National Geographic is #Instaworthy

    I chose National Geographic as the brand to cover in this week's blog post. After surfing the web for inspiration, I saw that they are the second most followed instagram page on the platform. Their entire page is of stunning and surreal pictures; it's no wonder they are followed by 217 million people. 

    National Geographic is a company that provides mainstream media in the form of stories and images. They make money through their customers purchasing a monthly subscription of their magazine. These stories cover a wide variety of people, places, and things. What makes them unique is that they publish various posts which advertise their subscriber-exclusive stories. But, they also create a place for their photographers around the world to promote their work. National Geographic simply wants to share beautiful and thought provoking images.

    From exploring their comment section, the evidence is clear that people love their page. Most comments are heart emojis and appreciation of the art photographers have captured. For example, under a photo of bicyclists in Central Oregon, @angie_kenzie95 writes, “what a lovely photo.” 

There's also plenty of commentary from followers narrating the picture. Like in the photo of a baby Great Egret getting food from its mother, @dzalcman comments as the bird, “ YOU'VE BEEN TALKING NON STOP SINCE SUNRISE YOU HAVE TO CHILL.” 

While most comments are positive and supportive, there will always be haters. Under a post discussing Mozambique’s civil war in a subscriber-exclusive story,, @jeffdavisflusa writes, “Thats BS @natgeo , making individuals sign-up with their email address to read stories that you make out are #FREE."

    This organization is trying to promote their magazine subscription, documentaries and other forms of media on their instagram page. They do this by creating a theme of beautiful pictures, allowing captions to be written by the photographers who took them, so each post comes from a different perspective. 

    National Geographic is essentially a business created off of storytelling. Their instagram uses images as a sneak peak into various articles from their magazine. In their published work, they take their readers around the world on adventures, educating them along the way.

    They are using their social platform super efficiently. National Geographic has a very strong visual brand so Instagram is a platform that makes total sense for marketing their product.

     They are effective at giving their followers on instagram just enough to make them want more. Similar to the cocktail analogy in chapter 4 of our textbook, national geographic is a fun page of exploration. They aren't pestering you to purchase a subscription. Instead, they create an experience where the user can be transported to another land, giving their audience an enjoyable experience. Which in turn, can lead to more business in the future. 

    The challenge facing National Geographic is they need to post often. Not only often, but each post needs to be eye-catching enough to grab users attention from the millions of other posts. This means strategic planning and if needed, quick changes in order to stay relevant to their followers. 

To get the perfect photo is a difficult task, allocating that to photographers around the world allows the brand to keep followers engaged. 

So far, national geographic is succeeding at their goal, their feed is filled to the brim with unique photos and stories.

    After extensively stalking their feed, there is no public evidence that the company responds to customers. It makes sense that they don't respond because many posts are from individual photographers exhibiting their work. National Geographic just wants to share information about planet earth. Yes, they are selling magazine subscriptions but ultimately they want to sell the consumer the idea of loving and taking care of our planet. 

    If I were a brand manager for national geographic I wouldn't respond to comments on post either. First, most posts are works from other people outside of the company, it isn't right to speak for them. Second, negative comments are only complaining about purchasing their product to read the entire story. 

    One thing I would do is pay attention to the comments. If a user were to suggest a story idea to be covered by the magazine, I would take their wants into consideration. The world is filled with wonders and when people are curious, the company is succeeding in their mission. 

    I learned that social media is a crucial part of modern day marketing. Our world is becoming digital and we need to form business strategies around what is relevant. I think that social media platforms are a great tool for businesses to spread their products.