Wednesday, 21 September 2016

Let's Explore - black_list

Let's explore black_list's Instagram page.





What is black_list?

This Instagram account is a collection and curation of automotive content. According to their bio, they are an "Automotive Lifestyle & Marketing" account as well as providers of "Brand, Event & Ad Management". The account curates a collection of mainly cars and often bikes. It does not post original content, rather it posts mainly high quality pictures taken by photographers all around the world. With this in mind they always give proper credit and referencing. It caters to an audience with a more expensive taste in cars. I say this because most of the pictures and videos posted are of luxury vehicles or ones that are more unique and rare. In addition to beauty pics, they also post in order to stir discussion as well as post updates related to the car world. Here is an example of their content, the original photo belonging to jorgeponcevisuals:
















What do they do well?

First and foremost, as an Instagram account with 2.3M followers, it is essential to post high quality content. Fortunately, black_list constantly uploads high quality and diverse content, which can explain their high following. To add to this, they also post very frequently, with approximately twenty photos a day. They post incrementally throughout the day, in order to not flood the feed at any certain time. Also, for such a large account, their use of promotions and ads are very modest, which help in not taking away from the onlooker experience. Lastly, their crediting and ownership referencing is a plus, allowing users to explore other accounts that post high quality content as well. Here is an example of a picture taken by toronto_exotic_car_spotting, in which the vehicle is owned by mrtrig:
















What could they improve on?

Overall, this account, for it's size, has very few flaws, which is rare when looking at Instagram today. If there is anything, perhaps they could expand their diversity of photos in order to start posting a wider variety of cars, ones that are slightly less luxurious. This could help them in reaching a larger market, further expanding their audience. Furthermore, for any photographers interested in having their pictures shared, black_list can express more clearly what the criteria is to be posted, further expanding their basis and selection of photos.


How about monetization? 

As it was briefly mentioned, black_list's promotions and ads are very modest. The first thing to point out is that they sell their link space in their bio. Currently a car-related youtube video is currently occupying this space and it is a fair assumption that it was paid for by its creator. The promotion can be seen here:






Furthermore, they seem to sell postings for any car company willing to pay for advertising. Here is an example for ceramicpro_official's product:















Additionally, based on exploring the feed and understanding how Instagram accounts monetize, they seem to have deals with certain accounts, being some sort of car-related company. The deal would be to post their photos in order for them to get a greater audience, more followers and hopefully more business. One that seemed to pop out due to frequent posts on their behalf, would be a Montreal business, toyzautoart. Here are a couple examples that helped come to this conclusion:

 


Overall, their monetization strategy seems to be quite straightforward, at least from the viewpoint of a curious follower. Their modest monetization strategy, which does not emphasize self-promotion and keeps high quality content standards only adds to their bottom line and content delivery.

No comments:

Post a Comment