How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand

How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand

Posted by zeehj

Does your brand’s activity on its social accounts impact its search rankings? Maybe. Maybe not. But does it matter anyway?

I shouldn’t have to convince you that investing in a social media for your company is worth it; even in light of Facebook’s recent data breach, we are so reliant upon our social profiles for real human interaction that leaving them is not a real option. In fact, the below statistics from Pew Research Center’s 2018 Social Media Use Survey indicate that we’re not going to give up our social media profiles any time soon.

Humans are social creatures. It makes sense that we love being on social networking sites. We crave interaction with fellow humans. We’re also highly likely to trust the recommendations of our friends and family (Nielsen) and those recommendations often influence our purchasing decisions. We ask our loved ones for advice on where to put our dollars in myriad ways, all at different price points:

• What coffee shop do you like to go to?
• Which mascara is that?
• What are you reading right now?
• Where’d you get that tie?
• What neighborhoods are you looking to move to?
• What schools are you looking to send Anna to?

Yes, those same searches occur online. They also frequently occur in tandem with testimonials from the people in our lives (depending on how thorough we want or need to be).

So if you have a thing that you want to sell to a group of people and you’re still not pursuing a social strategy, I don’t understand what you’re doing. Yes, it’s 2018 and I still find myself trying to persuade clients to proactively use (the right) social networks to promote their brand.

For the sake of this piece, we’re going to focus on organic usage (read: free, not paid advertising) of Instagram. Why just Instagram? 35% of US adults say they use Instagram as of 2018, up from 28% in 2016. This was the greatest growth across top social networking sites reported by Pew Research Center. Additionally, its 35% usage puts it at the third most popular social networking platform, behind only Facebook and YouTube.

Other good news? It may be easier for brands’ posts to appear in users’ Instagram feeds than on their Facebook feeds: Facebook still wants to prioritize your family, friends and groups, while The New York Times reports that Instagram is updating its algorithm to favor newer posts rather than limit the accounts in your feed.

So should every brand have an Instagram? Maybe? But notice I’ve been primarily using the word “brand,” not “company” or “business.” That’s deliberate. Companies (only) provide customers with a service or sell a product. Brands provide customers (followers) with an identity. (If you want to dive further into this, I highly recommend this presentation by former Distiller Hannah Smith.)

The best companies are brands: they’ve got identities with which consumers align themselves. We become loyal to them. We may even use the brands we purchase from and follow as self identifiers to other people (“I’m a Joe & the Juice kind of guy, but not Starbucks,” “I never use MAC, only NARS,” “Me, shop at Banana Republic?! I only go to Everlane!”). Not every company should be on Instagram — it doesn’t make much sense for B2Bs to invest time and energy into building their company’s presence on Instagram.

Instagram is not for your consulting firm. And probably not for your SaaS company, either (but prove me wrong)!

It’s for celebrities. It’s to show off your enviable trip. It’s for fashion blogs. Sneakerheads. Memes. Art. Beauty brands. It’s really great for beauty brands. Why? Instagram is obviously great for sharing pretty photos — and if you’re a beauty company, well, it’s a no-brainer that you should have an active account. And it also has incredible built-in features to organically promote your posts, engage customers, and sell products with actual links to those products on your photos.

So, if you’re going to use Instagram, do it right. If you want to do it right, do it like a beauty brand.

First things first: Why do beauty companies’ IG posts look better?

Glossier

Onomie

Milk

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: each account features beautiful models, pretty sceneries, and cosmetics in clean packaging. That said, it’s not just the subject of the IG photos that matters: each of these IG accounts’ photos have been curated and edited together, so that their photos look cohesive when you view them in IG’s grid format. How do they do that? Let’s look at three posts from these accounts.

Glossier

Onomie

Milk

It’s hard (for me) to pick apart precisely why these photos are aesthetically pleasing — and it doesn’t help that I’m neither a photographer, nor a designer. That said, here is my rudimentary, non-designer take on why these photos look great together:

#1: Their subjects are beautiful (duh)

#2: There are limited primary focal points, and tons of negative space (though the medicine cabinet and floral arrangement photos are arguably “busy”)

#3: Their hues are complementary (pinky-pearlescent-pastels, anyone?)

There’s a lot of pink. And white. And pastels. And more pink. And then, occasionally, pops of color (think: a new violet lipstick shade).

Color schemes remain consistent across Onomie’s, Milk’s, and Glossier’s photos — these beauty brands don’t suddenly change their color palettes from one photo to the next. In fact, they are most likely implementing the same Instagram filters for each photo, or at least editing the color balances so that the photos complement each other. They are deliberately catering to Instagram’s 3x3 grid photo format (or 3x4, or 3x5, depending on your screen size). While many users do see IG posts in their “feeds” when they open the app, users are still motivated to look at IG accounts’ for a number of reasons: IG profiles are the only place where you can add hyperlinks on Instagram, and is also where accounts can pin stories for users to revisit.

But how on earth do they do it? They may have professional photographers, or graphic designers they can beg to normalize their color balances across photos. However, I don’t think that most companies necessarily need this mastery in-house in order to have an Instagram profile that looks good to mere mortals.

