The Marketing Power of Instagram: 10 Interesting Examples
A single app, some photos and few strong hashtags (#) have made Instagram one of the most powerful social media platforms. Started as a mere photo sharing app, Instagram has grown to leaps and bounds. According to research, there are 500+ millions of Instagram users globally and you would be surprised to hear that the number is ever increasing.
The world believes in what it sees and Instagram does the same, through its photo sharing feature it allows users to share photos and videos to a global audience. Earlier just individuals used the app to share their personal pictures, but today Businesses have started using Instagram to share all their latest updates. This trend has increased as Instagram Marketing where a brand represents itself through pictures and celebrates its uniqueness with its audiences.
Quick facts about Instagram Marketing
Forrester says, “Brands that promote on Instagram have a 4.21% engagement rate. That’s 10x higher when compared to Facebook and 84x higher than Twitter.” Isn’t that amazing!!
Another fact shared by Simply Measure, “91% brands make use of 5 to 7 strong hashtags in their posts.”
Did you know according to WebDam research, “60% of top brands that promote themselves on Instagram use the same filter for all their posts”?
The most interesting fact shared by PowerDigital Marketing, “Contests carried on Instagram generate 3.5x more likes 64x more comments when compared to the general posts shared on any other social media platform”
Although it’s not easy to engage your audiences through a few photos or videos, you need to create strong stories and hashtags that just take your brand to the next level. We bring you the 10 most powerful brands that have made the best use of Instagram and shown the marketing power of Instagram.
1. National Geographic
One of my favorite channels on TV, National Geographic, has made the most excellent use of photos. With 74.2 million followers globally they just prove themselves to be the best in business when it comes to sharing photos on Instagram and promoting their brand. The pictures shared by the channel are simple, original, unique describing the imagination at its best. All thanks to the exceptional photographers hired by the National Geographic team who just spend their lives clicking photos roaming around the globe in search of the finest photo shoot.
2. Chanel
The success behind Chanel’s Instagram following is it being a luxury brand and the team that focuses entirely on big stars, celebrities and huge events that have helped Chanel earn a large number of followers. Today it has more than 17.5 million brand audiences. All the prominent stars including catwalk models endorse Chanel products. Their strategy is choosing star value to promote their products.
3. Adidas
One of the oldest sports brands, Adidas has always been close to its audiences through several marketing campaigns. Even on Instagram they have created campaigns that focus more on personality, lifestyle shoots and even asking their audiences to shoot themselves with their products. This has helped Adidas to gain a larger chunk of audiences globally. The recent #MyNeoshoot gained a lot of popularity as the most famous singer-actor and the one with a huge Instagram following Selena Gomez advertised for the NEO brand of Adidas. With this campaign Adidas generated 71K mentions for the #MyNeoshoot and gained 41K new followers. It shows how social media influencers play a major role in promoting a brand.
4. The Economist
One of the well-known magazines in the world The Economist uses a very simple strategy in promoting their product i.e. just showcase their magazine cover as the new Instagram ad, which means people get to see the details about the upcoming magazine and also can read the headline and pricing of the magazine in the same ad itself.
5. Hubspot
Hubspot is one of the best developers and marketers of software tools & products for marketing and sales creating unique campaigns for its products on Instagram. Although their campaigns or photos just have some bright colors and little text, these ads surely create an impact on the audiences and have gained huge followers. Their strategy is using bright colors in the background like an orange that catches the reader’s eye quickly. They make use of simple ad design as adding a lot of things in an ad can confuse the reader and your message may not be delivered to the audience. Lastly, they also focus on the appropriate ad size so it correctly fits the ad window of the Instagram app and a Square ad fits perfectly in the Instagram newsfeed and draws attention.
6. Airbnb
Posting a photo on your Instagram news feed isn’t enough, you have to use a proper tagline and hashtags to attract a large number of audience or followers. Airbnb did just that on their Instagram, they posted realistic photos clicked by both hosts and guest with captions like #LiveThere. This campaign created a lot of buzz and it also showed that people can promote their brands by simply being real.
7. IKEA
IKEA and its campaigns have managed to strike the right chords with consumers worldwide; it did so much more to create a buzz about its entrance in India 3 months prior to the launch date. IKEA hired Dentsu Impact as the official creative agency helped them launch the brand’s maiden campaign #MakeEverydayBrighter. The challenge was to make IKEA a familiar brand for Indian citizens and to reach every single home through its products. The video describes how simple things can make living in a home much better. IKEA promoted all its home products through Instagram ads that focused on artistic home decors – whether it is colorful curtains or kitchen cabinets. Along with this it also created several campaigns especially for Mother’s Day and Marathon runners.
8. Forever 21
As the brand name suggests they keep inspiring the young ones with new ads and photos amongst its niche audience. Marketing to a specific niche audience can be successful sometimes as it is one of the most neglected sectors. One of the famous US women fashion retailers, Forever 21 boasts of 12 million+ Instagram followers. They usually focus their products with lifestyle shots of young models that display how a particular dress can change a woman’s look. One of the campaigns even showcased large-sized women’s wearing outfits as per their size, which gave a more personal touch towards fashion for plus size women along with user-generated content with bio links mentioned in the campaign where shoppers can buy the product from.
9. ASOS
A British clothing retailer has a team of brand ambassadors who create an Instagram post from their personal accounts that are attached with ASOS main account and post photos and videos showcasing ASOS products. Brand stylists having accounts such as @asos_debbie and @asos_megan have individually created their own list of followers by being known as fashion bloggers, posting photos like the two shown below.
10. The Dots
The Dots, a community of makers, creators, and doers who wish to work together on different projects and yield benefits that help people grow, recently created a campaign on Instagram that showcased both an inspiring image and some motivational text. The ad represented a wonderful combination of text and image. Although the photo they used was from the stock images, they used it wisely by mentioning some of their valued customers in the ad. That was the key to their ad success, as it helped in building trust in the brand. The ad also shows a proper Call-to-action that added like a cherry on the cake for the ad campaign.
Thinking about how you can promote your brand or yourself on Instagram? The above Instagram stories can help you to find your strategy to increase your number of followers. If you feel this isn’t sufficient and you want to know more, come join our Certificate Course in Digital Marketing. Send us a WhatsApp message on 8008255010.
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