Social media has become the main tool by which most of society communicates. Wonder what Aunt Karen is up to in her modern sculpture class? Check Facebook. Want to see the latest pictures of your second cousin’s best friend’s kids in their Halloween costumes? Instagram has you covered. Looking to send a not-so-flattering selfie to an old classmate you haven’t seen since college? Open Snapchat and let your freak flag fly. 

However you’re using social media in your personal life, the game changes when you’re running social for a business. It’s not just about updating your followers on your cats anymore – you’re trying to sell your business and your product. Typically when I think about corporate content on social media, I envision the same inspirational quotes, fun staff photos, and nonsensical stock imagery across the board. Can you use all of these things and still succeed? Yes. Can you do it in a way that won’t make your consumers roll their eyes and scroll faster? Also, yes.

Enter the art of misusing social media. Consider your key demographic – what do they like to do? Where do they live? What music do they listen to? What would they like to see different in the marketplace? As a general rule of thumb, if you wouldn’t want to see your content on social media, most likely your demographic won’t want to see it either. This is going to sound like a cliché but stick with me: you need to think outside the box. Tear the box up if you have to. If you want to post an inspirational quote as content on your business page, think about how you can do it differently. Maybe you have a younger demographic focused on street fashion – your demographic would probably be open to seeing an inspirational quote as street art. Same content idea, different approach. 

The key to misusing social media to gain a foothold with your following is creative problem solving. If your main problem is common content, how many different ways can you take it a step further? Create content that will set you apart from your competitors while creating impact for your audience. Know the limits of your platforms so you can push the boundaries. 

Instagram’s rise in popularity among businesses is undeniable as marketing efforts span across the platform’s many useful features. Earlier this month, Instagram released several articles providing tips to help further those marketing efforts and boost overall sales made from the platform. We have summarized these articles below to help save you time and take your marketing efforts to the next level.

Create Photos and Videos to Captivate your Audience on Instagram

Get Creative! Show your audience your personality and make it easy to learn about your business:

•  Don’t be afraid to show your followers behind-the-scenes whether with a tour of your building or spotlighting a team member. 
• Create a buzz around a new product or product feature. If you are changing the way you ship your product, show a video opening a package.
• Make videos of how to use your products. Everyone likes to be DIY, show them how!
• Post about holidays! Even cranky coworker day, which is Oct 27 incase you were wondering. There are tons of mainstream holidays as well as obscure holidays that give you an opportunity to reach out to your audience and share something new.
• Share the good stuff. Your customers love you, ask them to help you by sharing their testimonials and even ask them to share photos with you to use or even videos of them using your products or services, they’ll be famous for a day!

Planning for Holidays on Instagram 

Kicking off the holiday season with strong marketing is the key to having a successful end to your fiscal year. 

First and foremost, understand when your customers start shopping. Every business is different so make sure you know the right time to get in front of your customers to inspire them into the holiday buying spirit!

Second, you don’t have to be the smartest person in the room, get inspiration from what others are doing. It is hard enough to run your own business, if you see a post or a concept that you like, make it yours and go for it.

Thirdly, make a content calendar. Plan out what photos and/or videos you are going to use with the content or captions in advance. Don’t wing it.

Lastly, make sure you have a consistent look and feel to your messaging. Make sure everything still ties in with your brand and your business’ personality.

But what about actual ideas for posts? We have those for you too. 

• Incorporate your team celebrating, this will give you the behind-the-scenes type post we mentioned earlier ;-)
• Show your products or services decorated for the holiday with lots of color and sparkle
• Incentivise your followers. Offer a discount, make sure it is time sensitive. Get them excited to buy now.
• Give back! Show community appreciation around the holidays. You can create a giveaway of one of your products back to your customers, or offer to donate your products to a charity by encouraging engagement with your post by people sharing or commenting.
• Feature products to get people’s minds thinking. Everyone has a long list of people they need gifts for around the holidays, make it easy for them to see you have a great gift.
• Make different carousel posts featuring gifts for a budget, gifts for the specific hobby or interest, gifts for the hard to shop for.

The main thing to remember is to PLAN. Plan early and plan specifics. By having a plan you stay organized, you launch your campaign at the perfect time and get the most out of the holiday shopping season with the least amount of stress.