5 Ways Instagram Helps Market Your Business

With its recent launch on Android last year, Instagram has seen a steadily growing popularity as a social network. It is an easy way for fans to engage with their favorite celebrities and brands in addition to their own friends and followers. Data from Instagram's press page shows that there are 1,000 comments and 8,500 likes every second and its 100 million monthly users are posting 40 million new pictures every day.

As a business, including Instagram among your social networking cache can be a huge boost in forming bonds between your brand and your fans. You can use it as a platform to introduce new products and promote your existing ones to your target audience.

There are several ways that you can use Instagram to help market your business in order to grow loyalty from fans and gain more exposure for your brand:

Photo Contests

If you want to see a quick spike in followers on Instagram, holding a contest is the way to do it. The key, though, to keeping those followers is to encourage engagement. You can offer a prize of one of your own products and ask followers to post a photo of their own marked with a unique hash tag or company name.

Create a contest and offer prizes that make sense for your business. You want to promote your own products and not someone else's. So, while you could definitely see a huge increase by offering an iPad as a prize, you will only be earning short-term followers.

If you are a custom jewelry designer, offer one of your pieces as the prize. For the contest, you can ask followers to post a picture of them wearing their favorite accessory. Remember, the goal is to build a strong fan base, not to just give away expensive gifts.

Photo-a-Day Engagement

Something that has grown in popularity with Instagram is the "Photo-a-Day" Challenge. Many bloggers and businesses will create new lists and post them at the start of the month, encouraging followers to create new photos every day. You can easily find samples of these photos a day lists online to get some inspiration. You can also tie a contest in with these challenges to gain even more exposure for your brand.

Unique Hashtags

Twitter has long-used the hashtag to make it easy for users to find tweets that refer to a specific topic. Instagram uses hashtags in much the same way. They make it easy for users to enter contests and for businesses to locate those entries. Find hash tags that fit with your business and any contests. You can find a list of the most current popular hashtags with sites like Top-hashtags.com.

Cross Promote

When you set up your Instagram account, it is a good idea to link up your other social networks to it as well. For instance, linking to your Facebook account and Twitter will allow your photos to be posted to those accounts automatically. This means increased exposure and higher user engagement.

Personalization

Instagram gives businesses a simple way to personalize their brand. It gives users an inside look at their favorite brands and celebrities. In addition to photos of your products, use this platform as a way to give your followers an inside look into how you operate. If your small business is in your home office, share pictures that shows your workspace, your cat included. If you are a larger business with a brick-and-mortar location, shoot a few pictures of your employees at work. Give your followers an inside perspective of how your business runs and you will create more of a bond.

Has your business been using Instagram to grow a strong following? What are some of the ways that you use the social network?

Dawn Pigoni of Be Social Worldwide is a certified social marketing specialist and a social media virtual assistant. Dawn offers superb social networking, social marketing and social bookmarking to WAHMs, Small Business Owners, Internet Marketers, Affiliate Marketers, and Coaches who desire to bring stunning internet presence through social networking to their businesses. Get Dawn's free report, Social Networking today & see how she can assist you with being Social Worldwide!

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How To Make Your Instagram Photo Look Great

In this digital age, everyone is a professional photographer or at least things that they are or should be. If you're one of those creative individuals who loves using his Smartphone to take pictures, then you might fit into this category.

There's nothing wrong with a love of taking photographs. There's also nothing wrong with amateur photography minus the expensive camera equipment and filters. But if you really want to make your Instagram photos pop, do your viewers a favor, and put a little bit of effort into making them look really good.

Not only will the 100 pictures of your new puppy look so much better, but you'll also impress your contacts leaving them wondering how you pulled it off.

There's an app called VSCO Cam that user's say make your pictures look like they were taken with an old school, high-end film camera. It's become a viral hit to the point that on Instagram, there are more than 22 million hash tags related to the app.

The app requires some getting used to, say users, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes one of the easiest ways you can make your Instagram photos look great. The app is ideal for making pictures look better after they've been taken, but it can also be used to take better pictures.

Thanks to a number of different flash modes, VSCO Cam performs near miracles with lighting. There's a flash mode for almost every need. Remember those times where you look a sickly yellow because a picture was taken in low light? Well, this app has a special white balance locking system to prevent that unfortunate and unflattering yellow cast.

