In February this year, they released The Handbook Instagram for Brands, whose intention is to help businesses achieve their goals in a captivating way.

In this guide Instagram selected 11 companies that publish highly engaging content. Brands like @patagonia, @disneyland or @chobani were chosen, since they put their own identities and values into ​​captivating and attractive images, that engages with their audience.

As the printed version of the manual is not available for everyone, Instagram also publishes on his blog Instagram for Business tips on how to generate more engagement.

In this article we will address the tips provided by Instagram itself and also include some of our marketing practices recommended in the platform.

TIP #1

Be true to your brand: make sure that the pictures on your company profile clearly portray the personality of the brand. Try to be natural, nothing too serious or staged. Try to use Instagram to reflect the particular characteristics of the company.

See the example of the eyewear manufacturer @warbyparker

See the example @adorofarm

TIP #2

Share experiences: offer a new vision of the world or a new style of life, portrayed through the eyes of those who use your products and services.

In this example, the @gopro customers share pictures and videos taken with the GoPro cameras.

TIP #3

Inspire action: start a movement around your brand, inspire your audience to photograph their running times, like #runfree campaing of @nikerunning, or savoring a delicious yogurt like @chobani did in his hashtag #creationaday.

TIP #4

Know your audience: know what people think about your brand, find out how you can explore the imagination of new customers. The @missionbicycle draws its simplicity that consumers love in their bicycles and uses the imagery on Instagram, transforming these ordinary objects into works of art.

TIP #5

Do not make a lot of propaganda: people do not like advertising or ads, they enjoy much more attractive images showing the interior of your brand. Use this feature to show your followers the true nature and the behind the scenes of your company. Upload photos of your employees in moments of relaxation or events organized by your brand.

This is the reason why your business must pay attention to keywords: you want to be the first search result, so that when someone google it- you’re there!

In the last few years the social media platforms, like Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google + and Facebook have adopted #hashtags as a practice. When you use a hashtag that word becomes hyper linked and anyone that searches for it will see your post.

What does it mean? It means hashtags are keywords for social platforms..

By using them you can create brand awareness and  be part of those viral conversations that attract millions of people (possible clients) around the world.

A key to success is not to over do it. Don’t create a Facebook post, or a tweet full of hashtags. That won’t work.

Social media marketing company Socialbakers released data showing that the more hashtags a brand uses in a Facebook post, the less engagement it receives.

Based on a sampling of 200,000 brand posts on Facebook in February 2014, brands that used one or two hashtags in a given post received an average of 593 interactions. That number dropped to 416 for brands that used three to five hashtags.

This is another example that in social media more isn’t necessarily better. The key to your online strategy must be QUALITY.

That’s why today, Oficina da Marca Blog brings to you some tips on how to use one of the most popular social networks, the Instagram, as a powerful marketing tool. Yes, that’s right, Instagram!

Most of the people think that Instragram was built only to share personal photos with friends, and that’s half true, but this socialplatform has a lot of potential when we are talking about business.

What would be a business without customers, and even more important, without brand lovers?

With Instagram you can reach a community of 150 million active users, and share with them the essence and the history of your brand. More than any other social platform, Instagram works around emotions and life experiences, the perfect tool to share the passion.

Dear Marketers, do not underestimate this social platform. Bet on Instagram as you were sharing the good moments of your life. Tell histories, show how your products are made. Embrace your audience and in return they will follow you faithfully.

But now you say that this is only a theory. Ok, so let’s talk about the real business and the best practices to empowering your Instagram account:

– Promote spontaneous and genuine photographs that involve the audience.

– Run a Instagram contest. Engage your audience, get new followers and email subscribers. A small prize, but attractive, will result in huge amounts of traffic to your website and social profile. Also it will build a viral circle of shares between users.

– Use geotags, placing your brand on the map. This will help you to reach to a specific local audience.

– Place a trap! Connect Facebook and twitter with Instagram to build a net that will catch a larger audience.

– Videos, videos everywhere! They flow like photographs in the Instagram news feed, and they have a huge viral potencial on all social networks.

– Be a storyteller, show to your audience how your brand was built, go to the roots and improve your engagement with your followers. Johnnie Walker did it on their Instagram profile, and the result was incredible.

