There are 25M active businesses on Instagram. Is your event one of them?
It should be. The stats show that Instagram is the most powerful social media platform for brand engagement today:
- 7 out of 10 hashtags on Instagram were made by a brand
- A third of the most viewed Instagram Stories come from brands
- 30% of Instagram users have made a purchase from a brand they first heard about on Instagram
But out of the millions of businesses on Instagram, which are the brands doing a stellar job with their promotions? Specifically, which event brands?
Here are five event brands on Instagram making the most of the social platform with innovative and engaging strategies.
The Influencer Wrangler: Wanderlust
@wanderlustfest, 311k+ followers
A yoga festival in Tahoe has grown into a humongous global event brand less than ten years after it launched. Wanderlust now hosts events throughout the US and as far away as New Zealand.
The Wanderlust brand has benefited from a surge in the popularity of yoga, wellness, and festivals in general. And it has also benefited from a groundswell of solo-preneurs eager to associate themselves with a behemoth event brand.
These built-in influencers consist of rockstar yoga and fitness instructors, indie performers, and product-makers. From their Instagram bios to their event-related posts and Stories, they align themselves with @wanderlustfest through tags and hashtags.
Wanderlust’s influencers also include legions of eager attendees worldwide who make for excellent brand advocates. The event brand has capitalized on all of this with a tactical influencer strategy that uses individuals to widely represent the brand.
The Lifestyle Portrayer: Lightning in a Bottle
@libfestival, 85.1k+ followers
A music festival on California’s Central Coast, Lightning in a Bottle (LiB if you’re in the know) promotes much more than just the latest indie music. This event brand is about sustainability, social cohesion, and personal creative expression.
It’s a vision well-expressed in LiB’s evocative Instagram feed. Throughout the year, the May event is teased with small-scale crowd shots and close-ups of individuals. This photographic tactic imparts a vibe of intimacy and self-expression.
In sequential Stories like the one above, LiB connects philosophy to experience, giving potential festival attendees the flavor of what they have to look forward to. It’s a great example of an annual event that stays connected all year round.
The Viral Eye-Candy: Museum of Ice Cream
@museumoficecream, 297k+ followers
Of all the event brands on Instagram, the pop-up experience Museum of Ice Cream is simultaneously one of the newest and one of the most popular. This phenomenon sells out everywhere it goes — so far L.A., San Francisco, and Miami. The event’s creators build hype around limited ticket releases to ensure instant sell-outs.
The Museum’s Instagram feed is a perfectly curated assemblage of vibrant ice-cream hues. You’d be hard-pressed to find a post that isn’t at least partly pink.
Think:
- Kiddie pools full of sprinkles
- Multi-colored balloons against pastel backdrops
- Gorgeous models in pretty dresses flashing genuine smiles
- There’s even a unicorn or two thrown in
For an example of a brand that stays, well, perfectly on brand, The Museum of Ice Cream is a great model.
The Iconoclast: Beautycon
@beautycon, 391k+ followers
What better place to illustrate this beautiful idea than a visual platform like Instagram? Lush photographs tell a message loud and clear… and help attract festival-goers, too.
Beautycon is breaking traditional beauty stereotypes at its urban festivals in New York, L.A., and London — as well as on Instagram. The brand’s stated mission is to redefine what beauty means and embrace what some call “imperfections.” A diverse global community of content creators, celebrities, fans, and product brands come together to celebrate makeup as a tool for self-expression — not repression.
The Video Storyteller: L.A. Kings
@lakings, 520k+ followers
To sell more tickets to its 2017-2018 NHL season, hockey brand the L.A. Kings turned to Instagram Stories. With a 5-week campaign designed by boutique agency Soda and Lime, they created a series of videos to showcase on the new stories ads feature.
The Kings built custom audiences and lookalike audiences based on their email database of previous buyers. They also looked at visitors to all LA-Kings-owned websites to better hone and target. And importantly, they created an exemption list of fans who they knew had already bought season tickets. All of this capability comes from Instagram’s Facebook-boosted ad technology.
Short-term Instagram campaigns like this help events boost their reach and build excitement about events at specific times — like just before tickets go on sale. Targeting is the key to ROI here. The Kings got a 3.19x return on ad spend.
These are just a few examples of brands on Instagram tapping into social technology to reach more potential ticket-buyers. For more tactical advice on how your event brand could take better advantage of Instagram, download The 2018 Guide to Instagram for Event Marketing.
