Instagram Presents Greatest Growth Potential For Finance Brands
by Jack Weinstein
Finance brands could benefit from investing in Instagram.
Not only is Instagram the fastest-growing social media platform—engagement increased 74% on Instagram in 2015 compared with 8% on Facebook and 29% on Twitter for all brands—it’s also the least-used.
Only half of all brands used Instagram in 2015. The percentage of finance brands that use Instagram is even smaller at 24%. By comparison, 99% of finance brands are on Facebook and 90% are on Twitter.
That makes Instagram the social platform with the greatest growth potential. Instagram engagement among finance brands increased 92% in 2015 compared with the year before.
We analyzed the social content produced by finance brands and the engagement it generated in 2015. Using that data, we identified the five most-engaged finance brands on Instagram and some of the social best practices they employ on Instagram.
And we learned there’s no one-size-fits-all Instagram strategy for Finance brands.
- American Express
The credit card giant is by far the most-engaged finance brand on Instagram with more than 204,000 actions in 2015, 150% more than Nasdaq at no. 2. Many posts included a travel theme and placed its recognizable card in a variety of places, from London to Chicago and places in between .
American Express also posted several user-generated stop-motion videos of its card using a variety of materials.
- Nasdaq
Nasdaq posted 794 times to Instagram in 2015, more than twice as much as any other brand in the top 10. Nasdaq’s most-engaged post capitalized on the success of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” with a video of one of the series’ more recognizable characters. The post generated 366% more actions (likes and comments) than the next-most-engaged Nasdaq post.
- NYSE
Though it posted half as often as Nasdaq, the New York Stock Exchange published more Instagram posts (388) than any other brand in the top five. One of NYSE’s Instagram strategies involved the use of emojis. NYSE posts that included emojis generated an average of 54% more actions than posts that didn’t include them.
NYSE increased its use of emojis in H2 2015. Not surprisingly, its most-used emoji was the ?.
- PayPal
PayPal used Instagram last year to feature images of travel destinations. Many of those were co-branded posts with travel publisher Passion Passport. According to our study of social media partnerships, branded content posted by publishers on average generated 215% more engagement than the same content posted by the brand.
- Progressive
Progressive uses its Flo character in many of its Instagram posts. Some of the most engaged give its viewers a look behind the scenes of its commercials. Another strategy the insurance company employs is using Instagram’s 15-second video capacity to post short commercials. Progressive used videos in 34% of its posts last year.
Using social video is a proven way to generate engagement . Actions (likes and comments) from video content on Instagram increased 143% in 2015 compared with the year before.