You must have heard that Instagram is the hottest trend in social media for businesses. What you do not know is that it is not just a photo sharing app. Instagram has redefined the way in which we view and share photos to create awareness, association and engagement. There is a lot to gain from having your business on the platform. Researchers have found out that visuals increase people’s willingness to pay attention to a piece of content and are more likely to remember it than those with only text.

No wonder 85% of the world’s top brands are live on Instagram, as shown in a report by Simply Measured. People connect better with photo images and videos than they do with text. Why do you think Facebook spent such a huge fortune on buying Instagram? From a small start-up in 2010 to having over 300 million active users around the world today, it has become one of the most influential social media tools today.

Here are four reasons why you need to put your business on Instagram:
1. Create a brand personality for your business
A brand personality is a set of human attributes a customer can relate to a brand. Instagram allows you to share aspects of your business that customers will not ordinarily see and these customers love to follow up on day-to-day routines of a business that can tell them certain things about that brand. Before you know it, your customers become attached to your brand and customer loyalty is generated.

2. Engage your audience
Instagram provides a platform for businesses to tell their stories using visuals and this is what social media users crave for. They want to be able to share their reactions and experiences with brands they follow. From photos and short videos showing your business behind the scenes to posting infographics, image quotes, sale promotions and organising competitions, you are able to engage your audience and get them interested in your brand. A report from Forrester showed that Instagram users have a higher engagement rate of 4.21%, which is 58 times more engagement per follower on Facebook and 120 times on Twitter. This simply means that Instagram users are more likely to like, comment and repost on Instagram than to Facebook and Twitter.

3. Know your customers
By engaging your audience, you get to develop a more intimate and personal knowledge of your customers. You can interact with them and share their experiences, and from their reactions and comments, you are able to keep up with trends and what they expect from you as a brand.

4. Your competitors are using it
If your competitors are using it, then why shouldn’t you? As a business, it is important to keep up with trends and adapt fast as well as you can so you are not left hanging. This is a great way to check out your competitor’s audience, how they relate with them and how you can also engage them yourself.

These are how top brands are engaging their audience on Instagram and how you can learn from them:

The whole purpose of your business is to market your products to compel a change in people’s behaviour towards purchasing from you and where else should you be other than where people are spending a lot of time networking and connecting. Now is the time to pay attention and move your business a step higher by putting it on Instagram. Don’t forget to tag us in your posts when you do so. We would love to see what you are getting up to and share your post

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