#imm717

Royal Canin Canada has the potential to be leader in pet food quality, nutrition, and innovation. As part of its interactive makeover, the Royal Canin team is proposing a reboot of its Instagram account to supplement and enhance its overall brand strategy.

Instagram can be a bit tricky for certain brands, but with the right strategy and role models, an effective use of the platform is not out of reach. Here are four examples of brands who are doing right:

Sharpie: Sharpie uses its Instagram to promote the artwork of its users. All artwork is, of course, created from Sharpies. Not only is it entertaining and inspiring its fan base with impressive drawings, but its keeping it’s keeping its users directly engaged. [Business Insider] 

Levis: Levis in general does a great job of not only selling jeans, but a lifestyle. Its use of Instagram only enhances this strategy. According to the Instagram company itself, Levis was one of the first ever brands to use the platform, knowing they would be able to reach millions in their 18-34 demographic. Levi’s Instagram posts a combination of merchandise on its own and models living the good life. [Instagram Business] 

Burberry: Burberry turned heads with its “Art of the Trench” campaign, where the high-end fashion retailer promoted its new line of trench coats through Instagram. The strategy involved several Burberry-lovers’ submissions of selfies while sporting their trench coats, simultaneously promoting the new line and keeping its customers smiling. [Forbes]  

National Geographic: According to Mashable, National Geographic is the second most followed brand on Instagram. This isn’t entirely surprising, as their brand is already focused on powerful, engaging imagery. Following their Instagram is like getting snippets of their magazine several times a day. [Mashable] 

Taking all of this into account, we can start to get a sense of what does work. Right now, unfortunately, Royal Canin Canada’s Instagram has more working against it than for it. First and foremost, it is almost impossible to find! It is not linked anywhere on its website or Facebook page and does not appear in Google Search. One has to specifically look for it in the Instagram app on their phone. Secondly, it doesn’t make enough effort to engage the community or its followers. One good thing, however, is that it seems to understand the recipe behind a good photo and what people want to see- cute animals. The content is getting there, but it needs a structured social media strategy. Here is an outline of the pro, cons, and best practices for Instagram and how they can work for Royal Canin:

Pros: 

1. The ability to hashtag- think #catsofinstagram

2. It is a highly visual platform and makes use of “raw” photos- Natural, believable, and perfect for everyday expression

3. Enables RCC to engage directly with customers- Approachable!

4. Free and easy to use- Convenient!

5. Integrates well with Facebook (due to ownership)- more opportunities for sharing

6. Filters make it easy to enhance images

7. It's a very popular platform and is only seeing an increase in followers

Cons:

1. Many Royal Canin customers may not be on Instagram- Instagram caters to a slightly younger crowd on average

2. Constantly creating fresh content might be difficult

3. Limited space for comments and verbal interaction – mostly a visual platform

4. Linking is difficult

5. No option for repost/sharing of others’ content

6. Limited opportunities for editing posts

7. Aside from viewing images, the platform is used through smartphones and tablets. This could present some challenges again with older demographics.

7 best practices:

1. Always make photos aesthetically pleasing and consistent with the brand- there will be a minimal use of filters

2. Tell your story- Create a clear and consistent theme- cats, dogs, vets, breeders, and featured animals up for adoption

3. Post Consistently- Post photos often (at least one a day)- keep customers and followers engaged and inspired

4. Use visuals to reach target audience at an emotional level- people with their pets are heartwarming and great for marketing

5. Change perspective- Always use real people/pets instead of models- make the images authentic, and include submissions from customers

6. Integrate the Instagram feed with other social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter to increase viewership

7. Expand your audience- Take advantage of the opportunity to reach out to potential customers

Resources:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kateharrison/2014/05/23/5-ways-to-use-instagram-to-promote-ecommerce/

http://www.businessinsider.com/these-20-brands-have-mastered-the-use-of-instagram-2013-1?op=1

https://business.instagram.com/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2012/11/05/even-more-brands-jumping-on-the-instagram-bandwagon/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/lydiadishman/2014/02/13/instagram-is-shaping-up-to-be-the-worlds-most-powerful-selling-tool/

