My favorite social media to follow is National Geographic’s Instagram page. It offers high quality photos in many genres, including portraits, lifestyle, nature, landscape and architecture. In addition, each photo comes with an educational paragraph about the content. I also follow their Facebook page, but it is more focused on links to articles. (Which is a good clue that they’re using social media strategically!)

Nat Geo is not flashy and cool like the social media accounts of Pizza Hut, Starbucks or Kim K – in fact it’s probably a nerdy choice – but it appeals to my interest in wildlife and photography. I think their brand is also perfectly captured by Instagram because they have so much compelling visual content.

Some things I like about Nat Geo’s Instagram page:

1. High quality photos and videos

The content is well composed using professional level equipment. I love looking at images that I know I could never create. Not only is the lighting, focus and composition consistently amazing, but the timing and locations are sometimes impossible to reproduce.

2. Captivating Stories

National Geographic’s mission to use science, exploration and storytelling to change the world. Keeping with this theme, Nat Geo’s Instagram is very educational. Each post has a paragraph-long caption detailing things like the mood of the photo, what the photographer was thinking, facts or a call to action. For example, the above post is to bring awareness to suicide prevention month.

3. “Crowd sourcing”

Instead of having a social media manager, Nat Geo’s Instagram has around 110 contributors. Each has access to the password, and therefore the ability to upload content at any time. Usually contributors end up with a spread in Nat Geo’s magazine, but their Instagram page offers a sneak peek months before that issue may be published.

I particularly like this aspect because it leads me to other great Instagram accounts. One photographer I found through Nat Geo is Paul Nicklen. He is a marine biologist and photographer from Canada. Most of his posts are of marine life and the arctic.

Researching this blog post enlightened me to a lot of innovative marketing strategies Nat Geo uses with their social media. For example, by using contributors, Nat Geo extends their reach to weaker ties. A lot of interesting facts can be found in this article at Contently.