What I can assure you is that they plan, plan, plan out their posts in advance. In order to do this effectively, of course, you need the right tools. Here’s your starter pack of IG apps:

• VSCO
  • Freemium phone app
  • Enables you to edit photos like a master — VSCO goes way beyond a small set of filters
  • Has its own community and image feed within the app, separate from IG
  • VSCO can’t post directly to IG (yet), but you can easily download any edited photo
• Planoly
  • Freemium desktop tool and phone app
  • Can visualize your photos in a grid format with your other IG photos
  • Built-in analytics
  • Can schedule and post directly to IG, with captions and hashtags
• Unum
  • Free
  • Offers some photo editing tools
  • Can drag and drop photos to plan out how they will appear alongside your other uploads, in grid format
  • Can post to IG, but no scheduling features

This may sound like a lot of work, and for non-designers in particular it’s pretty challenging. That said, the fruits of your labor can be used again and again. In fact, that’s precisely what these beauty brands do on IG: if they’re featuring a product (again, hello lipstick shades), they show off that product’s different colors, on different skintones. Basically, rinse and repeat with your IG photos: this repetition is great for those with sparse content calendars, and still looks great.

Okay, but they’re not popular just because of their looks, right? Why are beauty brands on IG so damn popular?

Yes, looks matter. IG is a visual platform. Sorry not sorry. And yes, we’re talking about beauty brands that have budgets to advertise their accounts and products on IG, which also contributes to their popularity. However, that’s not the whole story.

They use hashtags and photo tags.

Hashtags

Just like on Twitter (and Facebook, to a degree), hashtags are a natural way to boost exposure and get “discovered.” That’s largely because IG users can also follow hashtags, in the same manner as following a handle. And, just like on Twitter, it matters which hashtags you use. IG also allows users to add up to 30 hashtags per post — and yes, this can look spammy, but if you’re using IG like a beauty brand, you’ll separate your caption from your hashtags with periods-used-as-line-breaks or as a separate comment after you post.

So, where should you begin hunting for hashtags? Unfortunately, the Cambridge Analytica debacle has extended to Facebook’s other properties, including Instagram. It seems like one direct response to this is to limit the number of API calls we can make of IG. This means awesome services like websta.me can’t serve up the same amount of information around hashtags as they once did.

That said, Tagboard is one option for content and social media marketers to use. I like to use it to suss out hashtag intent (in answering whether this the right hashtag to use for this post). *Readers: if you’ve got tools you love to find hashtags on IG, add them in the comments below for us, please!

Otherwise, your best bet (as far as I know) is to search for hashtags directly in Instagram’s Discover area, under Tags. There, you can see how many times those hashtags have been used (what’s popular?) and then click through to see what photos have been tagged.

Photo tags

Beauty brands also take advantage of photo tagging on their posts when they can: if they are featuring a celebrity (like the magnificent Tracee Ellis Ross), they can tag her IG directly onto this post. Not only does this let Tracee (or, more likely, her social media manager) know, but depending on her settings this photo now shows up under her tagged photos on her profile — for her fans to discover.

Similarly, if you’re a business selling products and you’ve been approved for shopping on IG, you can also tag your products in your photos so that users can click through directly to their product pages. This is a no-brainer. Just do it.

They talk to their followers.

We already know that it’s best practice to engage and respond to followers on social media (within reason), and IG is no different. Onomie, Milk and Glossier all have downright spirited conversations in their photos’ comments sections by prompt fellow ‘grammers to participate in a few ways. They:

• Host contests for product giveaways, which is an easy way to grow their followers on Instagram while also attracting new, potential customers.
• Ask their followers questions (“which are your faves?”) or simply prompt them to react to a photo (using emojis in the comments).
• Share company and product news with their followers, and also answer questions their followers pose in response to that news.

They add stories.

IG’s “Stories” feature is another great tool that Onomie, Milk, and Glossier all use. They’re like IG posts, but ephemeral (they only last 24 hours) and do not live in your main feed: users can access these stories from the top of their IG feeds, and from the account’s main icon. In some cases — especially brands selling products — these accounts may choose to “pin” evergreen stories to their IG profiles, so that users can access them beyond the 24-hour lifespan.

Stories are an excellent way to gather additional insights from followers (outside of comments) because you can run polls (with clickable elements) to collect simple data (“Should our next product help alleviate dry or oily skin?”). What’s more is that, depending on users’ notification preferences, stories automatically push notifications to followers’ phone screens. This means that even if a user is not using the app, they will be notified of new, temporary content.

If your brand (or your client) isn’t taking advantage of IG’s great marketing tools, it’s time to stop waiting and get ‘gramming. Especially if your target audiences are using the platform, there is no reason not to test out all the ways it allows you to engage its community.

Share your favorite IG tools, tips, and accounts below, so that other Moz readers can get inspired. And if you’re passionate about marketing, come join our team, and help me convince more awesome brands to take over Instagram. (JK. Kinda.)

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Win a Ticket + Lodging to MozCon 2018!

