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Influencer marketing is one of the fastest growing channels in advertising, with our research estimating that $1 billion was spent on Instagram influencers alone in 2017. With brand dollars pouring into the space, social media influencers, whether established or aspiring, are vying for brand sponsorship deals. I founded Mediakix, a dedicated influencer marketing agency, in 2011. In the years since, I have witnessed a rise in these deceptive practices and wanted to draw awareness to the issue. These practices span the gamut of unscrupulousness and range from gaming Instagram’s algorithm with “pods” to purchasing fake followers and engagement to creating entirely fake personas and accounts. It’s difficult but not impossible to know whether an influencer has purchased fake followers and engagement. About a year ago, we were evaluating several accounts for potential campaigns and noted that one woman in particular had more than doubled her followers in less than a week. While rapid follower growth isn’t the only indicator of whether an influencer paid for followers, it does raise a red flag, especially if nearly every Instagram post is sponsored. We checked her rate afterwards and it had nearly tripled due to her boosted (fake) following....
Jasmine shares one of her favorite quotes from author Simon Sinek, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” In her opinion, there’s no better platform than Instagram to showcase why you do something. She believes Instagram’s powerful storytelling components give you the ability to make customers loyal before a purchase has been made. If you can tell a powerful story in fewer than 87 characters (the caption limit), along with a photo that matches and elevates the storytelling component, you’ll win at Instagram....
Meet Frank, the cheeky Instagram persona of the Australian skincare startup Frank Body.
Frank likes to casually call you "babe," jokes about wanting to get in the shower with you, talks about your buns, and doesn't go more than five hours without popping up on your feed. If you were to meet him in a bar, you might find him a bit of a sleaze. But as a social media personality? Frank is hilarious.
According to cofounder Erika Geraerts, Frank's been crucial in helping Frank Body, which is known for its coffee-based scrubs, build brand awareness around the world. "We were essentially dealing with a product that looked like dirt in a bag," Geraerts says. "We wanted to cut through the beauty industry jargon—be it scientific, flowery, or hippy—and speak to our customer in an honest, direct, and frank way. From here our lovable character of Frank was born."
Frank Body has used Instagram as its primary marketing tool. "It allowed us to take risks and to connect with our customers directly without the costs of traditional advertising," Geraerts says. In three years, the account has garnered 682,000 followers, and Geraerts says this has been crucial to driving sales. The company has managed to sell over 1.5 million products across 149 countries since its launch. It is now so popular in the United Arab Emirates and Russia that the company is planning to set up local operations in those countries. "It took time, consistency, and dirty work," she says....
This is a big statement from MDG Advertising: Instagram may be the single biggest opportunity for social media marketers next year. Can it be true?
We’ve heard plenty this year from Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat, as their uses and back end business deals fluctuate, but Instagram has been the steady social platform not making too much noise. But that just might be what makes it 2016’s winner. Its consistency has made it the fastest growing platform around right now, and MDG has gathered fresh data to prove why marketers everywhere should be factoring Instagram into their budgets.
A few key takeaways from the infographic....
Are you wondering how to use images and short video to enhance your customers’ experience?
Have you considered creating a brand profile on Instagram to make your brand visible to a new market?
Getting started on Instagram is fairly straightforward.Simply sign up for an account (e.g., use the same name as your Twitter handle), add a profile photo (e.g., brand logo) and a link to your website, connect your account to Facebook and let your followers know they can follow you there.
It’s what to do next that presents a difficulty for many brands.
What follows are 26 tips and brand examples, an A-Z guide, for capitalizing on a business presence on Instagram....
Instagram part of your social media marketing?
Do you want to run contests on Instagram?
Adding Instagram contests to your social media mix can quickly expand your reach.
In this article I’ll explain the different types, as well as how to create and run a successful Instagram contest for your brand or business...
n the Part One of Visual Marketing with Instagram series we talked about some facts about Instagram and how to get started with Instagram for your visual marketing.Just like any other social network out there, there are some best practices and right ways to use it and in this part of the series, we will focus on how to effectively use Instagram to make the most out of this platform...
Instagram ads are coming. We don’t know what they’ll look like or when they’ll arrive. But Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has promised that Instagram won’t be ad-free forever. The world’s largest brands are already using the photo-sharing app and its new video tool to pimp their products.
Facebook is betting big on mobile ads, which went from being a blip on the social network’s radar to accounting for 41 percent of the company’s ad revenue in just one year. The network reportedly plans to run 15-second, TV-style ads in users’ News Feeds, which could cost advertisers $2.5 million a pop. If that 15-second limitation—as yet unconfirmed by Facebook—sounds familiar, it’s because 15 seconds is also the cap that Instagram put on its new video tool.
Companies are familiarizing themselves with Instagram video as they prepare for the inevitable launch of video ads and seek to avoid angering Instagram devotees in the process....
