Instagram came to replace magazines. It made us editors, photographers and advertisers.
It gave us the hope of being significant and meaningful to a specific amount of people.
The bigger the amount the bigger the illusion.
The difference is that photographers, editors, and advertisers in magazines were pro. Not just in terms of how to use their tools but in the quintessence of why they did their job.
We are just amateurs in an ocean of millions who do our very job. If it is only about the tools, the best pic of our summer vacation and the dinner plate, we are not gonna make it.
On Instagram, each one of us is a magazine. A media that carries a message. The stronger the message the most relevant the media.
But instead of paying attention to the message we spend time on the tools that make our photo fancier.
Shine up your face, make the right crops and be an expert in photoshop: we don’t care about that!
Copying the one who has the biggest amount of followers will not work because the original is there, still alive and no one will notice you as a copycat.
We don’t follow Chiara because she shows us her private life but because she stands for how we can go out combining cheap clothes with branded accessories. She made young girls feel less stressed and be more confident in how they look without needing to spend a fortune. And because of this, she reshaped an industry, before she earned ‘our permission’ to show us her private life.
If you have something to say we will follow without bothering about the wrap around what you did. On the contrary, if your message is strong we may say that your crappy wrap and your not so good-looking photo happened on purpose, and maybe you have a chance to create fashion.
One more thing, people learn fast and they understand that full-of-cats-and-quotes Instagram pages are made only to attract followers on a purpose completely different than the love for cats and to inspire with quotes.
They know if you are doing branding to make the world better or to sell something nobody needs.