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In the growing world of social media marketing influencers are finding creative new ways to benefit from their network of followers. Instagram simply started off as a way for people to share pictures with their friends, however, some influencers have found a way to use it for much much more.
(Picture from @Delicious)
By building a large following on Instagram, entrepreneur Sean Kelly was able to create an extremely successful custom jersey business but he was left with the question; “If I can use social media marketing to build a successful business, what else can I use it for?”
The Experiment
People love to take pictures of their food to share with their friends but what they don’t realize is they are giving restaurants valuable publicity for FREE.
This exposure on social media can change an average restaurant into a very successful one. Many restaurants are getting creative in the ways in which they plate and present meals to encourage people to share pictures of them but would they be willing to give a free meal just for posting a picture to a large number of followers? Sean decided to find out.
(Picture from @Delicious)
How He Did It
Before reaching out to restaurants Sean realized that it was not only important to have have an Instagram with a large number of followers but one whose followers were interested in food.
This is how he got the idea to start the Instagram page @Delicious. Through collaborations with other food pages, weekly giveaways and partnerships with influencers Sean was able to build a very successful page. This process was slow at first but eventually the page was able to grow to over four hundred thousand followers!
Now that a large reach was established it was time to contact restaurants to see if they would be interested in being featured on the page. Instead of calling the restaurant and telling them about his food page Sean realized that it would be much more effective to send restaurants a direct message from @Delicious so that they could see for themselves how big of an audience they could reach just by being featured on the page!
Sean would not have been able to reach his goals without the help of a virtual assistant. Virtual assistants are extremely important for growing a page as they can help post more pictures and message more restaurants. What started off as a free meal here and there turned into a way for him to eat for free almost everywhere he goes.
What He Learned
Other than learning that food tastes much better when it doesn’t come with a hefty price tag Sean learned alot about the flaws in the way restaurants currently market themselves and how to improve their marketing strategies. “So many restaurants underestimate how much social media marketing can improve their business.”
While businesses can have success in advertising their own product, people are more likely to believe a review given by a third party rather than one provided by the restaurant itself.
Another thing Sean learned from this was how important is to post frequently on the page. As he was able to go to more and more restaurants there was a drastic increase in the content being posted on the pagel. This extra content being posted had a big impact on the rate the page was gaining followers and he even saw an increase in the engagements on his posts as well.
This is just one of the many ways you can utilize a large reach on Instagram but what else can it be used for? The possibilities are endless and the only way to find out is to give it a try for yourself!
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