Dive Brief:

• Curalate analyzed Instagram’s top 1% of images by engagement rate to identify visual trends used by marketers. Overhead views of products was popular with 20% of all images featuring a product laydown viewpoint.
• Three-quarters of the top-performing images feature products within the context of environmental details by placing the product in a natural setting rather than highlighted alone, such as placing a cocktail glass on a dining room table.
• Curalate's research also revealed that 20% of Instagram brand images feature a text overlay with messaging about a deal, trend or even just a word of inspiration or encouragement indicating a few carefully selected words can drive action.

Dive Insight:

Instagram is finding its stride with marketers. In fact, recent research by RBC Capital Markets and Advertising Age found that at 72%, Instagram was the most popular destination for ad budgets. 

The visual social platform recently hit the 400 million monthly user mark, one reason marketers might be eager to give Instagram a try. Another reason it might pose an attractive bet for advertising is that its ad platform is tied to parent company Facebook's.

Instagram has been actively building out its ad products, most recently testing a live events feature and offering self-serve carousel ads, which by the way have already outperformed other ad formats on Facebook.

Matt Langie, CMO of Curalate, told Marketing Dive, “In analyzing the top performing images, we've found some really powerful insights marketers can now use to inform their current and future content strategies. For example, if you're in fashion, it'd behoove you to showcase watches with black or dark dials; 100% of the watches we found fell into this category. In beauty, we found that 25% of all images featured makeup brushes, and every nail polish was a shade of green, gray or blue. In practical use, these and other details will enable brands to make smarter decisions when sharing products and content on Instagram.”