The everyday life is full of impressions, surroundings and illustrations that embody the desire of well-being and an active lifestyle. This could be used for marketing purposes as a strategy, to show people how good they can feel from using a product and through value creation persuade customers to want a product or service. As technology evolves so do the marketing strategies of brands. A relatively new example of this evolutionary phenomenon is Instagram and is one of the platforms on social media. On social media one can share sophisticated creations at no cost and thereby reach millions of users instantly. Companies that desire to market themselves visually are able to do this through surroundings and illustrations via Instagram. Additionally, it is an effective and widely used tool for the purpose of communicating a brand. Marketing communications are used to mediate the brand to its potential customers, often resulting in the creation of a dialogue and further establishment of a relationship between customer and company.
Social media is one part of marketing communications and argues that social media is an effective tool for companies to communicate their brand due to the growing numbers of users. Instagram is one of the platforms on social media and the name means instant telegram. It is an application that allows the use of photos or short clips to promote or share knowledge between users. When using the application for branding purposes due to the increased pressure on mobile marketing it is good to have a profile that is credible and powerful. For the example the current is, Faiz Roslan which totally used his Instagram for self-branding. By doing that he will exposed to public and the brand will approach him for paid review. Same goes to local celebrity such as Neelofa, she apply the same method as additional or main income.
Picture 1: Faiz Roslan
Picture 2: Neelofa
Many brands have websites where it is possible to purchase the products displayed in the pictures on Instagram and one purpose of the Instagram account is to generate traffic to the website and in turn make prospects buy products . In addition, clarifies that the website also generates traffic to the Instagram account and thereby the account gets more followers and increasing the awareness of the brand.
Brand identity has been explained as the way a company conveys themselves, their core associations indicating the company’s promise to its customers. It is through their brand identity that the company communicates its uniqueness and character. Brand identity origins from the sender’s (the company) side. It is created internally and for an identity to consistently carry what manager’s desire customers to perceive, managers need to be clear and concise when delivering the message. Moreover, the sender must know who they wish to reach and what responses they wish to get. Companies communicate and advertise in order to present and strengthen their brand identity. However that brand identity creation takes place even before one communicates the wanted identity through a marketing channel. Furthermore, a strong brand identity can help to build trust between the brand and customer, and thus it can be a source of differentiation. Customers play an important role since they are the ones who define and redefine the identity. Brand identity consists of the following components: personality, culture, and self-image, which all allow the company to specify their brand’s meaning
If a company has a focus on their target group and does research regarding it, one can with adapted pictures that are appealing to the specific target group achieve a similar brand image to brand identity. Additionally if one has a focus on creating a strong and long term relationship with customers through pictures, comments and hashtags, it may build trust and thereby receive loyal followers with a greater understanding of the brand. The creation of relationships via Instagram allows one to be more personal and enables customers to identify themselves with the brand, which indicate a stronger bond between the two parties. This then implies that there is a possibility to bring brand identity and brand image closer together.