7 Ways In Which Instagram And Pinterest Can Boost Up The Marketing Strategies
The other day as I was preparing the survey report on the different marketing strategies of the upcoming companies and of those that are already settled, a recent trend just could not skip my attention. No matter what end product the companies are dealing with, the widespread use of social network platforms like Instagram and Pinterest emerged to be prominent in almost all the cases.
These two social network platforms have almost established a strong pedestal for the developing companies as well as for the premium ones, to help them conceive and execute both a smart and a practical marketing strategy.
The result has not remained unknown too. While in some cases the turnover on the part of the companies has been found to be quite impressive, in some other cases better exposure and better rate of conversion have not missed the mark.
In this article let us talk about the different methods that can be followed to supercharge your Instagram and Pinterest marketing strategies.
AN IDEA ABOUT INSTAGRAM AND PINTEREST IN BRIEF
Both Instagram and Pinterest are visual social platforms that have spurred the selling of products and have become successful channels for marketing by their own rights.
Instagram by dint of its advertising authority can lead the viewers directly to the brand pages of the different products, drawing their attention and dodging their queries associated with multiple areas and products.
Pinterest is a free website, where the users after getting registered can upload, manage, sort and save images and other media contents like videos, to be named as pins. These pins are displayed on the pin boards, for the viewers to gain an easy access to them. Pinterest helps the customers to directly get hold of the different products displayed on the platforms.
However, Instagram and Pinterest, both being visual social platforms, acting as marketing channels, one must not think that the methods of using them for boosting up the marketing strategies would actually go hand in hand, without slight differences. The different modes of their operation, demand for different work agenda.
Let us get acquainted with the different industrial standards and tricky tactics that the big box brands often undertake, to make the most of Instagram and Pinterest.
MASTERING THE WAYS OF INSTAGRAM
Instagram has become a big name in the marketing world because of its unique quality of striking a fine balance between the advertiser’s choice for the brand and that of the choices or preferences of the consumers.
To use Instagram in the best way possible, certain tactics and strategies are to be followed. These tactics assure to skyrocket the exposure of the brands to a global mass, and that too in the wink of an eye.
- Use Instagram for both campaigning and advertising
Instagram, though instantly brings in mind the concept of advertisements, an 80:20 ratios are to be maintained for lifestyle vs. advertising contents, shared on the platform. Advertisements should not be jumbled with the brand campaigns.
Use impressive photos for the purpose of advertisements but at times support them with non-advertised stuff for a better campaigning.
Catching hold of the viewer’s attention is one of the primary concerns of Instagram for attaining its far-reaching goals. Thus, make sure that the profile page is accompanied by links that are potential enough to draw the viewers’ vision.
The links shared on the profile page will assure the viewers that even after missing out some advertisements pertaining to the products or the concerned brands, they have rare chances of missing out the brand pages and the brand campaigns that Instagram has brought forth.
Case studies show that with over 500 million users, Instagram, as a social media platform has proved itself to be one of the very best in promoting brand contents. It is perhaps one of the widely used spaces where the brands are investing in native ads. However, each company has its own creative strategy for developing its brand sponsored contents, making a display of them over Instagram.
- Contextualize images
Merely projecting high-resolution images against contrasting backgrounds will not serve the purpose. The images are to be rightly contextualized so that their worth is enhanced in terms of relevance and credibility.
The images must be able to connect well with the viewers’ lifestyle so that they can relate to them at ease.
It can be said for sure that images that are aptly contextualized in the Instagram, undoubtedly serve better than that of the static images.
Let us take an example to substantiate it. Suppose, a milliner’s hat is projected in an isolated and a static image background. It can be noted that such a picture will fail to appeal the viewers, unlike when it is displayed in a context, for example, like when a hiker projects it putting it on his head under the blazing solar rays in a rugged land. Dramatizing the images a bit will help the viewers to establish their connection with it in a better manner.
- Make an intelligent show of your products
An intelligent show of the products, be it through pictures or through a story recorded, is a trick that can actually work wonders.
The trick that you need to play is simple. Don’t provide the readers with explicit details about the products, their needs and usage. Rather project it, dropping implicit hints in such a manner that the viewers themselves can find out their purpose and importance.
All you need to do is, you need to make the viewers feel that they can relate the concerned products with their lifestyle.
Provide the viewers with the opportunity to explore the multiple merits of a product until they are convinced enough to possess them.
Instagram must act as a facilitator to make the viewers understand the merits of a concerned product.
Visuals and stories can make a projection of a brand or a set of products without bringing in the scenario someone to yell about how superior the products are when compared to the similar others operating in the market. Visuals and stories provide the viewers with a sense of liberty to take their decisions freely without being influenced by the manipulative versions of salesmen. This is indeed a merit on the part of the visuals and this must not be tampered.
- Shoot in squares
Shooting Instagram photos in Square will help save the time for cropping and it ensures that even if the images are cropped, the most important details are not lopped off. Many digital cameras and smartphones are equipped with this mechanism. Shooting photos in the Instagram, being limited in its liberties, a substitute to that would be encouraging.
Certain advantages of shooting in square, however, cannot be skipped, although Instagram by now has broken free of the rules of squares with it welcoming the landscape and the portrait mode.
Square photo formats help the viewers to focus more on the subject, eliminating distractions. The viewer’s frame of vision move around the subject in a circular pattern, instead of flitting from side to side or from top to bottom. A balanced frame is achieved with the concerned subject being centred. The frame gets filled up and you can even reward the nuances and the subtle aspects of a photo.
