Here are 10 brands worth checking out on Instagram, and what your brand can learn from their strategies.
Most people don’t need much encouragement to eat ice cream. But following an ice cream brand on social media? Ben & Jerry‘s makes it easy because they have an account that’s visually interesting…and delicious-looking in a way that distracts from the fact that they’re flat out showcasing products. One strength the brand has is its willingness to crowdsource. Many of their pics — half the times you don’t know which ones — come from the Ben & Jerry’s faithful.
Nike has an incredibly dynamic Instagram account. They post pictures of people in action — running, jumping, stretching, training — and usually in visually appealing places, like a forest of redwoods. What Nike is also doing, though, is showing followers its product in use. The subtext: Awesome feats of athleticism involve Nike.
The White House‘s Instagram features a great many pictures of the comings and goings of the President and his family. Some photos are about what you’d expect — speeches, podiums, a plug for health care — but then there are photos like the one above. Behind the scenes shots humanize your brand and help you connect with the audience, just by taking down the barriers a bit.
One key takeaway from Starbucks‘ Instagram is how the brand’s visuals resemble those of average Instagram users fond of posting filtered pics of their cups of coffee. Or rather, Starbucks is mimicking how followers use and talk about their product. The upshot? It feels less like advertising.
Oreo hasn’t forgotten that Instagram isn’t just about still images. The brand posts plenty of short video and animations. Some are plain entertaining, others are instructive, like how to make confectionary modifications to the cookie. Useful content, like tips or tutorials, is always a good move.
Jet engines. Wind turbines. Trains. GE‘s Instagram shows all these things, which might not seem like the most interesting photo subjects, and makes them cool, and perhaps most importantly, fun to look at. Plus, it connects machinery that might be be otherwise distant to followers’ everyday lives in an unexpectedly fresh way.
GoPro is about lifestyle. On Instagram, the brand shows the results of its product — documented daring, the kind of images that elicit stunned yet impressed responses. They’re figuring the view from the edge of a cliff is something that perhaps more than a few GoPro users would be psyched to capture, and the brand is reminding that with GoPro, they can.
Whole Foods knows its audience. Like GoPro, the company’s Instagram plays into lifestyle of its customers, figuring the appeal of not only the store but the account is that being conscious about what you eat and where it comes from is attractive to fans and followers. That’s why they’re choosing to engage with the brand whose values align with theirs. To some, dirty carrots straight from the ground might look gross. For others, they look natural.
Ocean conservation agency Oceana has a cause — obviously. Through Instagram, the organization takes followers to hard to reach places, like underwater, to show followers the animals and habitats they’re working to protect. Oceana doesn’t preach on Instagram, but it will make you look a polar bear in the eye.
Microsoft hasn’t been on Instagram long, but so far they seem to understand two important aspects about social media. One, you can’t relentlessly hawk your product. Two, you’ve got to tell stories. With their #domore campaign, they post pictures with captions highlighting people who are doing interesting things, like a man who turned an empty swimming pool into a solar-powered self-sustaining greenhouse in Arizona. Microsoft is trading inspiration in return for the chance to be a part of your daily life.
Erin Carson is a Staff Reporter for CNET and a former Multimedia Editor for TechRepublic.
