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9to5Mac Daily 082: May 25, 2018
Listen to a recap of the top stories of the day from 9to5Mac. 9to5Mac Daily is available on iTunes and Apple’s Podcasts app, Stitcher, TuneIn, Google Play, or through our dedicated RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.
Review: Lumos and Coros bring Bluetooth helmets to bikers with lights and music
If you are like me, Spring means biking season and I want to tell you about two great bike helmets that connect to your iPhone via Bluetooth to not only make your ride more safe but also more fun too. For over a year, I’ve had the Coros LINX helmet which uses bone conducting conduits to safely send audio signal to your eardrums without blocking natural sound.
A few weeks ago I peeped the new $179.99 Lumos Helmet at the Grand Central Apple Store touting bright lights and a turn signal activated from your phone.
Apple commits to disclosing app takedown requests by governments in latest transparency report
Apple takes user privacy very seriously. The company believes that privacy in software, hardware, and services is part of a user’s rights and should be valued as such.
Some MacBook Pro shipping dates slip to June 6, hinting at WWDC refresh
9to5Toys Lunch Break: Apple Watch Series 3 from $279, 10.5-inch iPad Pro $550, Current Gen. iMac $300 off, more
Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+ and Safari push notifications. more…
Photos and videos show impressive new Apple store in Seattle’s University Village nearing completion
After more than a year of construction work, Apple’s large new store located in Seattle’s University Village shopping center will soon be complete.
CMV: With even porn sites offering VPN, the three reasons Apple should do the same
There’s been some amusement as a certain well-known ‘adult entertainment’ site announced the launch of its own VPN service.
Smutty jokes aside, there’s never been a more important time to use a VPN. Less than $100 will now buy a bad guy the equipment they need to carry out a man-in-the-middle attack – where they spoof a public WiFi hotspot and intercept the traffic. Some of these devices are even small enough to be disguised as a power plug, meaning they could be left in a coffee shop happily collecting data to be later used at leisure.
And the loss of net neutrality raises the prospect of ISPs offering a two-speed Internet, or even blocking sites altogether. Most are adamant that they’d never do so, but then they were equally vocal about wanting to end net neutrality, which makes no sense unless they planned to take advantage of the change …
Best Buy Full Memorial Day Sale Now Live!! Apple Watch Series 3, MacBook Pro, HDTVs, Smart Home, much more
Yesterday Best Buy kicked off an early, lightweight version of its Memorial Day Sale, but today we are getting the full thing. We are seeing hundreds of dollars off MacBook Pro, MacBook Air and iMac, as well as a solid discount on Apple Watch Series 3 and much more. We are also getting a load of HDTVs, headphones and Amazon device offers as well. Some deals are only available with a free My Best Buy membership. The sale runs from now through Monday, unless stock runs out before then. Head below for everything. more…
Comment: Apple’s example shows how Europe’s new privacy law will benefit people worldwide
Europe’s tough new privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), came into force today. It provides the strongest protections the world has ever seen for customer and user data.
Even Apple – a company famed for its respect for customer privacy – had to strengthen its safeguards in order to meet the extremely high standards set by GDPR. But while the law only applies to European Union citizens, Apple and some other companies have said that they plan to roll out the same privacy standards worldwide …
The Beginner’s Guide to Google Tag Manager
Collecting data using tools like Google Analytics is critical for expanding your business’s online reach, converting leads into customers, and optimizing a digital marketing strategy to create stronger relationships with your audience.
However, collecting data is easier said than done. Google Analytics and other similar analytics tools aid the process, but they work more effectively with the addition of tags.
Tags, in a general sense, are bits of code you embed in your website’s javascript or HTML to extract certain information.
For marketers, necessary tag information typically includes how long users visit a page on your site, form submissions, how they arrived on your site, which links they clicked, or even what products they removed from their shopping cart.
Each tag tracks something different. For instance, you might create a tag just to see how many people fill out the form on your “Contact Us” page. That tag can then send more precise information to Google Analytics, or AdWords, or another third party.
Unfortunately, manually coding tags can be a tedious and difficult process for marketers without much development or coding experience, and it’s time-consuming to fill out tickets for the IT department.
With Google Tag Manager, your whole tagging process becomes much easier. All you do is embed a code into your site pages once, and then each time you want to create a tag, Google Tag Manager codes it and embeds it for you.
