Ideas
Explore the world's #1 largest database of ideas and innovations, with 474,896 inspiring examples.
Trend Reports
Discover why 1,276 brands rely on our AI-powered Trend Reports to get better, faster insights.
Newsletter
Join 305,555 subscribers who rely on our weekly newsletter to keep up with need-to-know trends and insights.
How to Hunt
Learn more about how to hunt megatrends, ideas, patterns and opportunity.
Consumer Insights
Uncover major shifts and emerging opportunities with our exclusive PRO research.
Trend Reports
Discover why 1,276 brands rely on our AI-powered Trend Reports to get better, faster insights.
Newsletter
Join 305,555 subscribers who rely on our weekly newsletter to keep up with need-to-know trends and insights.
How to Hunt
Learn more about how to hunt megatrends, ideas, patterns and opportunity.
Advisory & Services
Accelerate innovation and ignite disruptive thinking with our award-winning programs and research.
Trend Reports
Get fast, customized trend reports, presentations and deep dives 20x faster than traditional research.
Plans
Get started today with a free consultation, our self-serve tools, or a dedicated program.
Articles & Magazine
Get inspired with our 4,223 innovation strategy articles, keynote, videos and innovation tools.
Innovation Awards
Trend Hunter’s Innovation Strategy Awards recognize the best innovation tactics gathered from our interviews with some of the world's most notable business leaders, authors and change makers.
Advisory & Services
Accelerate innovation and ignite disruptive thinking with our award-winning programs and research.
Innovation Assessment
Enhance your innovation potential with a deeper understanding of your unique innovation archetype and how your organization benchmarks.
FuturistU
Prepare for the years ahead with 100+ lessons, tactics, tools and frameworks with our full learning database.
Innovation Books
Join 20,000,000 people getting better and faster with our New York Times Bestselling books and keynote videos.
Jeremy Gutsche
Ignite your event or virtual event with our CEO, a NY Times Bestselling Author and one of the top innovation keynote speakers.
Our Team of Speakers & Virtual Presenters
Inspire your group with our most popular speakers on innovation, trends, change and futurism.
Custom Training & Events
Bring the Future Festival experience directly to your team or co-hosted custom event.
Custom Masterclasses
Join the world's leading brands who leverage our custom programs to accelerate innovation.
FuturistU 5-Day Program
Become a Futurist with our immersive 5-Day program at Future Festival World Summit.
Online eLearning
Learn the fundamentals of futurism and trends with 100+ online courses about innovation.
How to Hunt
Learn more about how to hunt megatrends, ideas, patterns and opportunity.
Contact
Get in touch to learn more, ask a question or submit a tip.
About Us
Learn more about Trend Hunter and how we accelerate innovation.
Follow-Us
Join our 3,500,000 social media followers, on the cutting edge.
How to Hunt
Learn more about how to hunt megatrends, ideas, patterns and opportunity.
FAQ
Get answers to common questions about Trend Hunter.
Community
Stay on the cutting-edge with the help of the Trend Hunter community.
Team
Meet the team trusted by hundreds of leading businesses worldwide.
Jobs
Find opportunities to accelerate your career with the #1 Trend Firm.
News
Catch up on noteworthy Trend Hunter news and media mentions.
Join
Build a portfolio and put your trend-spotting abilities to the test.
Advertising
Supercharge your marketing by partnering with Trend Hunter.
Portfolio
Visit your public portfolio and browse your past articles.
Add a Trend
Write up an article and showcase your trend-spotting skills.
My Trends
Edit your articles and see how they stack up on the leaderboards.
Settings
Edit your profile, connect your social media accounts, and more.
Add a trend, customize your dashboard, or track topics.
Future Festival
Innovation Events
Join the world's top innovators at our in person events.
Free Webinars
Learn to innovate through chaos, navigate the new normal and maintain work culture from home.
Custom Training & Events
Bring the Future Festival experience directly to your team or co-hosted custom event.
Search our database of 474,896 cutting edge ideas.

From Instagram to Pinterest, What Image-Based Marketing Can Do for Your Company

Courtney Scharf
October 11th, 2012
Image-based marketing has begun to strongly influence the corporate world. With the influx and increasing popularity of social media platforms like Pinterest and Instagram, savvy brands have capitalized on the existence of these new breeds of social media and made the most of the opportunity that they present.

Instagram has offered companies a fantastic way to spread and share company culture and products or services with a wide audience. Billboard has been particularly proficient at creating a strong presence on the highly popular app, making use of its extremely compelling photo opportunities. By leveraging the company's interesting focus on celebrity and music, they've strengthened the brand's connection to its customers and given people good reason to stay tied to the company. Developing a mix may be the most important tactic when it comes to Instagram. Followers will be more interested in your brand if you feature both behind-the-scenes and publicly available content through the app. This gives the user a feeling that they're more strongly tied to the brand, and humanizes a company in a very positive way. While sharing company culture on Instagram is encouraged, ensure that the content is still compelling and worth the user's time.

Instagram accounts and posts can be optimized very effectively by the use of hashtags and linking between other social media sites. Companies can easily tie their Instagram accounts to their Twitter and Facebook feeds, adding an interesting and highly visual component to these other content streams. Doing so could also spread the word about a new account, and direct customers to your company's Instagram page. As the following for this new form of social media may be limited initially, it's wise to leverage other platforms to gain a following. Let followers know about your brand's new account without spamming, and ensure that the account has enough content on it to appear worthwhile to potential followers.

Pinterest is a similarly popular visual-based social media platform that many companies have benefited from. Online brands like The Coveteur have done a fabulous job of connecting with their fans via the site, and solidified their status as an aspirational company with plenty of personality. Though the people who run the account ultimately use it to draw traffic to the Coveteur site, they also post content from elsewhere, like inspirational quotes or funny memes. This makes their account all the more worthwhile, and has earned the brand a healthy following of more than 22,000 users.

Pinterest can also be strategically set up with the use of hashtags and creative keywords. Optimizing for terms associated with your brand is a great way to increase the amount of followers your have, and is relatively straightforward. Uniqlo, a Japanese clothing brand, actually timed their posts in certain categories to run a very interactive campaign on the site that showed up to people who weren't even following its Pinterest page. This kind of Pinterest marketing strategy clearly required a great deal of planning, but the astonishing outcome provided the company with a great deal of attention and praise.

Image-based marketing will, no doubt, dominate the future of branding and advertising. To learn more about this strategy and others, check out Trend Hunter's Social Media Trend Report and Marketing Trend Report.