Win a Ticket + Lodging to MozCon 2018!
Win a Ticket + Lodging to MozCon 2018!
Win a Ticket + Lodging to MozCon 2018!
Win a Ticket + Lodging to MozCon 2018!
Win a Ticket + Lodging to MozCon 2018!
Win a Ticket + Lodging to MozCon 2018!
Win a Ticket + Lodging to MozCon 2018!
Win a Ticket + Lodging to MozCon 2018!
Win a Ticket + Lodging to MozCon 2018!
Win a Ticket + Lodging to MozCon 2018!
Win a Ticket + Lodging to MozCon 2018!
Win a Ticket + Lodging to MozCon 2018!
Win a Ticket + Lodging to MozCon 2018!
Win a Ticket + Lodging to MozCon 2018!
Win a Ticket + Lodging to MozCon 2018!
Win a Ticket + Lodging to MozCon 2018!
Win a Ticket + Lodging to MozCon 2018!
Win a Ticket + Lodging to MozCon 2018!
Win a Ticket + Lodging to MozCon 2018!
Win a Ticket + Lodging to MozCon 2018!
Win a Ticket + Lodging to MozCon 2018!
Win a Ticket + Lodging to MozCon 2018!

Posted by ErinMcCaul

Have you been wanting to come to MozCon but just can’t swing the budget? Want to take a selfie with Roger, meet like-minded friends at our afterparties, and learn from leading industry experts? I’m thrilled to announce that you can do it all by winning a free ticket to join us at MozCon this July!

Those front-row seats look awfully cushy.

I’m one of the behind-the-scenes house elves who helps make MozCon happen, and I’m here to tell you everything you need to know about entering to win!

To enter, just submit a unique piece of content telling us why we should send you to MozCon by Sunday May 6th at 5pm PDT. Make sure your entry is both original and creative — the Moz staff will review all submissions and vote on the winner! If you’re chosen, we’ll pick up the tab for your registration and accommodations at the Grand Hyatt. You’ll also have a reserved VIP seat in our front row, and an invite to mix and mingle at our pre-event MozCon speakers’ dinner!

Without further ado, here’s the scoop:

Step 1: Create!

Create a unique, compelling piece of content telling us why you want to come to MozCon. Past ideas have included:

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Don’t feel limited by these examples. Is this the year we’ll see a Lego Roger stop-motion film, a MozCon-inspired show tune, or Roger-themed sugar cookies? The sky's the limit, my friends! (But think hard about trying your hand at those cookies.)

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Once you’re ready to throw your hat in the game, tweet us a link @Moz and use the hashtag #MozConVIP by Sunday May 6th at 5pm PDT. Make sure to follow the instructions, and include your name and email address somewhere easily visible within your content. To keep things fair, there will be no exceptions to the rules. We need to be able to contact you if you’re our lucky winner!

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• The submission deadline is Sunday May 6th at 5pm PDT.
• Mozzers will vote on all the entries based on the creativity and uniqueness of the content
• We’ll announce the winning entry from @Moz via Twitter on Friday, May 11. You must be able to attend MozCon, July 9–11 2018, in Seattle. Prizes are non-transferable.
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• The value of the prize will be reported for tax purposes as required by law; the winner will receive an IRS form 1099 at the end of the calendar year and a copy of such form will be filed with the IRS. The winner is solely responsible for reporting and paying any and all applicable taxes related to the prizes and paying any expenses associated with any prize which are not specifically provided for in the official rules.

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Alright, that’s wrap. I can’t wait to see what you folks come up with! Happy creating!

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How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand

How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand
How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand

Posted by zeehj

Does your brand’s activity on its social accounts impact its search rankings? Maybe. Maybe not. But does it matter anyway?

I shouldn’t have to convince you that investing in a social media for your company is worth it; even in light of Facebook’s recent data breach, we are so reliant upon our social profiles for real human interaction that leaving them is not a real option. In fact, the below statistics from Pew Research Center’s 2018 Social Media Use Survey indicate that we’re not going to give up our social media profiles any time soon.

Humans are social creatures. It makes sense that we love being on social networking sites. We crave interaction with fellow humans. We’re also highly likely to trust the recommendations of our friends and family (Nielsen) and those recommendations often influence our purchasing decisions. We ask our loved ones for advice on where to put our dollars in myriad ways, all at different price points:

• What coffee shop do you like to go to?
• Which mascara is that?
• What are you reading right now?
• Where’d you get that tie?
• What neighborhoods are you looking to move to?
• What schools are you looking to send Anna to?

Yes, those same searches occur online. They also frequently occur in tandem with testimonials from the people in our lives (depending on how thorough we want or need to be).

So if you have a thing that you want to sell to a group of people and you’re still not pursuing a social strategy, I don’t understand what you’re doing. Yes, it’s 2018 and I still find myself trying to persuade clients to proactively use (the right) social networks to promote their brand.

For the sake of this piece, we’re going to focus on organic usage (read: free, not paid advertising) of Instagram. Why just Instagram? 35% of US adults say they use Instagram as of 2018, up from 28% in 2016. This was the greatest growth across top social networking sites reported by Pew Research Center. Additionally, its 35% usage puts it at the third most popular social networking platform, behind only Facebook and YouTube.

Other good news? It may be easier for brands’ posts to appear in users’ Instagram feeds than on their Facebook feeds: Facebook still wants to prioritize your family, friends and groups, while The New York Times reports that Instagram is updating its algorithm to favor newer posts rather than limit the accounts in your feed.