What is Google Tag Manager?
Google Tag Manager is a tag management system that allows you to create and monitor tags on a user interface, without writing new code each time you want to construct a tag. You simply embed the Google Tag Manager code into each page of your website. This eliminates the manual process of creating tags, making your marketing process more efficient and precise.
Google Tag Manager does a few things: first, it allows your developers and IT department to focus on bigger-picture tasks by eliminating the burden of coding each individual marketing tag.
Second, since Google Tag Manager codes the tags for you, it significantly reduces the possibility of human error.
And third, Google Tag Manager enables your marketing department to take complete control over the tags they create and monitor. Giving your marketers full reign over their tags increases efficiency. Plus, using tags improves the accuracy of your analytics system, guaranteeing higher-quality reports and a better sense of your true online audience.
With all that said, it’s still a tool you might want to try for yourself before deciding if it’s a perfect fit — perhaps you already have a tagging system in place, or you don’t feel you need that level of organization, since your website doesn’t usually need new tags.
Google Tag Manager is free, so you can try it out virtually risk-free. Here, we’ll show you how to set up an account, how to create a new tag, how to use Google Tag Manager with your Google Analytics account, and how to embed the tool in WordPress.
After that, you can decide for yourself if it’s the right system for your business.
Google Tag Manager Tutorial: Set Up an Account
Setting up a free account is an easy two-step process, but it’s separate from any of your other Google Analytics or Gmail accounts. To ensure a painless set-up for you, we’ve recorded our process for setting up an account.
Here’s what you do:
1. Go to https://www.google.com/analytics/tag-manager and click the green “Sign Up for Free” button. It will ask you to input your account name (company), country, and website URL, as well as where you want to use Google Tag (web, iOS, android, AMP). When you’re finished, click the blue “Create” button.
2. Next, you’ll be given codes and instructions to include one code high in the <head> of your page, and the other after the opening <body> tag. You can do this now, or apply the codes to your site later (they are accessible in your dashboard). Once you’re done, click “Ok”.
Google Tag Manager Tutorial: Set Up a Tag
Once you have a Google Tag Manager account, the first thing you’re going to want to learn is how to set up a tag.
You can create unlimited configurations of tags in Google Tag Manager.
This is helpful for creating in-depth reports on your audience’s behavior, but it can become inefficient if you don’t organize your tags properly.
Google recommends using the following naming convention: tag type – name of app – detail.
Perhaps you name one tagging configuration, “AdWords conversions – iOS – 2018-02 campaign” and then another, “Google Analytics – CTA – About Us page”.
This way, you can correctly identify and collect data related to specific campaigns or pages.
For instance, the second tag, “Google Analytics – CTA – About Us page,” tells you how well your About Us call-to-action button is performing. That information is valuable, and might be lost if you named your tags more generally, like, “CTA button”.
Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s check out how to set up a tag:
1. Within your Google Tag Manager dashboard, click the “Add a New Tag” button, circled below in red.
2. Title your tag, and then click anywhere in the top “Tag Configuration” box, to choose a tag type.
3. There are dozens of tag types (they are not all displayed here, and you can also customize a tag type). I chose “Classic Google Analytics”.
4. If you want your tag tracked in Google Analytics, the next step will be to input your Web Property ID, found in your Google Analytics account. Then, select a “Track Type”. I chose “Page View”, but there are plenty of other options.
5. Next, choose a trigger (a trigger means when you want the tag recorded, i.e. “every time someone visits the page”). I chose “All Pages”, to get insights every time someone views any of my web pages, but this varies depending on your purposes.
6. When you’re happy with the information in the “Tag Configuration” and “Triggering” boxes, click the blue “Save” button.
7. Next, click the blue “Submit” button. Your tag won’t work until you do so.
8. When you click “Submit”, you’ll be taken to this “Submission Configuration” page. There are two options: “Publish and Create Version” or “Create Version”. Since I’m ready to push the tag onto all my site pages, I selected “Publish and Create Version”, and then I pressed the blue “Publish” button in the top right.
9. Finally, you’ll be shown this “Container Version Description”. To keep your tags organized, add a name and description to understand what you’re trying to record with this tag.