As Toronto Life continues to transition from a print publication to a multifaceted digital news hub, they must review and update their content distribution channels. This is crucial for multiple reasons. Firstly, they must stay cognizant of their core readerships’ consumption preferences. While the publication has only produced a printed magazine previously, the emergence of digital consumption channels has eliminated a lot of desire for the physical copy. This has lead Toronto Life to produce a digital downloadable version as well. Many readers are now using their connected devices as a way to consume content. The saturation of connected devices in Canada has been growing steadily since the emergence of homegrown Blackberry (formerly RIM) in 2009. Today, over half of the country owns a smartphone with 47% of those smartphone owners owning a tablet as well. While Toronto Life must continue to produce the high quality, in depth content it is recognized for, it must also look for new ways to tap into and utilize the world of digital journalism and connected devices.

Toronto is one of the most diverse cities in the world. This is emphasized by the city’s slogan “Diversity Our Strength”. As the largest city in Canada, there are always internationally recognized events happening like Caribana, TIFF and the Pride Parade. These fantastic events are a perfect opportunity for Toronto Life to utilize a platform like Instagram, as a way to connect with their growing digital audience. As well, using this social sharing platform will give them an opportunity to promote their content to a younger demographic who have not grown up reading a printed magazine but instead with a smartphone in their hands.

Another positive of using Instagram is that Toronto Life already has a branded account set up with over 2800 followers. At one point the account had pictures posted but as of last week they were deleted. This can be looked at as a positive because it allows Toronto Life to recreate their personal Instagram brand and style from scratch. Already having 2800 followers is a huge help as well. This means they have over 2800 individuals who are interested in their content and haven’t gone to unfollow the account because they haven’t been active.

Instagram also utilizes the hashtagging system made famous by Twitter as a way to categorize content and see what is trending. Looking through the app, there are almost 7.5 million posts tagged with #toronto, over 115k tagged with #torontolife and over 95k tagged with #torontophoto. Having these established hashtags with huge content repositories makes it much easier for Toronto Life to start pushing their content to both their followers and users who do not follow them. These hashtags act as a free publicity mechanism for Toronto Life because people will search for a popular hashtag like #toronto to see what has been trending in the city. As well, posts can have multiple hashtags, which means they will get distributed into a variety of channels for discovery.

The Toronto Zoo is an interesting organization. It's owned by the City of Toronto, and is tasked with promoting wildlife conservation. It supports research projects, works with other zoos to provide a kind of "Noah's ark" for critically endangered species, and strives to educate the public about conservation issues. And yet, one thing the zoo is not great at is maintaining an interesting and informative online presence. If anyone from the zoo happens to be reading this…consider the opportunity you’re missing out on. You have cute baby animals. Cute baby animals get a lot of mileage on the Internet. Which is why I’m going to suggest that Instagram is a social media platform that you really should be using to better effect. The zoo does have an Instagram account already. It has all of 37 posts. And even with only 37 posts, it’s managed to attract about 2,000 followers; presumably because the photography is quite good, and the animals are very photogenic. And yet it could be doing more. Here are a few reasons why an organization like the zoo could benefit from spending more resources on its Instagram presence: 1. Images of animals are engaging. This is the theory behind the zoo’s take on animal ethics, right? If we meet the animals, we care about them more. We are more motivated to push back against threats to habitats and species. We are more motivated to learn about ecosystems and biodiversity. And while there are lots of ways to tell the story of a species online, images work particularly well. National Geographic magazine figured this out ages ago. And with Instagram, there are tons of ways to make animals a part of people’s everyday lives. Here’s one from the Smithsonian Zoo:

Otters are very curious and use their paws to explore their riverbed habitat. A novel #ZooEnrichment item, such as this tiger pumpkin, gives the otters an opportunity to feel the squish of pumpkin between their toes and introduces a new scent into their habitat around #Halloween.

A photo posted by Smithsonian's National Zoo (@smithsonianzoo) on Oct 10, 2014 at 3:14pm PDT

Developing a personal brand is an important component of establishing yourself in the Interactive Media industry. With all the information out there, it can be confusing and daunting to know how to best go about it. This is especially true for individuals who are hesitant to put themselves out there, especially if they equate a large social media presence with self-absorption. In their book Branding Yourself: How to Use Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself, authors Erik Deckers and Kyle Lacy make an important distinction between self-promotion and narcissism. Self-promotion is highlighting your skills and achievements in way that shows you can give value to others. Narcissism on the other hand, presents an expectation that the world owes you something.

