These reflections help to unearth the relations of power between Instagram and Facebook, and other businesses. As outlined earlier, the cooperation between Facebook and Instagram has resulted in a significant number of modifications that the photosharing platform undertook to follow Facebook’s conduct. Using the platform, users are engaged in a permanent creative activity, communication and ubiquitous presence that also extends towards other social media platforms, such as Twitter and Tumblr. These changes testify, through the commodification of users’ practice of photosharing, that the evolution of social media marketing techniques turns Instagram into a more commercialised place.
As noted, in the digital age, unidirectional systems of communication do not fulfil marketing purposes anymore. Rather it is necessary for businesses to establish engagement with users. Traditional branding was mainly constructed with iconic elements, such as logotypes or company graphic images, whilst now online branding is based on the interactive experience of users. As discussed earlier, the uniqueness of using Instagram in online branding is recognisable in the use of images for storytelling. Indeed, on the one hand, brands, through official Instagram accounts, tell the story of their product showing an array of aspects that users do not find in general advertising. Meanwhile, on the other hand, through the use of photo contests and calls to action, brands invite users to share images of their everyday lives in connection with the brand. This aims to show how products actually exist with customers.
The use of Instagram in social media marketing gives to brands the visibility and possibility to unroll visual narratives around and about brands. When brands start telling stories, their products and/or services take centre stage and marketing becomes narrative. In this way, brands also aim to encourage users to do the same and tell stories about their products. The stories that brands share on Instagram intend to sell styles, meanings and values in order to accomplish effective marketing. This can also be seen in particular through Instagram brands’ photo streams. In fact, brands structure their streams alternating photos of products with photos representing unordinary moments, in which people are protagonists of the scenes with brands.
The LG Nordic Instagram account is only one example of many that shows how brands present common patterns that replicate the principles of simplicity and persuasion, personalisation, involvement and authenticity. Together with product promotion, brands follow the principle of user engagement to alternate brand/product promotion with users’ entertainment. In this way, users are able to follow new launches and, also, the real life of their favourite brands. In this case, the use of storytelling to disclose the real life of brands is related to the intent to reduce the distance between brands and consumers, as discussed earlier. To do this, brands strategically share images of leisure time and backstage (that usually show the production and employees). On Instagram, social media marketing strategies are widely employed in particular by brands that do not intend to show a pure form of advertising, rather a means more connected to Internet users and so more social.
Visual Media Marketing
