence without meeting any bad happenings.

Pros of Instagram

1. Extend your reach

Instagram helps you to connect with all your friends whether they are living in distant places. Thus, it helps you to access and to socialize with a wider audience. It helps you to chat with your friends to share photos, videos, etc. This helps to maintain friendly and cordial relations with your friends. Over 1 billion masses are using Instagram which is really great exposure. When someone gets featured in the explore section, it makes the user more famous.

You can follow your favourite celebrities, models, or any influencer who you feel inspires or motivates you. Instagram expects every great actor, model, or any role model to which people look to have an account so that people can see their favourite star.

2. Business account

Promoting your business on any digital platform is a great idea nowadays. In this way, you can get some valuable insights and maintain cordial relations with your clients. This not only helps to increase your customers and earn more profit but also helps in branding your business.

Most other promoting ways, ask for some amount of money but here it is all free. Make use of Instagram hashtags to reach your target audience. By studying the metrics and analytics, it will help you to boost your sales.

3. Building engagement is easy

While organizing any contest or competition, Instagram helps people to engage in those contests by just easily commenting on their posts or signing in with their user ID. While trying for a giveaway contest, you can also give prizes in the contest. Mostly this idea serves as a promotional event for branding your trademark. You can use different hashtags to engage more and more users in your contest.

4. Build people’s curiosity

To build people’s curiosity, you can add some stories from your business account. However, you can add stories about any new product or new scheme to gain more curiosity from your audience. This will help to promote your new products and schemes by giving them a greater reach. You may also use a countdown feature to get them more curious about the new deals. This will make your followers more engaged in your business.

5. Polls

Well, to get valuable feedback, polls in a very sophisticated manner. It is done in no time. It takes like 2 seconds to just click on the poll to get the valuable insights of your customers. Actually, this helps the business to know what customers actually want. They produce new deals as per the requirements of the customers.

6. Earn on instagram

One can even make money on Instagram. By becoming an Instagram influencer, affiliate, or reseller, or by making your own store on Instagram. An influencer as a beginner earns by advertising a specific product or service. Whereas by becoming an affiliate you’ll start selling other goods or services through your personal Instagram account. Moreover, you can also make your own store or start your business on Instagram and promote your own products/services.

Cons of Instagram

1. Overwhelming advertisement

Instagram has been bombarded with the most unnecessary and fake advertisements which actually used to cheat people. Of course, Instagram as a promoting platform is great but anything in excess is a curse. More advertising after two or three posts is kind of irritating.

2. Creates the need for fake life

For a more social life, youngsters are obsessed with great numbers of followers and likes on Instagram. Thus, this makes them need to pretend what they don’t have. They show off their lavish lifestyle and parties which most of them can’t afford. Eventually, they end up going broke. Thus, the obsession youngsters have in mind is crazy.

3. Addictive

Actually, it is very addictive and drives all your time. The time you must be spending building your future is mainly spent on Instagram. Today’s youth don’t bother about the future, they waste their time by scrolling Instagram instead of studying or exercising. Rather than learning new skills, they are obsessed with having more likes.

4. No copyright

It is based on visual content. Anything can be reused as no one has a copyright. Thus, making it an infringement of privacy. Any other person takes credit for the work done by another person. But, most people find this app exciting with new features.

5. Technical limitation

This app is only available on the Android platform. Many have tried to create an online platform but no one can match the real experience one gets from using an app. Actually, it has a terrible web version. Images here are not suitable for any other platform when compared to Facebook.

The final takedown

Though this app has great advantages it does not overwhelm you because of its disadvantage which plays a major role. While using this app, you should always be pretty conscious of using such social media platforms. Hackers can also hack your account making you vulnerable to bad experiences. Obsession with likes and followers can destroy your life as an excess of everything is bad. At last, there are pros and cons of Instagram but it is a good app if you just pass your leisure time without obsession, and besides its disadvantages, it is a really amazing platform to share your photos and videos.

