I’ve discussed my love of Instagram on the Studio 7 blog before. Currently, I’m following 392 accounts on Instagram.  I’d estimate that about 15% of those 392 are accounts belonging to my friends. The rest include celebrities, fashion bloggers, restaurants, fitness personalities, writers, photographers, retailers, restaurants, and the list goes on.

 

On a high level, I love Instagram because:

  • I enjoy taking and looking at pictures.
  • I love the platform’s simplicity. It’s not a difficult platform to understand or use, and it has a very minimalist layout.
  • I’m a fan of any platform that lets you control what you would like to see. I enjoy asymmetrical social platforms (Instagram, Twitter) much more than symmetrical ones (Facebook, LinkedIn), where in order for someone to follow you, you have to follow them too.
  • Instagram’s search and display functions continue to improve with every update. If I want to see pictures of periwinkle hydrangeas on a front lawn in Nantucket I can, and if I want to look for pictures of German shepherd puppies I can easily do that too!
  • It’s more private. When I get tagged in or like a photo on Instagram it will not show up on my Aunt Cheryl’s feed. (This also assumes Aunt Cheryl is on Instagram, which she probably isn’t, but you get the idea. I will discuss this further momentarily.)

 

However, the most important reason I love Instagram is because it offers the highest quality content out of any social network. Regardless of the account, everything about the application makes it less commercialized and more focused on the content. Part of the posting process itself requires taking time to edit your photo to perfection! And not only is the content of a higher quality, but many accounts don’t post more than a few times a week. Instagram is the only network where I can actually get “caught up” on my feed. Given the fact that I follow nearly 400 accounts, I think that’s pretty impressive.

 

This quote gets it exactly right:
“Facebook gets all of the photos we took — the good, the bad, etc.—while Instagram just gets the one that really summed up the event we went to. It is much more selective, and honestly people spend more time on the captions to make them relevant/funny. On Facebook we just throw up everything we got so people can tag each other and show our family members that we’re still alive.”

 

(This quote is from one of my favorite articles that discusses how younger people are really using social media. Read it in its entirety here.)

 

I’m definitely not alone in my love for Instagram: There are 300 million active Instagram users, a growing number. Every second, 2,100 images are posted on Instagram, averaging 180 million uploads each day.  Here’s the most important statistic I’m going to throw at you: 73% of Instagrammers are between 15 and 35 years old. Millennials remain the hardest-to-capture, most-sought-after audiences for marketers, so if this doesn’t scream “Content Opportunity!” for brands, then I don’t know what does.

 

Brands have a lot to say about their products, their company, and their philosophy. At the same time, customers are beginning to desire a more efficient brand experience. They want to experience visuals, not text. They also want to discover new brands while rediscovering what they love about brands they already know. I really feel that Instagram strikes the balance between the two. Instagram gives you a chance as a brand to give your customers a behind-the-scenes look while showcasing your unique products and stories. It’s all about visually telling your brand story.

 

Quality content is the key in the digital marketing world, and as a company, illustrating your brand philosophy and character through images is the most effective way to connect with audiences of any age. Customers now want to be able to scroll fast, discover new content, find out about the next trends, and be part of a community – Instagram offers exactly that, all in a beautiful, visual world!

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