Instagram is a great tool for capturing fan and customer excitement in the moment, and Brian Zuercher of Venueseen has offered 4 tips for successful Instagram campaigns using the #Indy500orBust event as a case study....
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In 2017, the industry's love affair with Instagram isn't showing any signs of slowing down. Digiday recently checked in with a number of fashion and beauty social media insiders at SXSW's Decoded Fashion and Create & Cultivate events, confirming that Instagram remains a top priority in their digital marketing strategies. "Instagram is always a priority for us," Rosi Sanchez, a social media strategist at Fossil, told Digiday. "We have more reach and a larger new follower group there, so it leads to more conversions. Until we get to 1.5 million or 2 million followers, it’s going to be our number one priority." Fossil isn't alone. Social media strategists from more established brands like L’Oréal USA, Shopbop, and Murad also indicated that Instagram was their top social media priority for the foreseeable future. Brands from any industry looking to level up their visual storytelling chops should keep a close eye on fashion brands for inspiration. To help get you started, we've compiled a list of 15 fashion accounts -- both big and small -- who are crushing the Instagram game. Take a look below, and start planning your next big Instagram push. For a deeper dive on how to build a presence on Instagram, check out our complete guide to Instagram marketing.
Many bloggers are active on Instagram, but not many have taken the plunge and tapped into the amazing advertising opportunities that Instagram offers. For as little as $1 per day you could be advertising your latest blog post in the Instagram newsfeed, and getting more clicks through to your website.
And because Instagram is owned by Facebook, you’ll be using the targeting power of one of the biggest consumer databases on the planet!
In this post I’ll show you how to set up your first Instagram ad and how to look at the results....
Instagram is the social platform for visual content. For brands, Instagram can be a place to show off products, celebrate your culture, feature your community, and even make some sales.
Here is a list of brands on Instagram. Some of the brands post their own content, while others feature images and videos from followers and contributors. Several of the brands offer feeds to purchase items from images....
After passing the 300 million users mark a few months ago, Instagram is one of the most popular social media networks, second only to Facebook, which by the way owns Instagram. For everyday users, it’s an excellent way to build and grow an audience and showcase their creativity.
Businesses, on the other hand, can rely on Instagram for creating brand awareness, audience building and content marketing, as well as for selling.
In this post, I go over 8 different types of tools you can use to take your Instagram marketing efforts to the next level, whether you’re a solopreneur, small business owner or are part of a social media marketing team....
Using hashtags, acronyms & the right slang is a great way to get more Likes and followers on Instagram.
Terms like #TBT, #WCW & #MCM can be confusing at first. I was lost when I first started using Instagram!
I always wished I’d had a handy guide to explain all the lingo.
That’s why I wrote this article — because speaking the Instagram slang is such an easy way to get more followers. So here are definitions for 32 of the most common Instagram terms....
If you are marketing to teens (and college-age youths), the time has come to beef up your Instagram presence, as this recent SocialTimes article demonstrates. Here are tips for using Instagram to build your fan base and generate sales revenue, based in large part on what we learned during the successful launch of our sister company, Pro Stock Hockey.
A few quick stats on the company’s Instagram results to date: - 1,972 (highly relevant) followers
- 21,740 likes
- 260 likes/photo
- 99.9 acclaim value
- (BTW, Followers for Instagram is a great Instagram management app)...
Last year, Instagram announced it had over 150 million users, 16 billion photo shares, 1.2 Billion likes daily and on average 55M photos per day. TrackMaven, a competitive analysis firm, has released a study that exposes how Fortune 500s are using Instagram, and gives tips on how you can use Instagram to your advantage.
TrackMaven noticed some trends and patterns by tracking the accounts to identify what’s working and what isn’t with the Fortune 500. From the posting strategies, filters, and interactions, they uncovered some interesting secrets and findings in their report.
Sabel Harris, lead marketing maven at TrackMaven gave three tips for brands based on Instagram strategies employed by some of the top-performing Fortune 500s....
Instagram is becoming a core platform for brands to engage with consumers since it registers consumer engagement 18 times that of Facebook and 48 times that of Twitter, according to the latest report from L2 Think Tank.
The "Intelligence Report: Social Platforms" found that the visual component of Instagram has helped the platform grow to 100 million users with the average luxury brand having 100,000 followers. Other visual platforms such as Vine, Pinterest and YouTube have grown significantly and continue to be platforms for brands to deeply engage with consumers.
"For all the mindshare that it occupies, social media ultimately drives very little ecommerce, less than 0.25 percent, and site traffic, less than 3 percent, for prestige brands," said Danielle Bailey, research lead L2 Think Tank, New York....
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Shop proved how easy it is to scam advertisers by creating ‘Amanda Smith’ and ‘Alexa Rae.’