Instagram report-how-to-win

Instagram ReportHow to Win like Fashion Brands

Fashion brands are the rockstars of Instagram user engagement - here are the best practices from the fashion industry that anyone can use to get ahead.

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Smarter Social Marketing www.socialbakers.com

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As a bonus point, we introduce ways you can create an analysis such as this on your own: for any brand and any industry, in a matter of seconds, and how to apply it to your own strategy to get ahead.

The stats on fashion

Which brands do it best

Best practices from the fashion Industry that you can apply to your own Instagram game

This report looks at

Instagram loves fashion brands and fashion industry social media managers must give a lot of love back - because they blow everyone else out of the water.

It’s not entirely surprising - if you have a stable content-creation strategy for other channels, it only takes so long to adapt it to Instagram. But there are some tricks of the trade all of us can apply to Instagram that don’t require being in the retail industry to use.

The performance difference between fashion and all other brands on Instagram is huge and growing. According to Socialbakers research and a sample size of 1978 accounts, Fashion profiles on Instagram got 4.6x more interactions, 4.6x more followers and grew 4.4x more followers than other brands (date range January 2015 - June 2015).

Fashion Brands are Instagram’s Rockstars

All Brands

Fashion

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Brands

Fashion

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Average Page Interactions

Amount & Growth of Followers

Top 10 by Total Interactions

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The Number of Hashtags Used25 000

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Top 10 Biggest Profiles (by Fans)

Christian Louboutin Michael Kors Gucci

Dolce & Gabbana Dior Official

Victoria’s Secret forever21 Louis Vuitton Official Top ShopH&M

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Victoria's Secret Average Interactions per Post Type

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Interactions Average

Victoria’s Secret Hollister Co. Abercrombie & Fitch freepeople

Link Below To Shop H&M

brandyusa forever21 Urban OutfittersAERO

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Average of FollowersAverage of Followers Growth

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Fashion

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Brands

Fashion

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Out of the TOP 10 largest profiles on Instagram, 5 are Fashion.

Out of the TOP 10 most engaging profiles on Instagram, 6 are Fashion.




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Who Does It Best?

Top 10 Biggest Profiles by Number of Fans

January 2015 - June 2015Top 10 by Total Interactions

Victoria’s Secret Hollister Co. H&M Abercrombie & Fitch freepeople ValentinoBrandy Melville Urban Outfitters forever21AERO

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Michael Kors Christian Louboutin Top Shop Dolce & Gabbana Dior OfficialVictoria’s Secret H&M Louis Vuitton Official ZARA Officialforever21

1,8 M

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1 M

0,6 M

0,2 M

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Victoria’s Secret Hollister Co. H&M Abercrombie & Fitch freepeople ValentinoBrandy Melville Urban Outfitters forever21AERO

160 M

140 M

120 M

100 M

80 M

60 M

40 M

20 M

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Michael Kors Christian Louboutin Top Shop Dolce & Gabbana Dior OfficialVictoria’s Secret H&M Louis Vuitton Official ZARA Officialforever21

1,8 M

1,4 M

1 M

0,6 M

0,2 M

0

January 2015 - June 2015


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Victoria’s Secret is phenomenal in terms of followers and Interactions. No doubt, part of it is great content: having constant access to shoots helps a lot. So does a hefty amount of brand equity offline and on other social channels.

But there are some things that Victoria’s Secret does on Instagram that amplifies those factors and puts them at that number one spot. How do they do it?

While the top 10 most popular profiles include some couture names like Louis Vuitton, Christian Louboutin, Michael Kors and others, high street retailers tend to do a better job at driving up Interactions and keeping their audiences engaged.

Fashion Brands are Instagram’s Rockstars


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Instagram Best Practices

1. Post more pictures than videos

Although video is the (new) king of content on all other platforms, racking up better organic reach on Facebook and growing numbers of native social posts, it seems that Instagram users aren’t as crazy about videos as they are about photos.

Fashion brands post about 94,4% photos and only 5,6% videos. It might be the familiar format of the Instagram image that is more alluring to the audience.

