Someone please explain to me why all my Facebook friends are hosting live videos.  We went to high school together and it’s great to keep in touch, sure.  But I do not need to get reminded every time you decide to live broadcast you cooking an incredibly average chicken pasta meal (oh god, now I sound bitter).  Maybe you can’t tell me why this is happening, but we can all agree that live videos are trending.  I mentioned Facebook and their live feature.  There is also YouTube, Periscope, even Snapchat has a live feeling (Instagram too, now that they’ve copied Snapchat).  Suddenly it feels like every person and every brand is inviting me into their life in a more immediate and intimate way than ever before, and I’m not sure how I feel about it.

Forward thinking brands will already be thinking about how to make use of this trend.  Live video is a way to let people from all over the world experience a once in a lifetime moment.  Something that can never be recreated the same way can now be experienced by the entire population of people with a mobile device and an internet connection.  You want to talk about a once in a lifetime event never to be recreated? How about the release of the Air Jordan XXX by Nike.  Nike threw a party and hosted a grand reveal… and they invited the world.  That is one hell of a party.  Hosting a live video created a sense of urgency for Nike.  Shoe fanatics from all over the world were excited at the chance to get to tune in to the grand reveal, and they weren’t about to miss it.  Live streaming their reveal also garnered a lot of press coverage, as blogs ecstatically wrote in anticipation of the live feed.

Live streaming is not going anywhere.  You need to start thinking about how you can bring your brands experience to a live audience all over the world.  Make it something unique.  Something that can’t be recreated.  People will flock at the chance to be a part of a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

If you’re a digital marketer and your company/client is not on Instagram… it’s time to get yo gram on.  Unless you’re selling prunes and your target market is 80 year old men, then you are permitted to continue with your traditional marketing techniques.  The rest of you… it’s time.  It’s time to join the fastest growing social media platform in the world.  It’s time to join the 48.8% of US brands on Instagram (by the way, that number is expected to increase to 70% by 2017) (Hootsuite, 2016).  Maybe your mama told you not to buy into peer pressure. Not to do something just because everyone else is doing it.  Good advice, let me give you a few more reasons why Instagram is the key to growing your brand and increasing conversions.

It seems obvious that having an Instagram account can increase brand awareness.  Posting frequently and using relevant hashtags will introduce your brand to a portion of the 500+ million users on Instagram (Statistica, 2016).  Instagram goes beyond just awareness though.  75% of Instagram users take action, such as visiting a website after viewing a post (Hootsuite, 2016).  By posting unique content and engaging with users, brands can encourage users to take action, thus moving them through the marketing funnel towards a purchase.  Last week I bought something online after seeing a post about their sale on Instagram.  I was already aware of the brand, and I had considered buying something on a few occasions, but nothing inspired me to decide to purchase a product, until I saw this Instagram post:

I hope by now you are convinced that Instagram is a viable tool for you to raise brand awareness and increase conversions.  Heck, even the person selling prunes should have started an account and made a post by now.  The next thing you need to know is how to use Instagram to accomplish your goals.

1. Reach a wider audience using hashtags relevant to your business and your target audience interests.  Make use of hashtags specific to your brand.  @staples does this well.  They use generic hashtags such as #happyhalloween to reach a broad audience with relevant and interesting posts.
2. Create engagement by offering contests and promotions.  @zevia gave away a free case of their new product.  To enter the contest, the viewer has to like the photo and follow @zevia.  Not only does this raise awareness about Zevia’s new product, but it encourages user engagement
3. Feature customers content.  Doing so encourages your customers to create unique content featuring your brand and rewards their engagement.  @starbucks does this very well.  If their customers take a cool photo featuring Starbucks’ brand, they often repost it to their own page.

Now that you know what it takes to be successful on Instagram, there is no reason for you not to get yo gram on.  It’s time.  Actually, the time was yesterday  But it’s not too late.  By making use of the three recommendations above, anyone can grow their Instagram page, reach their target audience and encourage movement through the marketing funnel.

Examples:

Zevia: https://www.instagram.com/zevia/?hl=en

Staples: https://www.instagram.com/staples/?hl=en

Starbucks: https://www.instagram.com/starbucks/?hl=en

The Internet has changed the game… forever.  I remember when I was a kid and I didn’t have reliable access to a computer, magazines were my source for finding new music.  I’d flip through the new edition of the Rolling Stone and go straight to the reviews.  Blink-182: Enema of the State only 3 stars? Come on RS that album was my jam.  FutureSex/LoveSounds 3.5 stars? Why you got to do my boy JT dirty like that?  Even though I rarely agreed with the reviews, I still read them every month because this was my source for finding new music.  Back then, an artist with a budget would drop an ad in the review section, but only the artists with big label support could afford that.  Cue the Internet.  I haven’t touched the Rolling Stone in years because I can find all my new music on blogs all over the web.  And now there are platforms for musicians of any level to advertise their music on these blogs… hallelujah!

One of these platforms is Wavo, a digital marketing company for artists and labels to connect with passionate music fans like myself.  Wavo accomplishes this in the form of sponsored ads on music sites.  When a music fan visits one of their favourite blogs, such as Consequence of Sound, they will see below-the-fold and in-feed sponsored ads of new artists.  The ads are consistent with the form and style of the blogs they are posted on, so the viewer can hardly even tell they are ads.  This is called native advertising.  Because the ads blend in with the blogs, the viewers are likely to engage with them as they would with any other post on the blog.  At the very least, the viewer enters the marketing funnel when they see the ad and become aware of the artist.

So Wavo gives any artist the tools to get their music on hundreds of popular music websites, but has it actually contributed to anyone’s success?  Absolutely.  A relatively unknown artist by the name of DENM wanted to increase his plays and followers on Spotify, so he set up a campaign with Wavo to help him achieve this.  After a 15 day campaign, native ads for his Spotify page had been viewed 827,000 times.  Because the first campaign was so successful, DENM launched a remix competition using Wavo for his song Lit.  Both of these campaigns were huge successes.  DENM increased his streams and followers on Spotify.  His song Lit has over 1.6 million plays!

Thanks to the Internet any musician can promote their music.  Even a struggling artist such as myself can use Wavo to get their music on huge music websites, and I did!  Sadly, my campaign was not nearly as successful as Wavo’s, but it did garner 20,000+ impressions, thus raising brand awareness and beginning the listeners’s journey through the marketing funnel.  Next step, develop a campaign that continues to move the listener through the funnel.