Lesson 15

Istagram for Tourism

Instagram is the largest social network in the world with over 1 billion monthly visitors.

Instagram has a lot in common with Facebook, as Facebook completely owns Instagram.

According to Similarweb.com, it is one of the five most visited sites in the world.

Studies note that during the pandemic, the number of users and hours spent on this social network increased significantly.

What opportunity does Instagram provide for the travel business? You can show information about your organization and activities, including advertising, to Instagram users around the world.

Instagram rules and community guidelines.

The restrictions are similar to Facebook and imposed on various prohibited content, spam and harassment. See lesson 14.

We recommend everyone check out the rules and regulations of Instagram and strictly follow them.

Terms of Use.

Community Guidelines.

Types of Instagram accounts.

Instagram has 2 main types of accounts: personal and professional.

The personal profile is represented by an individual.

A professional account is more suitable for organizations, and its policy and page management can be very different from the personal one.

Note. A business account should not be confused with a blogger’s account. A company or organization is a business or a job, and a blogger is more related to the media. In other words, when a blogger has a lot of subscribers, this indicates his popularity and breadth of coverage. If a company has a lot of subscribers, this makes no matter, since only the target audience matters. Your subscribers should be your clients, or potential clients initially, as well as people who are interested in the company’s activities, who respond to the materials you post and comment on publications. If the majority of account subscribers are passive and do not show interest in publications, then the usefulness of such an account for the company is very small.

There is a separate help section for working with professional accounts.

Converting profile to a professional account.

Any personal profile can be converted to a professional account. Switching to a professional account will give you access to new features and statistics on Instagram. This will help you to understand who and how is interacting with your company on a given social network. You will also be able to add your company description and contact information.

How to convert a personal profile to a professional one – see here.

There is some difference in the rules from FB. It is not necessary to disclose your real name here, but you cannot use someone else’s.

Quote:  “You don’t have to disclose your identity on Instagram, but you must provide us with accurate and up to date information (including registration information). Also, you may not impersonate someone you aren’t, and you can’t create an account for someone else unless you have their express permission”.

Free promotion.

Free Instagram promotion methods, especially for newly created pages, is a frequently asked question.

We suggest using several options, although everyone can come up with their own, depending on the type of business.

You can subscribe to your colleagues who are somehow related to your business or organization, or know something about you. With this kind of subscription, Instagram might recommend that your colleagues or partners follow you back.

You can actively comment on publications of partners and colleagues. Perhaps their subscribers will read your comment and subscribe to you if they find it interesting.

You can subscribe to active people who comment on topics related to your organization.

Note. Do not follow everyone, but only those who might be your target audience. If you get uninterested people among your followers, your account rating will drop.

It is strictly forbidden to use services that carry out mass subscription, so-called mass following. Your account might be blocked.

Also, you cannot abuse subscriptions and activity in general. You can only subscribe to a limited number of users at a time and a day.

If you exceed the norm, at first the system will simply stop responding to your actions, then the profile might be blocked, because your activity could be perceived as spam.

Limits depend on several parameters, such as account age, number of followers, activity, etc. The allowed number of subscriptions per day ranges from 300 to 500, the maximum number of subscriptions per hour is from 20 to 60. There are also recommendations that the maximum number of subscriptions per month should not exceed 6000.

We recommend doing everything consciously.

Before signing up, study the account – whether you need it in followers or not. Also, while viewing the feed, you can delete accounts that are inappropriate from your point of view.

Press like only when you think the content is in your company’s interests.

The same with comments. You cannot copy-paste them from post to post.

Remember – social networks were created for communication, not to gain followers to your company.

Links to Instagram.

You can post a link to your Instagram account on your website, emails, or Google, Yandex and 2GIS maps. In this case, the link must be a hyperlink and look something like this: https://www.instagram.com/centersmarttourism/ so the potential customers will be directed to your account, but not Instagram’s main page.

Hashtags.

Hashtags are used to find accounts and posts. Alternatively, you can use your own hashtags containing your brand name to help customers find you more easily. For example: #centersmarttourism.

More details here.