– Use filters! Yes, that’s the core functionality of Instagram and you should use it. But, if you want to preserve the original colors of your photo, always use the popular hashtag #nonfilter. This way you’re able to reach a larger audience, being this hashtag one of the most used tags on Instagram.

Still not convinced that you should use Instagram? Ok, just take a look at the facts:

Now take all the tips in consideration and remember, Instagram can be a powerful tool to your business, you just need to do it right.

Continue following us for more news about how to create, nourish and maintain successful brands.

The web channels are a group of social networks with lower importance to the major social networks of interaction, for example, the Facebook. The web channels include other networks with a smaller level of interaction but is also very important to feed the greatest interaction networks.In this group of social networks, we can find 3 different typologies: interaction, submit and share.

How to use it?

In the interaction typology (Behance and Thefacy) we should use every days with comments in the most important interior designers and we need to have this web channels update with all the news. The image quality is very important in this kind of social networks.

So, how we can use Behance ?

One of the ways you can garner greater visibility is to get your portfolio featured on Behance’s curated galleries. When someone opens the Behance homepage, the first thing they see is the “Featured Gallery” — a selection of projects chosen by Behance’s team of curators. Behance states on its Team Blog: “Behance’s Curators are trying to expose especially innovative and well-crafted work. They consider all sorts of factors when reviewing a project, including quality and originality of work, presentation of the project, and the traction it is getting in the community (appreciations, comments, etc)”.

Behance also offers more than a dozen additional curated galleries for specific creative mediums such as illustration, photography, and branding, just to name a few. According to Behance, the projects curated for these galleries and the overall featured gallery represent only one per cent of the thousands of projects submitted each day.

The million-dollar question is: how do you get one of your projects selected for the featured or curated galleries? Unfortunately there is no secret password or magic formula, but there are a few things that you can do when creating your project to help to get your work noticed…

1. Highlight the work

A common missed opportunity when using Behance is uploading a single image into your project to represent your work. You have to think of your projects as advertisements, and you’re selling you. Present the work like you would for a job interview in a creative and professional way. Since you can’t physically show visitors your work try to include enough detailed images to give them a sense of what it would be like to hold it in their hands. Remember, length is key. You don’t want your project to be too short or too long. Behance recommends a range of six to 20 images without duplicates that are a nice size and clean of watermarks that could detract from the work.

2. Choose a cover image

When deciding on a cover image to represent your project, remember that it will be this image that entices the viewer to click on your work. In general it’s a good idea to stay away from using text in your cover images unless your project is about typography.

A text cover may not be good a way to draw people in, if say you’re a photographer highlighting your latest photo shoot. Let the work speak for itself. Your cover image should leave your visitors wanting more. You also should only publish your project when it’s completely finished and you are completely happy with the final result. Once a project is published people will be able see it.

3. Make some Noise

Another often over looked aspect of creating a project on Behance is promoting it. Once your project has been published, try and create some buzz around it. Built into the “Public Project” section of your Behance portfolio is a ‘Promote Project’ button that will allow you to send out a notification about your project to Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin at the same time.

Use these tools as well as other social media outlets such as personal blogs, Pinterest, or Tumblr to extend the visibility of your project to your friends and followers. Attracting project appreciations and comments can be another great way to get you noticed by the Behance curators. As stated early by the Behance team, they are looking for projects generating traction among the community.

How we can use the fancy in our Business?

This webchannel is a great website because it gives it’s users a forum to share crafts, clothing, food, and ideas while also allowing brands to sell their products on it.  The On The Fancy, when a certain number of people “fancy” an item, the creator of the post is notified.  The Fancy then offers the post creator a chance to give discount deals directly to the “fanciers”.  The brand can also opt to set up a virtual store right there on the website.  The Fancy offers users to shop, sell, buy and save all on one website.

In the submit typology (Stumble and Reddit) we just can update with blog links so is very important to have nice and usefull blogs to share the information in this social network.  With more votes in the links that we put in these networks, we have more chances to be found in the internet.

So, how we can use the Stumble?

StumbleUpon is one of the best traffic generators among the top seven social media sites, referring more than other social bookmarking and voting sites such as Digg and Reddit because when a user likes, or stumbles, a particular page, it is put into the StumbleUpon lineup. So how can you capitalize on this great network and start getting traffic?

