Sorting out the complex world of Instagram marketing can be an interesting code to crack – and the success of your brand or business depends on it. As the year comes to a close and you begin to plan your social media marketing campaigns for 2019, let’s take a look at some of the most successful Instagram marketing campaigns of 2018. You know, the accounts who jumped on the trends before anyone else knew what was going on and saw some of the largest increases in overall growth, reach and engagement.

It seems the key to a successful Instagram marketing campaign is simply this – think outside of the box.

The campaigns that did extremely well were actually not even in your face classic marketing campaigns but in fact subtle posts that engaged with their audience as opposed to forcing information down their throat demanding that they buy a product or pay attention to them.

On Instagram, it’s much more important to be liked than to be seen. Let’s explain.

You can post the worst image in all of  the history of Instagram and have 300 million people see it, but if it’s bad content, no one is going to like it or want to take a step further to explore your brand. However, if you’re putting out great content and only 5000 people see it but like it, that’s a lot more beneficial. In turn, they’ll then share your content with their peers and the increase in attention and popularity on your page will have a very positive domino effect, leading to higher engagement overall. Hence why Instagram likes are that important.

It’s actually pretty crazy how a single Instagram post can either float or sink your entire marketing agenda.

Keeping that in mind, let’s check out the campaigns that absolutely killed the Instagram marketing game this year.

Oh and if there is one common denominator to understand before going into all of this (which pretty much goes without saying nowadays), they all have crisp, clear, beautifully shot content.

Glossier

Tactic: Focus On Your Audience

Glossier absolutely killed the Instagram marketing game this year (as it did in all years prior). Yes, the brand started it’s own branded hashtags along with promoting user-generated content, but what Glossier really manages to focus on is being authentic and listening to what their customers want. Which is maybe why their Instagram bio reads “people-powered beauty ecosystem.”

You can definitely feel a genuine vibe as soon as you look at the Instagram account let alone the website. Glossier engages with their audience as if they’re speaking with a friend. It’s a very inviting space for people who want to connect with the brand, and the account posts real people wearing the makeup in real photos. No oversaturated photo edits or touch-ups here!

Beyond having a great product, it’s clear to see how brand image and audience connection will really catapult your marketing efforts in the right direction.

Madewell

Tactic: Branded Hashtags

The ultimate creators of catchy hashtags, Madewell is without a doubt running the hashtag game. The brand has motivated users to use the hashtag #everydaymadewell in their posts, for a chance to be featured on the Madewell Instagram page.

This certainly is not the first or last time a brand has utilized a branded hashtag to influence users to share images including their product, however, the hashtags Madewell has implemented for a lack of better words are just made well.

With almost 420,000 posts under the one hashtag, the #everydaymadewell hashtag alone has encouraged a large increase in user-generated content and has now created a community around the brand.

Nike

Tactic: Straightforward Content For New Product Launch

Earlier this year, Nike’s took a visually stimulating approach on the launch of it’s new soft and springy Nike Epic React. Nike created content that was easily digestible for all users and let the image do the talking.

The success of this campaign was evident with over 7 million views on the Nike post, and a great reminder to utilize the fact that Instagram is a visually stimulating platform. You can say a lot by saying a little through creating content that captures and explains your product perfectly without having to actually say a word.

YouTube

Tactic: User-Generated Content

Regardless of how well-known a platform may be, the fact that YouTube was able to conquer the Instagram space, which is in a sense it’s sole competitor at the moment, shows how effective their strategy was.

YouTube began giving back to it’s community by celebrating it’s viewers with posts every Friday dedicated to it’s fans. The hashtags #YouTubeFanArt and #FanArtFriday were born, and of course absolutely took off as users began generating tons of user-generated content in hopes that they would one day be YouTube’s Friday feature.

This tactic helped build an even larger community for YouTube on Instagram and increased the account’s overall reach.

What can we learn? Create a hashtag for your campaign that your audience will want to utilize and engage with. And even better, create a buzz around it such as posting every Friday, so that users will be excited about it and have something to look forward to. Fun, catchy hashtags will increase user-generated content and in turn, increase your exposure across Instagram.

MVMT

Tactic: Giveaways!

Take it from a brand that has seemingly perfected it’s movements on the influencer marketing frontier – MVMT watches wins for ultimate giveaway action. They not only send out watches to influencers to post and promote, but the brand also creates massive giveaways prior to new product launch, which encourage more than 1k people to participate.

If you’re getting ready to launch a new product in the new year, try marketing it with a giveaway first to build up some hype and excitement around your launch. This will without a doubt get people involved and have all eyes on you once you finally release the new product to the public!

#MeToo

Tactic: Relevance

Probably the most influential movement of 2018, the #MeToo movement started on Twitter and spread like wildfire over to Instagram. Begun by actress Alyssa Milano, the hashtag took off due to its relevance to practically everyone. The appeal was so broad that it lead to a massive movement of sharing, tagging and of course overall involvement.

Additionally, it created a massive community amongst the movement and encouraged people to speak up about things that had previously been rather taboo to talk about on social media, really breaking barriers!

Stella Artois

Tactic: Market With A Cause

The Belgian beer Stella Artois took a direction of purpose and partnered with Matt Damon and water.org to raise funds for the nonprofit. The concept: purchase a Steal Artois beer chalice and a portion of this purchase will go towards water.org to help someone in a developing country have access to clean water for 5 years.

They worked with actor Matt Damon to help raise awareness in addition to creating a campaign hashtag #GiveThemTimeBack to promote the cause.

This campaign was so successful because it gave people the sense that they were  contributing to something much more than just supporting a beer brand: they are giving to people in need and feel good about making that purchase even if they don’t need the chalice.

If possible, try to find a way to partner up and support a nonprofit that is important to your brand. Run a campaign that supports the charity and make sure to market it in a way that creates emotion and motivates people to support the cause.

Regardless of whether you’ve begun planning your 2019 Instagram marketing campaigns or you have yet to start, there are some important things to take away from the mentioned campaigns. To ensure your success on the platform, always keep the following in mind:

Pay attention to your target audience. What is relevant and important to them is what’s going to be successful for you. Your campaign should essentially revolve around what your target audience is interested in, so it’s extremely important to plan around them!

Timing is everything – so test out your ideas. The beauty (and frustration)  of Instagram is you will without a doubt have a lot of room for trial and error, which will give you the opportunity to really create an on point marketing campaign.  Learn from your past marketing campaigns and make those little improvements.

Oh and check out what others are doing! Hopefully this will give you some inspo for your 2019 Instagram marketing efforts.

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