Instagram Giants, Effective Target Marketing and Brand Promotion
I like to think that I am a fairly savvy Instagramer. I post quite frequently, my posts are varied (and not exclusively of just my face), and I hashtag appropriately. But compared to Instagram’s powerhouses, my posts hardly create a blip on the Explore page.
For those of you that don’t interact with Instagram regularly, apart from your feed of pictures which have been posted by people you follow, there is a Search and Explore page. It allows you to search for friends and browse pictures and videos that have large amounts of likes or have been chosen by an algorithm based on who you follow and what they like. This algorithm is the key to Instagram’s potential for target marketing.
I would like to focus on makeup giant Huda Kattan to illustrate Instagram’s use for business promotion and marketing. Huda has 12.4 million followers and has mastered social media (in particular Instagram) for promoting her brand and products but also connecting her followers with other up-and-coming makeup gurus.
Let’s say a new user joined Instagram and was very interested in learning all about beauty and/or makeup. To start this process, they should do some research on widely followed makeup artists or business people, such as Huda Kattan. Once they have followed multiple artists they like, they should check the Explore page to see what Instagram says they would like and check out the recommended pages.
This method utilizes Instagram’s built in technology that tracks image/video popularity and looks at your followed pages to suggest pages/people to follow.
From a business standpoint, this feature is very useful if social media is a predominant model for a company’s marketing. By interacting with other pages, following lots of people, and posting frequently on popular topics a business can increase its presence on the Explore page to gain followers and expand its consumer base.
Part of Huda’s success is in her constant sharing of others’ makeup videos who feature her products, most namely, Huda Beauty lashes and Huda Beauty Lip Contour Pencils.
By interacting on a large and constant scale with other Instagram users, Huda has established a massive following not just from her presence on the Explore page. In every photo and video she posts, thousands of her followers tag their friends and people they follow in the comments, brining more and more people to her page.
And to further increase her brand promotion and market her products directly to her target audience, Huda posts videos she creates that include her most popular items. Her original posts also feature teaser photos and videos of tutorials, giveaways, or blog posts to increase her following.
Many Instagram experts like Huda have made their brand synonymous with their personal name which means that every time someone thinks Huda, they think of the woman and her products, making brand/business promotion and personal promotion one in the same.
