Instagram Is Serious Business: 5 Ways To Work It

On the surface, Instagram may look like a fun mobile app for recreational use only. As a home remodeling professional, armed with a smartphone and a great eye for design, you can create some of the most intriguing visual content online which makes Instagram a compelling channel to extend the reach of your business.

The unique appeal of Instagram is that you can take a purely fun approach and give clients a glimpse of how your company operates day-to-day. This gives you the opportunity to create personal connections with existing and potential clients. For example, by sharing photos of your co-workers in creative-mode, or the progress of a current design project, you can show there are real people behind your business. What’s even better is that you don’t need to be a professional photographer to produce amazing results.

Here are 5 tips to remember when using Instagram to promote your business:

Photo credit: HouseBeautiful

1. Be Yourself

Sign up to Instagram with the same username as your Twitter account. This will simplify the #hashtag process for your clients and create brand cohesion across social platforms.

2. Tell A Story

Use your photos to tell a story. Instagram is about capturing experiences. If you’re promoting a service or product, make sure the pictures being shared are about the experience, and not just an advertisement.

For example, brands like CoffeeBean and Starbucks share photos of their coffee cups in the context of how their coffee is being enjoyed — they focus on the personal experiences so you feel like you’re enjoying the coffee along with them (and compel you to go buy one for yourself).

3. High Value Low Volume

Exercise constraint and choose photos that share charming glimpses into your day-to-day activities or beautiful pictures of your designs and inspiration. Content overload will deter, rather than increase, engagement.

4. Don’t Post Too Often

Some people take their Instagram feed very seriously. If they find themselves following someone who is hogging the lime-light they will click unfollow. How many photos should you post? We suggest a maximum of 3 photos spread throughout the day.

5. Look Who’s Talking

Instagram is a great way to get your co-workers, clients and vendors talking about your brand. Create #hashtags for your company and projects and encourage your fans and followers to submit related photos using the same #hashtags. For example, we may use the hashtag #RoomReveal to share recently completed design work or show off the work of others who use the #RoomReveal hashtag with their own photos. Also, it’s important to engage with like-minded content creators to build confidence and trust.

Here are some creative Instagram campaigns that will get your creative juices flowing: http://www.postano.com/blog/instagram-brand-campaigns

Bonus Tip

Make videos from your Instagram photos to expand your reach to YouTube. Online tools such as Animoto and Stupeflix make short work of this task. My Social Practice created this fun video mashup of Instagram photos to promote dental health:

Happy home improving!

RoomReveal – http://roomreveal.com – is the premier social network for home remodeling and design. Find thousands of inspirational home design photos directly from professional interior designers, architects, kitchen & bath designers, home remodeling specialists and more.

Harnessing The Mystical SERPs

RoomReveal’s Professional Series is dedicated to empowering home remodeling and design professionals with the knowledge to better manage their online and social media presence.

As home remodeling and design professionals the acronym SERP is most likely not in your everyday vocabulary. It simply stands for Search Engine Results Page. Don’t let this mild mannered phrase fool you though. Ranking at the top of the SERPs is strongly coveted by many. The success of most websites is based on how high they rank within Google’s SERPs.

Google is the first page many visit when they open their Web browser. From here they type in their request and Google returns a list of what it deems the most relevant results in the form of a SERP. While you can pay to be at the top of the SERPs the most value should come from your organic search ranking, that is where Google naturally ranks your website’s pages.

In short, you want to be in the top 10 results for keywords and phrases related your business (i.e. the products and services you sell). Makes sense, right? Well, this is where things get very competitive because there are many people gunning for those top 10 spots.

Most SERPs are based on a complex formula (algorithm) that determines ranking. The basic elements that the algorithm takes into consideration are your page title, page content, webpage address and most importantly the quality of your inbound links.

• Each page title should contain the most important keywords and phrases that describe the content of each page. Your page title is visible on your browser tab and is defined within the <title> tag of your HTML document.
• Your page content should be relevant to your business, products and services and be rich with keywords and phrases that your customers will be searching for.
• Each URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) or webpage address also plays a role in how your pages rank. Consider these two examples:
  example.com/portfolio -vs- example.com/kitchen-and-bath-design-portfolio
  — Which do you think will rank higher?
• Relevance is by far the most important and is determined by the quality of inbound links to your website. Basically what this means is that if relevant websites link to you, your relevance increases. Think of it this way: If People Magazine says you’re one of the top 30 people to watch this year you immediately gain a great deal of relevance because what People Magazine publishes is considered relevant by the masses.

The more relevant sources that are closely related to your industry, products and services that link back to your website, the greater your relevance becomes within those contexts. If a skydiving website talks about your interior design business you will gain little relevance since your business has nothing to do with skydiving.

Remember, try not to limit yourself to one website, platform or social media channel. Spread the love and increase your relevance. Follow these basic tips and you’ll be harnessing the mystical SERPs before you know it!

Engaging Your Audience With Photos

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, however the Internet does not agree. Search engines rely on the text surrounding your photos to deliver accurate search results. Online applications such as RoomReveal use similar search technology in order to allow homeowners to discover you through photos of your work.

More important than your target audience being able to discover you is having them engage with you. A photo by itself may be attractive, but to engage your audience you need to include context; the circumstances, choices and challenges behind your work. Potential clients will gain more confidence in contacting you if they know there are real people and real stories behind each photo within your portfolio.

“Inspired by the colors in a blanket brought back from a ​trip to India, this Master Bedroom was redesigned with a contemporary take on classic Indian colors and textiles. The warm tones brighten, while the cool colors ground the overall design.”​

Seldin Design Studios connects with viewers through the experiences, inspiration, styles and colors that sparked this master bedroom design.

Here are some quick tips to increase engagement:

• Tell the story behind each photo
• Include the clients and / or your inspiration and style
• Talk about the form and function of the space
• Include historical information to add depth to the story or fun anecdotes to lighten the mood

Visit your RoomReveal profile today and confirm each photo has enough detail to satisfy the search engines and also tells the story that will engage your audience and ultimately attract your ideal clientele.