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5 Tools to Boost Your Instagram Marketing Efforts in 2020

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5 tools to boost your instagram marketing efforts in 2020

The reason why I love social media marketing is its vibrancy.

It never stays the same – platforms add new features and ingenious developers keep coming with innovative tools.

As such, marketers can never rely on a static set of tactics. Marketers can’t remain stagnant, even for a year – without constantly experimenting, testing new platforms, trying new tools, without trying out new and improved ways to grab your followers’ attention, you’ll soon be forgotten.

With that in mind, here are some of the best apps that I’ve found for Instagram marketing, which can help to add something fresh to your platform efforts.

1. Pixaloop: Animate Your Pictures

Pixaloop is a photo animation app which promises to “breathe life into your pictures”. It’s a nice tool to diversify your Instagram feed and engage more of your followers – and it can, indeed, add a “wow” factor to your social marketing.

The main feature is that it gives you the ability to animate sections of your images. I’ve tried a few other apps that promise to do this, but I had never had much luck until I tried Pixaloop.

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The free app comes with a few fundamental picture-animating features including:

  • Designate an area to animate
  • Freeze whatever you want to remain still
  • Set up the animation direction and speed
pixaloop

There are plenty of neat features to play with, including adding animated objects, overlay with moving objects (like stars and bubbles), add 3D motion, etc.

pixaloop

The paid plan costs around $1 per month (if you pay for a year) and comes with more filters, as well as the capacity to export your creation into an animated GIF (which is quite awesome if you want to repurpose your creations across other channels, or even your on-site content).

2. Later: Schedule Your Instagram Updates and Stories

In order to succeed with Instagram Stories, you need to publish fresh content consistently. But if you don’t have a dedicated team working on your Instagram stream, that can be hard to do.

So how can you maintain consistency, without having to constantly be online?

Instagram stories can be scaled through scheduling, but not many tools offer you the flexibility of scheduling a week, or even a month-worth of content beforehand.

Later is a professional Instagram platform which enables brands to schedule Instagram updates and stories. 

Instagram schedule

Later offers a few really cool options allowing you to:

  • Use the storyboard tool to visually plan your stories
  • Add links and/or captions to your scheduled stories
  • Track up to three months’ worth of data and get detailed analytics on completion rate, engagement, impressions, and clicks

It’s worth noting that you still have to manually approve each story when it’s time for it to go live (as Instagram API doesn’t allow automatic publishing) but it’s a one-click process and relatively easy.

3. Linktr.ee: Create Your Instagram Landing Page

The only place that you can add a clickable link on your Instagram profile is in your bio, which is often not enough for brands looking to build their business presence, and drive traffic back to their owned sites.

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That’s where Linktr.ee comes in. Linktr.ee enables you to create a handy landing page on which you can list all of your CTAs and links, in order to help guide your Instagram followers to your other channels and relevant web pages.

linktr-ee

Basically, it is a modern version of About.me. If you subscribe to the paid plan, you can also add media and graphs to go with your links.

4. Unfold: Use Modern Templates for Your Stories

Instagram stories are highly engaging, and can help to keep your brand front of mind with your followers, which is crucially important. If you have over 10,000 followers, you can also add external links into your Instagram Stories, which can be a major traffic and conversion driver.

But with every other brand now publishing their own stories, it’s getting more difficult to stand out.

Unfold offers an array of modern and memorable Instagram story templates that can help you brand and diversify your stories content.

Unfold

Unfold regularly updates its collections, offering themes based on seasonal or trending topics.

5. Finteza: Build an Effective Instagram-Driven Sales Funnel

Finteza is a web analytics platform which focuses on conversion monitoring and analytics. The nice thing about Finteza is that it’s very easy to set up and use – there’s no need for additional training to figure it out or set up conversion tracking.

All you need is:

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  • Add a tracking code (this part is similar to installing any web analytics tracking)
  • Use Finteza’s WordPress plugin to mark any links as “events”
  • Login regularly to monitor your analytics

Using your events, Finteza will even build automatic funnels for you to analyze. You can also add your own funnels.

Finteza is also a great Instagram traffic analytics solutions too:

  • Locate “Instagram” by going “Sources” -> “Social”, and click the link to see more details
  • Go to “Funnels” to see how your Instagram traffic performs.

The report will be limited to “Instagram” traffic, so you can analyze its performance:

finteza instagram

You can further limit your report to a landing page (e.g. analyze traffic coming from your story).

Conclusion

Hopefully, these Instagram tools will help you uncover new Instagram marketing tactics and generate new results. 

Socialmediatoday.com

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Snapchat Explores New Messaging Retention Feature: A Game-Changer or Risky Move?

