It is impossible today to walk through a major US airport and not spot an Away suitcase. The suitcases with wheels that rotate a full 360 degrees, removable batteries, and designs that complement your travel outfits, cannot go unnoticed.
If not at an airport, you definitely must have seen them on Instagram. If you are someone whose travel plans keep getting canceled, you should steer away from Away’s Instagram feed. Away suitcases in millennial pink, gorgeous blacks, and stunning beiges have taken Instagram with a storm. The grammable suitcases are, as the millennials call ‘on fleek.’
With 489K followers, Away is one example of successful businesses that got their start on Instagram.
Instagram is no more just a photo-sharing app. As a robust marketing tool, Instagram success has become a deal-breaker for brands. It has a staggering 1 billion monthly active users as of June 2018. A few entrepreneurs have managed to leverage this massive community of people and built successful Instagram businesses with their own massive following.
Listed below are the most successful businesses on Instagram that have achieved great success with the platform’s help.
Successful businesses on Instagram that got their start on the platform
Privacy Please
How can you build an online clothing brand without a website? Ask Privacy Please, please. This American women’s clothing brand has achieved great strides, both in sales and popularity without a website. Their stuff is available on Revolve, but Instagram remains at the crux of their business operations. Their feed, a beautiful ensemble of beige and rust tones that perfectly complement their clothes, is a sight to sore eyes.
A part of Revolve – the company which owns several mini fashion brands, Privacy Please with 115K followers and a vintage-inspired clothing line has become one of the most successful brands on Instagram in a matter of three years.
Chubbies
Second on our list of most successful businesses on Instagram is a brand that makes quirky men’s shorts and uses real men with real beer bellies and untamed beards to model them.
Four friends founded Chubbies as a response to the lack of swimwear choices for men who don’t and also do have sculpted beach bodies to don beach undies.
Through Instagram, Chubbies has made its shorts a cult sensation by being genuinely involved with their consumers and constantly rolling out great designs that people love. Their IG feed is the perfect example of a successful Instagram marketing strategy that subtly promotes its brand with humor.
Away
Away has managed to convert the humdrum suitcase into a sensational accessory and an object of envy on Instagram. The phone charger enabled, colorful and smart suitcases have become the perfect travel partner for many. The response of people since Away’s launch was such that the brand was listed on Forbes list of “Next Billion-dollar startups” in just three years after its launch.
A large portion of Away’s success is credited to Instagram as it was here where all the hype was first created. Away made it possible by tapping into the millennial sensibility – the desire that everything they use be a statement piece.
A carefully curated Instagram feed replete with images of Away suitcases gliding smoothly in exotic locations and collaborations with travel influencers and personalities like Karlie Kloss has made Away one of the most successful businesses on Instagram.
Glossier
This beauty and skincare brand founded by Emily Weiss has kept Instagram as a priority from the get-go. In fact, before the founder launched her flagship products on the Glossier website, they were launched on the Instagram page.
Glossier’s Instagram strategy is often cited as the best example of successful Instagram marketing. Glossier’s Instagram page had more than a hundred posts of its products and collaboration before they were even launched on the website. Emily Weiss’s blog ‘Into the Gloss’ was already a hit and her loyal readers were already on their feet to get one of Glossier’s products. The result? They created enough hype to gain 13K followers that boosted product sales once launched on the website.
Meiji – The Chocolate
Meiji, the Japanese manufacturer of sweets and snacks isn’t unfamiliar with successfully running confectionery products. But it’s chocolate which is simply dubbed as Meiji – the Chocolate brought a different kind of fame and success to this Japanese brand.
The chocolate uses a distinctive vertical packaging with metallic embellishments. The chocolate came at a time when the craze for Instagram in Japan was catapulting. The chocolate took over Instagram and the most laudable nub of the hype was that most of it was user generated. Instagrammers were seen getting creative with their chocolate bar packets, making bookmarks and origami and posting them on IG.
Instagram is driven by visuals. Ergo, Instagram businesses have to wear their creative hats all the time and deliver images and videos that instantly arrest people’s attention. All of the most successful businesses on Instagram mentioned above have IG feeds that look no less than a natty magazine. Over and above the design, these brands are masters in identifying buyer personas and create authentic and relatable content.
Instagram is crowded with brands trying to make it big on the platform. Cutting through the noise are successful brands on Instagram that deliver quality products in a way that Instagrammers like and appreciate.
