With Instagram growing faster than Facebook, according to a 2014 report from GlobalWebIndex, which showed Instagram’s growth rate at 23% (compared to -3% for Facebook), it’s no wonder brands are choosing it more and more as a channel for their digital marketing campaigns.

Data from Pew Research also shows that Instagram users are incredibly engaged. More than half (57%) of Instagrammers use the app daily and 35% use it several times a day.

This gives brands a good opportunity to get in front of followers who are hungry for a steady stream of visual content - and who are looking for recognition for their own contributions about the brands they love. Here are three ways you can take advantage of Instagram’s highly engaged audience in your next promotion.

Hashtags

Your audience is probably already hashtagging just about everything they post (according to Jimmy Fallon anyway), so if you’re thinking about running a promotion that involves the submission of user-generated content, consider adding hashtags into the equation. Hashtags not only afford you the ability to brand your promotion with a unique tag, but also allow participants to submit their entries easily by hashtagging their posts. The Strutta platform allows you to pull hashtagged posts from Instagram into your promotion’s website – even if you’re hosting it on another social platform like Facebook.

Vancouver restaurant Catch 122 knows that Instagram users love posting photos of their food, and leveraged that tendency to help it build an Instagram menu by asking diners to hashtag their Catch 122 orders with the hashtag #catch122menu. It has captured more than 600 images this way, boosting its presence on Instagram, and adding to its visual menu organically.

Video

If a photo is worth a thousand words, a video is surely worth gold in this age of multimedia storytelling, especially when that video was made by a customer who loves your brand.

If your promotion involves the submission of video, why not allow entrants to submit on Instagram, like JunoPower did with its video contest. Instagram’s easy-to-use video feature allows for up to 15-second video submissions, which you can track and aggregate on your promotion site as long as they are hashtagged.

Direct Messages

Instagram’s direct messaging feature allows you to send private messages, photos and videos to up to 15 followers at a time. For brands, this is a great way to engage directly with fans, and invite them to enter your contest or sweepstakes - or reward them for doing so by sending coupon codes or other prizes just for them.

Gap was the first company to use Instagram Direct in a promotion. Just hours after Instagram Direct first launched, Gap invited its Instagram followers to enter its What I Wore Today (#WIWT) challenge. Respondents received direct messages from Gap with details about contest requirements and prizing.

Ready to launch your Instagram promotion? We can help. Our social promotions platform makes it easy to engage your customers across multiple platforms. Contact us for more info.

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