Have you leveraged Instagram in your business? Do you know how to use the platform to market your brand? Well, The Forever 21 sure does. This infographic from the team of Wishpond paints a picture of how Forever 21, (a 3rd most popular brand on Instagram) generated over 1.4 million followers and gives 7 powerful strategies on how brands can succeed on the social network, plus how to generate over 35K likes on every post.
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| How Forever 21 got to 1.4 Million Followers on Instagram - infographic |
Infographic Transcript
Call to action - Calls to can include requests for double taps (likes), requests for captions (comments) and announcements directing viewers to promotions and contests.
Knowledge of fanbase - What works for one brand might not work for another. Forever 21 is a retail brand that is able to maintain popularity while still posting a high number of products photos. They are able to do this by highlighting the self-expressive aspect of fashion. This focus on self-expression is evident in Forever 21's employment of crowd sourced content and requests for comments (cations) and likes.
Humanized Content - Instagram users tend to prefer candid and intimate moments over prefabricated promotional shots. Forever 21 uses accessible presentation and language to create humanized content that speaks to their particular brand identity.
Contests - Contests are a great way to increase engagement among loyal fans and boost Return-On-Investment. Forever 21 ran a 21 day long contest in which they asked fans to post photos with the hashtags #21DaysofLA and #Forever21. Contests like this can be a great way to generate crowd sourced content - which further humanizes the brand.
Post frequency - Post frequency varies among top brands. It is usually recommended that users post no more than 3 to 4 times a day. Posts should also be spread throughout the day to increase visibility and decrease the impression of spamming. regularity, timing and moderation are the key factors here.
Hashtags - The rules here are simple and well established among the Instagram community - choose between a limited number of hashtags that are popular and relevant. Forever 21 appears to follow these rules closely. Remember, hashtags can also leveraged to run contests.
Share to Facebook - Sharing content across channels can obviously contribute to increased exposure. There are optimal ways to do this of course; however, sharing Instagram photos to Facebook is an obvious move. 98 % of Instagram photos posted by Interbrand's list of top brands are now shared to Facebook.
image credit: takeshi