Garonga Safari Camp, Garonga Pride, Lions, South Africa Big 5, South Africa Safari, Travel in Africa

Social Media Marketing: Instagram Matters

Instagram is a must for businesses big and small these days. If you are not on Instagram, let me leave you with this comparison: It’s like going to Italy and not visiting Rome or visiting Africa and not going on a safari, in our case. If you have a smartphone then you must be active on Instagram!

Instagram saying

At WildWeb we like to think of Instagram as a “Twitter-ized Pinterest.” It has a real-time Twitter effect with hashtag momentum and it has Pinterest written all over the platform when it comes to imagery that wows. Yes, the platform started out as a very personal social media stage, but it quickly adapted into business marketing plans and for good reason, too. There can be a fine line for business when it comes to being too “pushy” and “market-y” but we share some tips to find that sweet balance in the Instagram world:

        1. Add a website link to your Instagram profile

This may sound like quite a small change to impact your Instagram marketing, but it can make a big difference to your website traction. [highlight] Social Media Examiner [/highlight] goes a step further and explains that changing this link to correspond with specials or specific promotional pushes can be that extra due diligence to create website referral traffic.

        2. Imagery with text

Adding text to your image allows your picture to “say” a lot more and allows your post caption to be clearer, bolder, and shorter. It’s about finding that image-text balance that provides a strong, stand out message to its readers.

Our client, [highlight] Acacia Africa [/highlight] has a knack for this image-text balance and we can attest to the interest in reader engagement by doing so.

instagram!!!

instagram!!! 2

As you can see, Acacia is promoting their [highlight] 18-day Mountain Gorillas to the Mara [/highlight] overland tour in a creative way using text overlays to hone in on the message in a demonstrative but Pinterest-worthy way. It’s working in their favor by highlighting specific tours through a different marketing communication tool.

        3. Keep the #hashtag momentum rolling

Just as you do for Twitter, include relevant hashtags to increase your reach, user-engagement, and Instagram visibility. [highlight] Social Media Examiner [/highlight] recommends using 10-15 hashtags per post, but from a user perspective this is a bit too much in our eyes. We recommend using 4-6, as anymore can be seen as excessive and ultimately overtakes the caption post to a borderline “spammy” level. It’s important to tell your story throughout the posts, so make sure to include custom hashtags, as well as those popular hashtags that increase search-ability.

This [highlight] Acacia [/highlight] post is the perfect balance when it comes to popular and custom-made hashtags that compliments the adventurous Acacia Africa brand and spirit:

instagram!!! 3

There you have it. Instagram matters, especially in the business marketing world. And to our safari clients across Africa, continue to or jump on the Instagram bandwagon and create posts that are ‘To Travel For.’

 

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