How Brands Can Reach Younger Users on Instagram

How do 13- to 24-year-olds in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. use Instagram? Facebook IQ sought out answers to that question.

Facebook IQ teamed up with Crowd DNA to examine the role of visual language in general and the Facebook-owned photo- and video-sharing network in particular on young users in those seven countries, and it found that:

• 53 percent of respondents credited Instagram with helping them define who they were.
• 63 percent use Instagram to help document their lives.
• 72 percent post photos monthly.
• 56 percent of Instagram users interviewed said the platform makes them feel more connected to people they know.
• 52 percent said Instagram gives them a sense of community.
• One-third of respondents check Instagram when they wake up in the morning, and 39 percent do so just before going to sleep.
• Popular topics of discussion on Instagram include fashion/beauty, food, television/films, hobbies and music.
• 68 percent of respondents said they interact with brands regularly, including viewing photos, liking content, following brands, visiting their websites or engaging in other ways.

Facebook IQ also shared the following takeaways for marketers looking to reach the 13-through-24 age group via Instagram:

• Showcase what makes you special: Brands, like people, often have rich and unique narratives to share. To resonate most vividly with teens and young adults, brands will want to channel the authentic perspective that only they can offer the world. Brands can reveal how they see the world differently, using their distinct points of view to guide content creation and inspire Instagrammers.
• Blend in to stand out: Instagrammers appreciate aesthetic quality in visual content and will often make the effort to transform the banal into a thing of beauty. Brands seeking to engage teens and young adults will want to offer an organic experience by aiming for quality, too. Images and video will ideally be beautiful, thoughtfully composed and artfully presented.
• Inspire the moment: Among other things, teens and young adults also value Instagram for being current, trendy and exciting. Brands seeking to resonate will want to deliver on at least a few of these attributes by playing to their followers’ desire to know everything and/or experience something. For many brands, this will mean finding ways to continuously surprise and delight — be it by unveiling new or exclusive news, taking people behind the scenes or even sequencing a story in little chapters that continue to give people a fresh reason to engage.

Readers: What did you think of the findings by Facebook IQ and Crowd DNA?