This topic might be a good idea to think of, especially for small business. Even though the product is good, but with weak marketing strategies, the brand will eventually starts decline.

Before choosing  the best social networks, we need to examine few things such as our products, budget, and demographic of targeted customer.

Through the statistics of network worldwide, here's the top leading sites which can be used to market your business.

1. Facebook

With the highest number of active users 1,415 million around the world. Facebook is a good platform to build a community and reach a broad network. Even though younger generation start leaving/rarely use Facebook, but majority of adults are still active participating in Facebook. The primary reason of Facebook is to engage with friends and family, but they start to offer various features for business. Few examples are the paid advertising options. Business can choose their budget to promote their brand (through post or photos) and finally people (who might interested) are able to see the ads.

However, for small business it might not be a best option, because it's really hard to market if you don't choose paid options. The chance for people to see our posts are very small, since paid promotion business ads or post will be prioritized.

2. LinkedIn

This platform usually used by people in B2B industry. Most people use it for making business connections or looking for a new job. Average of LinkedIn users are people with high income and education levels. This platform might be a good media for middle to huge business to market their brand, but not a good thing to use for small businesses.

3. Instagram

This platform is one of the rising social networking sites, especially for young generations. Its feature that focus on visual aspect made people interested with this app. It might be a good choice for all types of business. Their options to market are not as much as Facebook, so even small business still able to market their product without struggling with their budget to use the app.

In order to getting popularities and followers on instagram, you can see my previous post HERE. Further, there are several example of brands (which are pretty popular) use Instagram as a tool to market their business. You can read the post HERE.

4. Twitter

With a good amount of active users (almost same as Instagram), Twitter can be a great choice, especially for business which appeal "Information Junkies".  Additionally, it's a good way to build a positive relationship with customer, by respond and engage with them.

5. Tumblr

Another platform which focus on its visual aspect is Tumblr. This platform can be considered as a mixture of Instagram and blog. Therefore, people could post pictures and write long text inside the post.

Finally, business should use various social media to promote their business. Even though marketers should consider various things that suits their business model, I would say that the best social media is Facebook (because of its highest active users). However, for smaller business it's better to start with Instagram.

Reference:

http://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/

Hello guys,
as I have mentioned from previous POST (about how marketers could use instagram to promote their business), here's few utilisation of marketing using instagram apps..

During my holiday few weeks ago, I went to Jakarta (Indonesia) and I visited Pantai Indah Kapuk with some friends.

Just to give few insights, instagram is really popular in Indonesia (more popular compared to Melbourne). Most teenager would have this app on their social media platform. Further, even kids or adults are using this app.
You could find people selling various items using instagram, from fashion, beauty, even foods!
What's more? There are some people who were really popular just because of instagram. These people usually has many followers (over 10,000 or maybe 100,000) and they usually get paid to promote & post pictures about particular brand.
Therefore, instagram is generally used by marketers to promote their brand, since the chances to get potential customer is really high (compared to other social media in Indonesia).


First stop was Xcape Indonesia.
This place offer few choices of games with 5D escape game rooms.
Choices of the games are Chamber of Secrets, Resident Evil, Catch me if you can, Whisper of the dead, and Vampire Diary.

Among all the choices, we chose Resident Evil (average difficulty and contains little physical activities).

and finally this white board caught my attention. It says that we could get 10% discount off if we follow their account and post a picture of Xcape cafe Indonesia.
Majority of the group members should post the picture in order to get this discount.

The game was really fun!
Basically we need to find hints to open locks, solve problems, and finally escape from the room.
However, too bad we failed the mission within the given time (60 minutes).
Next time, I will definitely back to play this game and win the mission!


Next, we went to an ice cream cafe (still near the Xcape cafe).
This cafe are selling ice cream inspired from korean ice cream. The owner is also korean and it was really popular especially among the teenagers. 



After tasting it, even though I'm not a really big fan of ice cream. I must says that it's really yummy! It's not too sweet, not too creamy. Everything is just perfect!




and again, as what I also found from Xcape Cafe, there was also a promotion related to instagram.
As for this one, it was not a discount, but a chance to get free ice cream.

In conclusion, I notice that every company has their own method to promote their brand. However, most of them utilized the advantage of promoting via instagram.

Especially with wooyoo, even though the taste are good, but social media hugely affected their brand. Reviews from bloggers, words from mouth to mouth, and also wooyoo instagram account have contributed to its popularity. Even though wooyoo doesn't have much social media, such as Facebook or twitter, but even with only instagram, their cafe is always crowded all the time.

We can see many people around us have instagram. From children to adult, they will have or know this social media. As people attracted to see visual (such as pictures or video), this app is getting more attention and users.

credit: justinjackson

From the statistic above, the growth of instagram users boost from 2011 to 2014. Of course, this attracts marketers to sell and market their items, since social media have a great impact on sales. As an instagram user, Jeremy take advantage from this app and finally his sales is nearly doubled from November to December 2012.

The example I provided happened on 2012, can you imagine what will happen in 2015? The result might be higher!

However, what are the elements to create a successful marketing on instagram? 

Here's the answer…

1.   Capture and post high quality photos

People will absolutely love higher quality photos. However, this doesn't mean all marketers only need to post pictures using SLR camera. Capturing good quality photos could also created by iPhone camera with some filter/editing app.

credit: eatandtreats

Additionally, a brand which use similar photography style (e.g. vintage/dreamy/Black and white) will attracts more people to follow their account. As an impact, more followers on instagram will result in higher potential customer.

2. Post pictures everyday, but not too much

To attract customer, post some photos in a day on different time and it should be done everyday. It is done to remind people with our brand, but not annoying them cause of too many pictures are posted on the same time (this might result in losing followers).

3. Use relevant and unique hashtag

Posting a relevant hashtag will increase chance for people to see and like the photo. However, sometimes the hashtag must be unique so the picture is still visible on the top of search engine.

Also, by creating a unique hashtag, people could easily search the catalogue or pictures. For example, topshop creates a hashtag #topshopjewellery, so people who want to shop jewelry could easily search the photos on instagram.

4. Promote and engage with consumer

Some example for promoting the brand are: 

- Create a giveaway event

- Endorse a celebrity to promote our brand

Both choices could significantly increase followers and engage people to interact/give comments.

On the other side, to engage with customer, you can also post people pictures when using the brand's product and it would creates trust to customers.

5. Incorporate with third party

Connect a brand with selling tools such as Inselly and Hashbag might be a good idea if a business does not have an online selling website. These application, facilitates users to search instagram listing (using hashtags) and purchase the items with paypal.

Other useful apps are Curalate and Blitzmetrics. These apps will help you check the post performance, monitor their performance compared to competitors. All the data will help you on decision making about the type of Instagram photos and content that you post.

In order to be successful in marketing business through instagram, remember to capture high quality photos, consistent on posting pictures, use relevant & unique hashtag, promote and engage with consumer, and incorporate with third party.

Have you tried those tips above or any experience on business on instagram? Share it below (on the comment section). :)