Taking all of this into account, how do we choose between the countless social media platforms out there to portray the best “Unified Self”? Several sites offer a list of Best Practices, most of which are intended for businesses, but can be applied to personal brands as well. The three social networking sites I would choose for my individual brand promotion would be Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

[ Facebook ] 

The big advantage of Facebook is that many people are on it, including those who don't feel like they "social media people." This alone makes it successful in reaching a wide audience. Mashable.com has a list of its best practices for brands:

Embrace Images:  People are very responsive to images and using them on Facebook can help engage with friends.

Make the Most of Your Cover Photo:  The cover photo is a great opportunity for personal expression and can really give followers/customers/friends a sense of your style.

Highlight Your Best Posts:  The highlight feature on Facebook is a handy tool to promote successful and engaging posts. 

Emphasize Milestones:  Another of Facebook’s timeline features is the life milestones, intended to promote major changes such as a new job or a move. Documenting significant events is an easy way to attract attention to your page.

[ Instagram ] 

One of Instagram’s strengths is its relative simplicity in comparison to the cacophony of Facebook and Twitter. Users can “like” and comment, but that’s the extent- the main focus is on the images themselves. The platform's minimal amount of noise is refreshing and allows it to work well as a mobile app. Its focus on visuals allows the user to maintain strict control over their visual brand and what their followers see. Some best practices for Instagram…

Share Compelling Content: Instagram’s filter options allow even mediocre photographers to create visually stunning photos. 

Tell Your Story: Instagram is first and foremost a mobile application, functioning primarily on the user’s smartphone before their desktop. This allows the user to capture impromptu moments that may have been missed otherwise. 

Expand Your Audience: Instagram accounts can be linked with several other types of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, creating the opportunity to reach a wider range of people. 

Post Consistently: The frequency of posts can vary depending on the person and brand, but it’s ideal for everyone to find a happy medium. Generally, you want to post consistently enough to keep viewers engaged and going more than a few weeks without posting is generally not ideal. At the same time, don’t overdo it- posting more than three times a day, especially if the images are not particularly special or engaging, can come off as annoying and needy and (gasp!) cause you to lose followers. 

[ LinkedIn ] 

Not surprisingly, LinkedIn presents the most professional image of the social networking sites because its entire point is to help users build and enhance their career.

Complete Your Profile:  This seems obvious, but it’s actually very common for people to leave sections blank. The more complete, the more credible. 

Connect to a Familiar Market:  Starting out and connecting with people on LinkedIn, especially as a young professional with little industry experience, can be overwhelming. 

Use LinkedIn to Follow Up:  Arguably one of the greatest advantages of this platform is the opportunity it gives to follow up with new acquaintances. 

Freely Give and Receive Recommendations: The entire point of LinkedIn is to stay connected with others professionally- your success depends on other people and vice versa. 

A final reminder: content is key. Social media is a way to communicate and emphasize skills and accomplishments, not create them out of thin air. Along the same lines of self-promotion vs. narcissism, make sure you have great things to offer others before expecting anything in return. Great work quality and a knack for personal branding can go a long way together. 

Resources:

Facebook:

http://mashable.com/2012/05/17/facebook-timeline-brand-tips/

https://www.facebook.com/help/405494409496261/

Instagram:

http://www.nptechforgood.com/2014/04/14/top-5-instagram- best-practices-for-nonprofits/

http://www.fourthsource.com/social-media/instagram-brands-best-practices-17446

http://blog.business.instagram.com/post/29441248656/instagram-best-practices-to-see-more-tips-and

 LinkedIn:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenkrogue/2012/06/29/27-linkedin-tips-linkedin-best-practices-for-entrepreneurs/

With new social networking emerging every day, it can be hard to know exactly where to commit time and resources. However, it’s important to look ahead to where social networking is going, and how to get on board.

Content makes people trust you: the greatest strength of social media is building long-lasting trust between customer and brand. Social media help users feel closer to the brand, which increases customer loyalty.

Trends in Social Media

Google +

While Facebook continues to lead (1.35 billion of active monthly users), Google + is quickly gaining steam and, in fact, now has the second highest number of monthly users (540 million), which allows to build a solid follower base.

