Instagrammer wants authenticity on social media

An Auckland Instagrammer with 30,000 followers says Instagram “will lose its audience” if commercialism continues to grow.

University student and travel Instagrammer Renee Sundgren has done work in Indonesia, and with Australian, New Caledonian, and Chinese tourism boards.

She has also collaborated with brands including JUCY, Sunshine Coast, Accor Hotels and Cathay Pacific.

However, Miss Sundgren is concerned the social media platform will purely become a marketing space for businesses.

“We don’t want to be scrolling through advertisements, we use social media to get away from that type of thing,” she said.

“It would become an oversaturated place of people trying to make money and the platform will completely die off.”

Instagram is being used by 48.8 per cent of brands and that number is expected to rise to 70.7 per cent in 2017.

Founder of Auckland marketing agency The Social Club, Georgia McGillivray, said Instagram is the new way brands are reaching millennial consumers.

“You can get a much higher engagement rate through these platforms,” she said.

Alisha Palin, PR and social media executive of JUCY, said via email the car rental company was an early adopter of social media.

“We realised early on that it was a fast and effective way to reach our customers, given we have a very large international audience,” she wrote.

However, Miss Sundgren said while it was silly to not advertise on Instagram, corporations needed to do it with authenticity and moderation in mind.

Celebrities can promote everything from protein powder to waist trainers, “but if our whole feed is full of that, we are going to get put off even using Instagram,” she said.

The issue of authenticity is the key reason why Miss Sundgren sometimes declines paid posts.

“Some companies just want a sales pitch where you say ‘I love this, check out this URL’ but they aren’t letting you do anything creative.

“Businesses need to let the creative be creative in order to be authentic.”

However, Ms Palin said authenticity was the key reason that corporations are collaborating with social media influencers like Miss Sundgren.

“We love the authenticity influencers bring to content. People follow them because they trust their judgement and are influenced by their choices,” she said.

“We feel that reaching out to already established audiences means we are tapping into a market that is engaged, looking for travel inspiration, and within our core demographic.”