3 Ways to Use Instagram to Grow Your Blog or Business

Instagram has been around for quite some years now, but it has been being used as a marketing tool as of late. People use their Instagram accounts to not only make personal connections with their customers and clients, but to acquire new customers, clients, and blog readers.

It seems one of the first things people do these days to figure out what kind of blog, business, or person you are is by looking to Instagram profile. It has become essential for your customers, clients, or readers to browse through your Instagram presence so here are 3 Ways to Use Instagram to Grow Your Blog or Business and make that impression count.

Create a theme for your photos.
This is something I have seen a lot of successful Instagram accounts do. They use the same filters, same background colors, same fonts, and even the same type of subjects in their photos to create a particular feel for their account. This is completely intentional and they plan these photos ahead of time because they want to make sure their the photo fits in with their theme and the asthetic of their Instagram account.

A few bloggers in a Facebook group I am a part of questioned why "staging" their photos is more effective than randomly posting photos from their everyday lives and I have an answer.

It's fun to post photos from your personal life to share with friends, but often those photos seem to get attention from your circle of friends and family. A "staged" photo on the other hand - a photo that is planned to fit your particular theme will resonate with far more of your followers then just your circle of friends and family.

Here's my rule of thumb: If you post every day, throw in a wild card or two from your personal life in a week and if you post a few times a week, post one wild card. This way you're connecting with your friends, family, and giving your followers posts that resonate with your brand or business.

Use up to THREE hashtags in your photos.
Repeat after me. I will not EVER use more than three hashtags.

People have this perception that by loading up your captions with every hashtag that comes to mind will allow more people to find your Instagram posts. Not true. In this case, it's definitely better to look for quality rather than quantity. So instead of making up hashtags like #atmygrandmashousehavingdinner and piling it in between other useless hashtags, how about searching keywords that fit your image and looking for which hashtags have been used most frequently and picking from those?

Plus, by using hashtags of relevance to your photos, people will land on your Instagram page, then hop on over to your blog or business and that means more business and more readers!

Join an Instagram loop giveaway.
This is a great way to meet other bloggers, business owners, and acquire customers, clients, and readers. If you don't know what an Instagram loop giveaway is, here's a brief explanation.

An Instagram loop giveaway is a giveaway solely hosted on Instagram where blogs/businesses who have Instagram accounts, post the same giveaway image at the same time. People then enter the giveaway by liking the photo and following that person and then continue following a series of accounts which will lead them back to where they started. 

It's a lot of fun for the hosts and easy for everyone to enter! Plus, you get a ton of Instagram followers!

I have done a few giveaways before and they ran pretty successfully. I have gained 1,000 loyal followers and am super excited to be hosting more Instagram loop giveaways in the future! You can sign up to be notified when new giveaway opportunities are available as well as find out everything you need to know about Instagram Loop giveaways here. 

I hope you enjoyed this post! If you have any Instagram tips of your own, please share!

I LOVE My Nokia Lumia 1020!

Last weekend on Saturday, January 18, 2014. I said goodbye to my old iPhone 4 and made a new home for the phone that has been on my wishlist for months! I finally bought the Nokia Lumia 1020! 

 

Here are my favorite key features on this Windows 8 Phone so far:

Camera

41 mega-pixels and incredible high-definition zoom. Awesome!

Camera Apps 

I can create animated photos, shoot high-definition videos, create panoramas, and edit my photos while I am taking the photos so I can get the best shot, every time!

Uncluttered

Another one of my favorite features on this phone is the fact that it is easy to organize. I can organize all my photos and contacts the way I want to without having the iPhone forcing me to create separate albums and still store all my photos on my camera roll.

Oodles of Space

32 GB of Storage. Take that 16 GB iPhone 4!

Total Personalization 

I love being able to create the start menu the way I want to. I also love how easy it is to do so. The iPhone 4 made it impossible to save your contacts on your home screen or hide your apps. With this phone, I have no limits.

