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What’s a picture worth? How Instagram can work for your business

Consider this for a moment… there are over 800 million active Instagram users worldwide and close to 10 million users in Malaysia alone. Many Malaysian businesses seem to ignore this app that’s growing by popularity by the day just because the majority user base is below 24 years old. However, the power of this social media app cannot be underestimated due to the ever growing user base as well as the influence this platform has on the mindsets of consumers in the coming years.

In a nutshell, Instagram is photo- and video-centric, so users can edit and post images and short videos, record Instagram stories, and go live with video. Users do not want to read long description and in this case, a photo is worth a thousand words.

If you haven’t started on Instagram for your company, below are some tips to get you started.

  1. Instagram works best on your mobile phone, so you’ll need to download the app.
    For Apple iPhone users
    For Android Phone users
    For Windows Phone users
    Tap on the app to open it once it’s successfully installed.
  2. Sign up with your email address or select Log in with Facebook to sign up with your Facebook account.
  3. In the app, look for Settings and scroll down to Switch to Business Account. You can then add in your business information such as opening hours, address and a phone number.
  4. Now you are ready to start posting and reach your followers. You should also start following other users that are relevant to your business.

Now, that wasn’t that hard was it? So, what’s next? Like any other social media channel, you need to have a general road map of what you intend to do in the next 6 or 12 months. Have an overview of your content that you can follow so that your posts remain relevant to your audience and also in tune with your overall marketing campaign.

You should also set the ‘persona’ of your business to best connect with your audience. Will your posts be in a casual and friendly tone or a serious, no-nonsense tone? Will you have emojis? What hashtags will you employ? These are questions that you need to figure out and adapt as you go along.

There are many resources that you can find online that will go into the minute details of even more things you can do with Instagram, but you must take that first step to at least start somewhere and grow your business from there.