1. Find the local instagram users with a large follower base –look for local feeds by searching #yourcityname and going through the list of users
2. Find instagram users who have a large follower base that may overlap with your target market
3. Weed out any users that have explicit language, unprofessional, or content that isn’t family friendly. Having an affiliate that is vulgar will give your business a bad name.
4. See if they already the influencer for another brand. Ask Yourself: would you want to be seen next to that other brand?
5. If the IG user passes the first 4 screening tests, direct message the influencer using your IG brand account. Explain to them that you’d like for them to become an affiliate of your business. Ask for them to meet you in person or Skype phone call if they are too far away.
6. Discuss terms of the contract and come to a 3-month agreement.
7. Measure the success of using an affiliate on a month-by-month basis. Use key performance indicators such as website traffic, new followers on your social media accounts, phone calls, and number of leads from web form inputs. Make sure you ask your incoming prospects how they heard of you.
8. Analyze your results and decide if you’d like to renew your contract for another 3 or 5 month period.

The post 8 Tips to Find the Right Local Instagram Affiliate appeared first on Ruby Dog Designs.

What is an Instagram Influencer?

An instagram influencer is a person with a large following (typically over 5,000 followers) paid to subtly introduce your product to their follower base. This should not seem like an outright ad endorsing your product, but rather a gentle shout-out to how great your product or service is. Typically you will give them a free product for the influencer to try out.

The influencer becomes your “affiliate” once they sign a contract with you and you begin paying them for space on their feed and/or commission for each converted lead. Make sure your contract is very specific on how much their payment will be for a defined amount of video/image views or likes. Your contract should also mention a standard of conduct, and breach of that standard allows for termination of contract. This will help protect your business in the long run incase the influencer does or says something inappropriate.

The instagram influencer’s main job should be to “influence” their followers to make the transition from cold prospects to warm prospects. If your target market overlaps with their follower base, this may be a good use of your advertisement dollars.

Many brand affiliates are relatively young and spend a lot of time on social media. They may have a full time job and just post on instagram for fun. If you pay them for some of your follower’s attention, they are making money from doing something they are having fun with, and you get the attention of their user base. It’s a mutually beneficial business relationship.

Some industries that are great to make use of influencers are hospitality business, restaurants, clothing stores, pet-related industries, chiropractors, retail stores, home cleaning services, concierge/ delivery services, hair care specialists, and masseuse.

Some brands that already use influencers are Google, Nike, and Wendy’s.

Ready to find the right instagram affiliate for you? Click here to read more!

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Short n’ Sweet: Why Should I Use Instagram In My Marketing Plan?

• Instagram is used as a step towards changing brand strangers into brand enthusiasts
• More cost effective than a majority of print promo and sponsorships
• Instagram can be an effective entry point for prospects under 40
• Strengthen relationships
• Engage leads to create conversion.

Think of Instagram content as curated media posts to help capture the attention of your targeted prospects. Using Instagram, you can move them farther along into your marketing funnels and eventually your shopping cart.

End Note:

Putting a bit of effort in your business Instagram account will help you visually communicate with your target market and also help you get you a leg up on your competition. Making this channel apart of your overall marketing plan will only help strengthen your Charlotte NC business recognition. Why not give it a spin?

PS. Check out our Facebook Brand Builder Guides also!

The post Utilizing Instagram in Your Business Marketing Plan (Brand Builders) appeared first on Ruby Dog Designs.

Word of the Year: Branding

You may have heard of it but now its finally time to do it: Visual Branding.

Make your IG posts recognizable as yours. You want a fan to be able to know which posts are yours without seeing your account’s username tag. How can this be done? Add a small graphic or logo at the bottom of all of your posts. Pretty it up a bit. (don’t just use plain black text!) Take the extra time to batch apply a consistent visual to all of your posts. If you don’t have Adobe Photoshop, use Canva.com.

Try using this 30 Day Content Planner to keep your brand fresh in the minds of your followers.

Stuck on what you want to post? Check out our Mega List of Post Ideas and incorporate it into your social media strategies!

The post How To Brand Your Social Media Content (Brand Builders) appeared first on Ruby Dog Designs.

Here’s a sobering fact: other people are way ahead of you when it comes to Charlotte NC IG marketing. If you are getting into the instagram game a bit later than you would have hoped, this may seem a bit disheartening. I have good news: You can use your competition’s tactics to strengthen your own! Check them out with these three tips.

First Tip: Steal their strategies.

Find out which posts they make get a lot of reaction, and which don’t get any responses at all. Your competition has already done the heavy lifting for you, so make good use of it with some upfront instagram research.

Second tip: Post frequency.

See how many posts the competition is making. Maybe this is a good opportunity for you to post more than them.

Third Tip: Partner with the competition.

Provide them with some unique content for a repost or a mention. This will help you get infront of their followers. Since you and your competition share similar niche markets, you are likely to get some of their followers hopping on over to your page to check you out. This will help you grow your own fanbase.

(Important! Before using this tactic, Make sure that you have a substantial amount of posts. You don’t want potential fans won’t visit your page and see a blank instagram!)

Here are some ideas of unique content to get a repost: an industry related infograph, a professional photo op, an industry related illustration, a compilation cheat sheet, a nice design made with the competition’s logo.

Now that you’ve got your killer competition intel, what about branding your unique content?

The post Three Tips for Competition Research (Brand Builders) appeared first on Ruby Dog Designs.

Part 1: Instagram

Instagram marketing strategy has been a hot button topic in the marketing world in the last few years. With hundreds and hundreds of millions of users per day, the potential exposure your brand can get is nothing to shake your fist at. In fact, users are more likely to interact with and like photos on Instagram than on Facebook! (I’m not sure if this is because of the interface difference or the demographic of the users or both) If a typical Charlotte NC Facebook post receives 9000 likes, the same post on Instagram will receive 52,000 likes.

This is a huge marketing opportunity. But, you know me, I really enjoy diving into target market facts and statistics. So let’s get to it:

Demographics of Instagram

Demographic Makeups of Instagram Users:

Source

(Honestly while doing this research this is the one time that PEW Research Center has confused me, because the Race section adds up to 106%, which I think maybe accounts for mixed race people.)

Either way, this snippet of information gives valuable insight for Charlotte NC Marketers on Instagram. Simply put, don’t try to reach people 50+ on Instagram. This just isn’t their platform. On the other hand, Instagram is valuable for businesses trying to communicate with younger generations. A good example of this would be trendy clothing stores/boutiques, restaurants/coffee shops, young people recreation (vacation trips, vape lounge, paintball, skydiving, escape rooms, workout groups, band/music fan culture, sports fan culture, comic book fan culture etc). If you’re interested in doing more instagram marketing, knowing your personal target market will be your next step. Check out our article on tricks to better identify what your target market is here.

The post 3 Important Instagram Demographics You Should Know (Brand Builders) appeared first on Ruby Dog Designs.