Better Blog Photos

I am now saying goodbye to my average to decent iPhone photos on my blog and finally moving on to good and great! 

I have so much more tech specifics to discuss, but I will save that for my technology blog. Read the detailed review of the Nokia Lumia 1020 on It's Technologic. 

Why Am I So Socially Active Online...?

Why am I so Socially Active online, when in person, I am an introvert?

1. I have (some type) of depth and I want people to see that. When meeting me in person, one may hate me or adore me...there is no "I kinda like her" or "There's more to her" or "Lets give her a chance to redeem herself". None of that exists in my world. My average appearance either tells people I am a preppy teenager or tells them "there's nothing new here". My skills and talents are, of course seen as things geeks are into (and although I do not mind that), I wish people saw the deep side of me where I learn-where I grow-what I see-how I see, and how I perceive the world. I hope my 140 character Tweets, my photos on Facebook and Instagram, and my blog posts show that (somehow).
2. My world is different & better than yours. I do not really mean that literally (or maybe I do). Introverts are people with (good) lives too. They may not feel such an empowering need to be around people or or communicate too much, but they do feel the need to show or tell someone whats going on every now then. I may deal with things differently and my lifestyle may be a tad bit different from the average person or the average extrovert in particular, but I like that so it is okay.
3. I want to cherish and preserve my memories. I barely have exciting things to share on social networks, but when I do, I post it everywhere. Sometimes, I wish I was a bit less reserved-just enough so I too can be that fashion blogger always at major events in New York & San Diego taking hundreds of professional photos while being sociable and enjoying the extroverted life. Then, I come back to who I really am and think, maybe I will just preserve what I do get the opportunity to do and just leave it at that.

Tech Wish List 2013

 1. Nikon DSLR D7100 Camera- This camera is perfect! I have never actually had my own camera and this camera would be great for my blog photos and I am more than sure everyone would enjoy my Instagram photos better than before. Once you see how a well-taken professional photo looks, you'll never want your iPhone 4 photos to be on Instagram again. Trust me, I am going through that phase right now.

2. Nokia Lumia 1020- Recently I damaged my iPhone 4 screen and I've been looking for a new phone. However, I do not think I am ready to make the switch from iOS to Windows. I love the way the Windows phone looks and I am sure it's not as easy to use as the iPhone (which I like, actually), but I am afraid that I will be comparing the softwares way too often and not really enjoy the phone's full features. This phone is perfect for photos. Imagine having a 41 megapixels camera in your pocket?! Think about this, the Nikon DSLR D7100 is only about 24 megapixels.

3. MacBook Pro (13in and 128 GB)- I love my laptop, but if I'm going to college next year while majoring in computer science and getting into the dept of graphic, media design, and web-development, I'm going to need a laptop that has enough space and a more productive app store. Plus, all my photos will look even clearer on my Mac!

4. Microsoft Surface Tablet RT- This tablet is in my opinion the most advanced and sophisticated tablet on the market. All those Android tablets look like enlarged cell phones and the iPads too. Windows 8 looks like it was designed for tablets and the Surface brings out those special Windows 8 features. It's the perfect tablet for me.

All this will probably cost roughly around $5,000 and unfortunately this wish list will be a wish for longer than I'd like. 

The Fine Line Between the Digital World & Reality

Over the past few years (when the Apple iPhone came into my possesion to be exact) the internet and digital world is what I live in 27/7 and it's all thanks to my yearning habbits of the computer geek I am and the fact that almost every website I use has an app for the iPhone. The world has gotten to the point where if you do not have a Twitter or Facebook account, you don't exist to the world. In a lot of ways, that's not right. For example, this blog has about 12 followers up to this day and assuming that my blog is pretty decent, I see that social media has made me invisible to the rest of the world of bloggers. I do indeed have a Facebook account and Twitter, but I choose to keep a lot of it on private so I don't even accidentally cross the line between the digital world and reality. To further my point, I have chosen a few funny comics from one of my favorite websites, TheOatmeal.com.