So should every brand have an Instagram? Maybe? But notice I’ve been primarily using the word “brand,” not “company” or “business.” That’s deliberate. Companies (only) provide customers with a service or sell a product. Brands provide customers (followers) with an identity. (If you want to dive further into this, I highly recommend this presentation by former Distiller Hannah Smith.)

The best companies are brands: they’ve got identities with which consumers align themselves. We become loyal to them. We may even use the brands we purchase from and follow as self identifiers to other people (“I’m a Joe & the Juice kind of guy, but not Starbucks,” “I never use MAC, only NARS,” “Me, shop at Banana Republic?! I only go to Everlane!”). Not every company should be on Instagram — it doesn’t make much sense for B2Bs to invest time and energy into building their company’s presence on Instagram.

Instagram is not for your consulting firm. And probably not for your SaaS company, either (but prove me wrong)!

It’s for celebrities. It’s to show off your enviable trip. It’s for fashion blogs. Sneakerheads. Memes. Art. Beauty brands. It’s really great for beauty brands. Why? Instagram is obviously great for sharing pretty photos — and if you’re a beauty company, well, it’s a no-brainer that you should have an active account. And it also has incredible built-in features to organically promote your posts, engage customers, and sell products with actual links to those products on your photos.

So, if you’re going to use Instagram, do it right. If you want to do it right, do it like a beauty brand.

First things first: Why do beauty companies’ IG posts look better?

Glossier

Onomie

Milk

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: each account features beautiful models, pretty sceneries, and cosmetics in clean packaging. That said, it’s not just the subject of the IG photos that matters: each of these IG accounts’ photos have been curated and edited together, so that their photos look cohesive when you view them in IG’s grid format. How do they do that? Let’s look at three posts from these accounts.

Glossier

Onomie

Milk

It’s hard (for me) to pick apart precisely why these photos are aesthetically pleasing — and it doesn’t help that I’m neither a photographer, nor a designer. That said, here is my rudimentary, non-designer take on why these photos look great together:

#1: Their subjects are beautiful (duh)

#2: There are limited primary focal points, and tons of negative space (though the medicine cabinet and floral arrangement photos are arguably “busy”)

#3: Their hues are complementary (pinky-pearlescent-pastels, anyone?)

There’s a lot of pink. And white. And pastels. And more pink. And then, occasionally, pops of color (think: a new violet lipstick shade).

Color schemes remain consistent across Onomie’s, Milk’s, and Glossier’s photos — these beauty brands don’t suddenly change their color palettes from one photo to the next. In fact, they are most likely implementing the same Instagram filters for each photo, or at least editing the color balances so that the photos complement each other. They are deliberately catering to Instagram’s 3x3 grid photo format (or 3x4, or 3x5, depending on your screen size). While many users do see IG posts in their “feeds” when they open the app, users are still motivated to look at IG accounts’ for a number of reasons: IG profiles are the only place where you can add hyperlinks on Instagram, and is also where accounts can pin stories for users to revisit.

But how on earth do they do it? They may have professional photographers, or graphic designers they can beg to normalize their color balances across photos. However, I don’t think that most companies necessarily need this mastery in-house in order to have an Instagram profile that looks good to mere mortals.

What I can assure you is that they plan, plan, plan out their posts in advance. In order to do this effectively, of course, you need the right tools. Here’s your starter pack of IG apps:

• VSCO
  • Freemium phone app
  • Enables you to edit photos like a master — VSCO goes way beyond a small set of filters
  • Has its own community and image feed within the app, separate from IG
  • VSCO can’t post directly to IG (yet), but you can easily download any edited photo
• Planoly
  • Freemium desktop tool and phone app
  • Can visualize your photos in a grid format with your other IG photos
  • Built-in analytics
  • Can schedule and post directly to IG, with captions and hashtags
• Unum
  • Free
  • Offers some photo editing tools
  • Can drag and drop photos to plan out how they will appear alongside your other uploads, in grid format
  • Can post to IG, but no scheduling features

This may sound like a lot of work, and for non-designers in particular it’s pretty challenging. That said, the fruits of your labor can be used again and again. In fact, that’s precisely what these beauty brands do on IG: if they’re featuring a product (again, hello lipstick shades), they show off that product’s different colors, on different skintones. Basically, rinse and repeat with your IG photos: this repetition is great for those with sparse content calendars, and still looks great.

Okay, but they’re not popular just because of their looks, right? Why are beauty brands on IG so damn popular?

Yes, looks matter. IG is a visual platform. Sorry not sorry. And yes, we’re talking about beauty brands that have budgets to advertise their accounts and products on IG, which also contributes to their popularity. However, that’s not the whole story.

They use hashtags and photo tags.

Hashtags

Just like on Twitter (and Facebook, to a degree), hashtags are a natural way to boost exposure and get “discovered.” That’s largely because IG users can also follow hashtags, in the same manner as following a handle. And, just like on Twitter, it matters which hashtags you use. IG also allows users to add up to 30 hashtags per post — and yes, this can look spammy, but if you’re using IG like a beauty brand, you’ll separate your caption from your hashtags with periods-used-as-line-breaks or as a separate comment after you post.

