Do you know how to use Instagram to market your business? Do you get enough interaction with your brand? Do you know how to get more followers on Instagram?

Instagram is cool way to connect with your socially engaged consumers. There are 130 million active users on Instagram every month, and every day 1 billion photos are liked. Use Instagram for business purposes in the right way, and you could have an instant viral marketing success. Use it wrong, and your efforts on this young site could be a big empty fail.

Do you use Instagram to tell a visual story about your brand, instantly engage with your followers wherever they are, and even get very real user-generated content through photo contests on the app?

A few tweetable takeaways:

•     Use hashtags
•     Make your followers famous
•     Show your products authentically
•     Use Instagram photo contests to boost your engagement

1. Create your Instagram for Business account - It’s easy to make a business account on Instagram.

2. Make a business username - Use your business name as your username. If it is taken, choose a username that is instantly recognized with your brand.

3. Complete your profile - Include a cool, branded photo, a short informative bio, and a link to your website.

4. Connect your account to Facebook - Instagram is owned by Facebook. Connect these two very powerful social media sites to boost your marketing efforts.

5. Make an Instagram tab on your Facebook page - this enables you to instantly share your Instagram photos to your Facebook Fans.

6. Create a brand specific strategy - Keep your Instagram content strategy focused on your brand’s unique way of seeing the world. Instagram is a photo (and now video) sharing site. Connect your business with your ‘tribe’ on Instagram in a consistent and particular visual way.

Use Hashtags

7. Use hashtags (#’s) in your updates - Hashtags are a major part of Instagram. It’s a big way of how users can find you through their mobile Instagram searches. Unlike on other sites (such as Twitter), you’re not limited by character count. Include a few tags (but not too many - or you’ll look desperate) in your posts to get connected.

Here are a few strategies in using hashtags:

8. Use brand specific hashtags’s - Include your business name in some of your post hashtags. Also, use unique tags for particular marketing campaigns you run. For example, if you’re hosting a photo contest on Instagram, make a unique tag just for that campaign. This tactic both promotes your contest, and it gives your consumers a distinct tag to connect with others participants (so they can see their competition!).

Focus on Your Customers

9. Make your followers famous  - Share followers photos on your social sites. Show your customers you appreciate them by acknowledging their cool photos, and share them with your Facebook fan or Twitter followers. NOTE: be sure to ask permission to use their photo first!

Starbucks is one of the top 3 brands on Instagram. They use this tactic frequently. Every few weeks they show appreciation for one their followers, by giving a shout out to cool image makers. The images include their products. They take it one step further by updating their Facebook covers, using the Instagram photos. Their fans love it.

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That means, adults typically pay attention to one task for about 8 seconds.

It’s not that adults aren’t capable of paying attention. It’s simply that there are so many different factors continually vying for the mind’s spotlight that it’s difficult for anyone to pay attention to one thing for an extended period of time.

What are the key factors then to improve your email marketing to capture attention?

If you don’t easily believe that there is a world of information competing for your attention, consider the following statistics:

•     Business people send and receive an average of 121 emails a day.
•     The average adult is exposed to an average of 247 marketing messages a day.
•     28% of the average adult’s time a day is spent on social media where marketing messages are abundant.

These are just a few stats that represent how many messages the average adult has to process each day, and this is just in their work life.
What do short attention spans mean to your email marketing?

Even though people see an astronomical amount of marketing messages each day, you’ll be encouraged to know that email marketing is as strong as ever. In fact, the ROI for email marketing is about $38 per every $1 spent.

So how do you break through the noise and capture those vital 8 seconds of attention span? You may have to make some changes to business as usual when is comes to your email marketing.
3 ways to improve your email marketing to capture attention

1. Make your content easy to scan

No one has time to read a lengthy email with a long and flowery introduction and/or a thesis statement. Marketing writing is a whole new ball game, and here’s how you should approach it.

Your content should be a quick, to the point, and, most importantly, easy to scan. This means putting the most important information up front, outlining your content with numbers or bullet points so it is easy to scan, and keeping it as concise as possible. When it comes to email marketing content, less really is more.

2. Mobile-friendly is a must

Look around you right now. It’s probably safe to say that at least half of the people around you are using a mobile device. Mobile devices are gaining more and more traction each day as one of the most popular ways to consume information. 40% of online adults will sometimes begin an activity on one device and finish on another.

From 2010 to 2015, email opens on mobile devices increased by 30%. In addition, 67.2% of consumers use their smartphones to check email and 42.3% use their tablets to check email.

This means if your email content isn’t mobile-friendly, you could be missing out on reaching a huge portion of your target market.

Mobile-friendly emails aren’t a nice to have. They’re a must-have. People simply don’t have enough time or energy to take extra steps to try and consume your content if it’s not convenient. Take the extra time to make sure your content converts well on smartphones and tablets. It’s worth it.

3. Leverage the power of visual content

Did you know that humans process an image in just 13 milliseconds? In other words, the brain processes images 60,000 times faster than it does text.