Creating diptychs and triptychs turn out to be easier with square photography.
- Use the bio link strategically
Use Instagram for the purpose of establishing a strong presence in terms of marketing. Share in the bio, the link that would directly lead the viewers to the landing page where same things that are posted in the Instagram are found so that they can promote the generation of leads, the number of viewers to the e-commerce sites and the number of subscribers to the company’s blogs.
Boggle your brain a bit to frame impressive bio links as they are the first things that catch hold of a viewer’s attention when they happen to visit your profile. After all, the first impression does matter. Your bio would determine how the viewers would know you and how they would remember your company or brand. It is this space where you can put clickable links for the viewers to delve deeper about you and your brand.
Tip: Try to keep your name same in almost all of your social media profiles. This simplifies the task of finding you on the part of the potential customers.
If possible, an incorporation of a Call to Action in the ‘bio’ space would also help the customers and the viewers to connect you. This would undoubtedly propel a steady marketing on the part of your company.
- Make use of the Instagram editing tools
High resolution, professional photos are flowing in plethora, day in and day out. With so much of competition at the corner, you need to prove that your posted photo stands superior and is worthy of drawing the viewers’ attention. Instagram tools and filters can often turn out to be helpful in this regard.
- Put forward promotions and exclusive announcements meant for the followers
Bonuses, incentives and special offers would indeed boost up the followers’ feeds and Instagram must make an effective use of it. It is noted that near about 41% of Instagrammers state that they would be wilful to follow a brand for its giveaways and incentives.
SUPERCHARGING MARKETING THROUGH PINTEREST
Comparatively, although a smaller networking site, Pinterest can prove to be lucrative for charging up the marketing strategies and for building up brand campaigns. However, some ways are to be kept in mind, for making the most of Pinterest.
- Make the boards
As a social media platform, Pinterest helps the marketers and the content creators to categorize the pins under the heads of different boards. These boards will simplify things for the viewers as they would easily get hold of the stuff they desire for, merely by flitting their vision from one to the other pinned items or across the multiple board categories.
#Important Note – You need to create boards as the first necessary step for making use of Pinterest to refresh your marketing strategy.
Strategically use relevant and SEO friendly keywords in the board titles to draw a larger mass. Do remember that Pinterest has amazing search capabilities.
Pinterest takes charge of introducing your board categories to the mass. So, make sure to allot distinctive and different categories for the respective boards.
- Make use of brief descriptions to circulate your ideas
Use brief descriptions for the pins. Make sure that you make an intelligent use of keywords even here.
Help people to tweet the pins along with the descriptions.
Tip: Don’t make the descriptions too lengthy and complicated. Keep them short, simple, smart and catchy.
- Lend master strokes to the images
Eye-catching, descriptive images are always desired for the social media platform named the Pinterest. Now, standing apart from the crowd to make a difference in a positive way is indeed desirable. Make sure that you are not the ordinary. So, even if the images require nominal touches, for the purpose of rendering them with a descriptive and a clarified look, a little bit of editing should not miss the mark. For editing the images, VSCO app with its multiple filters and editing tools can work wonders.
To explore in details about the merits of the VSCO filters visit the link.
- Share videos
It cannot be however denied that videos are more engaging and entertaining. Videos can easefully connect with the viewers’ emotions and can prove the credentials of a brand, comparatively in much easier ways than that of the other forms of contents. So, make it a point that you share engaging videos that assure the involvement of a larger mass.
However, it must be remembered that to upload videos on Pinterest, they must be uploaded first in some external platform like YouTube or else. After that only the video links can be shared across Pinterest.
Have a look at this video for a better understanding.
- Encourage sharing in the blog by attaching a ‘Pin it’ button
This may be a little difficult in case of smart phones as phones do not always allow one to hover all across the pages, however, for the desktops this can be a wonderful idea. The ‘pin it’ button would naturally encourage one to share and good number of pins can be generated. This would indeed boost up the visibility factor and your brand would be getting a better exposure.
Embed pin codes in the platform of Pinterest.
For gaining better exposure, take some pains to share the pins and the boards across the other social media platforms. Add to the pins their descriptions as well as their sources.
- Attach images to the published posts and make sure that the images can be pinned
For every published blog post one or two big images would work well. Tall, vertical images are always preferred on Pinterest. So, try to create bigger images of size 735×1102. These pinned images can be shared with the blog links.
- Track the pins for the domains meant for the competitors
Through the use of the application named Pinalerts, keep a track of those who are pinning from your website.
Check out the number of pins, followers and boards shared by the corresponding pinners. If you find them to be quite relevant and if they are shared by your other competitors, start following them. Mark it. You will be followed sooner or later and a steady content circulation would go on.
Have a look at these images to find out how the pinners have been tracked.
Pinterest can help a brand gain better accessibility to the offline viewers, it can encourage the discoverability of a brand, it can help a brand grow steadily and it can even boost up the marketability of a brand.
Final Words
When you are an owner of any business, you need to increase your social influence and this can be done only when you have better exposure to the most crucial social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest etc.
Instagram and Pinterest are the two hot digital marketing trends that marketers are aggressively following these days in order to gain maximum exposure. These two platforms are considered as the two most important visual content marketing tools and hence better exposure on these channels means more followers which will gradually generate more sales. Thus, when used a bit intelligently, both Instagram and Pinterest can be wonderful platforms for spurring marketing.