PR and Marketing professionals have begun to re-embrace the cliché that “A Picture is Worth One Thousand Words.” Last week’s purchase of Instagram by Facebook for $1.1 billion is what we call a clue about the power of visuals.
Add a couple of other facts and the case for photos or video is pretty clear: Pinterest has come out of nowhere to a player in social media. And it’s common knowledge that You Tube is the second most used search engine after Google.
With Instagram, the picture possibilities are seemingly endless for PR and marketing. Instragram can be used to provide a “sneak peek” of a product. It can be used to show fans or clients pictures of your organization doing good in the community. For example, Starbucks uses Instagram to feature items from their menu in addition to sharing pictures of their employees working in stores and in the community. General Electric utilizes Instagram to share pictures from within its factories as well as to showcase groundbreaking research and technology. Possibly the most important feature for Instagram is ‘Geo-tagging.’ Geo-tagging gives organizations the ability to not only share photos, but to also tag the location that the photos were taken. This allows organizations to promote a presence at events, workshops, and conferences. We’ll see if to “instragram” becomes a verb like to Google, to Facebook or LinkedIn.
Is your organization currently using Instagram? What kinds of visuals have engaged your fans and consumers the most?