Instagram, what is it? It's a photo sharing service for iOS, Android, and
now, web. You can take photos in Instagram or import them easily from about any
camera app or your camera roll (and whatever Android calls it). You can apply filters that enhance the look or
theme of your photo – caution here, this can easily be overdone. Photos
you post to Instagram can be shared to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, and
FourSquare. That’s what is on the surface.
What is it really? Instagram is a massive community of pros,
amateurs, micro-communities, groupies, wannabes, spammers, scammers, selfie takers, attention seekers, and
snap happy tweens - that's just the start of it. Instagram has a world-wide user base too. What’s more, millions and millions of those Instagrammers
are addicted. TechCrunch recently reported that Instagram has 90m monthly active users. They check their feed multiple times per hour, peruse galleries, scour dozens of popular hashtags, link from profile to
profile seeking, finding, ogling, and scrutinizing thousands of images every
week.
Instagram, the company, sponsors weekly projects that engage 20,000+ of
their own followers on a regular basis. Let’s ask again, what is it really?
It’s hundreds of thousands of impressions just waiting to happen. It is armies
of loyal followers waiting to engage with your brand and get what for it?
Social capital – that’s the currency on Instagram. Let me clarify,
Instagrammers aren’t in it for the money. All it takes is a little ‘instafame’,
a ‘feature’ or a request to use his or her image in your ad and give them
credit. Why? So they can shine in front of the community, even if just for a
moment. It’s all for the glory of a good ‘gram’.
I’m also implying that
you can get people to create great content
for you, for cheap or even for free. Ya, it’s possible. Very possible. Here’s an
example - Pilgramers: http://www.hamiltonisland.com.au/about-us/media-centre/Pages/article-40.aspx
Instagram isn’t for every business...yet. I won’t
name names, but can you imagine a crotchety old tech company, like those with
two or three letter acronyms for names, creating a presence on Instagram and involving
their followers in ad and branding campaigns? Not likely. But – here I will
name names – Pepsi, Coca Cola, Apple, Ford, Chevy, Volkswagon, Toyota, Gap,
North Face, Burton, Smith Optics, even small companies like ski resorts, hotels,
magazines…ok I’m done listing…you get the point. They can use Instagram. And, if they do it right, they engage their
customers like no other medium.
Instagram has a set of unwritten rules just like any
community. Here are a few:
- Take your own photos or in other words, create your own content.
- Never use someone else’s photo without permission and without giving credit – common sense copyright stuff right?
- For the most part, take and edit your images on a mobile phone – there are tons of great apps that do this.
- Use the square format – unless you’re really good at another format THEN USE A WHITE BACKGROUND not the black default!
- It’s a photo app, take good pictures…actually take GREAT PICTURES – hire mobile photography talent if you have to.
- GIVE BACK TO THE COMMUNITY – find a way to do this!
- Oh, and this one is important, don’t feed bomb your followers, it’s the fastest way to get ‘unfollowed’ – for business this means a few times per week, unless your content is phenomenal.
- Don’t cheat by using bots i.e. genuinely engage with your following – this can get unruly and unmanageable and I honestly don’t see many good solutions for the engagement part of this process yet (see more on this below)
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| These images are sourced from Instagram and belong to RedBull. |
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| These images are sourced from Instagram and belong to RedBull. |
Ok, I will say something. These are not only creative,
they’re engaging. Notice a few key things are happening here:
- Creative and appropriate use of ‘branded’ hashtags
- [decent] Metrics are built-in, e.g. likes and comments
- Brand building is happening
- Engagement is happening
- Campaigns are coordinated, e.g. #FlyingFriday #Allnighter #Summeriscoming
Redbull is phenomenal
at creating and reinforcing their brand loyalty here. There are other examples listed as links below.
If you’re a recognizable brand, it won’t be that hard to
build a following. You have other challenges like engaging them, giving back somehow, etc. If you’re a startup or trying to build a brand, follow the
guidebook; know who you are and what you do best, ‘impute’ your mission on your
customers (Steve Jobs would have said that), keep it simple, be consistent, create
impressions, back it up with your product or service, etc. To build a
following, you’ll have to do a few key things really well:
- Create great content, i.e. great photographic mini-ads
- Be consistent
- Give your customers and potential customers some incentive to follow you
A note about that last point: what’s the incentive here? Let
me repeat, social credibility is currency on Instagram. Chew on that for a while.
It’s a really interesting thing to think about in terms of social/engagement
marketing and advertising.
There are other ways to engage your following, once you have
one, and all of these have a caveat – ‘if appropriate’:
- Follow them back
- Like their stuff
- Comment on their content and feed
- Run campaigns, discounts, special deals, etc.
- Make them feel like they are a part of something unique, a movement, a revolution, a club, etc.
When you create content, and put it out there on Instagram,
you now have something to interact with your ‘followers’ over. If you have a
few thousand followers, it’s no sweat. You can expect, if you have great
content, about 15-20% ‘like’ rate. You can expect 50-100 comments per post.
All of this doesn’t require reciprocity, but especially if you’re
leveraging ‘key influencers’ in your following, it will require some. If you have
500k followers, like RedBull, there’s no way you can manage
interaction with regularity, consistency, etc. For example, there’s Hootsuite for the creation phase and Adobe
SocialAnalytics for the analysis phase, but nothing that I can find in the
‘engagement management’ phase.
To sum it all up, Instagram represents a tremendous
opportunity for genuine engagement with your current and potential customers. You can drive sales and brand loyalty, and there's potential to do it without putting the smallest dent in your marketing budget. Happy
shooting!
Check these out:
For number crunchers: http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/17/instagram-reports-90m-monthly-active-users-40m-photos-per-day-and-8500-likes-per-second/
If you must know: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_capital
Hello world: http://instagram.com/jordan_is
P.S. Private Accounts = #FAIL
