Fashion. Designs. Anticipation. Expectations. Reveal. Bloggers. Instagram – that summed up Fashion Week in London.

It is one of the most, if not the most, anticipated events of the fashion year. Designers, bloggers, celebrities, and media from around the world gather to celebrate creativity in fashion and of course share the love on social media.

It’s the time of the year that influencers take over official Instagram accounts to share their experience through Insta Stories, Posts and Live Videos. It’s rather obvious that fashion houses have become dependent on celebrity influencers paying from £60K to £93K for a single post to share ‘behind the scenes’ and ‘first look’ experiences to their audiences always accompanied by their creative freedom and jurisdiction.

1M companies and brands worldwide pay to amplify their stories on Instagram. That’s because 75% of Instagrammers take action after being inspired by a post – that’s clearly me and you, if you’ve ever searched for a brand or a product after spotting it on Instagram. 60% of people who have discovered a product on Instagram for the first time, follow a business on Instagram and engage immediately. But what convinces them to do so? Especially, in such a crowded space as Fashion Week?

  • A picture is worth a thousand words: what’s better than telling your story through beautifully taken images, Stories and videos?
  • It takes people behind-the-scenes
  • It builds anticipation and offers exclusivity at the same time
  • It keeps your business in the conversation
  • It builds trust with your audience and promotes interaction

With new features being introduced on a regular basis, Instagram is becoming more and more a place where you can connect closely with the people, interests, and brands you care about most. In an effort to increase sponsor capabilities, Instagram is rapidly extending their services. With three new features coming up, Instagram is giving sponsored content more flexibility than ever:

  • Extension of the full screen experience in the form of an integration with Facebook Canvas. That way sponsors will be able to use the full screen ad format to create Instagram Stories Ads
  • Uploading tool allowing businesses to use existing ‘organic’ Stories to create ads within their chosen ads platform. From a communications marketing perspective, this will enable users to extend the reach of their existing stories as well as use in the future
  • Ability to add Instagram Stories to all placements – Facebook, Instagram, and Audience Network on all campaigns

There’s a huge amount of value that sponsored content can deliver to campaigns but it shouldn’t just be a case of throwing money at online platforms. The smart approach is to combine paid with the creativity that can be unlocked on social platforms such as Instagram. Irrespective of the influencers used, creativity should always be a top priority. It matters on the catwalk and it should matter with comms campaigns just as much!