10. Ensure your tag appears in your “Version Summary” report.
Now, you’ve successfully created your first tag.
Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics
If you want to use Google Tag Manager in conjunction with Google Analytics, there are a couple steps you need to take. However, it’s a worthwhile endeavor — embedding tags in your site will increase the precision of your Analytics reports.
First off, you’ll need to remove your GA code from your site pages. You’ll only need your Google Tag Manager tag code embedded — if you use both, it’ll just report everything twice and mess up your data.
Second, you’ll probably want to create a variable for your Google Analytics Tracking ID. A variable is a Google Tag Manager tool meant to increase your efficiency by saving additional (optional) data you provide.
If you save your GA Tracking ID as a variable, you won’t have to look it up every time you create a new tag for Google Analytics (which makes the lazy-person in me very happy).
How to Create a Variable in Google Tag Manager
1. Click “Variables” on your Google Tag Manager homepage.
2. Under “User-Defined Variables”, click “New”.
3. Name your variable — I named it “GA Tracking ID” so I’d remember. Then, click the “Variable Configuration” box.
4. Choose “Constant” as your variable type, since you don’t want the ID to change for different tags.
5. Now, input your Google Analytics Tracking ID number into the “Value” box, and then select “Save” in the top right.
Next, let’s edit our “TestTag1” that we created earlier in this post, and include the new variable you just created.
How to Edit a Tag and Change its Value
1. Back on your homepage, select “Tags” from your side bar. Click on the tag you want to edit (I clicked “TestTag1”).
2. Click the grey “+” icon beside the “Web Property ID” box.
3. A “Choose a variable” box will pop up, and the first option, “GA Tracking ID”, is the variable we just created. Select that.
4. Now, your tag’s “Web Property ID” should say (or whatever you named your variable). Click save, and your tag is updated.
Google Tag Manager for WordPress
If your business uses WordPress to host its website, there’s an easy two-step process to integrate Google Tag Manager into WordPress.
There are plug-ins available if you’ve paid for a business version of WordPress, such as DuracellTomi’s Google Tag Manager.
However, if you’d rather do it manually, it’s relatively simple to do. It will only get tedious if you have a ton of different pages of your site and want to use tags on all of them — you’ll have to copy and paste a code below the <body> tag on each page.
Here’s what you do:
1. Copy the Google Tag Manager code you are given during the set-up process. If you’ve already set up your account, click the blue “Google Tag Manager” code beside “Workspace Changes” on your Google Tag Manager homepage (circled below in red). That blue code will also supply you with your specific Google Tag Manager code.
2. Now, paste that code below the <body> tag of each page on your WordPress site.
Images courtesy of WordPress.org
Now, your WordPress site is prepped for any tags you want to create within Google Tag Manager. Google Tag Manager will automatically code future tags and embed them in whichever page you’ve selected.
Alexa Flash Briefings: What Marketers Need to Know
Want to reach people regularly via their smart speakers? Wondering how Alexa flash briefings work? To explore how marketers can benefit from Alexa flash briefings, I interview Chris Brogan. More About This Show The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It’s designed to help busy marketers, business […]
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17 of the Best Brands on Instagram Right Now
Contrary to what your friends’ photos suggest, Instagram isn’t just a social network for selfies and brunch pics. In fact, Instagram has a whopping 700 million active monthly users as of September 2017 — the last 100 million of which joined in the prior five months.
In a world where visual content remains a crucial part of any business’ marketing strategy, Instagram marketing presents a unique opportunity to visually represent your brand, celebrate its personality, and keep it top-of-mind for all those users who scroll through their Instagram feeds every single day.
Although they’re few and far between, there are some brands out there — in every industry, and with every type of target customer — who are doing really, really well on Instagram.
Ready to get inspired? Check out this list of brands that are thriving on Instagram right now, and what about their posts sets them apart. For each of these brands, we’ve included examples of their best posts. For some of them, we’ve also included their most popular Instagram post of all time in terms of engagement (i.e. combined total of likes and comments) thanks to data from Instagram analytics and management platform Iconosquare.
