Take the boring out of business
By: Andrea Pontara
Tags: Corporate Communication, Social Media Strategy, Instagram, Content Marketing, Storytelling

Do you already follow any of these “boring” companies on Instagram?

When I started working with my colleagues at Imille, we together analyzed the way that corporations use Instagram in order to help us outline our Instagram strategy for Enel Group, one of the global leaders in energy production and distribution.

As you may know, posting on social media without having anything obviously trendy or fancy to show is such a big challenge, but I also think it’s possible to find the right approach for (almost) any activity. You just need to find the right point of view.

The first step is to take a look at the bigger picture, far from what services or products the business offers. And, more importantly, avoid publishing the company’s work environment. Although it’s important to tell your story and to say who you are, the audience cares more about your company’s impact on the outside world: if I follow a corporation on Instagram, I expect to see some kind of initiative, rather than just a pretty picture that shows you patting yourself on the back.

In this post, I will explain some challenges we faced while developing the project for Enel Group. It won’t be an in-depth analysis, but instead, a series of useful insights for how to build a model for corporate Instagram publications in a more human and ‘deinstitutionalized’ way (and less boring!)

1. Others do it. Should I?

This is the first question that arises, but it’s a mistake. To feel pressured to do something should always raise an alarm. Instead, “Why should I?” is the first question that you should ask yourself. Remember that there’s a crazy amount of content out there, but you need to find your own way on Instagram. Opening an account just because your competitors have one is a big mistake. Posting random stock pictures of happy employees and busy offices is not engaging. In fact, you could end up looking like this meme...

Not the image you are going for!

2. Have a plan! Build on your pillars

As usual, you need a game plan.

When the client asked how we would represent the world of Enel on Instagram, we found ourselves looking at one of the current top leaders in the global energy market. And yet, this company commonly carries an old-fashioned image as a public monopoly in Italy, especially among older generations, despite that it advocates for innovation through partnerships and new business lines. This means that Enel is not always recognized as the innovation leaders they truly are. But the scene has radically changed now: the activities of a modern utility go far beyond energy production. The sector is rapidly changing with renewables, climate action, and technology advancements, giving electricity a more important role every day and putting utilities at the very center of the innovation ecosystem. This brief description is enough to understand that there’s a whole world behind a multi-utility and a new context it can fit into with a clear vision.

Now we are in the center of the technology development scene, and this is something that should be portrayed also in our Instagram. It can be difficult to summarize the entire strategy of a multinational company, so once we define the framework in which we operate, we can choose some “pillars” on which we can start building our communication. It’s Instagram. A company can’t tell everything, so just make a choice. It can also be just one message, as long it’s important enough to engage and truly impact the audience.

An example: Allianz, one of the biggest insurance companies in the world, has a 100% sustainability-focused and ‘insurance policy free’ Instagram account.

On worldcleanupday 2019 the Allianz team is part of the 18m volunteers across 150+ countries to clean up waste in our cities and environment. We’re out on the streets of Munich and globally. Join the movement for a cleaner planet! 🌎🌍🌏

3. I want to be captured by your caption

So now that we understand that we shouldn’t put all of our universe and our operations into one account, we should focus on something that has value both for our strategy and our users. Let’s go back to our Instagram account. It goes without saying that Instagram is mainly visual: pictures catch the eye, but the captions are also key to telling your story and stress your point of view. There are also many interesting examples by other big players from other service sectors.

Let’s take a look, for instance, at what Deutsche Bank, UBS and Microsoft do:

Every year the Christmas tree that stands in the lobby of our HQ here in Frankfurt is not only beautifully decorated with lights and baubles, its branches are also decked with Christmas wishes from people in need. We’d like to thank all our colleagues who year after year make dreams come true for children, the elderly and the homeless in Frankfurt and the surrounding areas.

I like Deutsche’s Bank editorial approach: simple (yet not posed) pictures with informative captions describing their role and impact on society. It’s like a little magazine, nothing that drives you crazy, but still it radiates a reliability and loyalty feeling. They use a neutral tone of voice, they don’t “sell” anything: they’re just showing the positive results of their work, the impact they have on the people around them and how they shape society

Did you know the world wastes around a third of the food it produces? And yet each day there are 200,000 more people to feed. But, turning forests into farmland to allow for more livestock isn’t an acceptable solution anymore. If we fully or partially switch to plant based alternatives we can help save water, energy and land resources.Did you know the world wastes around a third of the food it produces? And yet each day there are 200,000 more people to feed.

UBS has a similar approach, choosing to focus on sustainability rather than directly advertising their services. On their profile, you can find green-tips and higher-level insights about international sustainability goals. This is their way to show how they are “passionate about the future” (as their bio reads). Yes, it does sound a little like marketing fluff, but by scrolling down their IG account, you find both great editorial and aesthetic coherence (I like this cold color grade!).

At Microsoft Quantum, our ambition is to help solve some of the world’s most complex challenges. We’re on the path to building the first topological qubit as we strive to bring general purpose quantum computing to reality.

Microsoft also avoids talking about how marvelous their technology is, showing instead how useful it is for people, companies and organizations.

Back to Enel, we chose to focus on sustainability because it is at the very core of the group’s strategy and it is actually the backbone of its entire communication. We have tied the concept of sustainability to the role of energy in this new stage, a stage in which a multi-utility evolves from being a simple energy supplier to become a platform for change. Sustainability and technological innovation have a very tight bond and together drive this strategic choice. To tackle the urbanization and climate change challenge, cities evolve and become green. People adapt their habits and lifestyle. Sustainability is a whole world that is changing. It is a paradigm shift.

What does all this mean in the context of Instagram? It means that a picture of a wind turbine is not enough to illustrate sustainability.

4. Engage and inform

The effect of telling how our life will change thanks to the development of smart cities or how electrification will be crucial to face climate change might not be immediate. Images without data to back them up lack substance and lose their effect.

In addition, in order not to get lost in the good-will and set phrases mare magnum, it helps to give relevant information to our followers: if you’re such a big, well known international organization it is expected that you give some genuine insights. I know it’s Instagram, so I don’t expect a scientific paper, but it is still possible to share some interesting data and ideas. Even Instagram stories are a perfect place to slide in relevant content.

An example: take a look at the short and well-focused videos made by The World Economic Forum:

5. Choosing photos. People in a context

By not focusing on selling business services or self praising, we are storytelling Enel’s role in the energy transition.

As we said before, the transformation of the energy sector will have an impact both on the environment, through the reduction of emissions, and also for the everyday life of people with smart counters and the electric car boom. Because of this, on the visual level, we constantly focus on people. They are not the main protagonists, but they are in a context: the context of change. From the photography point of view, it means that you should mainly to use portraits with a context and wide-angles, avoiding close-ups or narrow fields.

Are portraits a mistake? No, they are not, in fact, many competitors use portraits to tell stories, but from our point of view, it is more coherent to give relevance to the different backgrounds. In any case, the important thing is to make choices that help the account to have conceptual and aesthetic coherence.

People pay more attention especially if there is an organic story evolving through the posts. You can involve your employees or customers as long as you avoid being self-referential. And if you like the idea of involving people, you can do it by making them part of the big picture.