Skip to content

How to Use Instagram to Dramatically Improve your Business, with Christian Tabing-Dalit and Candice Georgiadis

I had the pleasure of interviewing Christian Tabing-Dalit. Based in San Francisco, Christian is a Senior Product Manager at Kenshoo, the Sequoia-backed firm known for its industry-leading, cross-channel marketing technology platform. Prior to Kenshoo, Christian served in product management roles at Dailymotion (acquired by Vivendi), Adap.tv (acquired by AOL), and Intuit. He’s a Silicon Valley native and a graduate of Stanford University’s School of Engineering.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I was nearing the end of my senior year at Stanford, and unlike many of my peers, I didn’t know what I wanted to do in the real world.

The stars aligned when I met a recruiter at an on-campus career fair. She introduced me to a unique opportunity at Intuit, the makers of TurboTax, QuickBooks, and Mint. Intuit’s Rotational Development Program (RDP) was designed as a career launching pad for recent college graduates. I was fortunate to land a spot in the 11-person program.

Every six months over two years, my position at Intuit shifted to a new function and business unit. I rotated across product management, marketing, and business development roles at Intuit QuickBooks Payroll, Intuit Mobile Ventures, Mint, and Intuit Brainstorm.

My experience at Intuit provided the exposure that I needed to discover my long-term passion — a passion for developing products that enable consumers and businesses to prosper.

Can you explain to our readers why you are an authority on Social Media Marketing?

Throughout my career, I’ve had the privilege to advise some of the world’s largest and most well-respected brands and advertising agencies. I’ve authored 20+ patents and have built solutions to help social media marketers reach, engage, and convert audiences at scale — across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, YouTube, Pinterest, Twitter, and Snapchat.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started this career?

The digital marketing ecosystem has evolved, and continues to move, rapidly. Startups have played an integral role in fueling this growth. It was thrilling to be a part of AOL’s acquisition of Adap.tv in 2013; then, to be a part of Vivendi’s acquisition of Dailymotion two years later in 2015.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

In 2012, I considered going all in on Facebook following their IPO; unfortunately, I didn’t. Since then, I’ve learned to listen to and trust my gut.

Which social media platform have you found to be most effective to use to increase business revenues? Can you share a story from your experience?

Facebook’s family of apps, including Instagram, have proven to be incredibly effective revenue-driving vehicles for many businesses. In my experience, businesses within the retail, ecommerce, travel, financial services, automotive, and gaming verticals have yielded the best results.

Let’s talk about Instagram specifically, now. Can you share 6 ways to leverage Instagram to dramatically improve your business? Please share a story or example for each.

  1. Build a large, loyal following and actively engage your audience with amazing content. Build a reputation for posting visually captivating images, videos, and Stories that inform, inspire, and delight. Airbnb (www.instagram.com/airbnb/) has done this extremely well and has built a community of over 3.6m followers.
  2. If your business manages physical locations, make them Insta-worthy. Take inspiration from Museum of Ice Cream (www.museumoficecream.com) and Color Factory (www.colorfactory.co). They’ve created visually stimulating environments that people immerse themselves within, take photos and videos, then actively share with friends and family via Instagram.
  3. Collaborate with complementary brands (e.g. GoPro + Red Bull) to jointly develop and share content to your respective Instagram audiences.
  4. Hold contests (e.g. “Caption this…”) to actively promote engagement, including comments and likes that magnify the visibility and impact of your posts.
  5. Turn your customers into Instagram followers. Actively remind them to follow your brand on Instagram on receipts, within emails, at the end of customer support calls, etc.
  6. Leverage Instagram’s comprehensive ad targeting options to precisely reach the people that matter most to your business. Drive awareness of your brand, encourage people to learn more about your products, and generate product sales and store visits. GAP, Overstock, SumUp, and Land Rover are just a few examples of brands that have driven results with Instagram.

Because of the position that you are in, you are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

Deep empathy and compassion towards others.

Some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

I’d love to brunch with the husband and wife co-founders of Panda Express. They started with just a single location in 1983 in Glendale, California. They’ve since expanded to over 2,000 locations worldwide and have become self-made billionaires. I’m deeply inspired by Andrew and Peggy Cherng’s entrepreneurial drive, enduring resiliency, and successful pursuit of the American Dream.

I’d invite them over, along with friends and family, to enjoy a Family Feast including Orange Chicken, Beijing Beef, Black Pepper Chicken, Fried Rice, and Chow Mein.

Thank you so much for joining us!


How to use Instagram to Dramatically Improve your Business, with Christian Tabing-Dalit and… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.