Late last year the photo sharing app Instagram made news when it had officially reached 300 million active users, making it larger than Twitter. In another story it was revealed by BI that Instagram is not only gaining traction in sheer numbers of users, but posts from the biggest brands on the photo app are receiving almost 50 times more engagement (at the highest level) too. In other words it was evident that Instagram was another medium for brands to reach out to the millennial.
The International Cricket Council which has a dominant presence on leading networks such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube wanted to target a new network to target the millennial before the 2015 Cricket World Cup (#CWC15). 12 months prior to the #CWC15, the brand launched its presence on Instagram with the below posts.
Namibia and the UAE take the field in the #cwc15 semi-final
A photo posted by ICC Cricket World Cup (@cricketworldcup) on
In a years time, the Instagram account has focused beyond generic cricket updates and visuals. While promoting #CWC15 has been the motto but the marketing pitch has been smartly placed with a variety of visual content. This has helped the brand to build a community of more than 22.9K followers.
Lighthouse Insights studied the wide variety of content from the brand on Instagram. Listed below are five interesting content types in which ICC has tried to create interaction on a medium which has evolved into an interest based network from just being a photo and video sharing network.
1. Celebrating 100 days to #CWC15
Updating fans with a countdown is a common way by which brands try to create interest among fans. ICC brought the cricketing heritage with the countdown. Attaching countdown with cricketing knocks from legends was bound to click with the cricket loving fans. These visuals also promoted and asked fans to vote for the greatest CWC moment.
2. Trophy travels
#cwctrophytour was brought on to Instagram with some breathtaking and amazing views. The views just added the extra glitz to the cricketing cup for which 14 teams are battling from 14 February to 29 March 2015 in Australia and NewZealand.
What a view! @cricketcomau legend Mike Hussey went abseiling with the #cwctrophytour in Tasmania today! A photo posted by ICC Cricket World Cup (@cricketworldcup) on
3. Promoting host cities of #CWC15
The month long cricketing battle is being fought at 14 venues, with Australia staging 26 games at grounds in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney while New Zealand hosts 23 games in Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin, Hamilton, Napier, Nelson and Wellington. The final match of the tournament will take place at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
ICC took this opportunity to promote the match venues, shared breathtaking snaps of the host cities and asked fans to guess it right. Even though these posts had no goodies attached for guessing right it still got decent traction.
Can you guess which #cwc15 host city this is? A photo posted by ICC Cricket World Cup (@cricketworldcup) on
4. Cricketing trivia
Similar to promoting host cities, ICC also had cricketing trivia on its Instagram page. The below contents are some of the best examples of the Tuesday trivia which was able to intrigue fans.
Tuesday Trivia: @cricketcomau legend @shanewarne23 took 32 #cwc wickets at an average of 19.50. A photo posted by ICC Cricket World Cup (@cricketworldcup) on
5. Video messages for fans
The 15 second videos are a great way of building content on Instagram. While there is no limit to one’s imagination in what they can achieve in the 15 seconds, ICC has used the feature too. The videos are decent with messages from cricketing stars to their fans, excitement at the ground and the fan madness during the game.
Check out this sneak-peek of brand-new #cwc15 opening venue Hagley Oval. Who will win when @blackcapsnz take on Sri Lanka in the tournament’s opening match on 14 February 2015. A video posted by ICC Cricket World Cup (@cricketworldcup) on
By sharing content beyond just match updates, ICC’s Instagram effort is not just decent and encouraging, it is also in line with Instagram’s objective as a social network. However, it has a long way to go to compete with the brands that have raised the bar of creative content on Instagram. May be next time it could collaborate with a new age content creator for such networks to get better reach and engagement.
