Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Instagram just released a new feature that many are calling a Snapchat killer. The new feature is Direct Messaging and it allows you to send private images and videos to other Instagram users.

This gives a new opportunity to businesses looking to connect with Influencers and their following in a new private and "secure" manner. And like Snapchat, there are many ways you can utilize this feature to share sales, promote products, and create a dialog with your community. If you haven't read my post, 8 Small Business Marketing Ideas For Snapchat, I give you some great ways to use the mobile app.

Of course you can do the same things with Instagram Direct. Things like flash sales, scavenger hunts, and messages from your company would work on both platforms. There are a few differences however that you should take into consideration when deciding whether Instagram Direct or Snapchat is better for your business goals....

There are now over 150 million active Instagram users so by applying a smart photo marketing strategy you have the potential of making great gains for your brand.

Now that Instagram supports videos up to 12 seconds long the sky is the limit when it comes to Instagram marketing and building your brand on Instagram. Enjoy the infographic below which shares four reasons why Instagram is so powerful and five smart Instagram marketing strategies: Curate, Snap, Hashtag, Engage, and Repeat.

Instagram is becoming a core platform for brands to engage with consumers since it registers consumer engagement 18 times that of Facebook and 48 times that of Twitter, according to the latest report from L2 Think Tank.

The "Intelligence Report: Social Platforms" found that the visual component of Instagram has helped the platform grow to 100 million users with the average luxury brand having 100,000 followers. Other visual platforms such as Vine, Pinterest and YouTube have grown significantly and continue to be platforms for brands to deeply engage with consumers.

"For all the mindshare that it occupies, social media ultimately drives very little ecommerce, less than 0.25 percent, and site traffic, less than 3 percent, for prestige brands," said Danielle Bailey, research lead L2 Think Tank, New York....

Instagram is a great tool for capturing fan and customer excitement in the moment, and Brian Zuercher of Venueseen has offered 4 tips for successful Instagram campaigns using the #Indy500orBust event as a case study....