Using Instagram To Market Your Brand

2013 really saw Instagram become a social network for the masses. Following its purchase by Facebook, Instagram has grown at a rapid pace with people globally using it to share photos of their daily lives. Gone are the days of it solely being an app for hipsters to take pictures of their food whilst adding fancy filters.

According to the Instagram press page, it has an average of 55m photos shared daily, 150m active monthly users and 1.2b photo likes. It comes as no surprise that brands and marketers across the world are thinking of interesting and innovative ways to engage these audiences using it as a way to promote their products or services. Many businesses often use social media to fire out uninspiring marketing messages that fall on deaf ears, a genuine reason for users to turn away from a brand. Instagram however can prove to be a brilliant and unique way to target consumers.

As a digital agency, we work with our clients to integrate clever Instagram campaigns into their digital marketing and engage their target audience. If Instagram is the right tool for your business, it can prove to be an incredibly powerful tool to help you tell your brand’s story.

Here at Parallax, we’ve put together a quick guide to help understand how Instagram can market your brand.

Use it to tell your brand’s story

Instagram provides the perfect platform for sharing images and video that can give consumers a real understanding of what your brand is all about. Brands can easily create an affinity with followers and turn them into potential customers through the sharing of images. Whether it’s posting about the company offices, the thought process behind creating products, glorious city skylines, or even staff, it can all be incredibly effective at shaping your brand online.

Look at Nike on Instagram for example. By posting powerful, inspirational images of everyday life instead of a constant stream of product shots, they’ve gathered a following of over 3m users.

Promote your products or services in a creative way

Avoid using generic images of your products that people can find easily on your website. If you’re using Instagram, use it creatively to promote your products in way that will entertain users.

Topshop use Instagram in a fantastic way. Piggybacking off the recent polar vortex in the USA, they posted images of a selection of their clothes that would keep you warm whilst staying stylish.

Competitions

OK, so using social media for competitions is nothing new. Every man and his dog offer ‘Like and Share to Win’ competitions on Facebook which has become the norm. Instagram offers a different slant on this by encouraging interaction with brands to increase followers and overall conversions.

Absolut recently put together a unique Instagram competition where users submitted a photo that encapsulates London’s greatest features entwined with a specific #absolutlondon hashtag. The best images were uploaded to Facebook with winners receiving limited edition Jamie Hewlett designed vodka bottles.

Behind the scenes access

Giving fans behind the scenes access to a brand is a fantastic way to reward them for checking out your brand on social media and following your updates. Engage users with videos and photos showing how products are made, or what’s happening at the latest event.

It’s been blogged about hundreds of times, but London Fashion Week was the ultimate example of brands providing their followers with unique behind the scenes content.

Check out some examples of our favourite Instagram marketing –

SWISS Air

SWISS Air took Instagram marketing to the next level with one of the most creative campaigns we’ve seen. To coincide with their sponsorship of the International Geneva Motor Show, SWISS Air needed to create a campaign to promote the event. The event itself already had a relevant hashtag that users could search for on Instagram to learn more about the event.

With their Instagram takeover, SWISS Air hijacked the hashtag by placing a plethora of photos within Instagram photostreams. Each image was marked with the International Geneva Motor Show hashtag and when all combined, created the look of a SWISS plane within timelines. Users could then click on a particular seat of their choice and book a flight to Geneva from within the app.

By simply using Instagram hashtags, SWISS Air created an incredibly well targeted social marketing campaign reaching new audiences.

Burberry

Burberry are one of the most digitally savvy brands around at the moment. After announcing an increase in sales of 13% in 2013, the brand has been particularly focussed on using digital and social media as key marketing tools.

Burberry use Instagram to give fans a real feel of the brand with amazing behind the scenes footage, and access to the celebrities that wear their products. Not only that, they post powerful imagery of London enhancing their brand as one of the capital’s most influential fashion labels.

ASOS

We’ve mentioned ASOS quite a few times in our previous Content Marketing Showcase articles. ASOS obviously push a lot of time and resource into their digital activities and have a keen focus on using Instagram. With style tips, new products, giveaways and behind the scenes shoots, they’ve managed to engage an audience of over 1.2m.

Where next for Instagram?

2014 sees the global roll out of Instagram ads. After a successful trial in the United States, Instagram will be offering a handful of brands the opportunity to advertise using the app ensuring that all advertisements remain creative and engaging. Instagram are hoping to grow the business over the next few years and monetising the application was the next logical step. It’ll be interesting to see ads showing in timelines over the next 12 months and as a digital agency, we’ll definitely be eager to see how these will work for our clients in the future.

Check out some of the early ads.