Best Brands on Instagram
- Lego
- Califia Farms
- FollowMeTo
- Lorna Jane
- Letterfolk
- Apartment Therapy
- Paris Opera Ballet
- Tentsile
- Desenio
- No Your City
- Vans
- Divinity LA Bracelets
- WeWork
- Finfolk Productions
- Shiseido
- Sephora Collections
- Staples
(Psst — Want to get a stunning Instagram Story auto-magically created for your brand? Check out StoriesAds.com, a free Story generator from HubSpot and Shakr. Click here to get started.)
17 of the Best Brands on Instagram
1. Lego
Followers: 2.6M
If you’re not following Lego on Instagram, you’re missing out on some entertaining content that isn’t just product plugs for kids.
The famous plastic building block brand populates its Instagram feed with fun takes on pop culture references everyone is bound to appreciate — something many businesses can learn from on their own Instagram accounts.
While most of Lego’s posts do serve to announce the release of new Lego characters, the main value in its Instagram account is to emulate familiar social tropes in a classic Lego way. Some of them are pretty impressive, like the life-sized princess carriage below, celebrating the recent Royal Wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Of course Lego doubled down on the Royal Wedding craze with a Lego-style animation of the bride and groom, below …
2. Califia Farms
Followers: 100k
Califia Farms natural beverage products have some of the most attractive packaging we’ve come across. In fact, it’s so iconic that it won top honors in the global packaging design category from Beverage World Magazine.
Instagram is a perfect platform to showcase that cool, curvy bottle, and the folks at Califia don’t shy away from doing just that — most of the brand’s posts feature the beverage’s containers in some way, whether they’re the main subject of the photo, or more of an accessory in the context of the active, healthy lifestyle Califia’s buyer personas love.
Something Califia does really well on Instagram is create fun, playful videos and GIFs. Check out this one, which they used to teach viewers how to create a veggie-based penne pasta:
And this one, which is just plain fun to watch:
3. #FollowMeTo
Followers: 515k
Ever seen those photos of a woman leading a man by the hand in all different parts of the world? That pose was made famous by a couple named Murad and Natalia Osmann for their #FollowMeTo project.
Their Instagram account is a mix of stunning images of the classic #FollowMeTo pose that have been edited beautifully, as well as some really interesting behind-the-scenes photos of their world travels — including some fun photos of the “making of” the famous pose.
4. Lorna Jane
Followers: 813k
If your brand were a person, how would you describe its personality? Australian activewear company Lorna Jane has done an awesome job answering this important branding question with its Instagram content. Spend just a few seconds scrolling through these photos, and you’ll quickly be able to name the target Lorna Jane buyer: a young, sporty, twenty- or thirty-something woman who values looking good while maintaining an active lifestyle.
The images posted by Lorna Jane, which often show the brand’s clothing and accessories, as well as images of women who embody its target buyer persona, are colorful, playful, and inspirational, which is a perfect representation of the brand’s essence — in other words, its heart, soul, and spirit.
5. Letterfolk
Followers: 289k
Letterfolk is a small business run by a husband-and-wife team who create and sell beautiful, handcrafted felt letterboards. Each letterboard comes with a full set of characters so people can personalize the walls of their homes, which means endless room for creativity.
Instagram is the perfect platform for them to inspire customers and aspiring customers with real customers’ boards, as well as ideas they’ve come up with and staged themselves. Their Instagram content is funny, thought-provoking, and relatable — all recipes for shareability.
Letterfolk’s Most Engaging Post
[Click here to see the post.]
Why it’s engaging: Not only is this photo showing a funny and clever message, but it’s also very, very relatable for parents of young children — a very large audience and also one of Letterfolk’s target customers. It’s also a very taggable photo, so the comment section is rife with Instagram users mentioning their friends’ usernames so they can share in the fun.
6. Apartment Therapy
Followers: 1.5M
Apartment Therapy’s Instagram account really is a source of therapy, if you love the sight of cozy homes. If you’ve seen social media posts from Apartment Therapy before, rest assured the pictures of residences on its Instagram account are just as creative.
Two recent posts to Apartment Therapy’s Instagram feed are below. From the plant-friendly living room on the left, to the comfortable A-frame on the right, this brand gives its Instagram followers plenty of inspiration to personalize their own space and, according to its Instagram bio, “live happy, healthy lives at home.”
7. Paris Opera Ballet
Followers: 262k
The city of Paris is known for many lovely things — wine, cheese, and art are just a few. But that last one, art, is photographically captured on the Instagram account of the Paris Opera Ballet, or Ballet de l’Opera de Paris.
