5 Reasons Why Brands Love Instagram Stories
By Letizia ZappaMay 16
Marketing
Published July 7th 2016
Report: Insights on Consumer Technology Brands on Social
Picture it: an infant company founded by a twenty-something, disrupting one of the oldest electronics sectors in the world.
In 2002, a 26 year old surfer from California wanted to record himself doing the activities he loved, but the established companies dominating imaging technology did not address his needs.
After investing a few years and a few thousand dollars to fill this gap in the market, the now-teenaged GoPro, Inc was born.
Unbeknownst to GoPro founder Nick Woodman at the time, GoPro would completely disrupt the imaging industry by redefining what camera consumers came to expect out of cameras, consumer technology companies, and photography as a whole.
What it’s like to get caught inside at macking #PuertoEscondido | ? @Kai_Lenny @GoPro pic.twitter.com/Tvo7DMcZdS
— World Surf League (@wsl) July 3, 2016
In an interview with Popular Mechanics, Woodman said that surfing’s “huge ego element” made it an activity that naturally provoked the desire to share the experience, yet no camera or camera equipment satisfied this desire.
Woodman hit on consumer insights that camera companies at the time had missed: people want to capture and share the cool and adventurous activities they do.
Consumers wanted a camera that was durable enough to capture photos in unusual environments, and was connected enough that made online sharing intuitive.
So, while established imaging companies were competing with each other over megapixels, GoPro became a multi-million dollar company in a little over a decade, utilizing untapped consumer sentiments, and putting cameras where few cameras had gone before.
Customer-generated content
Today, GoPro continues to take advantage of their audience’s desire to share by using social media to broadcast customer-generated content.
GoPro highlights GoPro customers by sharing their photos and videos on Twitter and Facebook, which encourages other existing GoPro customers to share their experiences, and provokes potential consumers to think, “I want to do that, too”.
This intelligent use of consumer insights and behavior helped bring GoPro to the forefront of the imaging conversation.
GoPro has an impressive lead over the other large camera companies in our Consumer Technology Social Index, and has among the fastest growing social presence of all the tech companies analyzed in our newest report on the consumer technology industry.
Currently, the imaging company gets thousands of people interacting with them on Twitter and Facebook each day, as seen in the chart below.
In addition, GoPro has more total followers on Facebook and Twitter than either Nikon or Canon, companies with nearly 200 years of imaging product marketing experience between them.
By accident, Woodman and GoPro propelled imaging technology into the center of the social media revolution.
Just another day on Gili Trawangan with @ContikiSA! Life is pretty good right now :) #NoRegrets #GoPro pic.twitter.com/nj1tuhSvEQ
— Chris Rogers (@ChrisRogersZA) July 6, 2016
Both GoPro’s product itself and its marketing strategy capitalize on the power of the social photographer. But how did companies like Panasonic and Canon let this gap in their sector go unnoticed?
In our most recent report, Social Insights on the Consumer Technology Industry, we evaluate the online presence of the hottest tech brands to answer questions like this.
We examine actual consumer conversations to reveal opinions, expectations, and business insights about the companies comprising the most innovative industry.
Consumer needs and expectations fuel no industry quite like consumer technology.
With brands constantly competing for the attentions of the market and consumers getting more tech-savvy than they’ve ever been, listening to the needs of your audience has never been more important to the consumer electronics industry.
Learn more about what made GoPro land in the top 15 brands in our Consumer Technology Social Index, and which other technology brands are getting talked about on social.
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