So, where should you begin hunting for hashtags? Unfortunately, the Cambridge Analytica debacle has extended to Facebook’s other properties, including Instagram. It seems like one direct response to this is to limit the number of API calls we can make of IG. This means awesome services like websta.me can’t serve up the same amount of information around hashtags as they once did.

That said, Tagboard is one option for content and social media marketers to use. I like to use it to suss out hashtag intent (in answering whether this the right hashtag to use for this post). *Readers: if you’ve got tools you love to find hashtags on IG, add them in the comments below for us, please!

Otherwise, your best bet (as far as I know) is to search for hashtags directly in Instagram’s Discover area, under Tags. There, you can see how many times those hashtags have been used (what’s popular?) and then click through to see what photos have been tagged.

Photo tags

Beauty brands also take advantage of photo tagging on their posts when they can: if they are featuring a celebrity (like the magnificent Tracee Ellis Ross), they can tag her IG directly onto this post. Not only does this let Tracee (or, more likely, her social media manager) know, but depending on her settings this photo now shows up under her tagged photos on her profile — for her fans to discover.

Similarly, if you’re a business selling products and you’ve been approved for shopping on IG, you can also tag your products in your photos so that users can click through directly to their product pages. This is a no-brainer. Just do it.

They talk to their followers.

We already know that it’s best practice to engage and respond to followers on social media (within reason), and IG is no different. Onomie, Milk and Glossier all have downright spirited conversations in their photos’ comments sections by prompt fellow ‘grammers to participate in a few ways. They:

• Host contests for product giveaways, which is an easy way to grow their followers on Instagram while also attracting new, potential customers.
• Ask their followers questions (“which are your faves?”) or simply prompt them to react to a photo (using emojis in the comments).
• Share company and product news with their followers, and also answer questions their followers pose in response to that news.

They add stories.

IG’s “Stories” feature is another great tool that Onomie, Milk, and Glossier all use. They’re like IG posts, but ephemeral (they only last 24 hours) and do not live in your main feed: users can access these stories from the top of their IG feeds, and from the account’s main icon. In some cases — especially brands selling products — these accounts may choose to “pin” evergreen stories to their IG profiles, so that users can access them beyond the 24-hour lifespan.

Stories are an excellent way to gather additional insights from followers (outside of comments) because you can run polls (with clickable elements) to collect simple data (“Should our next product help alleviate dry or oily skin?”). What’s more is that, depending on users’ notification preferences, stories automatically push notifications to followers’ phone screens. This means that even if a user is not using the app, they will be notified of new, temporary content.

If your brand (or your client) isn’t taking advantage of IG’s great marketing tools, it’s time to stop waiting and get ‘gramming. Especially if your target audiences are using the platform, there is no reason not to test out all the ways it allows you to engage its community.

Share your favorite IG tools, tips, and accounts below, so that other Moz readers can get inspired. And if you’re passionate about marketing, come join our team, and help me convince more awesome brands to take over Instagram. (JK. Kinda.)

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

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May 01, 2018 at 03:14AM

ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report

ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report
ROPO: 2018's Most Important Multichannel Digital Marketing Report

Posted by RobBeirne

Digital marketers have always had one drum they loudly beat in front of traditional advertising channels: "We can measure what we do better than you." Now, we weren't embellishing the truth or anything — we can measure digital advertising performance at a much more granular level than we can traditional advertising. But it's not perfect. Multichannel digital marketing teams always have one niggling thought that keeps them awake at night: online activity is driving in-store sales and we can't claim any credit for it.

Offline sales are happening. Sure enough, we're seeing online shopping become more and more popular, but even so, you’ll never see 100% of your sales being made online if you're a multichannel retailer. Whether it’s a dress that needs to be tried on or a TV you want to measure up before you buy, in-store purchases are going nowhere. But it's more important than ever to make sure you don't underestimate the impact your online advertising has on offline sales.

ROPO: Research Online Purchase Offline has plagued multichannel retailers for years. This is when awareness and hot leads are generated online, but the customers convert in-store.

There is one other problem hampering many multichannel businesses: viewing their online store as "just another store" and, in many cases, the store managers themselves considering the website to be a competitor.

In this article, I'll show you how we've improvised to create a ROPO report for DID Electrical, an Irish electrical and home appliance multichannel retailer, to provide greater insight into their customers' multichannel journey and how this affected their business.

What is ROPO reporting?

Offline conversions are a massive blind spot for digital marketers. It's the same as someone else taking credit for your work: your online ads are definitely influencing shoppers who complete their purchase offline, but we can't prove it. Or at least we couldn't prove it — until now.

ROPO reporting (Research Online Purchase Offline) allows multichannel retailers to see what volume of in-store sales have been influenced by online ads. Facebook has trail-blazed in this area of reporting, leaving Google in their wake and scrambling to keep up. I know this well, because I work on Wolfgang's PPC team and gaze enviously at the ROPO reporting abilities of our social team. Working with DID, we created a robust way to measure the offline value of both PPC and SEO activity online.

To create a ROPO report, multichannel retailers must have a digital touch point in-store. This isn't as complicated as it sounds and can be something like an e-receipt or warranty system where you email customers. This gives you the customer data that you'll need to match offline conversions with your online advertising activity.