The account captures candid images of the ballet’s dancers during performances, rehearsals, and backstage, giving viewers an artful glimpse at what goes into the ballet’s productions. It also makes use of something called banners on Instagram, when larger photos can be divided into multiple pictures to create a tiled banner of smaller photos. (There are several apps available to pull that off, but to start, check out Tile Pic).
The way this account highlights performance venues is noteworthy, too. The third photo beneath the first two below provides an intimate shot of rehearsal, conveying a gritty behind-the-scenes feel that can generate excitement for productions.
8. Tentsile
Followers: 188k
“Stunning” is the first word that comes to mind when I scroll through Tentsile’s Instagram photos. The company sells tree tents, what they call “portable treehouses” that will “literally take your camping experience to a new level.” Their Instagram is full of shockingly beautiful scenes of their product in use in all matter of terrain: rainforests, mountains, beaches… you name it.
Tentsile’s Most Engaging Post
[Click here to see the post.]
Why it’s engaging: Contests draw engagement: It’s as simple as that. In this particular case, Tentsile used an Instagram contest as a co-marketing play with a few of their partners by asking followers to follow three partner accounts to be eligible to win. In addition to following those accounts, they also asked people to Like the photo and “tag your 3 best adventures buddies in the comments below.” That’s a great way to expand reach and do co-marketing on Instagram.
9. Desenio
Followers: 594k
Look at the colors of any well-known brand and you’ll notice that they use the same colors over and over again — in their logo, on their website, and in their social media images. Using the same colors over and over again is a great way to establish brand consistency and help consumers become familiar with your brand.
That’s what the Swedish online art print company Desenio does beautifully on their Instagram account. They use a lot of blues, greens, greys, and blacks, which evoke senses of calm, healing, luxury, and trust.
Desenio’s Most Engaging Post
[Click here to see the post.]
Why it’s engaging: At first glance, this post doesn’t seem to stick out much from Desenio’s other Instagram content. But what’s unique about it is the universally relatable subject: a really beautiful, comfortable-looking bed in a beautiful bedroom, combined with hints of life like a laptop and some munchies.
Many of the comments included exclamations of how beautiful and inspiring the setup is and how it’s the commenters’ “dream bedroom.” To increase your comment rate, follow Desenio’s lead by posting images of things and situations your followers aspire to in their own lives.
10. No Your City
Followers: 26k
The folks at No Your City produce a documentary series that captures the fascinating stories of people all over the world, but mostly in New York. The brand’s Instagram account, though, is less about these stories and more about showcasing gorgeous images from the city itself.
What we love about these photos is how closely they follow the best practices for taking great photos with your phone. Each one of No Your City’s photos seems to follow at least one of these recommendations, whether it’s focusing on a single subject, embracing negative space, playing with reflections, or finding interesting perspectives. The photos are consistently stunning, and as a result, the brand has built a solid following.
11. Vans
Followers: 11.4M
Vans is known for its stylish shoes, but the brand’s use of social media is just as stylish. Its Instagram business account is no exception.
The maker of the classic checkered slip-ons has an aggressively flashy Instagram feed, featuring both standalone product shots and action photos of people expressing themselves in their favorite Vans gear.
Vans’ Instagram account’s most unique quality is likely how much skateboarding content it has. The brand doesn’t just appeal to teenage skaters anymore, but it shows its loyalty to that lifestyle in an engaging way. Below, Vans features an Indian girl with a caption that describes her as the “only girl who regularly skateboards in her town.”
Vans’ Most Engaging Post
Why it’s engaging: Vans’ recent video, above, teases a vague but enticing partnership with Marvel Comics. This campaign alone displayed a logo that attracted not just Vans fans, but Marvel fans who likely wanted to know when they can expect new shoes with a decal of their favorite Marvel super hero. The video received more than half a million views.
12. Divinity LA Bracelets
Followers: 251k
Here’s an example of a small business performing very well on Instagram. A beaded bracelet could have any theme.
Divinity’s Most Engaging Post
Why it’s engaging: The caption reads: “Each Sea Turtle and Hatchling bracelet sold helps a Hatchling make it to the ocean.” People tagged their friends to show them the cute sea turtles, or to say “WE NEED TO SAVE THEM!”
