54% of Top Brands Include Instagram in their Social Strategy

Big Brands often integrate new social media channels in their social strategy while struggling to keep their market share and always have a great relationship with their customers transformed in fans or followers. Go where your clients are is a marketing recommendation strictly followed by successful companies. Photo sharing site Instagram quickly attracted adopters and is now used by 54% of Interbrand top 100 companies, as a recent study by Simply Measured shows.

Nike is one of the companies that had a big rise in Instagram followers, ranking fourth in the Interbrand 100 companies from this point of view. Using cross-promo with Facebook is key to Nike’s success, as this social network allows likes on Instagram to appear in personal feeds. 90 % of photos posted by brands on Instagram were also shared on Facebook. MasterCard, Philips, Samsung, and Volkswagen are the companies joining Instagram most recently and are already attracting an important number of followers.

“Seeing this level of activity, it’s more clear than ever that Instagram has graduated from a ‘fun new social network’ to an integral component of a brand’s social strategy,” said Adam Schoenfeld, CEO at Simply Measured. “While early adopters are seeing a majority of the engagement, there’s still time for newer brands to jump in and leverage the visual nature of the platform to engage and grow their audiences.”

Limited admin features and mobile-only focus are the main reasons for Instagram’s success among brands. Other key findings of the study reveal that brand activity on Instagram has increased, 34% of the Interbrand 100 posting at least 1 photo per week. However, only eight companies on the Interbrand 100 currently have more than 100,000 followers so there is a lot to do in this direction in order to fully benefit from this social app.

Eurovision 2013 and Why “What If” Won’t Ever Happen, Not Ever

This year’s Eurovision contest showed promise. Promise of human beings coming together in Europe, maybe across the world. Now, days after Denmark’s Emmelie de Forest, sanging the winning song in the finale, Only Teardrops the idea and ideology still enshrouds Europe. With Azerbaijan launching an investigation into its own voting schema, and an enrage Russian fan base, the Europe of medieval times just doesn’t seem so far off.

Jon Ola Sand, Executive Supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest - Courtesy Eurovision

ZOA Calls for Israel Commentary on Netzarim Junction Affair

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is calling for the state of Israel to hold a press conference to address a new investigation into what they say is a libelous past report on a Palestinian youth shooting.

A world, a people, outraged by reporting of an incident - courtesy Al Durah Project

EXCLUSIVE: Columbia Sportswear Sends Out RFP

Just in, Columbia Sportswear has sent out a request for proposal (RFP) for entertainment marketing firms to attend a coming campaign to focus on the Columbia Sportswear target demographic. Columbia Sportswear Company owns Columbia, Mountain Hardwear, SOREL, Montrail and the Pacific Trail brands, but according to the request questionnaire the company sent out, the focus will be exclusively for the Columbia brand name.

Ronn Torossian on Brand Angelina Jolie

With Angelina Jolie being lauded as a hero worldwide for her valiant effort to have a preventative double mastectomy, there’s also the BRAND and PR story of Angelina Jolie. Even previous to this, Jolie’s brand has shined – Best-selling PR Book “For Immediate Release: Shape Minds, Build Brands, and Deliver Results with Game-Changing Public Relations” by CEO of 5WPR Ronn Torossian had a section on Jolie.