Twitter and Facebook have long been integral parts of brands' social media strategies, but the newer platform Instagram is seeing an increased presence in online promotions and at live events. Brands are using the platform to promote new products, spread public-service messages, provide keepsakes, or foster conversation among event guests. Here's a look at how events from Grey Goose, HBO, Evian, and more used Instagram.
Earlier this month, Grey Goose hosted a launch party for its new Cherry Noir flavor at Thompson Hotel in Toronto. At the event, guests could use Instaprint, a location-based photo booth for Instagram designed with a specific hashtag, to print out keepsake photos. Some 365 images were printed out on site, but using the hashtag #cherrynoir, guests created more than 131,000 social media impressions that night.
USA Network's public-service campaign "Characters Unite" is aimed at putting an end to hate and discrimination. Earlier this month, the network launched a national bus tour called "I Won't Stand For." Stopping in cities such as Nashville, Atlanta, and Cleveland, the activation lets visitors personalize the "I Won't Stand For" tag line by adding in a word or phrase that resonates with them; choices include "sexism," "religious intolerance," and "homophobia." Guests can have their pictures taken with their custom statement and then share the images on Instagram using the hashtag #IWontStandFor. The photos also become part of the network's online photo gallery.
Evian is a longtime sponsor of the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, which takes place this year on Saturday and Sunday. Leading up to the festival, the brand has partnered with Live Young to launch a social media campaign with chef Richard Blais, using Instagram for its #evianeats photo activation. The chef has already started sharing daily culinary photos via @evianwater to promote the hashtag; once the festival kicks off, he'll post daily pictures via #evianeats.
In January, HBO hosted a New Years-themed party to celebrate the second season of its hit show Girls. Held at the Skirball Center of Performing Arts in New York, the cheeky function invited guests to pen resolutions on placards with the Twitter hashtag for the show #Resolutionsgirlsbreak. (The show's creator, Lena Dunham, wrote: "I resolve to wake up within two hours of my alarm.") Guests snapped photos holding their placards, and the fun shots were posted to HBO's Instagram page.Â
To promote its new fashion blog the Cut during New York Fashion Week in September, New York magazine tapped Grand Central Marketing to dispatch a fleet of branded vehicles that served as shuttles for V.I.P. attendees. To engage the online community, the brand hosted the Cut Shuttle Fashion Forward Sweepstakes. Participants were encouraged to upload photos of the shuttles to Instagram using the hashtag #thecutshuttle; anyone who did was automatically entered to win prizes including tickets to fashion shows.
Last year, Toyota launched the #ToyotaGiving campaign. The initiative, which company reps describe as a "campaign that harnesses the power of the public via Instagram at events across the country," raises funds for community and nonprofit organizations. The campaign stopped at Lollapalooza in Chicago in August, and invited guests to write a statement on a blackboard that described their individual commitments to bettering themselves and their communities. Guests then posted photos of those statements to Instagram and Twitter using the #ToyotaGiving hashtag. For every tagged tweet or Instagram post, Toyota donated $2 to a nonprofit partner. In total, the campaign generated 4,000 Twitter and Instagram impressions, and proceeds went to 11 different organizations.
In November, Tiffany & Company hosted an in-store party in New York to celebrate the launch of its Tumblr page. At the event, live feeds from the brand's Instagram and Twitter feeds were projected onto the walls via Postano. Launched in 2011, Postano is a social media visualization tool that's designed to help brands leverage social and digital marketing content to build branded communities. Through Postano, brands can aggregate multiple social media feeds and then style the content to match the brand's presentation standards. The platform then lays the result out in a completely customizable format and automatically syndicates it across Web sites, Facebook tabs and apps, and more. It is also one of the only tools that aggregates social content for brands across all of their owned channels, including Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and more. A live Postano feed allows clients to easily pull in content whether by selected accounts or hashtags, monitor the content, and then have it instantaneously displayed.
