Report: Newsday Highlights How Small Businesses Can Boost Their Sales Through Instagram

Social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and now especially Instagram are progressively playing a much larger role in the marketing strategies of small businesses, Newsday reports. Business owners are using these sites to drive sales, gain customers and develop their brand. Apps that are visually focused, like Instagram are particularly important to restaurants, bakeries, clothing stores, hair salons and other businesses that sell items that photograph well.

A cluster of small business round up their tips on how best to utilize the social network.

Smaller businesses such as Limelight Extensions and Yumbox suggest paying for attention. Limelight pays local models to show off photos of them wearing the brand’s extensions, while Yumbox pays well known bloggers to post photos of their wares.

Reaching out directly to customers has also proven effective for these companies. Encouraging consumers to post their own photos using the companies hashtags and then reposting the best ones, encourages consumers to share and gets the brand out to even more eyes.

Behind the Moon owner Brooke Sacco, recommends hash tagging everything. Hashtags make photos easier to find and using the right hashtag can attract customers from all over the globe.

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Other companies suggest not just using the social network to advertise your products but to build your brand image. A company uses this method to get the costumer to care about who they are. A photo can say more about a business than words. People are always entranced with a story. It’s how people become interested in a brand."  

Offering discounts through the Instagram medium has proven popular. Period Sweets owner, Tiffany Jones, posted a photo of a cake a week before mother’s day with a caption offering a discount. She automatically sold seven cakes to people who had exclusively seen the photo on Instagram. She sold six more to consumers who saw the post which can be automatically reposed to the company’s Facebook page.

Click here for the Newsday article