Before we go any further, the main secret to StumbleUpon success is having great content. Sales pages and product info pages will not get you far, unless you happen to be Amazon or have some kind of extremely popular product like an iPad. Poorly written articles and blog posts may get them on there, but users can hit the dislike button just as easily as they can hit the like button and ultimately bury your content.

So what kind of content thrives on StumbleUpon? Common popular media includes:

– Tutorials – if your guide is the end all guide to a particular topic, then you’re in.

– Videos – entertaining, informational, or visually stimulating videos from YouTube, Vimeo

– Images

– Infographics – most networks love infographics

– Lists – people love lists and will often stumble them for their followers.

Most website owners and bloggers discover the power of StumbleUpon through their analytics, particular when they see a day like this pop up. If you want to increase your chances of your content getting stumbled, the best way to do so is to add a StumbleUpon badge to your website content. The easier you make it for people to stumble your content, the more chances your content will be stumbled.

Once you have followers on StumbleUpon, you can share your content directly with them.

Getting followers on StumbleUpon is much like getting followers on Twitter except that there is no automatic follow back users to rely on. You have to find users to follow, follow them, and essentially hope that they follow you back. Most will receive an email notification. Finding followers interested in the same topics as you is simple. You can start by going to http://www.stumbleupon.com/discover/keyword/ and replace the keyword with topics you are interested in.

The best way to ensure a higher chances of being followed (or followed back) by another user is to create a great StumbleUpon profile.

Most people suggest not stumbling your own content, but you have to have your content stumbled in order to share it with your followers. Your options are to wait for an organic discovery (as mentioned above) or to have an online friend you can contact via email or IM to ask for a friendly stumble.

In the share typology ( Youtube, Vimeo, Flickr, Scribd and Issuu) we need to have great content in images and videos. This web channels should be update with the new content  every weeks and we need the help of the most important networks (like Facebook or twitter) to share this content.

How you need to use youtube to promote your business?

The best part about using YouTube for your company videos is that embedding the YouTube link on your site saves bandwidth, meaning a faster download time for customers when they visit your page. However, make sure that you take full advantage of the SEO and branding options available through YouTube by following the simple tips below.

Connect your contente is the key is to help Google, and readers, connect the video with your content. In the description of your video, always include a link to the website because. This helps both Google and your readers find you.

Internet users constantly upload YouTube every moment. Find ways to establish your business within the YouTube community through commenting on other videos within your fields of interest. Add links to videos on your website. Tweet videos or share them on Facebook or Google+, both your own videos and those of fellow YouTube users.

Be cost effective through prioritizing your investment in your video’s quality. Invest just enough resources to get your point across. The method behind constructing your video is more important than the quality or excess of equipment. Something extremely polished may distract from your message or the authenticity of your product or service, but too low of a quality can also have an adverse affect on viewers. Also be sure to keep the length of your video within a reasonable amount of time an individual would spend watching it. The less scripted the better.

Create tutorial videos on how to operate your product or use your service. General how-to videos and training videos can benefit both customers and employees as well as increase exposure online. Make funny behind the scenes videos to show a personal side and further expose your brand to social media users. If you plan on hosting an event, creating a new line of products and consider addressing these new developments in a video blog. You may even want to give an overview of your business or service process. Always try to be as creative as possible to keep viewers. interested, engaged, and coming back for more

What is the best web channels to use in your business?

In the list of the most important web channels to use in the business area we can find: Behance, Thefancy (Usa), Stumble, Reddit, Youtube, Vimeo, Flickr, Scribd and Issuu.

Behance is like a online portfolio for creative people and teams to showcase and discover creative work. All the creative companies should use this network to show to the world the images and videos of their products.

The Fancy is a social photo sharing webstore and mobile app and the objective is to connect users through shared tastes and allow them to purchase the things they like.

In the stumble and reddit, the companies should submit links of their blogs so is very important to have a great content to share.

The goal of Issuu and Scribd is share the catalog online so it’s very important to have a nice and complete catalog in pdf version in these social networks.

The other social networks (Youtube, Vimeo, Flickr) are great to share images and videos to the clients and show them their products.