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The post Learn the Pros and cons of Instagram appeared first on Tricky Enough.

The use of influencers and influencer marketing differs and for many brands, there is conflicting advice as to whether influencer marketing is the right choice for a number of different industries. And if they need more convincing, influencer marketing statistics show that every business that spends $1 on an influencer, earns back $5.20. Creating an influencer marketing strategy can be tricky to navigate, but when it works, it can bring heaps of benefits and, more importantly, increased revenue.

Whilst traditional advertising methods can get your brand message in front of a larger audience, influencer marketing uses a captive audience and data to tailor your key message to a smaller pool of consumers, who are much more likely to buy your products. Influencer marketing profits from posts that are put out to audiences by accounts, or influencers, that they trust and who align with their own interests and ambitions. This means that they are then much more likely to engage with and connect with the content and create a positive association with the product/s that are shown.

Influencer marketing is usually far more effective than advertising as we are now more likely to engage with content on social media if it is coming from someone who we have actively chosen to be present in our feed. With this in mind, here are 5 reasons why influencer marketing is effective for brands.

Influencer Marketing Is Less Disruptive

When browsing social media, if an ad pops up in our feeds without choosing to see it, this can then create negative emotions towards the brand, especially if the ads are persistent and occur over a number of days. Ads can be highly disruptive to our online browsing experience, whether it’s full-screen ads that block our view, poor quality side-bar content, or timed ads that disappear after 30 seconds.

In many cases, ads such as these cause users to click away from the content that they were originally browsing and engaging with. This frustration with ads isn’t uncommon, with around 47% of people having ad blockers on their browsers and devices, but with influencer marketing, people are less likely to be bothered by seeing paid content. As we have willingly chosen to interact with the influencer and are interested in seeing their posts, then seeing paid or sponsored content is unlikely to cause offense. 

Influencer Marketing Reflects The Current Marketing Landscape

Standing out as an influencer on Instagram was much easier in 2014 than it is now. Back then, if you had a relatively good following, featured on the Instagram “Featured” page, or just had a distinctive enough look, then your chances of being regarded as an influencer were much higher. By gaining enough brand partnerships, some influencers can turn social media influence into a full-time career.

The clue is in the name, but we are influenced by what we see online, even if we believe ourselves not to be. In the early days of social media, a lot of brands and influencers relied heavily on perfectly arranged displays including their products, or stunning photoshoots of influencers wearing clothes or accessories. Influencers then were mostly young females that had pleasing “grid” aesthetics, but this has changed over time. Influencers now can be anyone from 18 up to 80 – as long as they have a dedicated following and a niche, then they will appeal to brands. It’s important to remember that in influencer marketing, the only constant thing is change and this is something that brands are well aware of.

Strengthen Your Brand Goals and Messaging 

One of the most common reasons for brands choosing to use influencer marketing is to strengthen and elevate their brand awareness, thus increasing sales. Before using influencers, it is important for brands to hone in on their specific needs. Whether they want to increase customer demographics or expand into new markets with an upcoming product, influencers have the ability to reach specific, niche audiences and instead of brands relying solely on their own followers that may have a small interest percentage, influencers can instead ensure that branded content reaches a very targeted audience.

Many influencer marketing platforms simplify the process of finding the right influencer for the brand by creating platforms that allow businesses to filter all requirements and meet the most relevant influencers for their brand. For having a successful influencer marketing campaign, besides finding a new ambassador for your brand, it is important to pay attention to influencer marketing revenue tracking as it will show the whole picture of the campaign and help you measure the KPIs. The main KPIs that are used to measure the campaign’s performance are clicks, new followers, likes, reaches, etc.

For example, mum bloggers have become a large Instagram demographic in recent years and brands have caught onto this. New baby or toddler products that come to market, which have very particular USPs such as eco-friendly bamboo washcloths or mess-free bibs, are picked up by influencers who then display these products to their trusting following base. 

