Top Three Best Performing Brands on Instagram of 2018 So Far

Partnering with influencers as a way for brands to rack up mentions, likes and comments and reach new audiences is on the rise. Defining what makes a great campaign is crucial for brands to understand, and some have done it better than others according to data from InfluencerDB. The results of InfluencerDB’s industry report show that the top 20 brands created $659,882,860 of earned media value in the first five months of the year. The top brands are ranked by the overall generated earned media value (EMV) – the equivalent monetary value of the postings or mentioning the brand. EMV is one of the most valuable influencer marketing metrics.

Best performers

According to the survey, Fashion Nova led the way and saw $125,169,866 of EMV from both paid and organic mentions, making it the top performing brand on Instagram. Influencer engagement saw 12,468 influencers mentioning the brand, and it paid approximately 700 influencers. While a relatively new brand, its early collaboration with influencers led to its increased popularity. Meanwhile, LIKEtoKNOW.it was ranked second with 322,845,788 likes. The overall estimated EMV came in at $67,597,828 and the brand was mentioned by 5,205 influencers over the five months – over 3,000 of which were micro-influencer accounts. The company paid around 2,000 influencers.Clothing retailer Zara ranked third among the top 20 brands. Notable campaigns like #iamdenim and Timeless, which featured only models over the age of 40, coupled with Zara’s 26 million Insta followers globally, helped gain traction. Interestingly, unpaid mentions created most of Zara’s buzz on Instagram, with paid collaborations only accounting for 1% of the total $59 million in EMV. Zara is known for allocating only a small part of its budget to advertising, compared to its competitors but still managed to accumulate 12,468 influencers mentioning the brand, proving that paid partnerships may not always be as important as organic ones. InfluencerDB analysed over 900,000 posts mentioning brands that referenced a branded campaign or hashtag. It’s clear from the report that the winning brands use a variety of influencer marketing strategies to achieve different objectives, from product placement and affiliate marketing to unique campaign hashtags, and value the importance of organic search. “The brands we see in this report, many of whom are our customers, have figured out that they have to successfully apply influencer marketing to win against the competition,” said Robert Levenhagen, CEO of InfluencerDB.“These results prove that influencer marketing is being fully embraced by the world’s most sophisticated brands,” concluded Levenhagen.