What is Instagram and why does it have such great marketing potential?
Instagram is a social media app available for smartphones and it’s focused on video and photo sharing. It’s this rich media aspect of Instagram that allows it to have such great marketing opportunities. With Instagram, you can increase the awareness of your products and services, show how they are beneficial and how users can use them.
Because photos and videos are much more engaging than traditional text posts, you can increase your brand recognition. The best part is that Instagram is a great marketing opportunity for all sorts of businesses, whether you are selling a product or a service.
Let’s talk about finding Instagram inspiration.
To have a receptive and engaging Instagram account, you first have to brainstorm and fine-tune content ideas. For example, if you have a product, posts photos of your product, people using your product, and creative ways in which it’s used.
But what is your business offers a service? This tends to be a little more abstract.
No matter the business, here are 6 steps that will help you in finding Instagram inspiration!
Step 1 – What do you offer?
Start by listing all of the products and services you offer. Once the list is done, create a second list beside it, this time listing all the benefits that your products and/or services provide to your audience. This is where creativity and brainstorming are important. You have to inspire your audience to use your products or services in fresh ways.
Step 2 – Find those special moments
When it come to finding Instagram inspiration, it’s also important to think about when people are most happy using your product.
For example, what if your business offers greywater systems. Now if you just think about taking photos of you installing a greywater system, they might not be the most glamorous photos to post to Instagram.
But what is the end goal of installing a greywater system?
Well, it’s to conserve water, contribute to sustainable development and to protect our water bodies. And water is one of the most vital resources on the planet.
And people really like water. They need water.
So, now we open ourselves up to all these different ideas of ways people use and need water. So if you are a small startup selling and installing greywater systems, you could post some photos to Instagram of a woman gardening outside, watering plants.
This way, we’re not just talking about the actual work that the greywater does, but the end result of that work.
When you think about it, when does your audience really benefit from your product or service? When they purchased it? Or when they really had a special moment?
These are the moments you want to capture to find Instagram inspiration.
Instagram photos work really well with service companies, even landscaping, painting houses, construction, even waste removal! Always think of posting photos of every job that you finish. Even if people are not looking to getting their new fence painted or a new patio built, when you post beautiful photos of your finished jobs, you create an account that people want to follow.
As for waste removal, recycling or composting companies, think of what happens to the waste afterward.
Maybe someone was able to create a beautiful garden with your compost, or an artist created crafty earrings from reclaimed metal.
You can also provide ideas on how people can use their household waste and reuse it to be more sustainable. Doing this unleashes so many new ideas on how to promote environmentally lifestyles.
Remember, you need to capture those special moments and situations in your Instagram photos.
Step 3 – Promote contests and giveaways with Instagram
Instagram is a great place to post contest and giveaways. For example, start by picking a product or service, reach out to your users on all of the social media accounts and tell them to post Instagram photos of the most creative way they can think of using your product, and of course tell them to do it with a particular hashtag.
You can reward the winner with a gift card to buy more of your products or services. The best part of this strategy is that it allows your audience to do marketing for you. This also brings to fruition new ideas and photos on how they are using your product or service.
Now what?
Well, all of their friends and subscribers will see these photos which expand your audience reach. In other words, it’s like receiving free marketing and your audience is happy too because they have an opportunity to win a gift card, or maybe a free product.
Step 4 – Find your customers
By using the Instagram app, you can search for keywords related to your industry, or you could search for specific products that your organization sells. You can also see what people are posting about your products, what they like about them and what they don’t like about them. Last, just like Facebook or Twitter, you can communicate with customers on Instagram, and ask them questions!
Step 5 – Develop a posting schedule
A posting schedule means that you are posting content on a regular basis. Maybe you post content every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday or only one Tuesday and Wednesday. These regular posts bring a number of advantages to your account. It increases user engagement because if users know that you are going to post content on Tuesday, they might actively seek your Instagram profile to see what is the new photo you’ve posted.
It also makes it a lot easier for you, as a business owner or employee, to plan content and making sure it stays fresh. A great idea is also to use themed days. We’ve all read of Throwback Thursdays, and the hashtag #TBT.
As a business, you can also participate in posting photos of your old products or what your old location used to look like. However, you can also create your own themed days. This is a great way to get people coming back to your Instagram profile.
Step 6 – Keep tabs on your competitors
Every marketing strategy analyzes the competition. This applies to Instagram as well! And this can help you in finding Instagram inspiration. You can search for some of your competitors’ products, and see what people are saying about their product. What they like, what they don’t like, maybe you can find ways to 
improve your own product or service.
Look at how they are utilizing Instagram, what type of content they’re posting and what’s getting the most engagement. Of course, if you find inspiration from their content, it’s important to create photos that are authentic. In other words, make sure to add your own twist to your photos.
Your community is waiting
That’s why finding Instagram inspiration is essential. Like other social media platforms, Instagram is your chance to give your organization a personality and let people know that it’s made up or real people who care about their audience and the quality of their product.
Get started with your Instagram strategy now by contacting us!