As I mentioned earlier, Facebook makes this nice and simple. You take the data gathered in-store, upload it to Facebook, and they will match as many people as possible. Our social team is generally seeing a 50% match rate between the data gathered in-store and Facebook users who've seen our ads. You can watch two of my colleagues, Alan and Roisin, discussing social ROPO reporting in an episode of our new video series, Wolfgang Bites:

Clearly, ROPO reporting is potentially very powerful for social media marketers, but Google doesn't yet provide a way for me to simply upload offline conversion data and match it against people who've seen my ads (though they have said that this is coming for Google AdWords). Wouldn't this be a really boring article for people working in SEO and PPC if I just ended things there?

Google ROPO reporting

DID Electrical were a perfect business to develop a ROPO report for. Founded back in 1968 (happy 50th birthday guys!), a year before tech was advanced enough to put man on the moon, DID strives to "understand the needs of each and every one of their customers." DID have an innovative approach to multichannel retail, which is great for ROPO reporting because they're already offering e-receipts to customers purchasing goods for over €100. Better still, the email delivering the e-receipts also has a link to a dedicated competition. This sits on a hidden landing page, so the only visitors to this page are customers receiving e-receipts.

They were nearly set for ROPO reporting, but there was just one extra step needed. In Google Analytics, we set the unique competition landing page URL as a goal, allowing us to reverse-engineer customer journeys and uncover the extent of Google PPC and SEO's influence over in-store sales. Before I unveil the results, a few caveats.

The ROPO under-report

Despite our best efforts to track offline conversions, I can't say ROPO reporting reflects 100% of all in-store sales influenced by digital ads. In the past, we've been open about the difficulties in tracking both offline conversions and cross-device conversions. For example, when running a social ROPO report, customers might give a different email in-store from the one attached to their Facebook account. For an SEO or PPC ROPO report, the customer might click a search ad on a work computer but the open their e-receipt on their smartphone. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the beast, ROPO reporting just isn't 100% accurate, but it does give an incredible indication of online's influence over offline sales.

I expect to see improved reporting coming down the line from Google, and they're definitely working on a ROPO reporting solution like Facebook's upload system. While our approach to ROPO reporting does shine a light on the offline conversion blind spot, it's entirely likely that digital advertising's influence goes far beyond these (still mightily impressive) results.

It’s also important to note that this method isn’t intended to give an exact figure for every ROPO sale, but instead gives us an excellent idea of the proportion of offline sales impacted by our online activities. By applying these proportions to overall business figures, we can work out a robust estimate for metrics like offline ROI.

Results from ROPO reporting

I'm going to divide the results of this ROPO reporting innovation into three sections:

1. PPC Results
2. SEO Results
3. Business Results

1. PPC results of ROPO reporting

First of all, we found 47% of offline customers had visited the DID Electrical website prior to visiting the store and making a purchase. Alone, this was an incredible insight into consumer behavior to be able to offer the team at DID. We went even further and determined that 1 in 8 measurable offline sales were influenced by an AdWords click.

2. SEO results of ROPO reporting

This method of ROPO reporting also means we can check the value of an organic click-through using the same reverse-engineering we used for PPC clicks. Based on the same data set, we discovered 1 in 5 purchases made in-store were made by customers who visited the DID site through an organic click prior to visiting the store.

3. Business results of ROPO reporting

ROPO reporting proved to be a great solution to DID's needs in providing clarity around the position of their website in the multichannel experience. With at least 47% of offline shoppers visiting the site before purchasing, 1 in 8 of them being influenced by AdWords and 1 in 5 by SEO, DID could now show the impact online was having over in-store sales. Internally, the website was no longer being viewed as just another store — now it's viewed as the hub linking everything together for an improved customer experience.

Following the deeper understanding into multichannel retail offered by ROPO reporting, DID was also able to augment their budget allocations between digital and traditional channels more efficiently. These insights have enabled them to justify moving more of their marketing budget online. Digital will make up 50% more of their overall marketing budget in 2018!

Getting started with ROPO reporting

If you're a digital marketer within a multichannel retailer and you want to get started with ROPO reporting, the key factor is your in-store digital touchpoint. This is the bridge between your online advertising and offline conversion data. If you're not offering e-receipts already, now is the time to start considering them as they played a critical role in DID’s ROPO strategy.

ROPO Cheat Guide (or quick reference)

If you're a multichannel retailer and this all sounds tantalizing, here’s the customer journey which ROPO measures:

1. Customer researches online using your website
2. Customer makes purchase in your brick-and-mortar store
3. Customer agrees to receive an e-receipt or warranty delivered to their email address
4. Customer clicks a competition link in the communication they receive
5. This action is captured in your Google Analytics as a custom goal completion
6. You can now calculate ROAS (Return On Advertising Spending)

The two critical steps here are the digital touchpoint in your physical stores and the incentive for the customer’s post-conversion communication click. Once you have this touchpoint and interaction, measuring Facebook's social ROPO is a simple file upload and using what I’ve shown you above, you’ll be able to measure the ROPO impact of PPC and SEO too.

