When creating your social media strategy for your business, Instagram is a great mobile marketing application that can effectively carry out your company’s marketing strategy. While Instagram is not the only tool that has proven effective for businesses, it is hard to ignore as it is currently valued at $ 1 billion and over 80 million users. There are many ways in which Instagram can be a great benefit when it comes to promoting your business: marketing strategy, philosophy and brand image. Here are some key tips to keep your Instagram account consistent with your marketing strategy.

Create your own unique hashtag

Creating your own unique hashtag is an easy way to build a loyal following on your business’s Instagram. Once you establish a name for your hashtag, make sure to promote it to your audience by posting it on all social media and as a title on every Instagram post. Instagram also makes it very convenient to monitor which followers are actively using your business hashtag. I recommend interacting with users who post your hashtag by thanking them personally or by reposting their photo and tagging them. By recognizing users who are actively using your hashtag, new users will also be encouraged to post.

Geotagging your photos

Geotagging your photos on Instagram will allow your business to engage your community on a whole different level. By geotagging your photos, your followers will be able to see the location (s) of your business if you are in one: retail store, restaurant, or office. Geo-tagging is another great way to build your next business. If you and a coworker are out for lunch at Chipotle, you can geotag your photo where you are dining. By doing so, Instagram users who also geotag this same location will be able to see your photo, which will hopefully encourage them to follow your business account.

Encourage employee postings

Some of your most loyal promoters should be your employees. Encourage your employees to actively participate in posting photos to your company account several times a week. By having your employees on board, users who follow your account will appreciate being able to learn more about your company’s employees. As long as you set clear guidelines for what is appropriate to post, you should gain a following fairly quickly due to the variety of different types of posts your account will make up.

Connect your social media accounts

Make sure to sync all the other social media accounts in your business with your Instagram every time you post a photo. By having all your social media accounts connected, your audience has a high potential to expand, because not all your fans and followers will follow your other accounts like: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr. Syncing all your other social media accounts not only allows for additional content, but also provides the opportunity for more frequent posts.