Instagram is becoming one of the main social media platforms are seeing PR professionals, brands, and social media blogs discussing in 2012 along with Pinterest. It all comes down to the trend of digital and visual storytelling – how to use visuals to share experiences and fun pictures with followers to add the additional visual element into the social media mix. According to a ComScore Report, Instagram now tops Twitter in mobile engagement. Wow!
With this in mind, what would be some of the associated tools that would help manage our pictures on Instagram, track and monitor what are the most shared and commented pictures, and how to protect these pictures in case something happens to our smartphone? There are many Instagram tools out there, but here are five that would be very helpful for PR professionals when it comes to Instagram:
- Search.Stagram: Great search engine if you are looking for particular photos with certain key words or hashtags. This will be good to use especially if you are having a particular hashtag for a special event or asking followers to use this hashtag when taking pictures of products, experiences, and events.
- Pingram: This site allows you to set up your own URL and allow users to pin your pictures directly to Pinterest. This may be a good site to extend your visual presence with another social ecosystem that may be interested in your visuals of particular scenery, products, stories, etc.
- Statigram: PR professionals not only have to be innovative and creative with their use of new social media platforms like Instagram, but they have to show their clients and senior management how they are going to evaluate whether or not this was an effective initiative. However, this site does allow you to evaluate some metrics associated with Instagram to see the most popular pictures per user, followers/unfollowers, and hashtag cloud to name a few features.
- Instaport: Great tool that allows you to download your Instagram pictures in a centralized location and file. Nice to have as a backup in case something happens to your computer or smartphone.
- Instapress: For PR professionals who want to generate traffic for their own pictures of those for their clients and brands on their corporate blog, they may want to get this WordPress blog plug-in in order to customize their Instagram picture feed to their blog. It is all about connecting all of the various social media platforms together in a centralized location.
In summary, there are many tools out there, but what is key to recognize when it comes to Instagram is to now what it is as a social media platform, how to get started with Instagram, what are some best practices and PR tips associated with the site, and strategically consider how to best use this platform for PR / business purposes in sharing experiences and stories with various audiences and communities virtually.
Hope you all are having a great day!
Best Wishes,
Karen
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