Why Instagram is the only platform to sell brands in 2019

It feels like out of nowhere Instagram became the only way to sell products on social media.

That’s because 85% of all purchasing decisions by Millennials and Generation Y’s are now made via Instagram.

The Millenial or Gen Y market does not look at billboards, rarely picks up a newspaper, doesn’t watch the news, has Netflix and an unlimited amount of cash or credit.

Millenials make up 50% of the workforce.

Their parents have worked incredibly hard so they don’t have to worry about buying a house, or a holiday home. They will inherit one. So what do they do with their income?

They go on luxury holidays, eat out frequently, are obsessed with Wellness and Fitness and have the best of everything. Drinking is clean, vodka or gin and no sugar tonics.

A Millenial does Yoga, eats organic food, takes superfoods, listens to podcasts about Spirituality, living longer and becoming a Billionaire. They Meditate, they attend womens and mens circles, book clubs, have dinner parties and they are putting off having kids until their late 30’s or 40’s, if at all.

They cook, they paint, garden, nature bath like hiking, they upcycle fashion, are environmentally conscious. Millennials journal, write short stories, often work remotely, they serve and give back.

Often they have moved home, which gives them more spending power in the market or they rent. Only 38% of Millennials own property.

75% of Millennials will spend $4 US on a cup of coffee and $10 US on a juice or smoothie daily.

A Millenial will travel solo to places like India, Bali and Cambodia.

They are influenced by social media, in particular Instagram.

If you don’t have a social media strategist or Communications Manager with a strong Instagram knowledge, start looking for one, fast. Even better, hire one with a Wellness focus. This is a 4.2 trillion dollar quickly emerging industry.

The five fold increase in Instagram users happened in just one year. While more people are registered users of Facebook, this doesn’t mean they are using it. How many of us have a Facebook account but haven’t touched it in months?

Facebook is for grandmothers and Twitter is for politicians, Instagram has the spending power.

If you have a luxury brand and do not have a large Instagram presence, you are in trouble.

Psychologically, there are many reasons why Instagram is miles ahead of the game. For one, as a user, you can jump on and jump off quickly. Energy you expel on Instagram is less. You glance at a one minute story, view a picture and maybe read the entire post, but really it’s a visual experience.

This is why so many brands are failing in the Instagram game. Because they are not telling a story, they are selling a story. Templates for brands are not creative enough to capture the market. Instagram, while following a basic template, has no rules and changes with the wind.

In just three months the demand for Social Media Strategists has increased dramatically. Some brands believed hiring Millenials to do their pages would work, but Millennials are not always good at strategy nor writing and editing content.

At one point companies were hiring graphic designers to do their social media strategy.

Graphic designers are good at flyers. The content for Instagram is vital but it has to feel real.

Many companies get bots or robots to buy followers. Never do this. Organic followers are the ones purchasing. The only way I would recommend you to “buy” followers is to get your numbers to 10,000 so you can access the “swipe up” tool which enables you to link to your website from the stories. Otherwise organic all the way.

Instagram tells a story and the most successful pages do just that. They have a personality.

So it makes sense to have writers working on your Instagram pages. Content is vital to make or break your Instagram page. By content I mean the hook, which is the photo, the story, and the message you are trying to convey in a very short “bite”.

For new brands, aim to post one to three “main” page per day and a minimum eight Insta stories.

Influencers are vital for selling your items. However there are many influencers that may not be inline with your companies ethics and are not the right fit. Don’t just look at their followers, look at their engagement. They may have bought 300,000 followers but reach one hundred people per day. Someone with 2,000 followers may organically engage with 500 people per day. Ask to view the influencers “insights” page to see if their audience is the right fit for your brand. Insights is a social media tool that enables us to track gender, age, location etc of your audience.

Celebrities handle their own pages because Authenticity is a big part of the Instagram game.

Your posts need to come from the heart. This may sound sappy, but the market is very aware of a fake post and one that is organic. If they feel like they are made to be part of the page’s community and involved in the life of the page, you have won the Instagram game.  

The most popular Wellness brands, for example, tell a daily story of Wellness. You will see a trip to the farmers market, a smoothie stop, spa treatment, yoga or meditation class, luxury sunset, a clean meal and a sleep ritual in one day on Instagram stories.

Gwyneth Paltrow’s GOOP brand hit 1 million Instagram followers in 2019. Paid partnerships with luxury brands like Chloe are balanced by their “buy local” campaign where they showcase a local artisan once a month. Goop does not saturate their “pages”. Saturation is instagram overload.

Even for their Goop events, a wellness event held in NY, LA and London each year at $1000 US for a day pass, they only post a dozen or so stories of the entire day. Gwyneth Paltrow has her model and actor friends discussing their latest health craze in real time, which is a powerful tool to see 50-60 year olds like Elle McPherson and Demi Moore sharing their secrets. Authenticity all the way. Your Millenial market can see through a young model on a beach selling a product. They want to visually see what drinking Celery Juice or Yoga has done for someone like Elle.

Each event starts with a Kundalini Yoga Meditation. A yoga that become famous thanks to Madonna and Michael Jackson in the 80’s that has swept the Millennial market in the West. The meditations are proven to prevent Alzheimer's - again Millennials are seeking the end result.  

One of the most powerful apps on the market is the Calm Meditation app. I was approached to work on this app in 2015, I never thought it would fly. Based in Silicon Valley and with 26 million downloads it is now one of the most downloaded apps on the market.

As a social media strategist for Luxury Wellness I have some important tips when hiring someone to manage your page.

• Don’t ask to see their personal page followers. All good strategists are too busy working on other pages to tend to their own.
• Try a Wellness angle for your brand. Your biggest market is in this area.
• If you are showcasing food, shoot from above the plate.
• Chefs have incredible instagram pages, repost and follow their lead.
• When enlisting an influencer, have a contract in place of expectations and deliverables.
• Youtube presence is vital, so choose influencers who are on Instagram and Youtube.
• Forget Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest - focus on your Instagram and everything else can be linked from there.