Brands on Instagram - Social Branding with Images

As each new social networking platform arrives, brands are quick to hop on board to make sure they connect with their target audiences at every opportunity.

One of the recent arrivals in this spectrum is Instagram - an iPhone only community for taking, editing and sharing images launched in October 2010. Although it seems like an impossibly narrow niche to use for brand communications, some are now trying.

Levi’s in Brasil picked up coverage recently for their use of Instagram (see pics above) - and they’re in interesting company.

Here’s some photos from US public radio, NPR - who use it as a real-time photojournalism blog:

Starbucks have also got in early… but they’re not that prolific:

And rounding off the big-brands quick off the mark, here’s some of Pepsi’s recent photos - they’ve joined under their “Pepsi Max” product brand, and also appearing to be taking it slow and steady so far…

It’s an interesting platform for highly visual brands - and it works well as a complement to broader-reaching networks like Twitter. (Don’t forget that we’re just showing you the images, and not the follows, likes, locations and comments that go with a popular Instagram account.)

We don’t have a DesignTactics Instagram account yet - we’re not sure what we would do with it! - but Brendan has been a regular user from week one.

Will any Irish brands make use of this branding opportunity?

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