Hello fine furry friends (well, their humans, if we’re being precise)!  Let’s take a moment to discuss the beauty and splendor that is Instagram and why you should seriously consider taking the time to creating or updating and maintaining an account.

First things first, gaaaaaaaaaaaaah, everything is cute!!  If you’re like me, when you’re having a bad day, you go online to find pictures of cute things in an attempt to avoid crying and rocking in the shower.  Imagine, a world, where EVERYTHING IS CUTE!  That, my friends, is Instagram!  I’m generalizing of course.  It’s all about who you follow.  It just so happens that all of the accounts I follow are of cute animals (mostly dogs) and companies that cater to said cute animals.  As a result, my feed is entirely comprised of photos of those animals.

So, now that you’re convinced to be a part of Instagram, because cute overloads are your lifeblood.  What’s the benefit from a personal and professional standpoint?

Networking and notoriety is the main reason, in my opinion.  If you are a blogger, or involved with the pet industry in some capacity, it’s easy to begin identifying topics and themes that fellow pet owners are contending with.  It’s like your own personal focus group to be used at your leisure.  What products are people raving about?  What questions keep coming up?  What causes continue to be referenced?  These trends can be pinpointed by scrolling through the photos and observing peoples’ posts.

Additionally, it’s a wonderful mechanism for establishing meaningful relationships with fellow pet owners.  Commenting on like posts or subjects puts you into other folks radar.  Being sure to reply when individuals make a note on your own posts helps for those account owners to want to follow you, interact with you, and visit your other social media platforms.  You can almost use Instagram is a visual “call to action” that invites followers to visit your other sites for further information and support.

Notoriety comes from a few things, but it likely will not take place overnight (which is fine, in my opinion because you get to see pictures of cute critters in the meantime).  Conscientious and intentional use of hashtags and tagging accounts is a great and important way to get noticed!  There are sites that actually show you popular or common hashtags that you can be using.  I typically benchmark by looking at accounts that have a high follow base and emulate the hashtags that they tend to be using.

If you’re referencing a specific product or fellow Instagram account, be sure to tag those accounts.  It’s very common for those companies or other users to feature your photo, thus resulting in additional followers.  If you are an account that has coupon codes or sponsorship opportunities with companies, you can list those codes and sources in your photo description which can result in additional traffic to either your website, blog, or the organizations where you coupon code should be used ($)!

I’d be happy to post about how to take photos for Instagram, but I didn’t want to be too lengthy in this post.  Let me know if this is something you’d like and what questions you may have that I didn’t answer and I’ll be sure to touch base!

Yours in puppy photos and hashtag hilarity!  I hope you visit me on Instagram!  We can be found here: @beanparty.yodabash.

Bean looking badass as she lounges on the bed!