With the growing trend of advertising on social media, it is rare to see a big business organization that does not make use of one social media platform or the other to promote their goods or services. Millions of businesses have resorted to the various social media platforms to reach out to their target clients or customers. Of all the available social media platforms, marketing on Instagram is great for stand-alone images and video under one minute.

Instagram, launched in 2010 by Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom, with a current membership of 700 million monthly active users is a very prominent platform due to its use of photos and video. The features of this social networking app allow you to make your account public or private.

Statistics have shown that 80% of Instagram users come from outside the United States making this a great platform for international marketing. Instagram is used by 31% of American women and 24% of American men; 28% of internet users between the ages of 18 and 29 use Instagram making it a great tool to market to the younger generation. The fashion consciousness in youth and the urge to keep up with what is in vogue makes Instagram appealing to them. Since they will be able to see the latest trends, what their fashion and music icons wear, they tend to become active members.

Over the years, visual marketing has proven to be a more effective method than oral or written ads. With the aid of good graphics messages are easily passed. The video clips have also proven very effective. Studies have shown that a good marketing video will convince prospective customer more than just mere writing. A short video can be used to pass messages at the same time as entertaining the viewer. Videos on Instagram get two times the engagement of photos making video one of the best ways to use your marketing dollars.

Obviously any Instagram user would have come across the use of hashtags on pictures or videos at one point or the other. Though some persons make use of hashtags for fun, businesses today use it to help brand and market their companies as well as to keep track of their brand through social media. Hashtags are shown to boost engagement; using just one hashtag boosts engagement 12.6%. The uses of hash-tags on Instagram have helped in making some businesses go viral and get nationwide attention. Look for what’s trending and get involved with the conversation through a hashtag. Once a person clicks on a hashtag he automatically sees all public posts and uploads containing the hashtag. This helps to boost the visibility of a business.

Just like every other thing in life there is competition in business. Instagram, though popular isn’t the only platform available. Faced with this, Instagram added a Stories feature in 2016 similar to Snapchat’s, one of its major competitors. In releasing the stories feature that allows users take multiple video clips or photos and thread them together, Instagram has successfully been able to keep its users from moving to its competitors thus retaining a huge user base. A huge user base means a huge market audience for marketing and this is good for business. When reviewing where your business focus needs to be in social media marketing, consider Instagram, a great visual platform reaching the younger generation and the International markets.

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