Although some of us simply scroll past, the difference in the engagement of the two post-types is not that huge. This means that some rare and well-placed vids do have place on Instagram, but, by the looks of it, the platform won’t become over-saturated with videos any time soon, especially for fashion brands.

All Brands

Fashion

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Brands

Fashion

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Other FiltersNormal

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Video

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Filter Usage

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Video

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Victoria’s Secret post more videos than the average fashion brand on Instagram: 89% images, and 11% of posts are videos.

The difference in interactions between their videos and pics is quite large. But since their average post Interactions are so beyond the industry standard anyway, there is no real erosion in audience engagement or acquisition.

All Brands

Fashion

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Brands

Fashion

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Conclusion: Use video when it fits, but think photo-first.


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2. #NoFilter: Use an external photo editorInstagram’s photo-editing options are part of the fun of using it for people. For brands that are interested in making a lasting impression (that should likely translate into favorable purchasing decisions), it seems that external photo-editing is a must.

Fashion brands largely do not use filters: 93% of images and 95% of videos uploaded to Instagram in the fashion category in the time range were without filter. When fashion brands did use a filter, it was mostly Valencia (1.5% usage rate).

#NoFilter might be a statement for a person, but it’s the norm for fashion brands. Brands that want to have the same kind of success must commit to creating edited, professional images for their Instagram content strategy.

Out of the 581 posts Victoria’s Secret posted to Instagram in the time range, none had a filter.

All Brands

Fashion

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Brands

Fashion

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3. Don’t overload with hashtagsIn the fashion industry, as any other, hashtags can be a number of things: promotional, entertaining or searchable. What they shouldn’t be, however, is overused.

The majority of fashion brands keeps it under three. Don’t think you absolutely have to use a hashtag either: about as many posts from fashion brands didn’t have any hashtags as had one or two. Victoria’s Secret use under three 90% of the time.

Choose those few hashtags carefully: either by making them humorous, jumping on a trending bandwagon, or using your own campaign hashtags.

All Brands

Fashion

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Fashion

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Conclusion: Edit before uploading. Conclusion: Less is more with hashtags.


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Deciding What Content Is Right For Your BrandFashion brands do so well on Instagram not only because they use the above tactics, but because Instagram’s visual appeal is the ideal way to showcase their products. You now know the tips and tricks on how to post to Instagram. But how do you utilize the platform if you are in telecom or airlines? How do you decide what kind of Instagram content is right for your brand?

The answer isn’t easy - but it starts with research. Looking at the top-performing posts of your competition, your industry, and best profiles from other industries that get a lot of interactions is a great start. In Socialbakers Analytics you can see the best-performing posts of profiles in your industry and for your competition, over a prolonged period of time.

You can gain great insight into what does well (and from whom) and then dive deeper into analyzing their profile to see the tactics they use to see how much they post, how many hashtags they use, what filters, if any, they use, and so on.

Top 5 Posts by Number Interactions per 1000 Fans

To create a report like we have here, you don’t need to be a data scientist.

In Socialbakers Analytics, it takes just a couple of clicks, and you can analyze any Profile for tactics and apply them to your own strategy. You can track all the KPIs that matter across your full social media strategy - your audience growth, content, engagement - and compare them to your competitors and industry benchmarks to see if you are keeping up with the trends. Keep in mind to analyze your entire social media presence, across all the main platforms: Socialbakers Analytics supports Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and VK analysis. Pull a visually appealing report in seconds, or automate reports for your colleagues or clients.

Instagram Overview

http://www.socialbakers.com/products/suite/analytics




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To win on Instagram just like Fashion brands, remember

Find the right image / video balance Don’t overuse hashtags

To win in your overall social media strategy and achieve larger marketing goals with the help of social, remember to always benchmark against the industry, your competition and to look at how the best

of the best achieve their results so you can apply the same tactics to your own strategy.

Edit before uploading

To start using Socialbakers Analytics, get in touch with us at [email protected] or try it for free here.

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Instagram report-how-to-win

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