Content Creation Is Easier With Influencer Marketing

When brands partner with influencers, it’s up to them to create the branded content, often following a brief from the brand, and, when making an ad, it is up to the brand’s creative team to come up with the brief and get all the content they need for the ad campaign. Working with influencers can save a brand time and money in this regard as it is likely that the influencer is already familiar with what it is their audience responds to. Brands are beginning to gain more access to this knowledge and get valuable insights and expertise, without really having to put hours of work in and don’t need to create a campaign from scratch.

What’s more, brands and influencers are also getting increased ROI, more valuable analytics, and better customer experience, which all contribute to longer-lasting results. Brands need to ensure that they have the right tools to connect with and search for influencers who will be the perfect fit for their brand and allow them to reach their target audience and increase the likelihood of their campaign success.

Expanding The ‘Like, Know, Trust’ Factor

When social users see the word “paid” or “sponsored” at the top of a social media post, even if the post is relevant to them, then they are much less likely to engage with the content, simply because the influencer has been paid to share it. However, in contrast, if the influencer already engages and follows posts about a new product or is already engaged with the brand, then other social media users are more likely to pay attention and read their posts.

They are then primed to trust the influencer and their opinion, simply because they are already familiar with the influencer’s tastes and are already following them, so are primed to see their content. Around 71% of marketers believe that the quality of customers, traffic and leads gained from influencer marketing is far more premium than any other marketing source. In many ways, influencer marketing offers brands the opportunity to create word-of-mouth marketing, but on a much larger scale.

Conclusion

Social media influencers are likely to be here to stay but the world of influencer marketing is likely to look and operate much differently in the future. Whilst there are some very large considerations to take into account when it comes to influencer marketing, setting up and establishing influencer campaigns are very similar to other marketing strategies, from research, budgets, and determining goals.

Whilst influencers come with heaps of benefits, unlike most other marketing strategies, they require huge levels of trust. Influencers are often required to sign contracts and be mindful of the brand’s reputation at all times, brands must also be respectful in return. With this being said, once a partnership is established and in place, it is likely to be one that is bountiful for both sides.

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The post 5 Reasons Why Influencer Marketing Is Effective appeared first on Tricky Enough.

With more than 1 billion users, Instagram is certainly among the most important e-commerce sales tools. How come? Well, it turns out that over 70% of users have bought a product they saw on Instagram at least once.

This obviously proves Instagram has become a regular purchasing platform that digital sellers can utilize to grow revenue. Our article will present you with three highly practical ways to use this social platform to boost your e-commerce sales. Let’s take a closer look!

Features That Make Instagram a Credible Online Sales Channel

A study reveals that 65% of top-performing Instagram posts feature products. It clearly shows the business potential of this social media, but where does it derive its power from? What makes Instagram so effective? Here is the list of the basic features that make this platform a credible online sales channel:

• Quality Product Images: Instagram encourages users to publish high-quality content that looks beautiful and attractive. This is particularly important for product-oriented companies because they can present their commodities easily.
• Mobile access: A large portion of e-commerce is not going mobile. This matches perfectly with Instagram because the vast majority of followers are checking out new posts on their smartphones.
• Global audience: Instagram enables digital sellers to reach the global audience almost instantly, which makes it easy to expand the reach and raise brand awareness worldwide.
• Cost efficiency: Another feature that makes Instagram such a profitable sales tool is its cost efficiency. It gives businesses the chance to reach maximum revenue with minimum investments.

3 Steps to the Perfect E-Commerce Instagram Strategy

Now that you’ve seen the benefits of Instagram-based commerce, it is time to focus on how to design the perfect sales strategy. It’s a complex and time-consuming process, but in the end, it all comes down to three major steps. We will discuss each one here:

1. 
   