13. WeWork
Followers: 283k
WeWork provides shared office spaces in cities and countries all over the globe — so it only makes sense that they should post a lot of photos showcasing their beautiful co-working communities. They do an amazing job photographing the spaces in ways that make followers like us wish we could jump into the photos and plop down with our laptops and a coffee.
They don’t stop at posting photos of their shared workspaces, though. WeWork uses Instagram to capture and share moments from some of the largest branded events that members (and their friends) look forward to all year, like WeWork Summer Camp. Hashtags are used to label these events — like #WWCamp — and to encourage customers to share their own photos of the spaces, using WeWork’s memorable slogan: “Do what you love.”
Our favorite is the #DogsOfWeWork hashtag. Not only is it awesome because, well, dogs … but it’s also a great way for the company to promote their laid-back culture while also inviting customers to interact with their brand on social. Near the end of each year, they actually choose the best photo submissions to the #DogsOfWeWork hashtag on Instagram and Facebook and put together a calendar for the following year.
WeWork’s Most Engaging Post
[Click here to see the post.]
Why it’s engaging: For all their beautiful photos of people and office spaces and dogs, some of you might be surprised that their most engaging photo of all time is a picture of a simple quote. This goes to show the power of motivational quotes on Instagram, which tend to perform very well. Instagram is, after all, a platform for inspiration — and simple quotes that are inspiring and easy to digest are often welcome in a user’s feed.
Use free design tools like Canva, PicMonkey, or even PowerPoint to create these images easily.
14. Finfolk Productions
Followers: 202k
Ever wanted to be a mermaid? You can come pretty close, thanks to companies like FinFolk Productions. Believe it or not, silicone mermaid tails you can put on and swim around in are actually quite trendy in certain areas and for certain age groups — typically young girls, which is one of Instagram’s core users.
Finfolk Productions’ Instagram feed is full of beautifully shot photos that play into the mermaid fantasy by looking more like mythical art than real people.
Finfolk Productions’ Most Engaging Post
[Click here to see the post]
Why it’s engaging: One of the reasons this post was so popular is because it was accompanied by a long, heartfelt caption written by the company’s founders — which prompted an outpouring of supportive comments from their loyal followers. Here’s part of that caption, below:
Wish you could be part of our world? The good news is, you already are- just by being here! We might not always have custom silicone slots or Mythic tails readily available, but it’s only because we are busy constantly creating and making mermaid tails for every type of mermaid, in every size or color, gender or nationality … A tail is an investment of time, money, and emotions- each one is unique and beautiful, just like you.
#finfolk #finfolkproductions #thelittlemermaid #littlemermaid #ariel #partofyourworld #mermaid #mermaidtail #disney #mermaidlife #finfolkmermaid
Commenters wrote that they love the founders for their dedication to beauty and quality, that they love the designs, and that they can’t wait until they have a tail of their own. What it all comes down to, though, is brand loyalty.
15. Shiseido
Followers: 392k
Shiseido started out as Japan’s first Western-style pharmacy 140 years ago and has since developed into selling high-quality brightening and anti-aging skincare, makeup, and fragrance products.
Its company mission is to inspire a life of beauty and culture — a mission they portray beautifully through their Instagram content. If you take a look at their feed, you’ll notice they post three images at a time so the posts appear in a row pattern on their larger feed — a very clever and original way to organize their content.
Shiseido’s Most Engaging Post
Why it’s engaging: Back in late March 2016, Instagram started rolling out the ability to upload 60-second videos — and we’ve seen some amazing Instagram videos from brands ever since, like the one above from Shiseido. This one is much shorter than a minute, but its close-up product demo above is curiously satisfying to watch.
But don’t be intimidated by highly professional Instagram videos like theirs. You can post highly engaging videos on Instagram without a huge video team or a bottomless budget. Here’s a step-by-step guide for making great videos on Instagram without breaking the bank.
16. Sephora Collections
Followers: 322k
Sephora Collections’ brand personality is playful, colorful, and feminine. It does a wonderful job of characterizing this personality in its Instagram content, using bright colors, patterns, and fun captions.
This branded Sephora account also diversifies its feed with a lot of fun Instagram video content that gives off the same playful vibes.
