5 Important Instagram Policies You Often Overlook as a Marketer
When using Instagram as a marketing platform for your business or service like anything you need to adhere to the rules. There are many rules which get overlooked when it comes to Instagram but we’re here to help you remember some of the most important parts of the Instagram policy that is often overlooked by marketers.
1. Transparency
When you join Instagram and create your account you are representing the business and the brand. You need to ensure that while doing that you are being as authentic as possible. You need to allow your audience (this is where you can purchase Instagram followers) to know exactly who you are in order to combat possibly misleading customers. This also applies to products, customers need to be able to see what the product is. False advertising won’t help build your reputation and given enough people reporting your account Instagram could take action against you.
2. You effectively hand over the rights to Instagram to use your material
When you post content on Instagram you immediately give up some of the control over the material. The license you grant Instagram is “a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use the content that you post on or through the service.” This doesn’t mean Instagram owns the content but they can do what they want with it royalty free. It doesn’t matter if Instagram makes money from your content, they have got the right to use it as they deem fit.
3. And the winner is… no one if you don’t explicitly state the terms and conditions
Yes, you read that right. Having a competition where people have the ability to win a product, service or something else pertaining to your company is a great way to grow your account. The only thing to remember is to have all the relative information noted in the post about the competition. Ensure that contestants who will enter know all the important information.
It’s further important to specify that Instagram has no actual involvement in this competition and is merely the hosting app of the competition. It isn’t hosted, sponsored, endorsed or even facilitated by Instagram.
Include terms and conditions, eligibility, requirements, prizes offered, rules etc.
You will only get returns on competitions and any Instagram marketing if you have a decent number of followers. If you are struggling in this area, there are legitimate ways to buy followers Instagram.
4. Copyright is your job, don’t mess it up
Instagram is a place where you need to be extremely careful to avoid copyright at all costs. It is a tricky platform to navigate at times and you’d be surprised how easy it is to break copyright. When you repost a picture or video that has been shared on someone else’s profile it is important to be aware that you may actually be infringing on copyright.
Navigating yourself in the treacherous waters of copyright is sometimes difficult so we are going to break it down. When a user posts a picture, they own the copyright on said picture. This basically means that in order to repost the picture you need to have the permission of the actual content creator. While Instagram can do what they wish with the content the millions of users of the platform aren’t entitled to the same.
5. Only use an approved or trusted third party app for posting
In the past, you could only post directly on Instagram as it had a closed API. There are now a small number of third-party apps that will allow you to plan in advance, schedule posts, publish directly or queue posts. This only applies to business profiles, not personal accounts.
Only stick with the approved apps to avoid getting into trouble and risking having your account suspended. These apps will automate your marketing and make it much more effective and save you a heap of time and effort.
Some of the approved apps are:
- Agorapulse
- Autogrammer
- Later
- Sprout Social
It is worthwhile to study the terms and conditions to ensure you don’t break any rules. Instagram has its rules like any other platform available to you. Understandably so these rules need to be read, understood and followed in order to avoid finding yourself in hot water with the application.
Take the rules seriously in order to achieve the best results and to reach an audience ethically and appropriately. Instagram is beneficial for any business. It is free and easy to use once you know some of the tricks that come with the social media juggernaut. Good luck with growing your online presence and brand awareness now go post and enjoy the success!