Another reason why Google+ is important – Google Autorship. When authors link their Google+ profile with content they’ve written and published, that content is given Google authorship markup. This helps articles stand out because Google displays the author’s picture with the article title in search results, which encourages more clicks.

For more information on using Google+ in marketing initiative, please see the article “How to Integrate Google+ Into Your Online Marketing Initiative”.

Image-Centric Networks

At the same time, visual content increasingly become a crucial part for the content strategy and there social networking sites Pinterest and Instagtam take the lead.

According to Trend Reports between 65 and 85 percent of people describe themselves as visual learners (especially younger users). This means that information is easier to digest by viewing an image instead of reading text.

Instagram has quickly become a popular way for individuals and businesses to share pictures with their audience. Every second 3600 pictures are uploaded on Instagram. Since people are actively search through hashtags, hashtags is a tool to attract more followers, likes and comments. Some major companies, that have successfully utilized Instagram, include Nike, Starbucks and Red Bull.

Pinterest mainly revolves around the exchange of ideas via visual content. It’s one of the easiest sites to learn, and the number of users is constantly increasing. You simply create boards, which are separated into categories. Then, relevant images or videos are pinned onto each board accordingly. However, Pinterest has a reputation as women’s network and mostly it takes a part in retailers’ marketing strategies. 

Twitter

With over 270 thousands tweets being uploaded on Twitter every minute Twitter presence naturally cultivating opportunities for more interaction. As a micro-blogging platform twitting is an important opportunity to join the broader social conversation on your topic or industry. Engagement (how much of your content is being shared and read?)  is a great metric of success on social media.

Twitter is a great way to personally engage with readers and create valuable quality messages for audience in ways that connect to overall brand’s strategy and help build brand’s profile.

Final thoughts and recommendations

Take advantage of Google+. Google+ is gaining steam but still not overly busy. Less busy equals less noise. It’s hard to cut through the clutter on Facebook, but since it’s not a problem on Google+, you can get much more engagement when you share high-quality content on a regular basis.

Image-centric networks are a perfect way for interaction between companies and consumers. For example, you can encourage consumers to take pictures of themselves using a product or a service in action. It is a great way to establish loyalty and build brand ambassadors who will gladly spread the word.  Furthermore, some businesses can take pictures of employees at the office or at events – this can help a business come across as being more personable.

Retweets and comments are a great way to determine how effectively your content is resonating with the audience. For example, if people are leaving comments on your content or asking questions, that’s a great sign that you’re making a meaningful connection.

  Appropriate links:

http://www.emarsys.com/en/resources/blog/the-seven-social-media-trends-dominating-20142015-jacquline-worner/

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/what-happens-online-60-seconds-infographic

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/07/23/the-top-7-social-media-marketing-trends-dominating-2014/

