If you produce or sell products with visual appeal, Instagram may be the unsung hero of your future marketing efforts.
Instagram marketing isn't as well-publicized as its older social media cousins, but it offers great results when done correctly. It's all about planning, concept, and consistency, and that's kind of tough on any platform. Enter Planoly.
Planoly is a visual planning tool that allows Instagram users to create calendars to plan their content, curate the content of others, schedule posts, analyze engagements and even grow an Instagram team.
We think Planoly is pure genius! Primarily because Instagram is a visual platform, so it makes sense to plan and execute your campaigns visually.
Anyone who uses social media for marketing will tell you it can be time-consuming to stay on top of comments, responses, posting schedules and more. Having a single interface where you can see and take action makes it a whole lot easier to stay on top of things, and maintain consistency. It's like having Photoshop in Instagram at your fingertips.
Like other tools that work with Instagram, it doesn't auto post on your behalf (Instagram does not allow this). But it does send you reminder notifications when your posts need to be published within your smartphone.
Planoly has a free forever plan that allows you to manage one account, upload 30 images, and have limited access to other features. It's a great way to see if this is the right solution for you, without an investment.
Since fully fledged plans start at just $7 per month, this investment won't break your budget if you do decide to "go pro" with Planoly.
We think that Planoly is a great tool for anyone who uses Instagram for social media marketing. Anything that can help you to maintain a consistent presence on any social media platform is a huge benefit. Since it's free to try, there's nothing to lose!
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Social Media has become a great equalizer for the hotel business.
It allows businesses to not just tell people about the great things their place offers, but show them.
Since just about everyone has a smart phone, and Instagram now has more than 200 million active users taking, editing and sharing photos via the app, it’s easier than ever to grow your audience and empower visitors to become part of your marketing force!
So are are some great hotels using instagram? Let's go see!
The Morgans Hotel Group, which has locations in South Beach, San Francisco, New York and London, Los Angeles, uses its Instagram page as a way to extend its “look.” Visitors just don’t see empty rooms or plain exterior shots, they see hip, young people having fun in elegant surroundings.
Many of the photos have the “retro” filters cranked up to give the Morgans experience a classical, glamorous and timeless look.
Anyone who has been to the Monte Carlo in Las Vegas knows that it’s so much more than a place to put your head at the end of a busy day. It’s Instagram page reminds visitors that it’s also a casino, offers many restaurants and lounges, has shows, and other fun services. Interspersed with product pictures, like tasty desserts, fruity drinks and gaming chips, the page includes plenty of smiling employees.
The message of this Instagram Marketing? We truly have everything you need! Come, get away and be immersed in the experience of a lifetime!
CN Travel columnist Wendy Perrin, suggests that every traveler on Instagram should take photos of their next hotel visit and ‘tag’ the hotel.
How fast the staff gets back to you is a good measure of how focused they are on service and embracing new technology! Innovative hotels see social support as a good starting place for a conversation and the personal touch they can offer. By searching for their hotel in hashtags and by being alert to user mentions, there is opportunity to “touch” a guest and increase loyalty and trust.
A customer who experiences this care AND is already sharing you via social media is a powerful advocate who can extend your message to their friends and community!
In days of express check-outs and busy front desks, these type of personalized connections can make all the difference! Perrin said the staff can use your post for feedback, and maybe even reward your unsolicited tag with a free drink or some other service next time.
She notes the Four Seasons Vancouver Hotel as a responsive example of Instagram Marketing.
The hotel may be beautiful but not every traveler comes just to stay "inside" the hotel! They want to get out in the city! So show them the city views and draw them in.
How about showing how the west-facing rooms have great sunsets? Or check out the bright lights of downtown at night?
NH Hoteles, which has locations in Europe, encourages guests to take and post a photo outside their window in the morning and use the hashtag #wakeuppics. These images also go on a separate site for the hotel, creating an easy keepsake for current guests and give future guests fun ways to browse.
So there you have it! Four ways to extend further the power of social marketing, particularly with Instagram, to grow your brand awareness and fill your rooms!
What’s first on your agenda to use?
Did you know with tools like TabSite, you can even bring your social channels to your website! Yes, you can even embed your Instagram account photos or hashtag on your blog or website!
I've talked before about the way social media has changed things for businesses. Today we'll look at how it can be used ON YOUR SITE to grow website traffic!
Social media brings a "real-time" online impact to a company. It has shifted communication from "one-sided" (where only the company talks) to two-sided, meaning companies that want to thrive need to engage and answer the questions from interested visitors and followers, or risk losing them as a customer. Social Media has enabled small and medium sized businesses to reach farther, deeper, and wider than they ever could before to extend their customer base, understand their clients, and deepen loyalty. The key, however, is in managing the social media side well and integrating it into one's overall marketing strategy because:
social media alone is not a complete online marketing strategy.
One of the key ways social media can benefit a business is to attract more of the ideal audience of a company. The key then is bringing that conversation back to the website, i.e. the home base, of a business online.
The more a business can drive traffic to their site, the more opportunity they have to manage the conversation and interaction with the visitor. A valuable way to use social media at its best and increase traffic to one's company website is to bring the social media network "within" the company website!
Where once the social media conversation needed to take place solely on that network, now a brand can engage with a fan on a network like Instagram or Pinterest, but they can also bring that conversation to their website by using apps to embed those social networks right within their website.
This allows for a conversation that is seamless in either location, on the social network or on the website, and ultimately allows the business to more creatively use the social media integration in their website. The value to a business is that they can leverage social media on their site, as well as bring more interactive and engaging components to their existing website, all without any significant web development costs.
Here are three simple apps that TabSite offers to users to enhance their website with powerful social features.
A single picture does communicate at least what 1000 words can!
Instagram is a powerful image and video driven mobile app where users can follow brands and comment on brand photos. Since a company owns their web presence, why not bring the power of those visuals and the conversation to your website? You can with the Instagram App.
You want more traffic on your website, this is one way to bring the conversation to your site. See my Instagram account on myself here. I created this by using the Instagram App embedded it by pasting the code given into my web page. It's a seamless in use and easy for any website manager to add… and it can add a ton of value to your website if Instagram is a key place where your customers spend time.
For restaurants, retailers and clothing shops, adding the Instagram app can be a key feature to enhance their website.
Is your ideal audience active on Pinterest?
Then embed a Pinterest Board on a page in your website. People can follow, share, etc. right from there! The rest of your marketing efforts are geared to driving visitors to your website, why not also bring in your Pinterest account or a few important Pinterest boards so that your visitors can interact with them right there and not need to leave?
View a live example of a Pinterest board embedded in the TabSite website as a gallery feature by visiting www.tabsite.com/gallery.
As with all of the TabSite apps, they can be added to your website and also to your Facebook Page. This means you can reach fans in both places. In the past 2 years, contests on Facebook have been a way for businesses to increase interest, reach new potential customers, and grow leads. The opportunity exists to do this and yet also take it up a notch with a Photo or Video Contest, or even a Sweepstakes enter-to-win giveaway promotion that visitors can access on your website (or Facebook….or on both)!
You own your site, use it! Use the TabSite Apps to bring more interactive tools to the web visitor…
on your website!!
What do you think? Ready to bring some social networks to your website?
