It’s been said that "A picture is worth a thousand words.” With 40 million photos per day uploaded to Instagram, the wildly popular online photo-sharing/social networking service, these pictures are definitely generating buzz, whether it’s for personal use or business. Businesses can gain instant (and free!) attention by sharing photos of their products, offering promotions and contests and showing the personal side of their business with behind-the-scenes photos.

How can one effectively use Instagram to promote their business and get some of its 90 million users talking?

• Highlight new product arrivals or specials with a photo. Offer a service instead? Show your place of business, photos of completed projects (a painted house or repaired car, for example) or supplies that help you get the job done. Consider using another app that combines multiple photos to show “before and after” and upload those to Instagram.

• Use the hashtags! Hashtags are words or phrases prefixed with the symbol # (e.g. #heroweb). Hashtag your business name, brand of product or related topic in your photo comments so you show up in more searches (particularly to users that are not following you… yet).

• Offer specials in the form of discount codes to customers who follow you. The hashtag #promocode is heavily searched.

With Instagram’s recent acquisition by Facebook (which is approaching nearly one billion users), as well as its availability on a variety of smartphones and the web, Instagram is only destined to grow. Check out Instagram or download the app onto your phone to join this growing community and show off your business in a unique and fun way. Get inspired and see one of our customers in action at Best Bully Sticks Instagram page! For more ideas on using Instagram as a business, read our full article, Use Instagram Effectively, on the HEROweb site.

Marketing Bites are short actionable tips to help you market your business. Each Bite contains a marketing idea and an easy to complete action. The Marketing Bite is emailed weekly to subscribers.