Want Your Branded Videos to Get Massive Reach? Use Instagram

Looking to score a big hit on Instagram? Think like Snoopy.

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Snoopygrams—the popular Instagram account featuring the iconic dog and other characters from Peanuts that publishes a constant feed of the comic to followers—has the most widely shared video on the service among brands. But it’s far from alone: A new study by the viral-video tracking firm Unruly found that a solid 40 percent of the site’s top 1,000 videos are from brands, suggesting that the platform could have a major—and lasting—impact for marketers.

For a platform that’s so young (the video portion only launched in June, half a year after its video-only counterpart Vine), that’s a pretty big deal.

According to Unruly, which didn’t include Vine in its study but did include shares from platforms other than Instagram, there’s a reason for that.

“New short-form content platforms such as Vine and Instagram are experiencing explosive growth. By engaging consumers in their native environments across today’s complex and fragmented media landscape, and utilizing the Open Web to amplify awareness of their content, brands can maximize the effectiveness of their content marketing strategies to drive sharing and ultimately increase their market share,” Richard Kosinski, Unruly’s U.S. president, noted in a press release  (opens in a new tab).

A couple of other fun facts from the company’s study:

• The most popular verticals? As you might expect, music and clothing, and fashion did well, topping the list overall. Fittingly, a TV network with footholds in both of those spaces—MTV—was the most popular brand, with dozens of its videos included on Unruly’s top 1,000 list.
• 90 percent of Instagram video shares take place on Facebook, something that probably warms the social network’s heart, seeing as it bought Instagram just over a year ago  (opens in a new tab).

Are you using Instagram’s video functionality as part of your social approach? Tell us in the comments.