Today’s post is on Instagram marketing strategies for media brands. As of June 2016, the number of active users on Instagram is 500 million, up from 400 million in September 2015. This makes the Instagram platform too important to ignore for brands.

In this post, we discuss why it is important for media brands to come up with coherent Instagram marketing strategies. We then provide some key examples of media brands in Singapore that are using Instagram effectively.

What is a media brand?

According to Faster Future, a media brand:

• is a platform for a community with shared interests
• offers services and aggregated/original content just for this community
• delivers services to this community in a convenient manner

Why should media brands strategise?

Simple answer: competition.

Attention and loyalty are always limited. Therefore, competing media brands need to cultivate a strong following with their audiences. This is to attract advertisers with the same target consumer groups.

There are two different groups the media brand targets:

• Consumers, who subscribe to a media brand to fulfil a need–to feel part of a group for example.
• Advertisers, who pay media brands a fee to increase sales via direct marketing or content marketing.

This is why media brands would usually work first on creating strong bonds with their consumers. Subsequently, they would then use this consumer base to pitch to advertisers.

Strategising would help media brands appear as unique and emotive in the minds of consumers and advertisers.

A great online strategy would also lead to tremendous tangible results offline.

What are Instagram Marketing Strategies?

In general, B2C businesses usually use Instagram to promote the features of their products. Whereas B2B companies use Instagram to communicate their cohesive teamwork and great corporate culture. No matter what strategy the company has, it is essential to bear in mind that consistency and engagement are key metrics.

Consistency can be in terms of visual identity, style, frequency of posting, and caption. To decide what type of content to put on Instagram, come up with content themes as a definitive guideline. Themes can include product features, inspirational quotes, photographs that showcase the company’s cohesive work culture and corporate values, events showcasing corporate social responsibilities, etc.

Usually, most businesses use content marketing as a dominant marketing strategy. Instagram is a visual platform, so make all your photographs and graphics count– high resolution and a great angle are key!

How do we measure the effectiveness of Instagram marketing strategies?

Are there any ways to measure the effectiveness of an Instagram marketing strategy?

The answer is yes, and we have come up in six ways:

• Number of Likes
• Number of Followers
• Quantity and quality of comments
• Engagement (Defined as Number of Followers/ Number of comments)
• Number of clicks on hyperlink in the Instagram profile page (use www.bit.ly to track inbound clicks)
• Sales made via this portal that are measurable in monetary terms.

Engagement, number of clicks on the hyperlink in the Instagram profile page, and sales made via the Instagram platform are great metrics to filter out fake likes and followers. Inviting the community to share their experiences revolving around the brand hashtag is also an excellent way to increase engagement and total reach.

Instagram marketing strategies for media brands in Singapore: Three examples.

• Nylon Singapore

Nylon Singapore “is the reigning authority on fashion, beauty, and music for the modern and intelligent young woman”.

As a creative and vibrant magazine, it has a massive following of 55.5k followers on its 8069 posts. The posts follow consistent themes of showcasing interesting products and lifestyle options for cosmopolitan and intelligent young ladies. Nylon is definitely an engaging media brand to follow since there is always something new and eye-catching on its Instagram.

• LadyBoss.asia

The next media brand to watch on Instagram is the upcoming and rapidly growing community Ladyboss.asia.

Ladyboss aims to be a community-platform for female entrepreneurs and business leaders. Its Instagram page focuses on the business events held for its members, interesting speeches, and motivational quotes. The content is targetted at all-female entrepreneurs in Singapore and Asia.

This media brand is definitely empowering and positive on Instagram!

• The Straits Times

The Straits Times is Singapore’s national broadsheet. With 56.5k followers, engagement on this portal is rather high. It features news-worthy photographs on its Instagram channel and does this by telling a compelling story via the accompanying caption of each photograph feature.

Following Singaporean and regional news in visual snippets has never been more convenient!

Conclusion

If you have a media brand, it is important to bear in mind who your target audiences are. Always keep a strong brand identity on Instagram. Let the character of your media brand shine through–visually, thematically, or linguistically!

We hope you have enjoyed today’s post on Instagram marketing strategies for media brands!