Usually, brands directly contact popular users they are interested in to take advantage of their popularity and photographic skills. The Instagram users that are approached directly by brands are vernacularly defined as ‘popular’. The reason for this appellation derived from the ‘Instagram popular page’, a section that includes users who collect a certain amount of ‘likes’ in a certain amount of time. Being on the ‘popular page’ gives to users a high level of visibility over the platform, and this is what interests businesses. Usually, brands approach popular users to launch photo campaigns, product promotions or event coverage as part of their ordinary photosharing. The idea to involve ordinary users gives a sense of authenticity reminiscent of the snapshot aesthetics and aims to suggest to other users that the brand is close to is audience. Based on a free cooperation, brands ask users to share photos as they typically do, plus adding the brand within the image. Visual storytelling is the technique adopted by the majority of freelance social media marketers and popular Instagram users.
Overall, the use of social media marketing strategies appears similar among Igers community members, professionals and popular users. Following an accurate plan, the photosharing shows the visual storytelling of products (accurately labelled through a strategic use of hashtags and geo-tags), where emotions and experiences are widely employed, and where the product is shown as part of users’ ordinary life experiences. Following the idea that ‘authenticity presents itself as a critical component of many contemporary branding campaigns’, it is arguable that the use of Instagram is part of the interest in blurring the rigid boundaries between brands and customers.
The employment of user-generated advertising is another common practice in social media marketing, and it is usually pulled together with the professional use of Instagram for a richer and more effective user engagement. Communication agencies present the regular use of multiple accounts in order to manage the array of social media marketing strategies for different clients. In this, visual storytelling, entertainment and user engagement figure again as the main followed guidelines by advertising and communication agencies. For example, in 2014, the Ford Italia Instagram account aimed to valorise their new car under the perspective of storytelling, giving value to the entire history of the brand starting from its fundamental steps: its successes, challenges and competitors. In addition, new and renewable sources of stories are used as ways to narrate content, events or launch new products.
In this case, the brand account is totally managed by a global digital agency (network of advertising, marketing and consultancy companies) that plans the entire photosharing and other potential user involvement in photo contests or events coverage. This can be seen by the event that Ford Italia organised to promote #guidasicura (safe driving) in 2014. From that photo campaign, it can be seen how the brand, through the topic of driving safely, engaged with users and at the same time enhanced the brand visibility without displaying mere images of the car.
Instagram Communities: Photo Contests and Visual Promotion
