Please note that these views are my own and do not represent the views of any companies discussed.
In my most recent blog post (https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/melboscher/2017/02/23/the-use-of-twitter-as-a-social-media-marketing-channel-an-efficient-forum-for-customers-but-a-risky-approach-for-firms/), I discussed the use of Twitter as a social media marketing channel, and how it is risky for firms but beneficial for consumers. This blog will look at a similar social media marketing channel, Instagram, and how you can measure the success of an Instagram page.
Followers
There are many ways in which a firm can promote a new product or service, however social media marketing is on the rise, as 90% of young adults today use social media, and one third of millennials say that social media is one of their preferred communication channels with businesses (Pick, 2016). Therefore, firms across the world should consider investing in social media, especially if they target young adults. One social media channel which is continuing to rise in popularity across the world is Instagram, which had 600 million active users by the end of January 2017 (Chaffey, 2017). As Instagram continues to rise in popularity, firms across many industries are seeking the benefits of using Instagram to attract their target market.
Source: Instagram (2017a)
As you can see from the above image, National Geographic, the official magazine of the National Magazine Society, have evolved exponentially due to effective marketing campaigns and they have now become the second largest brand on Instagram, with 74.2 million followers (National Geographic, 2017; Instagram, 2017a). National Geographic closely follow Nike, who currently have 70.5 million followers (Instagram, 2017b). This is an interesting result, because it shows how two completely different companies have managed to excel on the same social media platform. As you can see from the images below, both firms use Instagram to promote their products; the main difference being that Nike sells tangible products, such as footwear, whereas National Geographic try and promote their photographs and photographers.
Source: (Instagram, 2017a)
Source: (Instagram, 2017b)
See the following link for tips from another blogger on how to successfully use Instagram to promote your products: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/drive-sales-with-instagram/.
Engagement Metrics
According to Zarrella (2010), effective measurement is key to show business value and the return on investment for social media marketing campaigns. Hence, it is important to track how successful your social media channels are. As shown above, measuring the number of followers a social media page has is effective, however there are other important measures to consider. The two easiest engagement metrics to measure are time on-site and page views per visit, because the longer a visitor spends on your site the deeper the relationship you build with them. This supports Bart et al (2005), who stated that building consumer trust is key to creating a long-term customer relationship. For example, Nike.com has an average of 5.72 page views per visitor, and each visitor spends 4 minutes 56 on their website (Alexa, 2017a). In comparison, Nationalgeographic.com only has 1.9 daily page views per visitors, and each visitor only spends 2 minutes 44 seconds on the website (Alexa, 2017b). This signifies the importance of measuring engagement metrics because it allows firms to see what position they are in in comparison to the industry leaders, and more importantly rival firms. Nike and National Geographic are not direct rivals of each other, and they currently operate in completely different industries, however they are the most followed brands on Instagram (Statista, 2017). Yet, Nike have more engagement on their website then National Geographic do, therefore perhaps National Geographic should use their strong Instagram presence to try and encourage more people to their website. For example, they could start to include direct links to their websites in the captions of their photos.
As a reader, if you are interested in knowing how many hits your blog posts or websites get, simply set up an account with Google analytics and get tracking: https://www.google.com/analytics/#.
Mentions
Another way to measure of the success of a social media platform, such as an Instagram page, is to look at mentions. A mention includes other users in their content, allowing them to quickly join the conversation and be recognised by viewers, e.g. @Nike (Pancer and Poole, 2016). Large brands, such as Nike, use sponsorship deals with celebrities to endorse their products, which includes mention Nike’s name when the celebrity posts a photo on Instagram. For example, Rory Mcllroy is currently in a sponsorship deal with Nike, therefore he mentions them in some of his Instagram posts (Nike, 2017):
Source: (Instagram, 2017c)
This is an effective use of a social media platform as a marketing channel because Mcllroy will have followers who don’t directly follow any of the Nike pages on Instagram, however they will be encouraged to follow the link and look at the Nike products that Mcllroy is promoting. Hence, encouraging them to purchase and wear Nike products, just like Mcllroy does. This is an example of when mentions are beneficial to a firm, however they can also be used to cast a negative light on the firm too. For example, if an Instagram user with a large following disliked a Nike product and mentioned the company in the caption, then some consumers may be discouraged to purchase products from Nike. A 2014 global survey conducted by Deloitte found that 87% of executive rated reputation risk are more important than other strategic risks (Deloitte, 2014). Therefore, it is important for all firms to closer monitor all social media activity, including mentions, to ensure that they are managing any negative press they receive.
For further details on how Nike became so successful on Instagram, click on the following link: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-nike-conquered-instagram-2015-12.
Additional measures
Followers, engagement metrics and mentions aren’t the only ways to measure how well an Instagram page is doing. To gain an understanding of the other ways to measure social media marketing success, such as using the click through rate, take a look at the following article: http://www.svmsolutions.com/resources/articles/how-measure-social-media-marketing-success.
Note: For the purpose of this blog, I was unable to find out the daily engagement statistics for the Nike and National Geographic Instagram pages, therefore their websites were used instead.
References:
Alexa (2017a) Nike.com Traffic Statistics [Online] <http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/nike.com> [Last accessed 4 April 2017]
Alexa (2017b) Nationalgeographic.com Traffic Statistics [Online] <http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/nationalgeographic.com> [Last accessed 4 April 2017]
Bart, Y., Shankar, V., Sultan, F. and Urban, G.L. (2005) ‘Are the drivers and role of online trust the same for all web sites and consumers? A large-scale exploratory empirical study’, Journal of Marketing, 69(4), pp. 133–152.
Chaffey, D. (2017) Global social media research summary 2017. Smart Insights. [Online] <http://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-strategy/new-global-social-media-research/> [Last accessed 4 April 2017]
Deloitte (2014) 2014 Global Survey on Reputation Risk.
Instagram (2017a) Natgeo [Online] <https://www.instagram.com/natgeo/?hl=en> [Last accessed 4 April 2017]
Instagram (2017b) Nike [Online] <https://www.instagram.com/nike/?hl=en> [Last accessed 4 April 2017]
Instagram (2017c) Rory Mcllroy [Online] <https://www.instagram.com/p/BR6a4ltDV6k/?taken-by=rorymcilroy&hl=en> [Last accessed 4 April 2017]
National Geographic (2017) About us [Online] <http://www.nationalgeographic.com/about/> [Last accessed 4 April 2017]
Nike (2017) Rory Mcllroy [Online] <http://news.nike.com/pages/rory-mcilroy> [Last accessed 4 April 2017]
Statista (2017) Leading brands ranked by number of Instagram followers as of February 2017 (in millions) [Online] <https://www.statista.com/statistics/253710/leading-brands-ranked-by-number-of-instagram-followers/> [Last accessed 5 April 2017]
Pancer, E. & Poole, M. (2016) The popularity and virality of political social media: hashtags, mentions, and links predict likes and retweets of 2016 U.S. presidential nominees’ tweets. Social Influence. Vol. 11, Issue. 4, pp.259-270.
Pick, T. (2016) 47 superb social media marketing stats and facts. Business 2 Community [Online] <http://www.business2community.com/social-media/47-superb-social-media-marketing-stats-facts-01431126#1V5PMafCzcj8mRse.97> [Last accessed 23 February 2017]
Zarrella, D. (2010) The Social Media Marketing Book. 1st ed. Sebastopol, Ca: O’Reilly Media.