#147881015 / gettyimages.com

For our class on emerging social media trends, we’ve been asked to look into a few platforms that might be of use to us as digital media professionals. On the one hand, we may very well end up in a position to make recommendations to an organization about their social media strategy. On the other, the very least we can do is understand how to leverage social media to help us stay on top of industry trends, and build on our professional networks. This post focuses on the individual professional uses of a few social media sites. Note: I did skip over the obvious one, which is LinkedIn. Not because it's not also very useful, but because I thought the professional applications of the following three platforms were perhaps less obvious. Twitter Twitter began back in 2006 with the idea of sending group SMS messages. This Newsweek article from back in the day documents the early days of Twitter adoption, as well as early doubts about the platform's staying power. Seven years later, of course, Twitter is still one of the first innovations to come to mind when we think about social media's power. Why use Twitter? 1. Ubiquity. According to Twitter's website, Twitter has 284 million active monthly users. 500 million Tweets are sent per day. Even people who don't use Twitter are likely to hear about Twitter trends, because media commentators frequently use it to assess and describe public opinion on current events, and Twitter activities often become news stories in their own right. 2. Ease of use. Twitter's brevity (the famous 140 characters or less) is part of its appeal - we scan our Twitter feed easily to find out what our followees find worthy of comment, without having to necessarily go into a lot of detail. As tweeters, we don't have to produce a lot of content, but we can say a few words and link to any articles, videos, websites and events we find interesting. We can also retweet the tweets of others if we think our followers would find them useful. It's a quick and easy way to stay in touch with - and contribute your ideas to - a variety of professional communities. 3. Great resource for getting questions answered, and for interacting with interesting people. As noted above, it's easy to participate in Twitter communities united by a common interest. It's also a relatively low-risk, low-commitment way of interacting with others. It makes it easy to casually ask questions, without interrupting anyone's day. It's also one of the easiest channels by which to approach people you don't personally know, and makes it easy for them to respond to you, a random stranger. Following someone you admire professionally and tweeting them a question or a comment can produce a meaningful interaction with a minimum of social awkwardness. Further reading: "Twitter Best Practices: 11+ Tips for Tweeting Well" - for the Twitter noob. "12 Reasons You Absolutely Need to be on Twitter" - I would respectfully disagree that keeping tabs on celebrities is necessarily a reason you HAVE to be on Twitter - maybe it is. That's up to you. But the article gives you a great sense of the value Twitter provides to its users. Quora Remember how I mentioned that Twitter could be a useful way to get answers to questions? Well, Quora took that idea and ran with it. It's a social site that specializes in Q&A - users can post questions, answer them, and upvote the answers they think are most valuable. It's a smaller community than Twitter, though official numbers don't seem to be available. (Quora users' attempt to answer this question back in 2013 seem to have gone nowhere, and the question hasn't been asked on Quora since.) Why use Quora? 1. Opportunities to learn. While Twitter offers a broad overview of your community's interests and concerns, Quora allows people to answer questions in more depth, and popular answers typically resemble actual blog posts (as opposed to Twitter's "microblogging") in their level of detail. For example, check out answers to the question "How can you use Quora professionally." While you can - and probably do - follow blogs in your professional areas of interest, following topics on Quora can lead you to thoughtful commentators you may not have been familiar with. And if you know of someone on Quora whose answer you would particularly like to hear, there's a mechanism for pinging specific users and soliciting their thoughts. 2. Opportunities to be an expert. Working in the digital industry, we're expected to be knowledgeable and aware of new ideas and trends. This means a lot of listening and learning, but also being seen to be listening and learning. Which means participating and contributing. On Quora you can ask thoughtful questions and, when possible, offer valuable answers. If your contributions are useful, it can only help your reputation in professional circles. Quora may be more time-consuming than Twitter in this respect, but it allows for a more in-depth exploration of ideas. This also relates to the learning benefit, because you'll learn more as you write more detailed, reflective responses. 3. Discovering new people based on shared professional interests. Okay, I mentioned earlier that it's pretty easy to interact with people who don't know you on Twitter too - you have "followers" on Twitter as opposed to "friends" on Facebook, so it's easier to incorporate people with whom you have no prior relationship. But Twitter still stresses your network, ie. the people that you have chosen to follow. Quora's feeds focus on topics, and are not as closely oriented to your existing network as other social sites. You can stumble upon people you've never heard of, yet have great insights (or, potentially, you yourself can be stumbled upon by others). Beth Kanter's blog post on what sets Quora apart from other social networking sites does a great job of elaborating on the element of serendipity inherent in Quora, and its value for professional learning and sharing. The platform's mechanisms also do a great job of floating quality contributions to the top of your feed based on user upvotes, which makes it a great way to discover new people with interesting and useful ideas. Instagram Twitter and Quora both tend to be about text, though many people also share photos and videos via Twitter. Instagram, however, is ALL about the visuals. For me, it was less immediately obvious how Instagram could make a positive impact on an individual's professional online presence. Businesses using Instagram are often encouraged to highlight their brand identity and personality through behind-the-scenes photos. My behind-the-scenes photos, as it were, are on Facebook, and probably not of great interest to many of my professional contacts. It only took a little poking around, however, to find out how individuals are able to use Instagram as a great professional tool, even if visual design isn't their focus. Why use Instagram? 1.Visual communication - don't underestimate it. I refuse to use the old cliche about how many words a picture is worth, but still...images can communicate a lot. Especially in our industry, where creative types are used to communicating information and telling stories with a wide variety of tools. Check out this example:

Design vs User Experience [via @benkimediyorum] #ux #webdesign pic.twitter.com/OIaXBVAl5E

— Usabilla (@usabilla) September 1, 2014