It’s quarter past four on a sunny Friday afternoon—time for the first performance of Tayfun, Gü, Tobias and Chris in the streets of Salzburg. They’re surrounded by Instagrammers equipped with smartphones and cameras, who are ready to capture their poses, jumps and moves in the best perspective during the next two hours. If you arrived at a scene like this, you’d know Instawalk Salzburg was happening again.
Instagram + Walking = Instawalk
Instawalks are weekly or monthly events that have been taking place all over the world since Instagram was launched 2011. On a set day and time, Instagrammers meet up to take a walk together, explore a city and share photo skills to improve their Instagram skills.
Nowadays many brands are using Instawalks to grab the attention of Instagrammers, who love to share photo stories with their friends and followers. From a marketing perspective, it is cheap advertising tool. For a simple goodie bag you get a huge social reach. But it's not that easy.
Doing it right
In order to host a really successful Instawalk, you first need to understand the community and build a relationship. It is not about presents or goodie bags, but the overall atmosphere. No Instagrammer wants to end up at a sales event of a brand or company.
Here are some golden rules for brands/companies for organizing Instawalks:
1. Reach out to the local Instagrammer community before starting your own event. In each bigger city there is usually an active Igers (short form for Instagrammers) community. Or you search for influencers that you can contact.
2. Think like an Instagrammer: Which accessories and perspectives would make a great motive? How will the light be at that time of the day? Is there public WiFi that can be used? Is the hashtag easy to remember?
3. Never tell Instagrammers what pictures they should take: Every Instagrammer has his or her own unique photo style. Respect that and don't expect perfect photos in the end. It will be much better because every photo has personality!
4. Don't sell. Inspire! You can give away the biggest goodie bag ever, but if the product doesn't have nicely designed packaging or is not trendy enough, nobody will share a photo of it online.
5. Be on Instagram: Inspire with details, stories and with your own Instagram account. Nobody will believe you if you don't live it yourself.
For updates on the next Instawalks coming up, follow Boom Creative Lab on Instagram.
For more impressions of the last #InstawalkSbg click HERE