As a photographer and a producer for the advertising industry, it’s par for the course that I know the latest and greatest in social media.  Not only do I create content for my clients to promote and share on social media platforms (sites), I use a variety of social media platforms to promote my own personal brand and services. I’ve always assumed that the masses knew how to use twitter, facebook, instagram, pinterest…

I was wrong.

I stood corrected a couple of weeks ago when discussing social media for restaurants with a bartender friend.  I was surprised to find out that many do not use instagram or even upload promotional photos to their facebook and/or twitter accounts.  Some don’t even have facebook accounts for their small businesses!  How could this be in 2013?

If you own a small business, or any business for that matter, you need social media.  You have a smartphone?  Then you have no excuse not to promote your business with photographs on social media… and Instagram, quite honestly, is your best friend.

Instagram is a fast, easy, and efficient platform that brings more exposure to your business.  How? It allows you to post your images simultaneously to your facebook, twitter, tumblr, flickr, and foursquare accounts all in one shot.   It will take you all of five to ten minutes of each day to promote your company.   Not a bad investment of your time, I’d say.

I could get very specific for each industry about what your social strategy should be, but to keep it simple and short for this blog post, here are some suggestions for three different industry categories:

• If you are a restaurant, you should be uploading/posting photographs of your drink, food menu items, specials, and photos of the staff.
• If you sell a product, you should be uploading/posting photographs of your product line with information about each product.
• If you sell a service, you should be uploading/posting “Behind the scenes” photographs of your set up and/or process that makes your service unique.

Here’s a list of businesses who use instagram successfully; check them out for ideas of how you can promote your business:
http://instagram.com/sephora#
http://instagram.com/bucadibeppo#
http://instagram.com/burgerfi#
http://instagram.com/thorstenroth/#
http://instagram.com/josevilla#

Once you’ve set your account up, here’s a great article to get you started on the basics of posting to your instagram accounts.  Now you are ready to rock the marketing world.

Not sure how to set up your instagram so that it shares the image to your other social media accounts?  Coming soon:  “How to Set Up Instagram For Your Small Business.”