If you do have any questions, pop them into the comments below. I have some questions too and it would be great to hear what you all think:

• If you're a multichannel retailer, are you in a position to start ROPO reporting?
• Does your company view your website as a hub for all stores or just another store (or even a competitor to the physical stores)?
• Have you seen a shift in marketing spend towards digital?

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How to Use Instagram Like a Beauty Brand

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Posted by zeehj

Does your brand’s activity on its social accounts impact its search rankings? Maybe. Maybe not. But does it matter anyway?

I shouldn’t have to convince you that investing in a social media for your company is worth it; even in light of Facebook’s recent data breach, we are so reliant upon our social profiles for real human interaction that leaving them is not a real option. In fact, the below statistics from Pew Research Center’s 2018 Social Media Use Survey indicate that we’re not going to give up our social media profiles any time soon.

Humans are social creatures. It makes sense that we love being on social networking sites. We crave interaction with fellow humans. We’re also highly likely to trust the recommendations of our friends and family (Nielsen) and those recommendations often influence our purchasing decisions. We ask our loved ones for advice on where to put our dollars in myriad ways, all at different price points:

• What coffee shop do you like to go to?
• Which mascara is that?
• What are you reading right now?
• Where’d you get that tie?
• What neighborhoods are you looking to move to?
• What schools are you looking to send Anna to?

Yes, those same searches occur online. They also frequently occur in tandem with testimonials from the people in our lives (depending on how thorough we want or need to be).

So if you have a thing that you want to sell to a group of people and you’re still not pursuing a social strategy, I don’t understand what you’re doing. Yes, it’s 2018 and I still find myself trying to persuade clients to proactively use (the right) social networks to promote their brand.

For the sake of this piece, we’re going to focus on organic usage (read: free, not paid advertising) of Instagram. Why just Instagram? 35% of US adults say they use Instagram as of 2018, up from 28% in 2016. This was the greatest growth across top social networking sites reported by Pew Research Center. Additionally, its 35% usage puts it at the third most popular social networking platform, behind only Facebook and YouTube.

Other good news? It may be easier for brands’ posts to appear in users’ Instagram feeds than on their Facebook feeds: Facebook still wants to prioritize your family, friends and groups, while The New York Times reports that Instagram is updating its algorithm to favor newer posts rather than limit the accounts in your feed.

So should every brand have an Instagram? Maybe? But notice I’ve been primarily using the word “brand,” not “company” or “business.” That’s deliberate. Companies (only) provide customers with a service or sell a product. Brands provide customers (followers) with an identity. (If you want to dive further into this, I highly recommend this presentation by former Distiller Hannah Smith.)

The best companies are brands: they’ve got identities with which consumers align themselves. We become loyal to them. We may even use the brands we purchase from and follow as self identifiers to other people (“I’m a Joe & the Juice kind of guy, but not Starbucks,” “I never use MAC, only NARS,” “Me, shop at Banana Republic?! I only go to Everlane!”). Not every company should be on Instagram — it doesn’t make much sense for B2Bs to invest time and energy into building their company’s presence on Instagram.

Instagram is not for your consulting firm. And probably not for your SaaS company, either (but prove me wrong)!

It’s for celebrities. It’s to show off your enviable trip. It’s for fashion blogs. Sneakerheads. Memes. Art. Beauty brands. It’s really great for beauty brands. Why? Instagram is obviously great for sharing pretty photos — and if you’re a beauty company, well, it’s a no-brainer that you should have an active account. And it also has incredible built-in features to organically promote your posts, engage customers, and sell products with actual links to those products on your photos.

So, if you’re going to use Instagram, do it right. If you want to do it right, do it like a beauty brand.

First things first: Why do beauty companies’ IG posts look better?

Glossier

Onomie

Milk

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: each account features beautiful models, pretty sceneries, and cosmetics in clean packaging. That said, it’s not just the subject of the IG photos that matters: each of these IG accounts’ photos have been curated and edited together, so that their photos look cohesive when you view them in IG’s grid format. How do they do that? Let’s look at three posts from these accounts.

Glossier

Onomie

Milk

It’s hard (for me) to pick apart precisely why these photos are aesthetically pleasing — and it doesn’t help that I’m neither a photographer, nor a designer. That said, here is my rudimentary, non-designer take on why these photos look great together:

#1: Their subjects are beautiful (duh)

#2: There are limited primary focal points, and tons of negative space (though the medicine cabinet and floral arrangement photos are arguably “busy”)

#3: Their hues are complementary (pinky-pearlescent-pastels, anyone?)

There’s a lot of pink. And white. And pastels. And more pink. And then, occasionally, pops of color (think: a new violet lipstick shade).

Color schemes remain consistent across Onomie’s, Milk’s, and Glossier’s photos — these beauty brands don’t suddenly change their color palettes from one photo to the next. In fact, they are most likely implementing the same Instagram filters for each photo, or at least editing the color balances so that the photos complement each other. They are deliberately catering to Instagram’s 3x3 grid photo format (or 3x4, or 3x5, depending on your screen size). While many users do see IG posts in their “feeds” when they open the app, users are still motivated to look at IG accounts’ for a number of reasons: IG profiles are the only place where you can add hyperlinks on Instagram, and is also where accounts can pin stories for users to revisit.

