In a visual age where an image speaks a thousand words, Instagram is an important, credible and downright cool way to connect with a socially engaged audience.
The site has grown fast, from hipster iOS-exclusive app to major social network with Android and web presences. And with 200 million monthly active users and counting and more than 75 million of these logging in daily for their visual fix, Instagram is showing no signs of slowing. The question is, how can small businesses nail their Instagram marketing to create stellar posts that woo likes, followers and shares? Here are some great examples of brands using Instagram to reach target audiences.
1. Starbucks: How to Make Friends and Influence People
Let’s start with the obvious and work back from there. Thanks to the hordes of caffeine-fuelled hipsters posting artistically-angled shots of their morning Chai latte, Starbucks is killing it on Instagram, consistently jostling with Nike to top Nitrogram’s ratings for best performing brands.
The coffee purveyor’s Instagram success has less to do with groundbreaking originality, and more to do with a tried and tested method of finding and re-sharing images posted by its fans. The java king regularly reaches out to fans, asking permission to use their shots on its own Instagram and other social media accounts. Most fans are, in turn, unsurprisingly obliging. And the Seattle-based chain knows the kind of content that garners favour with the Instagram masses, cleverly tapping into the artsy aesthetic favoured by the most influential Instagrammers.
This kind of image is bang on trend, its jaunty angle, moody lighting and foodie focus aligning perfectly with the kind of photos already gaining the most traction among the app’s gastronomically-minded users.
2. Mercedez-Benz: Double your Impact
Instagram, as you’ll probably be aware, is owned by Facebook. Combine the two social media sites well and you’ll leverage their reach and influence to significantly boost your marketing efforts. The aforementioned Starbucks engages in regular cross-posting of the crop of its images across both channels, while Mercedez Benz (the 31st most popular brand on Instagram) also does a brilliant job at integrating its Instagram content on Facebook.
We particularly like its tactic of publishing a weekly round-up of its best Instagram images to Facebook – and the number of ‘Likes’ this post garners suggests that we’re not alone.
3. Pilot Pen: Creativity and Coolness Count
Instagram has always been about creativity first and foremost, posing a potential challenge to brands offering more practical products or services. Pilot Pen USA is a great example of creative marketing on Instagram, taking a generally mundane, certainly everyday product and applying an artsy, quirky approach to convey a distinctive tone of voice. Pilot Pen achieves this by steering slightly leftfield of the box, showing images of handwritten notes and doodles, cute animations and also by tapping into major events in the cultural calendar.
It’s all too easy to dismiss Instagram as too ‘out there’, too hip or just too visual for your business. However, with a fresh angle and approach, liberal use of hashtagging and tagging – not to mention the obvious – consistently fabulous photos -the majority of brands can find their niche and connect with the snap-happy Instagram community.
Who do you think is doing Instagram brilliantly? Leave us a comment”
