Social media has become one of the tools of advertising and increasing brand awareness for a business. The low cost, the engagement with the public, and the exclusive nature are the main reasons why a business needs to use social media. One of the social media sites people love is Instagram.

This social media site available on iOS, Android and Webs has become the best social media site in 2015 as quoted from Business Insider. Instagram has 400 million active users every month who post or like photos and videos on a regular basis. With so many active users, Instagram becomes the right tool for business people to win over customers and turn them into the public of the company. As a result, they are competing to create interesting contents or displays. There are several features that business people can use, including:

1. Posting Photos and Videos
We can post photos using the app’s built-in filters and editing features on Instagram. We can also post a video of up to 1 minute and we can choose whether to display the sound or not. When we post photos and videos, we can write captions to explain the photos and hashtags (#) that facilitate a search. This hashtag can be used when doing a campaign or contest. Providing the requirement to use hashtags makes it easier for companies to search and measure the success of the campaigns or events.

2. Explore
On the explore page, we can see the photos or videos that our followers have liked or commented. On this page, we can also see trending photos and videos from around the world so we will keep abreast of the trends. We can analyze the campaigns of others and adapt them to suit our needs. There is also a new feature called picked for you. The feature recommends videos considered to be aligned with the user’s interest.

3. Following, followers, view, and like
Following, followers, view, and likes become one of the indicators of the success of content, a campaign or an event on Instagram.

4. Multi-account
This multiple account feature serves to create two Instagram accounts at once and also to easily switch between accounts without having to sign out. So far, Instagram users who have more than one account must sign out first before they switch accounts. But with the presence of this feature on the Android platform, it is certainly easier for the users to manage their Instagram accounts.

5. Geotagging
When posting photos, we can add the location where the photos are taken. For example, when we start a culinary business, we can invite food bloggers to review our food on Instagram, using photos and appealing descriptions, and also geotags. People who see the photos just have to click the geotag to get the exact location.

6. Tag Person
In a campaign or event, we can require participants to tag some people. So we use other people’s networks to disseminate campaigns or events. People are more likely to see the activities published by the people they know through word of mouth. Isn’t it a creative idea to spread business activities?

7. Stories
The Stories feature is the latest feature of Instagram. It is similar to Snapchat with which we can capture or record something and it will disappear within 24 hours. We can also add text and images and save it. We can choose who can watch the stories. This feature is useful to improve closeness between the company/product with the audience. People are able to watch what is happening around the company and products or the ongoing events in real time. Those who view the posts can also directly comment on the stories so that conversation can occur.

8. Messaging
There is the direct message on Instagram. Suppose we make an event and need to contact the winner, we can give the message to the event winner directly through DM, So practical, isn’t it?

9. Translate
With the presence of this new feature, Instagram users can enjoy it very easily since it has been built into the user account profile. Facebook as the owner of Instagram mentions that by simply tapping the translate button, Instagram users can choose other languages to display.
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