By: Slavica Božić, Community Manager
Instagram has become a real battleground for brands. In the rapid expansion of this app and its increasing popularity among young people, many brands have recognized the importance of opening accounts and engaging in communication with the Instagram community. However, Instagram has brought the biggest success to the fashion and beauty industry.
Passionate fans of make-up, clothes and fashion are constantly looking for ideas, products and trends, and the easiest way to present these products is through photographs. The visual nature of Instagram has enabled clients not only to sell their products, but to sell a lifestyle. In many ways, Instagram has begun to do the job of fashion magazines, and we have to admit it is very successful at it.
Instagram has received the most attention and trust from younger brands, which in a relatively short time have built their names on it, felt the pulse of the customers and found a way to become part of their Instagram feed, and subsequently their lifestyle. Realizing this power, many well-known fashion and beauty brands have launched their own profiles and employed teams of people who are engaged in creating content for this network. The photography model has changed – Instagram demands life style moments, a reviving of the brand and constant interaction with models. Big fashion brands have joined the race for the attention of the audience, like Burberry, which uses this platform to promote all its fashion shows and build a buzz between shows, or Women Secret, which has one of the most popular Instagram accounts in the world.
The fact that Instagram is the first choice for fashion and beauty brands is supported by recent research that found that out of 13 million total interactions at NY Fashion Week (like, comment, other activities) 97% of them happened on Instagram, 2% on Facebook and only 1% on Twitter.
And since it has pulled a large number of brands into its story, Instagram is now entering the next stage of development – the end of the organic reach of posts. The increase in the number of Instagram accounts, the inclusion of a large number of brands in the Instagram world, sponsored posts, increased amount of video content – all these have had a role in reducing organic reach. For example, about 70 million photos are posted on Instagram every day, which means serious visual competition between brands that are fighting for a “look at me” in the sea of images.
Instagram, like Facebook, started with a new algorithm which, instead of the quantity of content that ‘pushed’ the brands to the top in terms of follower engagement and presence, now requires quality content for the brand to appear at all in the newsfeed of users. The task for brands in the future will be testing who their followers actually are, and how they can engage them. Another new factor is that recommendations from known influencers carry 22% more weight than a recommendation from an ordinary user. Does that mean that influencers will become brand champions on Instagram and will bring them new followers?
In this race, the inherent glamor of the fashion industry will not be enough. Brands will have to rethink their strategies if they don’t want to be forgotten by their followers as quickly as they started following them.