Other features of the app include a level to make sure your picture isn't crooked. Focus and exposure points can be controlled simply by tapping two fingers on your Smartphone screen.

A series of photo effects offer subtle ways to touch up your photos like highlighting natural colors and fading the edges of a photo with a vignette effect.

The app also has some preset filters that users are raving about, claiming that they're much more tasteful and toned down than Instagram's. Intensity of these filters is also easy to adjust. All you have to do is move the slider. Not sure if you like the filter? Simple tap and hold on the image and you'll get to see the original again.

VSCO cam is free. It includes 10 preset filters. For $6 more, you can get 38 more filters.

Another way to make your Instagram photo look great is another app called Litely. It doesn't have as many editing features, but it does have a number of filters that can make your picture stand out. The app is free, comes with 10 filters, and costs $1.99 for more in packs of 12.

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Instagram Trends: Hot Tips For Better Instagrams

Advanced is not right for you

Your Android, straight out your box, provides advanced camera settings for Instagram. Go to the menu/profile settings and switch it off because the standard capabilities of your device are quite enhanced and allow you increased versatility for getting good photos. The compositions can become easier with the Advanced Instagram camera, which eliminates the need to crop your photo later if you know precisely what you need. You do not need to limit yourself if you want to modify your creative vision later.

Creativity with Instagram's arsenal

Improve your photos by experimenting with the options provided by Instagram. Some of the filters are meant for particular shades of light, others look good with their borders, while some are more versatile. If you want your photos to look like they were not taken with your phone, you can compose the scene in a way that adds some depth and then apply shift or tilt filters accordingly.

Experiment with exposure on Android devices

Android devices mostly have control settings for exposure, which allow users to control variables such as exposure compensation, contrast, ISO and white balance along with some other elements. Play with these options to get improved results and then apply Instagram filters.

· Contrast defines the difference between the dark and bright areas, where a higher contrast means more difference. Contrast also affects colours.

· Exposure compensation tells your camera to make an overall darker or brighter exposure.

· ISO defines the camera's sensitivity to light. It is best to keep this on Auto unless you are taking photos of a squirmy subject like your dog or baby. You can then increase it up to ISO800 or 1600.

· White balance changes the colour rendition of the overall image.

Once your image is of a better quality to start with, Instagram's filters will be able to do a much better job, leaving you with a high quality photo.

Lock it up iPhone Users

Most iOS power users love this popular technique. When you touch your screen to focus on your subject, a blue box will appear as you tap, then hold. In a second, the device will lock the focus and exposure. You can recompose the photo if required. You can provide a little bit of flash if needed. If the flash provides very harsh light, try using a tissue to cover the light so that it doesn't blow out the lovely natural colours of your subject.

Your personal touch

Do use hashtags, but don't go overboard. Some users make a habit of listing every possible topic for an image, although two or three are sufficient. Remember to behave like a real person and keep your interactions genuine. Behave like you do in real life and avoid pretending to be someone you are not.

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How to Use Instagram for Beginners

Selecting Instagram For PC Software - What To Look For

Instagram, the photo sharing social networking service, has exceeded all initial expectations with regards to popularity. A big reason for this is that Instagram permits users to alter their pictures in all sorts of ways thanks to its inbuilt effects. In fact, its popularity led it to be snapped up by Facebook at a very good price because the larger social networking site didn't have a very good photo sharing feature. There has been immense demand for Instagram for PC users because of the many cool features it offers.

Until now, the only way to get Instagram for PC was via highly technical workarounds. Many people also emailed photos to themselves in order to access them from their smartphones. However, you can now download Apple or Android emulator software that enables you to use Instagram on your PC very easily. Be sure to look for the following features when choosing the right software:

1. Ease of use: The software should have a simple interface so that you don't need a lot of technical knowledge to use it. Very importantly, it should be free of glitches. Many software developers release their products without testing them entirely.

2. Multiple features: Instagram already has plenty of features, but you'll prefer to use a PC client that allows you to do plenty of things such as enabling you to customize your screen layout.

3. Speed: Certain software programs enable you to load pictures very fast and this is evidently a very desirable feature. Needless to say, the speed of your internet connection is also an important factor, but certain software programs work faster than others.

4. Price: It goes without saying that you should be able to get your software programs free of cost, or at least at a very affordable price.

