Challenging Conventional Wisdom on Instagram: The Bouqs and Adobe Case Study
When you think of brands leading on Instagram, you probably think of the large B2C leaders such as Nike and Starbucks. But as of May 2014, 34% of B2C companies had adopted Instagram, while 19% of B2B brands had already adopted the channel.
These statistics indicate that Instagram is no longer a marketing channel employed by big, consumer-focused corporations. Across industries, innovative companies — both large and small — are using Instagram to connect with their audience on the visually-driven network.
Here, I’ve analyzed both a small B2C startup and major B2B software company to show how brands of all shapes and sizes can utilize this channel to interact with their audience.
B2C on Instagram: The Bouqs
The Bouqs Company, an online flower delivery service located in California, recently caught my eye. This small startup is tackling the ever-competitive online flower delivery market — and somehow blowing their much larger competitors out of the water on Instagram.
Below is a line graph illustrating The Bouqs’ Instagram interactions over the past 30 days.You can see that the Bouqs had nearly 6 times the interactions of their much larger competitors: 1-800 Flowers, FTD Flowers, From You Flowers, Proflowers, and Teleflora.
So, how does a startup new to the industry tackle their much larger, more established competition?
One thing The Bouqs does extremely well on Instagram is take advantage of user-generated content to give them a competitive advantage.
Have you ever ordered flowers online that appeared to be beautiful, but when they showed up to your recipient they were meager at best? To combat this flower delivery fear, the Bouqs “regrams” their users’ Instagram posts, which in turn gives them an implied referral as users show off their own beautiful deliveries from the service. The Bouqs also thanks their users for their content by giving them a shoutout on the regram, thus establishing advocates and brand loyalty.
According to content marketing guru Heidi Cohen, “the goal of Instagram user generated content is to rock your content marketing results by giving your prospects, customers, and fans a sense of brand ownership that helps validate their purchases.” The Bouqs is doing just that.
Another strategy apparent among The Bouqs’ top Instagram posts is their partnership with the well-known flower designer, Eric Buterbaugh, and stylist Rachel Zoe. It is clear that they are using the power of influencers to reach their audience. Below, for example, is a regram from their shoot.
The Bouqs also uses hashtags as a part of their strategy. In a study of the Top Fortune 500 companies on Instagram, TrackMaven found a strong correlation between the number of hashtags used and engagement; five hashtags per post seems to be the magic number. The Bouqs appears to use about this many hashtags per post.
B2B on Instagram: Adobe
Many B2B companies I speak with make the mistake of thinking Instagram is only for B2C companies. Developing a B2B Instagram presence can help you stand out amongst the competition, as it’s an underutilized channel in the B2B space.
In fact, on average B2B marketers use six social media platforms, as found in a study conducted by Marketing Profs and Content Marketing Institute: LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook were the top channels, followed by SlideShare, Google +, and Instagram.
Adobe is an example of one B2B brand utilizing Instagram to tell its story. At PR News’s 2013 Next Practices Conference, Matt Rozen, group manager of corporate social media for Adobe, noted that Adobe saw a large and inexpensive opportunity to humanize the brand on Instagram. His goal was to use Instagram to highlight their customers’ and employees’ creativity.
Similar to The Bouqs, Adobe’s strategy includes user-generated content. By posting user generated content, consumers can see what kinds of projects they can achieve from using Adobe. This post, for example, highlights the creativity of one of their users.
Adobe also regrams user-generated content from their employees. The post below highlights the creativity of their employees and makes me think that their work environment is as exciting and innovative as Google’s.
Another strategy that is heavily prevalent (and successful) on Adobe’s Instagram account is the use of inspirational quotes. Below is a post saying, “I render therefore I am,” which again shows the brand’s creativity, and tongue-in-cheek sense of humor. You can see that this post is, again, employee user-generated content, highlighted through a regram.
Conclusion
These examples from a B2C startup and B2B giant highlight how to use Instagram to boost your brand’s social profile. The Bouqs and Adobe both challenge the conventional wisdom that Instagram is only for large B2C brands. Both brands use Instagram to build brand loyalty and culture using user-generated content,employee-generated content, hashtags, and strategic partnerships.
With the examples above as inspiration, consider how Instagram can be incorporated into your content strategy!
For more information on how to optimize your brand’s Instagram strategy, download your copy of The Fortune 500 Instagram Report! It’s the biggest report on the Fortune 500’s Instagram usage, and includes actionable insights you can use to boost your Instagram engagement.
Ashley Short is a Senior Competitive Intelligence Maven at TrackMaven, the Competitive Intelligence Platform for Digital Marketers. See more of Ashley's posts
