How Fortune 500 Companies Use Instagram to Build Their Brands

Is your company on Instagram yet? If so, it joins the 123 Fortune 500s that have added Instagram to their marketing arsenal.

Brands like Nike, Starbucks, Ralph Lauren, Whole Foods and more are all top players in the Instagram big brand space.

TrackMaven, a competitive analysis firm, has released a study that exposes how these Fortune 500s are using Instagram, and gives tips on how you can use Instagram like a boss, too.

Having an Instagram account is one thing, but actually using it is another. TrackMaven explored the percentage of active accounts versus inactive accounts of Fortune 500s and found that of the 123 using Instagram, about 22% had active accounts.

Most Active Brands on Instagram

The most-active brands using Instagram based on followers, photo posts and video posts included brands like:

• Nike
• Starbucks
• Foot Locker
• Apple
• Ralph Lauren
• Nordstrom
• Walt Disney
• Gap
• Whole Foods
• Target
• Lowe’s
• General Mills
• VF Corporation
• Walgreens
• Allstate
• Ford
• AT&T

Instagram Photo vs. Video

So what performs better for Fortune 500s — photo or video? We say that because Instagram’s video service is somewhat new, photos still appear to be doing better for brands versus video.

When Are the Best Times to Post on Instagram?

The study suggests that businesses using Instagram marketing can reap the benefits of content consumption not just during business hours, but in the evenings and on weekends, too. The following graph shows only a slight variance in user interaction on photos during the week.

This idea is similar to what we discussed when approaching B2B social, stating your social community is consuming social content from your business as regular people at all times of the day, not just as professionals.

However, video content specifically performed better during off hours, suggesting users are more likely to engage with videos when not at work, presumably because of the audio component of video

Most Popular Instagram Photo Filters

Wondering what photo filters get the most attention? Interestingly enough, the untouched uploaded photo, or #nofilter, was the most-used by Fortune 500s, but the photos with the Mayfair filter seemed to perform the best.

Instagram Hashtags

Turning to Instagram features that more brands should be capitalizing on is the hashtag. According to the study, number of hashtags correlated to the success of the content.

Looking at the interactions (the sum of likes and comments) per 1,000 followers compared to the number of hashtags used, there is a strong correlation to the number of hashtags used and effectiveness up to 5 hashtags which has the highest average at 21.21 interactions per 1,000 followers.