5. Reliability: The smartphone emulator software that you download should be free of malware.

Once you install the right Instagram for PC emulator software in your computer, you will be able to view all your Instagram photos on your computer, enabling you to see the pictures clearly on a very large screen. As a matter of fact, large numbers of people are downloading this software because they are unable to enjoy the photos fully on their smart phones on account of the limited screen size. They are also now able to access their computer based photo libraries easily in order to edit and share them via Instagram.

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4 Instagram Tips For An Online Business

I want to talk about a fast growing social media site that is really growing fast and offers real good online promotion potential for any business. I'm talking about Instagram!

Before we get to that, when it comes to marketing a business online many of the old paid advertising online still work. Pay per click ads on Google, and Yahoo/Bing still work. PPC ads on Facebook really work.

However, there is no denying the power of Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and so on. The same is true for Instagram

Instagram is barely 4 years old and has over 150 million users worldwide. Meaning, displaying your business products and services online through Instagram photos has a wide reach all over the world.

Here are some important Instagram tips for an online business.

1. Share your photos on other social networks. Ideally, you want your business to be popular among many people, including those that are not on Instagram.

To achieve this, share the important information regarding your products and services on other social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. Doing this allows people who are not Instagram subscribers to see your photos and click on your link, which may lead to improved sales and profit.

2. Use hash tags. Use specific hash tags as they will help you get more followers on Instagram to share your photos with.

When using hash tags be sure to avoid general statements such as #television, instead say #Samsung #LCD. Try as much as possible to engage your followers by using effective hash tags.

Also, be sure to check what other firms in your industry are doing. They might have new ideas that you don't know.

3. Only Share important content. Intuitively, many people will only want to know the most important information about your business, goods, and service.

When sharing information on Instagram be sure you only share important information regarding the business, its goods, and service. Avoid using sharing of information that cannot add value to the business.

4. Be consistent. Consistency is very important when it comes to increasing sales and business popularity through any social network.

Be sure the photos you post and share on Instagram tell the same story about your business. Posting inconsistent and incoherent information can be costly, so always make sure you stick to the same information you want to tell people regarding your business.

Follow these Instagram tips for an online business to get in the photo sharing social media game. They work!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8316614

Burbn to Instagram: A Right Name Change Can Earn You $1 Billion

It only took a year and a half for a mobile app to get millions of people's attention; and one of them was a very focal fan named Mark Zuckerberg. The famous mobile app's name is Instagram, which was founded by two 20-something-year-old graduates from Stanford University, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger.

This illustrious app made a lot of noise early in April 2012 when the company's value was doubled and bought by an equally famed company, Facebook. The price tag on instagram was worth $1 Billion.

It was Systrom who initially came up with the inkling for the app and similarly holds a 45 percent picket in the corporation. Today, one question has been playing with the minds of many people: How did this one much-like-the-other-mobile-apps stand out from among the rest, and how did it capture the approval of many users that quick?

Instagram's original name was Burbn (the company's present start-up). They wanted to create a catchier name that somehow played with the thought of "right here right now" infused with the idea of recording the events and happenings of one's life, therefore the suffix "gram".

The new name instagram indeed caught many people's attention as it sounded so unique; additionally, it was memorable enough to make people remember it and share the experience of it with friends.

This huge deal between Instagram and Facebook was likened by many to Google's $1.6 Billion procurement of YouTube; which made Google a frontrunner in Internet video and permitted it to enlarge its publicity to new presentations and set-ups.

Many analysts were impressed by Instagram's quick rise to fame and fortune; they even see it as a gauge of how swiftly entrepreneurs can get things completed. With a prodigious company that is equipped with great teams, products and good company name, plus a extraordinary performance and implementation, achievement is within an arm's reach even in remarkable amounts of time

Changing your company name could be a bold step to take; Instagram knew that for sure, but they took that step anyway and look where they are now? Way far ahead than other companies who have been on the run to get to the spotlight. And now that Instagram is on the spotlight, people will surely criticize and question every change, flaw and decision they will undertake, and that is only one of the challenges they are about to undertake and part and parcel of the price fame has to pay.

Bonnie Dell writes informative articles on different niches. She is a passionate writer and a registered nurse who loves to be informed and share her thoughts to her readers.

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