ALONG COMES MARY

Once upon a time (about a few weeks ago), the insanely popular app, Instagram, was the beneficial tool it continues to be for social media marketing, yet, it was lacking something so simple and had social media managers like myself scratching our heads with “Why?”

The issue? You needed to log out and in for each Instagram account you have/manage.

Again, I say, folks: WHY? With Gmail and Facebook making it simple enough to manage more than one account through one  log in, it just has made no sense that Instagram would not follow their suit. While I am quick to say Instagram is vital and super accessible to have for yourself, blog or business, I sort of hated when my clients wanted assistance with it, as I had to log out of one account, into another….and, all from only my iPhone. (Your smart phone is the sole way to upload photos to the app.)

Those days are at last over, dearies! Instagram has finally made it possible to manage multiple accounts from one log in. What does this mean? That means if, say, I am logged in under my @AlongComesMary26 handle, yet want to check in on @LAWomensTheatreFestival, or one of the other pages I manage for my clients, all I gotta do is press ‘Add Account’ from my settings and ba bam, I am good to go. Log in and passwords are saved, and I can quickly post a picture from the theatre’s Wine Down Wednesday onto their account, a cute picture of Nova to my page or a fun tile I saw and want to share with @Athena_Tile’s followers. Woo hoo!

WHAT IS INSTAGRAM?

Founded in San Francisco in 2010, Instagram really caught on when Facebook acquired it in 2012, and, by 2014, they were reported to have over 300 million users ‘gramming’. With so many people continuing to jump on the band wagon, Instagram is a great tool for anyone, but, especially those with a business or blog.

WHAT SHOULD I TAKE PICTURES OF?

Say you own a small apparel business; of course, you’re going to want to upload relevent pictures highlighting any new stock you have like dresses and bikinis, but, you don’t want to always be predictable, so, vary it up with a pretty plant at your store front, maybe find a “Who wore it best?” to engage in some comments from your followers and consider creating your own hash tag so your clients can always search that tag to find out what you and your customers have been posting.

ARE YOU A BLOGGER?

If you’re like moi, something I have begun doing is posting a picture that goes with my latest blog post. Like this example below:

As you can see, I am making use of my hash tags and letting my peeps know that my latest post is about my day on The Price is Right. Something I am hoping Instagram does next? Allowing clickable links in your post. But, I don’t want to be The Instagram Diva, as I am tickled pink about those multiple accounts all in one (It would be an awesome next step, though).

WHAT SHOULD I DO AFTER I OPEN AN INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT?

Instagram is all about the tagging. The limit to a post is 30 hash tags, yet, as I have spoken about, don’t do 30. It looks really spammy, and you’re better off with 8-10 popular tags to utilize. Getting followers has been a job in itself (I am at last almost at 1,000) but it is well worth it. Seek out similar accounts, interact, and follow. Before you know it, you should have a decent amount of people interested in your posts.

AND, LETS NOT FORGET: THE FILTERS!

Instagram caught on so widely because of one simple thing: the filters. Once you upload your photo to Instagram, you have 23 (yes, 23!) awesome, diverse filters to snazzy up your masterpiece photo. Or, if you love it just as it is, not a prob. You can even add the commonly used hash tag #NoFilter for it. Pretty fun, right?

I absolutely love Instagram,  this is another good article about it and if you’d like to chat further about  Instagram and/or social media in general, shoot me an e-mail at alongcomesmary26@gmail.com and lets see what I can do for you!