HA HA! Funny stuff right? If you want to see more of my favorite person, Matthew Inman's comics, check out TheOatmeal.com. If you want to see more from this specific comic, check out "Why I love and hate having a smartphone."

Back to my point, there's a fine line between the Digital World and Reality and ironically that line is YOU. You are the one who chooses where you would rather be, online or offline. You are the one who is responsible for your own actions, saying your iPhone made you do it doesn't cut it. I'm sure your iPhone can do a lot of things, it just can't control you if you don't let it. Same goes for the digital world, it can't control you unless you let it. Even after being a technology geek and always finding more ways for people to connect with me online, I realized that if I don't actually have a life then there's nothing for me to share on Twitter and Facebook.

*NOTE: All credit for these hilarious comics and pictures goes to Matthew Inman and his comical website, TheOatmeal.com!

xoxo,

Without Technology

Hurricane Sandy was a bigger storm than expected. It seemed to have left millions of people without any electricity or even water in their homes. Not to mention, the enormous amount of flooding throughout the states that were most effected. I was one of those millions of people without power for almost 3 days. It was terrifying at first because without Internet, light, and telephone, it's hard to be connected with others for news updates on whats going on and it's even harder to find something to do when you're so accustomed to technology for entertainment. While my iPhone still had battery, I took a picture of basically what I did for majority of the time. Reading "Jane Eyre" by candle light on my bedside table.

 Strangely, (don't hold this against me) I liked having no connection to the outside world. I got a peace of mind, slept extremely early those nights, and did a lot of open-minded thinking. It was nice while it lasted. On the other hand, I am happy I am connected to the world again.

xoxo, 

My Data Recovery Nightmare

FILES! FILES! FILES! Wait for it…FILES! With our daily adventures, all your documents, your bookmarks, your precious photos, and unrecoverable videos are saved and documented on to your computer for safe keeping. Because, hey, what can possibly happen to them there? Until one day, you try to download a program you think you need desperately and find yourself with a Trojan Win32 Virus a week later.
That’s what happened to me. Usually I save all my important stuff on my computer and I occasionally back up my data to a separate hard drive. However, I haven’t backed up any data or organized any files lately so if my data was gone, all my life’s work will be too. (Really!)
The program I was trying to download was located on a blog, one that didn’t look professional at all. It just looked like a cluttered blog, no pop-ups, and nothing that was obviously suspicious. After I downloaded the program, I could not find it any where in my programs. Instead, I found it as a file located on my computer. I assumed the download was unsuccessful, deleted the file, and carried on with what I was doing. That was the first sign of the virus, a hidden program installed on my computer.
The next day, I opened  up my browser and I noticed my homepage was completely different. I changed my homepage and didn’t look much into why it was there and how it got there. (And, you’d think that I probably would). Soon after, a random “Security Program” popped up saying that there was a threatening virus on my computer that may put my data in danger of being lost. This, I found out was the Trojan Virus’s scamming program that would tell me to pay money to get the virus fixed and then state “All Clear” while its trying to take over my computer.
After that, I ran some security tests and found that I indeed had a Trojan Virus and tried my best to manually remove it through a bunch of online web sources that gave me instructions on how to do so. I backed up all the files I could and started the process. Eventually, I had help from my Dad, but I did what I could. My computer had to be clean, and then restored to factory default. Learned my lesson, back up everywhere and everything, every time you get the chance.
In conclusion, we rely on our technology too much, we need to start creating back up plans for all this stuff, because once you get a virus or cannot recover your files, it won’t be pleasant at all.

xoxo,

Tech Blog Launch

            
Guess What? I just launched my Tech Blog! What's that? I just launched my Tech Blog! November 5, 2011 is the official launch date. This blog is about tech reviews, opinions, ideas, and more. Check it out, subscribe, and comment. Click the image to go to the blog or click here. Thanks for reading.

xoxo,