Note. Hashtags can be added not only to the post, but also to the comment under it. You can add up to 30 hashtags to one post. But don’t use the same set of hashtags for different posts. This could be perceived as spam.

We recommend using not the most popular hashtags, but those that reflect the essence of the post, which potential customers may be looking for. The selection of hashtags should be approached meaningfully and thoughtfully, and not copied automatically.

Hashtags can be high-frequency, mid-frequency, and low-frequency, depending on how often they occur. It is not recommended to use only one type. High-frequency ones are highly competitive, and low-frequency ones are rarely searched. You need an optimal balance.

There are many materials about the use of hashtags, but not always the same recommendations apply to different companies.

Offline promotion.

Offline promotion means that you can invite visitors to your page not from the Internet, but from your office or other places through print ads.

It could be a poster with the page name. For example, our Instagram name is @centersmarttourism. Our customers and readers can easily find our business account by this name.

You can also place a QR code with the page name on business cards, posters and other printed materials.

Scanning it with a smartphone, your Instagram page will open. And then, if the user likes your content, you will get one more follower.

Direct invitation.

Direct invitations to the organization’s loyal customers with the subscription link can be done via Whatsapp, SMS and email, but you need to warn them in advance so they do not perceive it as spam. Just send them a hyperlink to your account from the address bar. For example, a link to our account looks like this: https://www.instagram.com/centersmarttourism/.

Note. There are new agents who offer to buy ready-made subscribers for various social networks. We strongly do not recommend doing it, as these will be non-target subscribers who will not interact with your account, and will only drag the page down.

Content.

Instagram content has its own specifics. The use of smiles and hashtags is acceptable here.

It is advisable to publish photos and videos in good quality. First of all, people see pictures, and only then they start reading the text. Or they might not read it….

Publish content in a meaningful way, taking into account the interests of your target audience.

It is advisable to have a content plan – what posts and when to publish. It is also very useful to divide content into categories. Let’s say: events, useful tips, stories about your employees, stories about your customers, new services, etc.

It is recommended not to place direct advertising more often than after 4-5 posts, so that users do not have the feeling that they are reading a free advertising newspaper.

It’s a good idea to work out a unique design and color scheme for posts so that when people see your post, they immediately recognize you.

Remember – every social network has its own style and look, so we do not recommend using the “Share also on Facebook” button on Instagram. It doesn’t look good and doesn’t involve. It feels like you’re too lazy to write a post for your Facebook followers.

However, the type of content is always determined by the target audience, so always analyze the post statistics – what your target audience likes and what does not.

Instagram statistics.

We talked in more detail about the basics of statistics in social networks in lesson 8.

The company’s behavior on Instagram.

The company’s behavior on various social networks is similar to the recommendations for Facebook we reviewed in lesson 14.

Advertising on Instagram.

Targeted advertising on Instagram is the most effective way to promote and connect with your target audience.

It allows you to show relevant messages to strictly defined types of people and bring interested followers and readers.

Unfortunately, targeted advertising is a paid service, so in the absence of an advertising budget, this path is impossible. We recommend that you conclude an agreement with a specialist or study targeted advertising and its settings yourself.It makes no sense to engage in paid advertising without training, since incorrect settings will only lead to budget overruns without a noticeable effect.

There are 2 ways to place ads on Instagram: thgrough Instagram itself or through the Facebook Ads Manager. The most optimal method for targeted advertising on Instagram is through the Facebook Ads Manager. It offers more accurate targeting by place of residence, age, gender, interests, behavior, etc.

You can find educational materials on this topic directly on Instagram itself.

Also, managing ads through the Facebook Ads Manager is covered in lesson 14.

Conclusions.

Instagram is one of the largest platforms in the world to communicate with potential tourists. However, proper and effective work requires attention to detail, skills and knowledge that can be easily found within the social network itself.

Instagram is well suited for the travel industry because through photos and videos, it is easy to convey the emotions people travel for.

Troubles with Instagram

If you have any problems related to Instagram, try to fix them yourself, as indicated here.

If it doesn’t work, you should write to technical support.