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On this week’s Marketing Minute edition of Atlanta Real Estate Forum Radio, co-hosts Todd Schnick and Carol Morgan are joined by Account Coordinator Mandy Holm to discuss using Instagram Live as a marketing tool.
Instagram Live is similar to Facebook Live in that it gathers an instant audience; however, Instagram Live is not archived or able to be saved to be viewed later. Morgan explains that audiences must watch in real time or not at all.
A remedy to that issue, Instagram recently added a Story feature to the app, something that has experienced quite a bit of backlash as copying Snapchat since the stories are not permanently posted, but only last 24 hours before disappearing.
From a business perspective, something to consider is being able to contact the user. Snapchat does not allow this unless you post a snap with a call-to-action to screen shot your website URL, contact info, etc. Instagram’s solution to this was the creation of business profiles. A seamless way to connect your audience to you, the owner, or whomever within the company should respond.
Converting company Instagrams to “business profiles” automatically creates a “Contact” button where you can edit the phone number, email and address to get in touch with that particular company – you can even connect the company’s Facebook page to the Instagram business profile to post directly between the outlets.
Instagram is constantly evolving with improvements, such as the option to reply directly to Instagram comments rather than posting the user’s individual handle to respond, or the ability to now zoom in on photos in your feed. Because of the fact that Instagram is owned by Facebook, the show speculates that at some point in the future Live videos will become savable on Instagram as well.
To learn more about using Instagram for business, listen to the above conversation. When you are ready to utilize Instagram as a marketing tool, or if you are confused as how to convert profiles to Business Profiles, contact Mandy Holm at 770-383-3360.