By Elizabeth Cauvell (@Elizabeth Cauvell), Associate Creative Director, MRY
Before Instagram exploded onto the scene, social media was…messy. In the early days of Facebook, we still stashed point-and-shoot cameras in our purses, snapping badly-framed, blurry flash photos in dark bars. The next morning, we’d awaken to the most horrifying kind of Facebook notification: “[Your crazy drunk friend] tagged you in 59 photos.”
It wasn’t pretty. But it was all we had.
Enter: the 5 megapixel-camera smartphone. By 2010, we were already living in a world where our point-and-shoots languished in desk drawers, while phones had become our portable cameras of choice. But while previous smartphone cameras offered a paltry 2 MP, 2010 was the year that 5 MP became the new norm. Suddenly, your smartphone shot as well as your point-and-shoot–maybe even better.
Months later, Instagram launched. Thanks to predecessors like Hipstamatic, we’d already developed a taste for the magic that is photo filtering, and we were hungry for more. When the smartphone’s new photographic capability met the Valencia filter, it was love at first sight. Thus, in the early years of the second decade of the 21st century, everyone became a photographer.
But what about actual photographers? Naturally, they flocked to the platform. Instagram seized this momentum, and spotlighted talented photogs as Featured Users, who were rewarded handsomely–with followers. And just like that, posting last night’s party pics just wouldn’t cut it anymore. The most-followed users were holding themselves to an incredibly high aesthetic standard, and the average user followed suit. Everyone stepped up their game.
Years passed. Filters were discarded (RIP, Kelvin). We stood in ever longer lines for even better smartphones. As Instagram grew into the social media behemoth it is today, a new breed of user was born: the Instafluencer. Boasting follower counts in the hundreds of thousands, these photographers and bloggers spent every waking hour surrounding themselves with beautiful things they could post to Instagram. Every part of every photo was meticulously chosen and artfully arranged. Social media was no longer unintentionally messy: it was intentionally perfect.
Scene: present day. Aesthetics now trumps authenticity. You didn’t actually eat that cinnamon bun you posed by your almond-milk latte? Doesn’t matter. Your followers ate it–with their eyes. You spent an hour arranging the leaves of your fiddle-leaf fig tree so they caught the golden hour light? Bravo–that earned you 112 likes. Instagram allows you to share only the parts of your world that are perfectly curated. As for the messy parts? Just crop them out.
This is the social media climate we live in today, and any brand that prioritizes relevancy among affluent Millennials would do well to shore up their Insta feeds.
Here are 5 ways your brand can harness the power of Instagram:
- Have a POV.
If your brand was a single human being with a camera or phone, what would he/she take photos of? Avocado toast? Mountain ranges? Gritty street art? Do some soul-searching, and figure out what your brand’s unique view of the world should be.
- Have a consistent style.
The best Instagrammers make sure you recognize their work immediately. Whether it’s a consistent filter, consistent lighting, or a consistent content theme, the key takeaway here is–you guessed it–consistency.
- Invest in a camera–and someone who knows how to use it.
Despite some modern smartphones’ robust 8 megapixels, most Instagram influencers don’t shoot with their phones. They shoot on a DSLR, edit in Lightroom, and post via Instagram. Real photographers command real money for a reason: they know what they’re doing.
- Don’t stand out.
Usually, you want your brand to “break through the clutter.” On Instagram, you want to blend in–which means committing to gorgeous photos. And if you’re thinking of slapping your brand’s logo on your post, prepare to be #unfollowed.
- Maybe leave it up to the experts.
No one said doing beautiful work was easy. Luckily, there are hoards of eager Instafluencers willing to work with your brand. So let them do what they do best–which is make you shine.