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Snapchat Explores New Messaging Retention Feature: A Game-Changer or Risky Move?

In a recent announcement, Snapchat revealed a groundbreaking update that challenges its traditional design ethos. The platform is experimenting with an option that allows users to defy the 24-hour auto-delete rule, a feature synonymous with Snapchat’s ephemeral messaging model.

The proposed change aims to introduce a “Never delete” option in messaging retention settings, aligning Snapchat more closely with conventional messaging apps. While this move may blur Snapchat’s distinctive selling point, Snap appears convinced of its necessity.

According to Snap, the decision stems from user feedback and a commitment to innovation based on user needs. The company aims to provide greater flexibility and control over conversations, catering to the preferences of its community.

Currently undergoing trials in select markets, the new feature empowers users to adjust retention settings on a conversation-by-conversation basis. Flexibility remains paramount, with participants able to modify settings within chats and receive in-chat notifications to ensure transparency.

Snapchat underscores that the default auto-delete feature will persist, reinforcing its design philosophy centered on ephemerality. However, with the app gaining traction as a primary messaging platform, the option offers users a means to preserve longer chat histories.

The update marks a pivotal moment for Snapchat, renowned for its disappearing message premise, especially popular among younger demographics. Retaining this focus has been pivotal to Snapchat’s identity, but the shift suggests a broader strategy aimed at diversifying its user base.

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This strategy may appeal particularly to older demographics, potentially extending Snapchat’s relevance as users age. By emulating features of conventional messaging platforms, Snapchat seeks to enhance its appeal and broaden its reach.

Yet, the introduction of message retention poses questions about Snapchat’s uniqueness. While addressing user demands, the risk of diluting Snapchat’s distinctiveness looms large.

As Snapchat ventures into uncharted territory, the outcome of this experiment remains uncertain. Will message retention propel Snapchat to new heights, or will it compromise the platform’s uniqueness?

Only time will tell.

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Catering to specific audience boosts your business, says accountant turned coach

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Catering to specific audience boosts your business, says accountant turned coach

While it is tempting to try to appeal to a broad audience, the founder of alcohol-free coaching service Just the Tonic, Sandra Parker, believes the best thing you can do for your business is focus on your niche. Here’s how she did just that.

When running a business, reaching out to as many clients as possible can be tempting. But it also risks making your marketing “too generic,” warns Sandra Parker, the founder of Just The Tonic Coaching.

“From the very start of my business, I knew exactly who I could help and who I couldn’t,” Parker told My Biggest Lessons.

Parker struggled with alcohol dependence as a young professional. Today, her business targets high-achieving individuals who face challenges similar to those she had early in her career.

“I understand their frustrations, I understand their fears, and I understand their coping mechanisms and the stories they’re telling themselves,” Parker said. “Because of that, I’m able to market very effectively, to speak in a language that they understand, and am able to reach them.” 

“I believe that it’s really important that you know exactly who your customer or your client is, and you target them, and you resist the temptation to make your marketing too generic to try and reach everyone,” she explained.

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“If you speak specifically to your target clients, you will reach them, and I believe that’s the way that you’re going to be more successful.

Watch the video for more of Sandra Parker’s biggest lessons.

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Instagram Tests Live-Stream Games to Enhance Engagement

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Instagram Tests Live-Stream Games to Enhance Engagement

Instagram’s testing out some new options to help spice up your live-streams in the app, with some live broadcasters now able to select a game that they can play with viewers in-stream.

As you can see in these example screens, posted by Ahmed Ghanem, some creators now have the option to play either “This or That”, a question and answer prompt that you can share with your viewers, or “Trivia”, to generate more engagement within your IG live-streams.

That could be a simple way to spark more conversation and interaction, which could then lead into further engagement opportunities from your live audience.

Meta’s been exploring more ways to make live-streaming a bigger consideration for IG creators, with a view to live-streams potentially catching on with more users.

That includes the gradual expansion of its “Stars” live-stream donation program, giving more creators in more regions a means to accept donations from live-stream viewers, while back in December, Instagram also added some new options to make it easier to go live using third-party tools via desktop PCs.

Live streaming has been a major shift in China, where shopping live-streams, in particular, have led to massive opportunities for streaming platforms. They haven’t caught on in the same way in Western regions, but as TikTok and YouTube look to push live-stream adoption, there is still a chance that they will become a much bigger element in future.

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Which is why IG is also trying to stay in touch, and add more ways for its creators to engage via streams. Live-stream games is another element within this, which could make this a better community-building, and potentially sales-driving option.

We’ve asked Instagram for more information on this test, and we’ll update this post if/when we hear back.

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