Sephora Collection’s Most Engaging Post
Why it’s engaging: No matter what channel you’re creating content for, real stories of real people resonate with your audience. In the video above, Sephora is promoting the hashtag, #lipstories, which spotlights the experience of real Sephora makeup user.
17. Staples
Followers: 55.2k
The folks at Staples do a lot of things right when it comes to Instagram content, but there are two that particularly grab our attention — engaging with followers by asking questions and including calls-to-action in captions, and staying true to the brand’s playful-yet-practical personality.
When it comes to engaging Staples’ followers, it’s all about asking questions in the photo captions. For example, check out the second photo below featuring a series of emojis — its caption reads, “That’s pretty much our day. How about yours? Tell us in emojis.” Scroll through the comments on that photo, and you’ll see followers had a lot of fun responses. The caption paired with the first photo below — the one with the cupcakes — asks users to tag someone who they want to thank.
Staples does a great job staying true to brand by posting fun photos such as the “2016” shot written in office supplies and using the #OfficeHack hashtag to engage their following.
The folks at Staples also use Instagram to post cute videos and GIFs, like the one below that shows businesses how they can use Staples supplies to create a “revamped breakroom.”
Ready to populate your Instagram Story with pics and videos that are as captivating as the content above? We believe in you — just download the free branding guide below and get to posting.
Gruber suggests Mac App Store to get iOS 11-style redesign in macOS 10.14
With iOS 11 last year, Apple introduced a completely redesigned App Store with a heavy focus on human curation. The redesign has purportedly had a dramatic affect on app discovery and download numbers, and now Apple could be planning to give the Mac App Store a similar treatment…
Pioneer officially confirms new wireless CarPlay head units starting at $700
This evening, Pioneer has officially confirmed the availability of its aftermarket wireless CarPlay head units. The company first showcased a prototype version of its wireless CarPlay products at CES, but has now made three new head units available for purchase…
Apple now offering one free month of upgraded iCloud storage plans
Users have long complained about the lack of free iCloud storage that Apple offers, but now the company appears to be taking one step in the right direction. Now, when users choose to upgrade from the 5GB free tier, they will receive the first month of their new tier for free…
GDPR and the Right Side of History
Brian Halligan sent this note to all HubSpot employees this morning:
Yesterday, I got three emails from vendors asking me if it is okay that they keep sending me emails. I imagine you got a few as well. The irony is hard to miss.
Rather than making a sarcastic joke, though, I actually welcome these notifications. These companies are trying to get on the right side of history, complying with GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation enacted by the European Union, which goes into effect today.
History has a way of catching up on you. Auto manufacturers fought government mandates in the 1960s to add seat belts as standard features, arguing that it would raise costs, give consumers the impression that cars are dangerous, and that safety was not a selling point with customers.
Before seat belts were a requirement, some forward thinking car companies had already made them standard features. By getting ahead of that trend, they were years ahead in making safety part of their differentiation.
One of the things I love about working at HubSpot is that our customers are all on the sharp part of that curve, on the right side of history. HubSpot customers have made how they sell just as important as what they sell. They don’t just look to grow — they look to grow better, attracting their own customers by being responsive and helpful, not by engaging in disruptive and unwelcome intrusions. They embody what it means to be Inbound.
The GDPR is a positive step for the marketing discipline at large. The GDPR is wholly consistent with the Inbound approach to business.
Some companies already distinguish themselves by being relevant, helpful and transparent: GDPR will help them refine what they have in place and grow better.
Some companies are at the other end of spectrum. They have little interest in adapting their marketing to an evolving marketplace. GDPR compliance may feel like a burdensome regulation.
And then there are all those companies in the vast middle, that were perhaps willing to become more Inbound in their marketing, but were not quite as ready or able due to competing short-term priorities. For them, GDPR-compliance may be a useful forcing function, a chance to get on the right side of marketing history. A chance to grow better.
Compliance with the GDPR, regardless of a company’s state of readiness, can be a daunting task. We can empathize. For the last few months, HubSpot has readied our company to adopt the spirit of the regulation globally.
For our customers, we’ve enhanced the HubSpot platform to enable easier compliance with the GDPR. You and your customers can read more about the product changes and deeper details on HubSpot and the GDPR here.
I’m excited for our future in a post-GDPR world. Buckle up!
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