"Why Instagram Is Social Media's Rising Star For Business"

When we learned last year that Instagram had surpassed Twitter in the number of monthly active users, Instagram became the hottest topic around the water cooler at marketing agencies. Here at DMX, we’ve been watching very closely to see if this rising star of social media would continue to shine.

So far, we have not been disappointed. Instagram’s efforts to make the app more user-friendly, along with welcome shifts toward catering to the needs of business, have allowed it to continue to increase in popularity and better serve our clients. Specifically, Instagram has captured some of the best elements of other social media platforms and incorporated them into its app.

The Finest Of Facebook

Our agency clients have needed little convincing about the power of Instagram and recent changes have solidified their faith in the use of the platform. Taking a cue from Facebook, Instagram now allows for business accounts, complete with the backend benefit of insights for account holders. Want to know which posts got the most likes, comments and shares? How about which time of day delivers the most eyeballs, or the demographics of your followers and how long they spend on Instagram in a day? Clients are sold on this; the data helps us create and schedule posts in the smartest possible way.

If you already have a personal account, you can convert it to a business account – I did this with my own account with no trouble. I now have a contact button so my followers can access my phone number, email address, directions to my business, etc.

Another hot opportunity not to be missed is advertising for business. Still relatively new on Instagram, advertising offers access to a fresh audience. All of our customers who advertise on Facebook are now advertising on Instagram – with better results. Sponsored stories on Instagram blend right in; they are seen in the home feed and look and feel the same as organic posts from someone you are following.

When our clients added Instagram advertising to their Facebook ad campaigns, we expected big things – double the results. On average, their Instagram ads are collecting about four times the number of likes as their counterpart ads on Facebook. Dollar for dollar, the number of impressions seems to be about the same on the two platforms, but getting someone to absorb and engage with a post seems to be easier on Instagram. One of my favorite examples of success with Instagram is one of our retail customers who does Facebook video advertising. On an average day, they can expect a total reach on Facebook of approximately 1,500. That same video on Instagram will garner over 11,000 impressions for a reach of 10,900 per day. As an added bonus, they will not only gain video views and likes but on average also gain about 20 new followers to the account per day.

Original Article -> "Why Instagram Is Social Media's Rising Star For Business"