Why Your Business Needs to Have Instagram

When people want to buy something, they want to see it. If they’re shopping online, they want to see the product in an appealing way. Instagram is strictly a photo sharing app that has grown at ridiculous rates and has helped businesses grow. If you’re not using Instagram for your business, you’re missing out on opportunities to reach an audience segment that is highly influenced.

Let’s put things into perspective:

• Instagram counts 300 million monthly active users (Instagram).
• Instagram is projected to reach 45.8 million U.S. users in 2015 and 50.6 million in 2016 (Statista).
• Engagement on Instagram is 15 times that of Facebook’s (Fast Company).
• 53 percent of Internet-using adults age 18 to 29 are on Instagram (Pew Research Center). That’s up from 37 percent in 2013.
• 76 percent of American teenagers use Instagram, making it their favorite social media network (CBS News)

These stats alone are enough to show any business the opportunity there is on Instagram. But just having an Instagram and posting a photo every now and then is not enough. It’s about being creative and authentic, and appealing to your specified demographic. You want to post photos and curate them in a way that will appeal to YOUR audience. If you can leverage this creativity, along with hashtags you can do very well.

If you look at the brand Sabo Skirt.

An Australian online clothing boutique founded by two young Australian females. They literally built their business with Instagram. Simply by appealing to their demographic and posting photos of regular girls. Wearing their clothing who were similar to the demographic they wanted to sell to. Eventually, the models they used in their photos became Australian super-models. Because the brand became that popular.

It’s about creating a unique visual identity.

For your brand through photos that will appeal to your market. Once you start getting recognition from your audience, you can engage with them. Lead them to your website, or continue with the goals you are trying to achieve through social media. Anyone can have a successful Instagram. It’s about posting relatable visual content that people have an emotional connection to. You just need to put yourself in your audiences’ shoes.

With the strong statistics, we are seeing on Instagram and the highly influenced audience. It’s important to be on this social platform. Hitting new audience segments is always important to be involved in when it comes to word of mouth. But it’s even more effective when the audience is easily influenced and impressionable.