But how on earth do they do it? They may have professional photographers, or graphic designers they can beg to normalize their color balances across photos. However, I don’t think that most companies necessarily need this mastery in-house in order to have an Instagram profile that looks good to mere mortals.

What I can assure you is that they plan, plan, plan out their posts in advance. In order to do this effectively, of course, you need the right tools. Here’s your starter pack of IG apps:

• VSCO
  • Freemium phone app
  • Enables you to edit photos like a master — VSCO goes way beyond a small set of filters
  • Has its own community and image feed within the app, separate from IG
  • VSCO can’t post directly to IG (yet), but you can easily download any edited photo
• Planoly
  • Freemium desktop tool and phone app
  • Can visualize your photos in a grid format with your other IG photos
  • Built-in analytics
  • Can schedule and post directly to IG, with captions and hashtags
• Unum
  • Free
  • Offers some photo editing tools
  • Can drag and drop photos to plan out how they will appear alongside your other uploads, in grid format
  • Can post to IG, but no scheduling features

This may sound like a lot of work, and for non-designers in particular it’s pretty challenging. That said, the fruits of your labor can be used again and again. In fact, that’s precisely what these beauty brands do on IG: if they’re featuring a product (again, hello lipstick shades), they show off that product’s different colors, on different skintones. Basically, rinse and repeat with your IG photos: this repetition is great for those with sparse content calendars, and still looks great.

Okay, but they’re not popular just because of their looks, right? Why are beauty brands on IG so damn popular?

Yes, looks matter. IG is a visual platform. Sorry not sorry. And yes, we’re talking about beauty brands that have budgets to advertise their accounts and products on IG, which also contributes to their popularity. However, that’s not the whole story.

They use hashtags and photo tags.

Hashtags

Just like on Twitter (and Facebook, to a degree), hashtags are a natural way to boost exposure and get “discovered.” That’s largely because IG users can also follow hashtags, in the same manner as following a handle. And, just like on Twitter, it matters which hashtags you use. IG also allows users to add up to 30 hashtags per post — and yes, this can look spammy, but if you’re using IG like a beauty brand, you’ll separate your caption from your hashtags with periods-used-as-line-breaks or as a separate comment after you post.

So, where should you begin hunting for hashtags? Unfortunately, the Cambridge Analytica debacle has extended to Facebook’s other properties, including Instagram. It seems like one direct response to this is to limit the number of API calls we can make of IG. This means awesome services like websta.me can’t serve up the same amount of information around hashtags as they once did.

That said, Tagboard is one option for content and social media marketers to use. I like to use it to suss out hashtag intent (in answering whether this the right hashtag to use for this post). *Readers: if you’ve got tools you love to find hashtags on IG, add them in the comments below for us, please!

Otherwise, your best bet (as far as I know) is to search for hashtags directly in Instagram’s Discover area, under Tags. There, you can see how many times those hashtags have been used (what’s popular?) and then click through to see what photos have been tagged.

Photo tags

Beauty brands also take advantage of photo tagging on their posts when they can: if they are featuring a celebrity (like the magnificent Tracee Ellis Ross), they can tag her IG directly onto this post. Not only does this let Tracee (or, more likely, her social media manager) know, but depending on her settings this photo now shows up under her tagged photos on her profile — for her fans to discover.

Similarly, if you’re a business selling products and you’ve been approved for shopping on IG, you can also tag your products in your photos so that users can click through directly to their product pages. This is a no-brainer. Just do it.

They talk to their followers.

We already know that it’s best practice to engage and respond to followers on social media (within reason), and IG is no different. Onomie, Milk and Glossier all have downright spirited conversations in their photos’ comments sections by prompt fellow ‘grammers to participate in a few ways. They:

• Host contests for product giveaways, which is an easy way to grow their followers on Instagram while also attracting new, potential customers.
• Ask their followers questions (“which are your faves?”) or simply prompt them to react to a photo (using emojis in the comments).
• Share company and product news with their followers, and also answer questions their followers pose in response to that news.

They add stories.

IG’s “Stories” feature is another great tool that Onomie, Milk, and Glossier all use. They’re like IG posts, but ephemeral (they only last 24 hours) and do not live in your main feed: users can access these stories from the top of their IG feeds, and from the account’s main icon. In some cases — especially brands selling products — these accounts may choose to “pin” evergreen stories to their IG profiles, so that users can access them beyond the 24-hour lifespan.

Stories are an excellent way to gather additional insights from followers (outside of comments) because you can run polls (with clickable elements) to collect simple data (“Should our next product help alleviate dry or oily skin?”). What’s more is that, depending on users’ notification preferences, stories automatically push notifications to followers’ phone screens. This means that even if a user is not using the app, they will be notified of new, temporary content.

If your brand (or your client) isn’t taking advantage of IG’s great marketing tools, it’s time to stop waiting and get ‘gramming. Especially if your target audiences are using the platform, there is no reason not to test out all the ways it allows you to engage its community.

Share your favorite IG tools, tips, and accounts below, so that other Moz readers can get inspired. And if you’re passionate about marketing, come join our team, and help me convince more awesome brands to take over Instagram. (JK. Kinda.)

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