Did you know 40.1% of millennials now choose a travel spot based on its ‘Instagrammability’?

Instagram was born in 2010 and in the space of 8 years it has gained over 500 million daily users with 25 million of those now being business accounts. Instagram has become a way of life for some people and whilst Instagram has even led to fame and success for some, others still don’t realise the potential that the photo based app holds.

‘Marketing has the potential to influence real life, but life also has the power to influence marketing’ this is something I read recently and it cannot be more true. These days, how do you choose where to go on holiday or what restaurant to eat at? What persuades you into buying certain clothes or makeup brands, or even how to style your own home? You might not admit it or you might not have even realised, but Instagram has become a huge influence towards what we eat, buy, wear and where we spend our free time… and it’s just a grid based app full of life based images.

Have you heard millennials say “doing it for the gram” or “that is so Instagrammable”? If you make your business, whether it be a brand, a hotel, a restaurant, Instagrammable then you also make yourself shareable, which creates endless opportunities for free marketing. How many times have you gone to a restaurant and seen people take pictures of their food? Or even done it yourself? Where do those pictures then go… Instagram, free marketing for that business right there ‘because it looks good!’.

Jake Thompson from Social Chain says: “Over the last decade, there’s been a tremendous societal shift in appreciation of design and, in a world that offers consumers so much choice, it’s more important than ever for brands to put design at the forefront when making key business decisions.” As a designer within the marketing industry myself, I have seen so many brands do it all so wrong and also a huge lack of appreciation for design. People bypass design and don’t see it as an important factor for a business, but good design is everything for a business’ success.

Everything around us has a designer behind it, you may never see that designer or ever know their name, but that person has put time, effort and most importantly thought into their creation that has influenced you into buying it. What are the main key factors that make you buy something or visit somewhere? Is it the fact that it’s something new and different to everything you have ever seen before?

The best way to create content which puts you on the map is by giving people ‘something they can’t find elsewhere’. Have you stopped looking at menus when you go out to eat? You find yourself at that restaurant where you saw your friend post a snap of a ‘Pornstar Martini Tree’ and their ‘Fried Chicken Nachos with Cheese dip’, you don’t need to see the menu, you already know what you’re getting!

I know that I myself have shown a waiter a picture on Instagram and said ‘can I have that please’. I didn’t know what it was called or what was in it, it just looked good and I wanted it. It’s really not an exaggeration that Instagram has been described as ‘more valuable than a website’ when it comes to self-promotion. If your environment or products are Instagram worthy then people will take pictures and do the costly promo work for you, for free, bringing in the customers again and again.

Now I’m not saying that as a business you should solely rely on other people to just take photos for you because that won’t work, you need to keep your brand in the top of your mind, create content that people will want to capture themselves and also your own feed has just as much potential to get people talking. Put all of that at the forefront and the rest will follow.

To make yourself Instagrammable, you first need to understand what aspirational content looks like. It’s about setting a standard which makes consumers feel that the only way to live ‘the best life’ is by having your product or service and no one understands this better than the ‘online influencer community’. Not heard of them before? Their goal is to make locations, foods, and products look as good as possible to earn paying brand partnerships, followers and engagement both for themselves and the businesses they represent. For a business to achieve the same results we should take note of how influencers utilise the platform.

Working with influencers might sound expensive at first, but there are so many different ways a partnership can work. Depending on what type of business you have, you can offer different benefits in return for videos, posts, stories or shoutouts that are then seen by all of their followers.

It’s kind of like a game of swaps, a holiday company sends an influencer on an all expenses paid trip, they get a swanky hotel, and a few goodies such as personalised chocolates and champagne in the room (*instagrams immediately* before stuffing it in their mouth) and in return they get a week of non stop snaps from that influencer. How many people do you think will then be influenced to book that hotel? There’s not been any money spent towards expensive promotional campaigns, just an ‘influencer’ staying in their own accommodation and now they’ve gained many bookings from it.

If you decide this could be a way of marketing for your business, do your research when searching for influencers. The technique is so beneficial now that everyone is trying to do it. Don’t just look at someone’s following, check their engagement and ask for their insights, you don’t want to fall into the trap of someone who’s just bought 100,000 followers to gain free products. Why do you think celebs get so much free stuff, they’re the perfect influencers; a huge following and everyone believes anything they have must be amazing, right? (wrong)

Finally make your Instagram look nice, make sure your images all link in terms of a theme. Don’t just capture an image, that’s blurry on an angle, unflattering, bad lighting… I could go on. Appreciate the design of your overall feed and think to yourself would I buy this, does this have the same wow factor on me as that Pornstar Martini Tree.

Need help with your social media? Need a hand finding, contacting and booking the right influencers for your brand? Whether it’s full social media management or simply some advice, we can help.