What Roxy Jacenko can teach us all about Instagram

But our publicist counterparts, are not only the first to use Instagram, they are paving the way for an entirely new profession where companies are paying big bucks just to have influencers promote their products and services.

In Australia, the biggest and best "Instagrammer" is a young lady that I met at the Boxing Day sales in Macy's Los Angeles briefly shopping in the shoe section while I was holidaying with my friend Sami Lukis. Back then she would have been in her twenties and I remember thinking that if she is as determined in her business as she is buying shoes, she must be very successful. 

Fast forward a few years, I remember hearing that she was on Celebrity Apprentice, shooting a television pilot for Channel 7 and had written a couple of books. 

But it wasn't until recently that I really stood back and realised what a remarkable business woman and social media expert she is. She has a highly successful PR business, Sweaty Betty. A talent business for bloggers and creatives, Ministry of Talent. And she has the most adorable daughter (and son!) in Pixie Curtis, a child entrepreneur who she proudly promotes selling kids bows and endorsing a myriad of products.

What she does is very clever. Through her instagram accounts, people can be taken into a world of luxury, celebrity and travel. It's like looking at a reality television show no different to Kim Kardashian's promotion of her life, except in a way that you can't help but respect.

Her Instagram followers speak for themselves:
59,000 followers on Roxy Jacenko
84,800 followers on Sweaty Betty
103,000 followers on Pixie Curtis
35,500 followers on Ministry of Talent

On any of these accounts you can pay to have your brand promoted for a small fee. From a marketers perspective, its not a bad investment if they are charging what has been recorded in interviews. 

What Roxy, a stunningly beautiful young entrepreneur without a degree (with 10 years experience finding her way in the brutal world of public relations), has that many marketers fail at, is influence in the name of Instagram. She can make or break a brand just by writing about them in an excerpt following a picture on any of her accounts. She can build an unknown brand into an international brand, just by saying its cool or wearing their products. 

She is the Australian version of Kim Kardashian but a tad more sophisticated.

My experiment

My staff know how to Instagram because they do it in their everyday jobs for clients. But I don't. That is until the last 48 hours. Two staff members set up an instagram account for my dog, after we forgot the email address and password for the dogs original account that had gone unused. Thereal_pippasmith had 103 followers on Saturday lunchtime. I post there from time to time but with no real regularity or purpose. So for 24 hours I decided to work out exactly how Instagram works... and I have to say that its addictive.

• I liked other people pictures, then they liked me back and then some
• I searched for dogs on Instagram and followed them, they followed me back 
• I used a lot of hashtags - seriously, you cannot use enough! Then people who searched for them found my pictures, liked them and sometimes followed the account
• I changed my dialogue to be as if I was in fact my dog - people loved it! 
• I followed people's followers that followed me if they were influential. Chances are if they were liking other people's stuff, they would like my stuff

The result: 1000's of likes. 280 followers. And an endorsement request!

Now, if you are smart enough to add a celebrity to the mix, your account will go ballistic. In December, internationally famous singer/songwriter Ellie Goulding posted a picture of #pippasmith on her Instagram account with her assistant Hannah with the caption "We found a friend at the airport". 101,925 likes in 24 hours later... and we have one newly famous pooch. To put this in perspective, any of Roxy Jacenkos posts attracts a very credible 1,000 to 1,500 likes... so an internally acclaimed celebrity like this has some major pulling power. As you can imagine, I was chuffed, particularly after she sent me a tweet and all of a sudden my twitter account went up 5,000 or so with her fans. Not sure there was anything worthwhile for them to see... but I am not complaining!

P.S. Don't be shy to connect with thereal_pippasmith on Instagram. After all, its all about the followers.