Maximilian
Münch: »On Instagram, you have to be very active, communicative and responsive,
if you want to have a lot of followers. Community is almost as important as a
good photo. Of course, along with the number of followers, the attention of
companies also grows.«
A year ago, Maximilian
Münch, a 23-years old German photographer, music producer and social
media strategist, started posting on Instagram frequently. It didn't take long for
him to create a real community, which, as he says, has opened up new horizons
and changed his whole life completely. Thanks to Instagram, where he now has
more than 85,000 followers (his Instagram name is @muenchmax),
he is now working for big global brands, like Red Bull, Samsung, Sony, Levi's,
Expedia and others. He helps them develop their Instagram presence and advises
them how to reach the growing community of Instagramers.
Max will share his experience
on how can brands use Instagram for their promotion at the media trends
conference SEMPL, which will be held on the 26th and 27th November in Portorož,
Slovenia.
What is so special about Instagram?
With 300 million monthly and 75
monthly daily users, Instagram has become the biggest online platform for
sharing photos with friends, friends of friends and even friends you don't know
yet.
To see the world, often at the
some time, through so many different perspectives of locals and visitors from
all over the world, to search for place for holidays or weddings, the best
views, the restaurants or the sunsets... All this can be a great inspiration.
For anyone. It is definitely for me.
But it is even more. Instagram for
me is first and foremost a community, continuously growing circle of friends
and acquaintances that you get to know every time you travel or visit a new
city. With the community, you share your love for the photos, exchange the ideas,
meet people and discover places, which as a tourist you would never find. It is
crazy beautiful when you see a place for the first time, catch the moment,
catch the feeling, and share this with thousands of followers.
You now have more than 85,000 followers, almost
unimaginable number for many people. How did you achieve this?
It all started
in April 2014, when I began to meet more and more people who were using this
application. Most of them travelled, photographed, posted, and, most of all,
continuously getting to know new people, new countries. Something that every
one of us would like to do, right?
Well, I
opened my account, started to post, fetch comments under my favourite photos
and follow the people who inspired me with their posts. I can say that I quite
quickly realized that on Instagram, you have to be very active, communicative
and responsive, if you want to have a lot of followers. Community here is
almost as important as a good photo. Of course, along with the number of
followers, the attention of companies also grows.
How can Instagramer connect with a specific company?
Do companies browse Instagram or do you apply yourself to tenders and pitches?
Some companies hire agencies to help them prepare the promotion strategy
and look for people who would be able to execute it, in this case Instagramers.
Most of the companies find me through different agencies. It is almost
impossible to do vice versa because of these intermediaries. It won’t get you
nowhere, if you don’t know who is in between.
Unfortunately, this concept is not optimal. Agencies are springing up
like mushrooms after the rain and are mainly focused on promotion on Facebook,
Twitter or YouTube. Very rarely, they are familiar with Instagram and do not
understand that it has its own rules. I repeat again and again that Instagram
is a world that is entirely its own. If you want to promote or sell anything on
Instagram, you need someone who really knows it. Renowned Instagramers know how
our community functions, we know how to integrate and activate our followers,
we have a lot of experience working with companies, and, most of all, we are
very strongly connected. We often plan campaigns together and our cooperation
results in bigger and better promotion for the client. For all these reasons, I
have recently started to contact companies myself, and I alone prepare a
strategy, for which I believe it will be the best in a given context.
How do companies usually
use Instagram for promotion?
Companies, such as tourism organizations and agencies, as well as
various fashion brands and similar, have long since recognized that media
transitioned from analogue to digital.
It is nowadays much more efficient, if you send an Instagramer with a
certain number of followers to a specific event, location, preferably fitted
with your product (be it a phone, a camera or a garment), than paying for an ad
in a magazine that probably nobody reads anymore.
In this context, it is important to acknowledge that it is not just
about posting photos and counting likes and followers; on Instagram it is always
about building a community that connects the brand with users, and vice versa.
Can you make enough money
with Instagram to live comfortably?
People think that I'm constantly on vacation, that here and there I
just post a bit and here and there being even paid for it. Which is far from the
truth! Instagram is not just about beautiful places, beautiful photos, it is
primarily about the work.
Yes, you can survive with Instagram, although it is still quite
difficult in Europe, as clients often think that everything we do, is just
taking photos with our phones, and posting them on some application. Therefore,
some companies are still not prepared to pay decently for a work that requires
a lot of preparation, knowledge, creativity, and, all in all, expensive
equipment.
Fortunately, this is slowly changing, and mainly due to increasing
number of good practice examples that Instagramers can show to clients, they
rather hire and cooperate with us. Without agencies.