If you’re able to leverage the power of visual storytelling by using powerful images in your email messages, you can get your message across in mere seconds.

Whenever you can communicate your message with a compelling image that’s complemented by short copy, do it. It can help you get your message across much faster than if you’re relying solely on text.

In Summary:

The most important thing to remember is that email marketing is an effective way to reach customers, but you have to give them what they want, when they want it in a format they can consume quickly and on the go. You can do this by adjusting your email marketing to make sure to:

•     Make your content scannable
•     Keep your content mobile-friendly
•     Use visuals to your advantage
•     Keep it short

Very often we allow ourselves to feel trapped in a version reality that has been set as a standard, whether it be by society, peers, your industry, and the other usual suspects.

But the thing is, there’s no space to be an average Joe at work and business anymore…The benefits: More Fun, More recognition, Boosted Results, The feeling of elation and wellbeing.

#1 – Have Two Speeds of Thinking – Fast and Slow

“In the belly of speed lies tremendous intelligence.”

To maximise the capacity you already have for processing information, it’s very important to slow down and think. It’s in those moments of stillness that you’ll find the solutions to nagging problems that you may never have thought about before.
Tools to Change The Pace:

- Spend 2 hours on the weekend to think about a larger problem.

This could be about what you want your life to be like in 3 years, or how you can grow your career/business this year.
- Instead of watching the latest TV series, take some time out and scribble.

Scribble something. Brainstorm your marketing style, the sales system, or even how you tackle a problem. Mapping something out will make you structured in your thinking, and allows you to see patterns. This in turn enhances your ability to find structured solutions.

#2 – Be Competitive With Yourself and No One Else but YOURSELF

The worst thing you can do when on the path to success is to compete with someone else. When you compete with a colleague, manager, or anyone, you end up putting a limit on your own possible growth.
Eliminate this hindrance by asking yourself the following questions:

10 years from now what will you be doing?
Where will you be doing it?
What would your day look like?

Now, start treating everyone you work with as an ally who is helping you achieve that dream. And focus on YOUR dream. Make that dream the goal to strive for. Not some arbitrary idea of beating someone else.

“A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle” – Chinese Proverb

#3 – Embrace The Power of Detachment

Being emotionally detached from your project and results allows you to act rationally. You then allow yourself to work with the best idea, which may not necessarily be your idea. Once you detach yourself and look at a project like a piece of art, you welcome feedback, encourage collaboration, and yield a greater degree of success.
Here’s how to do it:

Accept the fact that detachment is hard, and you’re gonna have to work at it.
When you start a project, think of yourself as an organiser. You may or may not have the best idea, but you and your team will have the best project. This instantly gets rid of your attachment to the ideas.
Remember, you’re on this planet to truly cherish every moment, and there is no reason to fret, fear or create stress. There’s an abundance of resources out there.
Get your ego out of it, create a joyful and supportive environment where people can flourish, and then you’ll see the creative ideas flood in.

#4 – Limit your “Feeling down time”

It’s important to keep a positive state of mind – for your colleagues, and your own sanity. But there will be days when it’s hard.
Here’s what you can do:

Remove toxic people from your life – It sounds harsh, but it has to be done.
Happiness Triggers – Having things that make you feel good as soon as you do or think about them. It can be anything from eating great food, to spending time with your kids etc.
Study yourself – Notice what makes you tick, and if there’s any pattern or person in your life that throws you off balance. Avoid them.
Celebrate as much as you can – No matter how small the success.
If it doesn’t excite you, scare you, fascinate you, challenge you, intrigue you, don’t do it – It’s really that simple.

#5 – Be Unrealistic and Dream Big

“Aiming high will set you apart from all those who think “realistically” and settle for mediocrity.” – Tim Ferris.

In business, and in life, dream big and make unrealistic goals. You’ll find that when working towards that one audaciously unrealistic goal, you’ll find that you’ll hit many of your other goals along the way.
Action Steps:

Once you’ve set your yearly goal, add 40% to it. We tend to set goals based on what we can see, which usually means half of what’s possible.
Stop calling it a dream. It’s a goal. Having goals allows you to plan for them. When you have dreams, they’re something that’s just out there somewhere – you may or may not ever reach them. But goals, you plan and take small steps everyday knowing you are going to achieve them.

#6 – Have Nothing to Prove

Once you get this, you will FLY!

You don’t need to prove a thing to anyone. No boss ever gives you a role without first knowing you’re capable of doing it. You got the role – you already proved yourself.

The problem is most people keep playing the “I need to prove myself” game. This then leads to insecurity, thoughts of being unappreciated, and the crippling feeling of inadequacy. And BOOM…You find yourself in the dreaded “negative cycle”. We’ve all been there. So that’s why it’s VERY important to stay out of this trap. And don’t worry if you’re in one at the moment – use your Happiness Triggers and remind yourself that you are worthy.