Social Media for Small Business: Why Instagram is the Ideal Platform for Sharing Visual Content

You’ve heard the expression that a picture is worth a thousand words, which is something that marketers need to remember when creating social media content.

Neuromarketing science confirms that high quality images attract attention, increase comprehension, and make a brand memorable.

In fact, 90 percent of information transmitted by the brain is visual.

An even more powerful statistic about the use of visual imagery in social media for small business strategies is that the brain processes visual content 60,000 times faster than text.

So, as you can see, it’s not debatable about whether or not you should incorporate visual content into your social media for small business strategy.

Instagram is a social media platform that was designed specifically for users to share high quality images and video with each other.

Brands have quickly caught onto this incredibly popular social media channel, especially since Instagram advertising recently opened up to businesses of all sizes.

Here are a few reasons why Instagram is the ideal social media platform for small businesses looking to share visual content:

The editing options makes your business look like you have a professional photographer on staff.

People are immediately drawn to Instagram for its wide breadth of photo editing options, including more than 20 filters and more than 10 editing tools to make every image picture perfect with an artsy edge.

Because Instagram is a mobile app, editing can be done on-the-go, which is ideal for busy SMB owners.

Simply snap a picture with your smartphone, run it through Instagram’s editing resources, and upload your image to Instagram all within a matter of minutes.

With Instagram’s editing options, you should never feel the temptation to post a mediocre image again.

Instagram Advertising is not over saturated with marketers yet.

While Instagram is growing rapidly, their advertising platform is still relatively new.

This means that not every marketer has a presence on Instagram like they do on Facebook and Twitter.

Therefore, those incorporating Instagram ads into their social media for small business strategies have a huge opportunity to tap into an audience that is not already inundated with advertising messages.

You can take advantage of hashtags to earn more exposure for your visual content.

One way that Instagram users find visual content to enjoy is through hashtags.

Assigning a few relevant (and well-researched) hashtags to your images and videos on Instagram will help organize and categorize the visual content that you share, which dramatically aids in discovery.

Instagram tip to get you going this week. Let’s have a good one. #socialmedia #marketing #tips

A photo posted by LYFE Marketing (@lyfemarketing) on

Keep in mind that some marketers abuse hashtag use, which can be a big turnoff to your followers.

As a rule of thumb, make a point to use no more than 3 to 5 hashtags per Instagram post.

With the shortening attention span of today’s consumers, visual content is one of the most effective ways to make an impression with your audience.

For these reasons, Instagram has become such a powerful marketing platform for small businesses to use.

For need-to-know news about incorporating Instagram into your social media for small business marketing strategy, be sure to read our recent post about 3 tips for dramatically better Instagram advertising.