Instagram Boosts Levi’s Social Interactions?

From old Polaroid cameras to photo app Instagram for iPhone, seems to be a small step for mankind. Levi’s Brazil tapped into Instagram on iPhone to boost the social interactions with its targets..

Visual by Brainstorm9

Instagram and Hipstamatic are popular photo-sharing Apps with which users can use a filter to transform the look and feel of their photos. Next they can share the photos with a small text and/or its geo-location on numerous social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare.

These relatively new communities of photo lovers, can offer brands and media companies: simple, cheap but smart concepts or new ways to communicate their message effectively in a purely visual way.

Free iPhone App Instagram showed 1,000,000 users in its first 3 months and its popularity is rising. So Levi’s Brazil opened its Instagram profile and is spreading photos of the new collection and other photos that fit their brand.

In the niche campaign of Levi’s Brazil around 127 people participated and followed. Not much. But we all know that new and emerging technologies will never drive massive reach or sales in the first adoption curve.

In this phase (stage 1) brands can connect to themost share-determining innovators and early adopters. The ones that are most likely to ignite buzz around the brand. And that is what Levi’s Brazil understood very well.

A few more brands will be able to earn attention and free publicity with these photo Apps in stage 1. But when the photo Apps move to stage 2, brands should stay away and do not touch it for a while.

We tend to call stage 2: the innovation graveyard or the chasm. A phase in which the technology is not new and exciting any longer (me too) and will thus not create buzz and free PR any longer. Also not create an innovative image for the brand.

Its smart for brands to wait and see if the technology gets over the chasm (tipping point) and makes it to stage 3: the early and late majorities. In stage 3 brands can step in again, in order to reach the followers and masses.

Some other brands seem to have discovered this new opportunity as well. NH Hotels is using Instagram in a different way. They ask users to take photos of something that ‘starts’. People can share the photos with #WakeUpPics via Twitter and this is how users can win prizes. See the example at NH Hotels on Facebook.

More about Instagram in Paul’s article here on ViralBlog.

Sources: Bright and The Pop-Up City

If you have spotted more brands that have smartly embraced Instagram or Hipstamatic, feel free to share the links in the comments below. We expect our crowd to be able to detect some more…