Does Instagram have potential as a marketing channel?

Posted on 29th Jul 2013 @ 9:21 AM

Does Instagram have potential as a marketing channel?

Mobile app Instagram, which Facebook bought for a record $ 1 billion, is becoming increasingly popular communication channel and its power should not be underestimated. From simple mobile application for sharing photos Instagram has become a social network with 90 million active users per month, which makes it an interesting tool of marketing standpoint.  

The strength of this channel is capturing the moment and snap-sharing with the audience the brand. Photography is such an art in which the author creates a composition in such a manner that he wants to present it to the audience

Different filters may be applied to the image, further contribute to the impact of the composition. Hashtags use of the photograph makes it easier to reach consumers and to start discussion.

Each brand can share stories of everyday life through their Instagram photos. Within a day can happen so many things just waiting to be captured in a photo and shared? If you are a coffee company and you can shoot the tail of the employees at the coffee machine in the morning, if you are a beer company - how the working day ends with a cold beer and more.

These are simple stories that could happen to any person, and he can join with your answer at any time. This can cause fans to submit their own content featuring brand (user-generated content), which can be shared with the brand in other channels. Consumers increasingly enjoy the content created by other users, and the authors of this content feel pride when their brand give due recognition.

I recently did a study on how South Park using Instagram. Television show, which has an archive of video content sharing photos of the episodes with Instagram filter added to each image, so that the communication is in the style of the channel. In the period from mid-January to early March, South Park had 9,619 followers and 124 shared photos. The average commitment to publication was 968 likes and 27 comments, which does little more than 10% of the total number of fans. Interestingly, the involvement grew from January to March and if we take into account the last two weeks of the study period, the percentage of ownership will be 1% higher.

In our recent GAP began actively using Instagram as a channel for engaging your audience. At the end of April on the wall of GAP in Facebook post appeared, which invited fans to send their Instagram photos with hashtag # GAP. To further enhance the effect of this channel on the Facebook page of a GAP tab showing all the photos that were sent with the official hashtag. This further engages the audience of the brand and creates a large amount of content that will have the potential to be present in the communication of the brand.

The conclusion is that Instagram is sufficiently popular, and it works very well to increase the focus on the brand. Business still has not rushed to this channel and is a good time to experiment.

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