How often would you say you looked at Instagram? Monthly? Weekly? Daily? The latter is more than likely most of the populations answer. Instagram is used frequently for leisure, although it does have the ability to encourage purchase intent, if brands use it effectively. Instagram’s impressive growth is turning heads. Many brands are now heavily using the mobile app to boost their visual marketing strategy. (OurSocialTimes, 2016)
Instagram has 300 million monthly users, (a lot more than Twitter!) and its parent company, Facebook, know that mobile has changed the way people, (especially millennials and Gen X-ers), communicate, share and receive information and that’s why they are leading the way in helping marketers reach this audience. (eMarketer, 2016).
In fashion, Instagram has been the top platform in which users engage with brands, as it has become a primary source to gather consumer and industry information, aiding brands to conceptualize production design, engage with customers, and determine where advertising and content marketing resources should go. (Digiday, 2016) Especially during ‘fashion month’, when the stakes were higher than ever – last season, from February 12, 2015 to March 12, 2015, fashion week-related images attracted over 140 million likes and comments, according to Instagram. It is an advanced platform, able to capture real moments, pushing the limits, allowing unique experiences to be shared across a broader channel. (BusinessofFashion, 2016) Although Instagram is growing rapidly, Facebook are still in the lead with followers, for example on Instagram Louis Vuitton has 6.6 million followers, compared to Facebook where they have 17 million Facebook likes.
An example of a fashion brand that is using Instagram to promote themselves effectively is Hunter. The festival season is a key time for consumers to start drastically raiding Instagram for the latest fashion inspiration and everyone feels the desire to post images of themselves sporting their latest festival outfits – three-quarters of females, 16-24 year olds have shared a picture of themselves in the past three months, according to the Digital Trends Spring – UK – March 2016 Report. (Mintel, 2016). As part of their social media campaign, they gave away free personalised Hunter wellies to celebrities who were attending festivals, such as Glastonbury. This strategic move encouraged people on Instagram to share and like the posts from Hunter that were being promoted and shared by celebrities, increasing brand engagement and awareness of the brand.
Brand awareness is viewed as a means through which individuals become informed and accustomed with a brand name and recall and recognize the brand (Barreda, et al., 2015) It is important for brands to promote themselves effectively enough on Instagram, in order for consumers to want to purchase from the brand. As supported by serves as a tool for consumers to check the differentiation of the products and their uniqueness whereby it enrich consumers trust and confidence in facilitating their decision-making process. (Aaker, 1991)
Burberry is an example of a brand that utilise Instagram extremely well, providing consumers with imagery on cool locations in London or the latest footage from their photo shoots, which is different to many brands who fill their feed with dull images of clothing. They posted a behind-the-scenes shot from the filming of Romeo Beckham’s commercial, which is interesting content for consumers to see:
Source: (BusinessInsider, 2013)
Here is a link to the Burberry Instagram page to discover more about what and how they use Instagram to promote their brand: https://www.instagram.com/burberry/?hl=en.
As discussed there are many benefits to brands using Instagram to raise brand awareness, cause buzz on social media and target specific audiences, although the following drawbacks that should be made clear:
- It is highly technological – brands need to ensure they are using professional photography, in order to keep their brand reputation of quality and providing consumers with the correct message.
- Links do not work in captions – making it hard to drive consumers to the brand website.
- Limited advertising – only the large brands can afford Instagram advertisements.
(CyberAlert, 2014)
References:
Aaker, D., (1991). Managing Brand Equity: Capitalizing on the Value of a Brand Name. New York: Free Press.
Barreda, A., Biligihan, A., Nusair, K. & Okumus, F., (2015). Generating brand awareness in Online Social Networks. Computers in Human Behaviour, Vol, 50.
BusinessInsider, (2013). These 20 Brands Have Mastered The Use Of Instagram. [Online]
Available at: http://www.businessinsider.com/these-20-brands-have-mastered-the-use-of-instagram-2013-1?op=1&IR=T
[Accessed May 2016].
BusinessofFashion, (2016). Inside Fashions Instagram Wars. [Online]
Available at: http://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/fashion-tech/fashion-instagram-brands-social-media-proenza-schouler-calvin-klein
[Accessed April 2016].
CyberAlert, (2014). Which visual social media network should your business invest in?. [Online]
Available at: http://www.cyberalert.com/blog/index.php/pinterest-vs-instagram-pros-and-cons-for-brands/
[Accessed May 2016].
Digiday, (2016). The Instagram Effect: How the platform drives decisions at fashion brands. [Online]
Available at: http://digiday.com/brands/beyond-likes-instagram-informing-fashion-brands-internal-decisions/
[Accessed March 2016].
eMarketer, (2016). Instagram Continues Double-Digit Growth. [Online]
Available at: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Instagram-Continues-Double-Digit-Growth/1013612
[Accessed March 2016].
Mintel, (2016). Hunter kicks off festival season with new marketing strategy. [Online]
Available at: http://academic.mintel.com/display/768501/?highlight#hit1
[Accessed April 2016].
OurSocialTimes, (2016). How to use #Instagram for Marketing and Measure the Results. [Online]
Available at: http://oursocialtimes.com/how-to-use-instagram-for-marketing-and-measure-the-results/
[Accessed April 2016].
Leave a Reply