(RED) harnesses the power of the world's most creative people in the fight to end AIDS. For several years, Instagram has been one of our primary social channels. However, last year the world reached a critical moment in the AIDS fight. More than ever before, (RED) identified a need to reach a younger, more engaged audience to help raise critical funds and awareness for (RED) and the AIDS fight. With creativity and visual expression at the core of the (RED) brand and Instagram's values, we identified Instagram as a critical platform for achieving these goals.
(RED) has three core objectives on Instagram:
1. Increase our reach.
2. Connect with a younger audience.
3. Deepen engagement with our existing community.
We believe the right to tomorrow, should be a reality for everyone. Our Instagram presence is an invitation to join (RED) in making this reality possible.
(RED)'s Instagram strategy is driven by three main principles: creativity, empowerment and connection. These principles are visually expressed and embodied in all of our content — from lifestyle images of (RED) products to personal stories of how (RED) money is at work on the ground.
These three principles give our audience the evidence they need to understand how their collective efforts lead to real impact with (RED).
CREATIVITY
We are visual storytellers who value authenticity and relevancy. Our audience not only craves inspiration from us, but demand it. We focus on bold ideas that require creative participation. We're not afraid to take risks — because we understand that we will learn from posts that underperform. Creating visually inspiring and creative content — from illustrations to quotes to funky phrases — we aim to create content that makes users stop scrolling in their feed.
EMPOWERMENT
(RED) exists because there are 37 million people in the world living with HIV/AIDS - a treatable and preventable disease. Communicating the impact of (RED) purchases and actions is incredibly valuable in terms of gaining trust from consumers, and for encouraging people to buy (RED). When we are able to tell the story of teenager who has access to life-saving treatment thanks to their (RED) purchased, they are armed with the information and power they need to be an advocate for (RED) and the AIDS fight.
CONNECTION
After establishing engagement as a key objective, we made it our goal to respond to all comments, questions and mentions of (RED) on related hashtags. We often were able to reach customers who had purchased a (RED) product, but did not know that it triggered a contribution to fight AIDS. This engagement and connection is invaluable to (RED), helping us build lasting relationships with our supporters. Just like the AIDS pandemic, social media knows no geographic boundaries. Every day, social media is connecting us in ways we could have never imagined. We aim to empower social media users to play a real role in the fight against AIDS.
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Instagram has proven a powerful platform for us to weave together the disparate narratives that (RED) needs to speak to regularly: personal stories of those impact by our work, our iconic brand partners and their products, the state of the HIV/AIDS crisis, and the role that both individuals and business can play in having an impact on global health. Instagram allows us to infuse each of these narrative threads with an empowering voice and engage our audience around the (RED) model and story through the strong design and creativity that is part of the DNA of the (RED) brand.
1. Increase our reach: We increased our average reach per post from 10,313 in August 2016 to 20,507 in July 2017.
2. Connect with a younger audience: The majority of our followers are ages 25-34 on Instagram, our youngest audience out of all our platforms.
3. Deepen engagement with our existing community: We increased our average engagement per post from 765.58 in August 2016 to 1,100.84 in July 2017.