   Make a Plan

   
   

Before you begin publishing Instagram posts and getting creative about future content, you need to make a comprehensive plan of activities.

Bruce Kitchens, a social media manager at UK CareersBooster, says the preparation phase is critical to the success of the online sales strategy: “You must learn everything there is to know about Instagram as the social media and about your average customers. The more you know about it, the higher the odds of crafting great content.”

Audience analysis is the first item on your to-do list. You need to understand how your prospects think, how they behave online, and what they want to see. Try to find out the following information:

• Demographic traits such as the average age, gender, and location
• Academic and professional background
• Average monthly income
• Lifestyle, personal values, and ambitions

All this information will help you to create quality content that really has the potential to inspire the audience and convince them to take the desired action. At the same time, it serves as the preparation phase that allows you to set tangible Instagram e-commerce goals.

After all, the entire strategy is supposed to generate new leads and boost conversions, so you must measure the results to assess the performance of your Instagram account. Planning will eventually help you to determine the pros and cons of your strategy, giving you the chance to set things right or eliminate features that proved to be inefficient.

2. 
   

   Publish Great Content

   
   

Now that you know everything about the audience, the calendar of publishing, and the strategy in general, you can completely focus on content creation. As we already mentioned, images and video quality are essential because it’s the only way to increase your follower base.

But the process is not that simple. You can’t just publish pushy posts that scream “Our product is the best.” On the contrary, the goal is to design engaging content your audience really likes. In other words, your posts should be promotional and funny, educational, or entertaining at the same time.

One way to achieve this level of content quality is by posting “behind the scenes” images or videos to your Instagram account. This is a good way to reveal the human side of your business and let the audience see how it feels to work in your company. It creates a stronger relationship between the brand and its followers, giving them enough time to prepare for the final step (which is the actual purchase).

Another way to keep users interested is by organizing contests. Namely, a lot of Instagram users follow brands because they want to get free coupons, discounts, or giveaways, so you should seize the opportunity to hook the audience relatively cheaply.

Furthermore, contests represent a nice way to promote user-generated content. People who show the highest level of creativity will receive the prize and also public acknowledgement, which is not a less valuable reward in the digital world.

Additionally, Instagram influencers can help you improve your online reputation and win over extra leads along the way. Even though they gather a relatively small fan base, micro-influencers are particularly important here because their followers are more willing to take action and buy products based on Instagram recommendations.

There are many more ways to hook the prospects and lead them to the next stage of the sales funnel. It depends mostly on your inspiration and creativity, so don’t forget to brainstorm ideas that fit the style and vision of your brand.

3. 
   

   Direct Promotion

   
   

The last way to boost your e-commerce business via Instagram is a direct promotion. By sharing targeted ads and shoppable posts, you can invite people to take the desired action and conduct the purchase eventually.

Targeted advertising includes formats such as images, carousels, videos, stories, and slideshow ads. By matching content with the landing page, you can seamlessly invite followers to “Shop Now” and drive sales by targeting users by personal preferences, location, age, gender, or any other relevant trait.

Shoppable Instagram posts represent the platform novelty which gives you the opportunity to tag specific products and let users buy them directly from your organic posts. Tagging products is as simple as tagging real users, while brand followers immediately get to see the name and the price of the item you are selling.

It’s the most effortless and actionable way to engage the audience and increase the number of purchases on Instagram directly, so make sure to exploit the new solution and turn your leads the full-time buyers.

Conclusion

Instagram is one of the most popular and most potent social networks business-wise. E-commerce businesses all over the world use this platform as the means to grow revenue and it definitely proves to be a highly productive sales driver.

In this post, we explained to you three practical ways to craft an Instagram-based online commerce strategy. Have you already tried some of these tactics? Do you have other effective Instagram sales tips to share with our readers? If yes, let us know in the comments and we will be there to discuss it!

The post 3 Ways to Drive E-Commerce Sales on Instagram appeared first on Tricky Enough.