The objective of the IBM Instagram account is to showcase the global scale of our technology, people and places to reshape perceptions of IBM. We strive for drive meaningful interactions among our key audience segments through low-cost, high-impact content. Our key KPIs are Engagement Rate, Audience Engagement (comments), Brand Engagement (replies--yes we tally up each time we reply), Applause (Likes) and Audience (followers). We work closely with our Instagram partners to ensure we're leveraging the latest products and tactics like Instagram Stories, Carousels, Video.
With more than 370,000 employees worldwide, we take a multiple approaches with our Instagram and Instagram Story strategies.
There is only one IBM Instagram account across the entire IBM enterprise. Each feed post works to increase brand awareness, grow brand affinity, and engage employees and tech lovers through beautiful and inspiring photography, animation and video. We use content both created by our in-house CHQ social brand team, but we also collaborate closely with each business unit and teams across the globe. We work to curate content from IBMers, IBM fans, and technology lovers across the platform through listening and engagement. Our team measures analytics meticulously so we are constantly tracking what resonates and fine-tuning our strategy accordingly.
With Instagram stories, we decided to take a 2-fold approach. We decided to make the IBM Instagram account available to any employee who wanted to share a story, while also producing "pre-designed/animated" stories. This gives us the opportunity to share about IBM's products/services, events, research, history, culture, and values in many different and engaging ways. We put documents and guidelines in place to help shape expectations for stories, and announced the approach through an internal blog post. Throughout the year, we've shared stories from 28 different teams, and from employees in countries including Germany, the UK, France, Japan, Australia and the US.
Our Instagram channel in 2017 garnered 231k+ organic engagements with an average engagement rate of 1.76% per post and average engagement total of 2.66k.
Our most successful Instagram posts include the IBM logo redesigned to reflect our commitment to LGBTQ diversity and inclusion, with 4.3k+ engagements and an engagement rate of 3.94%. Our other most successful posts include a photograph of 2 female researchers, with an engagement total of 4.6k+ and engagement rate of 3.91%, a photograph of our Internet of Things headquarters in Munich, Germany with an engagement total of 4.3K+ and engagement rate of 3.45%
Our Instagram stories have garnered approximately 246,000 unique viewers with an average completion rate of 46%
Our highest viewed Instagram Story garnered approximately 21,000 unique viewers, and our highest completion rate for an Instagram story was 71%
IBM Instagram stories have been recognized as best in class:
-http://www.toprankblog.com/2017/12/b2b-snapchat-in...
-http://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-networks/in...
-https://www.marketingprofs.com/chirp/2017/32617/ho...
