May 08 2019 | By Vandita Grover
Still wondering how to market on social media the right way? Kudos! You’ve come to the right place. Let’s jump right in and explore some genius marketing tips for Instagram and Pinterest, aka. visual social media platforms, to increase your traffic in 2019.
Social media has grown rapidly as a preferred channel for users to stay connected to their communities and for marketers to promote their brands. While Facebook and LinkedIn are being used as networking platforms, Instagram has carved its niche as the destination for sharing photos and stories. On the other hand, Pinterest was long underestimated as more of a social bookmarking tool. But can you no longer ignore the organic reach and visual content Pinterest has to offer?
In this article, we focus on marketing tips for these two major visual content-based platforms: Instagram and Pinterest.
But first, let’s understand why visual search?
The human brain is extremely visual, as 90% of all information received by the brain is visual. Hence, after voice, visual search is the natural evolution of how technology will help consumers find products on the web.
Early adopters are surely going to benefit from marketing on social media platforms that support visual content.
Let’s dive into the what and how’s of these visual social media platforms.
Your first step when marketing on Instagram and Pinterest is to create an account and/or switch from personal to business profiles to tap into their full potential and access analytical tools.
Here are some clever ideas on how to market on your Instagram and Pinterest accounts.
Instagram Marketing Tips
Instagram is outshining other social media platforms for brand promotion. Here are some facts to wow you before we move on to how you can use it to its potential:
- Over 500 million Instagram accounts worldwide are active every day
- 80 percent of accounts follow a business on Instagram
- Over 500 million accounts use Instagram Stories every day
Isn’t that powerful?!
So, how can you up your Instagram marketing game?
1. Encourage User-Generated Content
For brands with an existing audience, using customer photos and videos of your brand or products can help generate marketing content for your brand.
Motivate your customers to share their content and tag you to be your brand advocates. You could even offer rewards in return. Using this user-generated content for your brand promotions will get your followers to engage with and enjoy this content more as it is authentic and relatable.
Pro Tip: Don’t forget to seek user’s permission and tag them when you use their content for product promotion.
2. Explore IGTV and Instagram Shopping
IGTV is a step up from short-form videos and go up to an hour, basically acting as a substitute to TV for Millennials and Gen Z, who spend most of their time on their mobile phones. The feature is a cross between what YouTube and Snapchat offer. Influencers are already making the most of it to engage with their customers even more so than going Live. Instagram Shopping is another feature that lets users buy your products directly from Instagram, retailers are going all out to optimally use this feature.
Focus on creating vertical videos for IGTV to introduce your brand or product, showcase product features with how-to videos or even to cover launch parties. Collaborate with IGTV expert influencers to create these videos for you or simply to do a campaign with you can both tag each other and reach a wider audience. If you have a product to sell, Instagram Shopping is your best new bet!
Pro Tip: When collaborating with influencers, make sure to pick them based on credibility and not just plan numbers.
3. Create Contests and Conversations
Internet users loves contests and that’s probably this is a tried and tested method of engagement. It gives them a chance to interact with their favorite brands, compete and win free goodies. For marketers, it means better engagement and a great way to promote their new products or drive awareness for their brands.
Use Instagram Stories to create 24-hour campaigns. Ask users to share photos with your latest product and offer them a tempting deal as the prize. Try the ‘Ask me a question’ feature for a new product launch or product update. This will motivate them to buy (or use) your products, share the pictures on their accounts, and drive curiosity among their communities.
Pro Tip: Enable voting on your contest pages to collect email addresses for further promotions and your email marketing campaigns.
Pinterest Marketing Tips
Pinterest is best described as the catalog of ideas, helping 52% of Pinterest users find items they want to buy. Here are a few ideas to improve your Pinterest marketing.
1. Be Liberal While Describing Your Pins
Describing your pins helps your images be more visible. Longer descriptions help search engines find you and connect you to the right audience. Here are some tips on how to write your image descriptions.
- Add relevant keywords in your descriptions and place them in the suggested category to show up better in searches.
- Add a text overlay onto your images to make them stand out.
- Longer descriptions (150-300 words), are more informative to users and convince them to click.
- Use Call to Actions (CTAs) such as Repin, Enter Our Sweepstakes, Buy Now, to encourage users to interact with you.
- Sharing price points help customers making a purchase but test it out before implementation. Also, if prices are dynamic, you will need to make a lot of changes when the prices change.
- Use Rich-Pins which are loaded with more information such as real-time price, stock updates, link to your site, and interactive map locations. There are four types of rich pins App, Article, Product and Recipe.
2. Image Height Is Important
To stand out in an ocean of rich, vibrant images, choose the image height carefully. Pinterest scales images to match the exact width, so choosing the right height will help you perform better.
According to Pinterest, “When you pick images for Pinterest, think vertical. Most of our formats are vertical, and taller than they are wide. In our creative best practices, we recommend that you use a 2:3 aspect ratio for all of your Pins.”
3. DIY Is a Staple
Do It Yourself (DIY) content calls Pinterest home. Arts, crafts, hobby ideas, you name it and Pinterest has a bunch of step by step infographic or videos that show you how to do it.
Post images and infographics as tutorials for your product application in real-life. This not only drives more engagement and clicks, but also motivates the users to try your products themselves.
More on Social Media Marketing
We get it, it’s not easy figuring out how to market on social media, especially with new features and platforms. But there are a couple of general rules to keep in mind for all social platforms including Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
1. Post Smart and On Time
Plan and schedule the right posts depending on your message and the platform. Include the top-ranking format (for example video on Facebook) and try out new features each platform offers while they are still fresh to stand out as a forward-thinking marketer. Time your posts well so that they appear in users’ feeds regularly, but do not overwhelm them with too many posts throughout the day. Follow a consistent schedule once you find the best time to post on social media, that is, when most of your audience is online; here are some insights.
2. Partner with Influencers
Influencers have a command in their niche segment and have already built a community of followers with their authentic and relatable content. Identify influencers who are a right fit for your brand and industry, follow them and engage with them and their followers. Collaborate with the best influencer you have observed and reach their communities and engage with wider audiences.
Now you are well-equipped with the knowledge to take on social media marketing on your own. We have a lot more tips and best practices for social media marketing and many more to come.
This article was repurposed form Martech Advisor on 09 May 2019.