A brief history: 

As with all marketing, good content is key and it must be relevant, there’s no point tweeting about dolphins if you sell cars! 

You may already know what content marketing is, you have probably been exposed to content marketing without realising but what are the main points you need to know about content marketing? 

Content marketing in a nut shell:

  • Content marketing is a commercially important digital marketing avenue
  • The content needs to be creative, intelligent and highly relevant. Irrelevant and poorly written content will serve as a black mark against you in SEO terms. If you competitors have good content – then yours must be better or you will feel the wrath of Google’s algorithm (Pigeon) pushing you down the rankings. The key word is valuable
  • A barometer to help to shift out good content from bad is to see if people seek it out, if they actively want to consume it – if they don’t, well then do not under any circumstances use that piece of content for content marketing!
  • Content marketing isn’t just about creative copy….visual imagery tells the story too
  • Content marketing taps into a captive audience to create awareness before more traditional marketing can take over
  • It provide additional support for other avenues of digital marketing (increases inbound links and traffic and added social media content)

Instagram in a nut shell:

Instagram is without a doubt my favourite social media platform; it acts as a visual representation of your life through a series of photographs and 15 second videos. In a nod to the classic Polaroid, Instagram images are set into a distinctive square frame and you can doctor your image with their powerful filters functionality – (another plus, you can look completely flawless in every picture). The Instagram hashtags are also a vital component should you wish your content to be seen, use the right hashtags and you will find your audience.  

Finally in the comments section you can then connect on yet a deeper level or if you see something a friend may like, tag them in the comments, spread the picture further!

How the two work together:

Strategic marketing works by segmenting your audience to become recipients for targeted campaigns. So if for example you want to push a new brand of fitness juices, then you will know there is a huge community of people on Instagram just ripe to be tapped into!

Therefore if your brand has plenty of visual content then a platform like Instagram is perfect to begin the engagement process ; it has been proven that users interact far more with images then with any other type of social media – you can like, comment and “regram”. 

Instagram hashtags create an organic, ball rolling effect, meaning that by using the right, appropriate hashtags more people are likely to come across your content – and that they are receptive to receiving the content. 

A couple of examples:

@anthropologie – I love Anthropologie’s account, the images are beautiful, enticing and aspirational. 

They work perfectly to harness the interest of their demographic (women within their 30’s – 40’s, career women, successful women) with a stunning selection of soft focused images of apparel, home ware and food all set in the most fabulous settings – they are promoting a lifestyle their demographic coverts. 

Their account pushes people to visit their blog, it gives snippets into future lines and offers, and it acts as platform to entice their demographic to visit their online and retail stores.   

@wholefoods – The WFM in Cheltenham has become a slight addiction for me, I could quite happily spend 24hours in this place. I love entering the store, picking up a green smoothie and wandering around the beautifully laid out aisles which are fit to bursting with fresh, colourful organic goods; and this is wholly reflected with their Instagram account. They reinforce this aesthetic with simple, tempting pictures of their produce. Again the relevant hashtags ensure this content will be connecting with their target audience. 

Why is @beatsbydre so successful using the medium of Instagram?

Well for starters they tell a story which compels and enthrals the reader, they know their audience and they have created some brilliant campaigns by doing so. His main competitor Bose arguably has the better product, but their campaigns simply do not have the same lure as Beats.

Dre wanted to inject emotion into sound and create a revolution which would resonate across the world – and he has achieved this. For starters his content doesn’t bore the consumer with endless technical spec, instead it delivers impressive visual content endorsed by celebrities and sportsmen and women, thus giving further credence to the brand and its core belief – and with almost 2million followers on Instagram who can argue with that?