Brands that are killing it on Instagram

When the name of the game is engagement, Instagram rules. It's a place to capture the essence of your brand, give it personality, some style and form personal connections with your customers, and future customers. Need convincing? Check out these stats:

300 Million monthly users.
30 billion plus photos shared.
2.5 billion likes a day.
70 million photos on average posted per day.

We've scoured the internet to seek out the brands that are killing it on Instagram, check out our list below. Note this list does not take in to account "sponsored" Instagram posts.

Explore Canada (Travel and Tourism)

Followers: 250 k

Why We Love It: There is no better way to entice people to travel, then by showing off the beauty of that country through equally beautiful imagery. Explore Canada steps of their Instagram by inviting travelers and photographers to contribute to their Instagram by tagging #ExploreCanada and below are the results. Stunning.

Taco Bell (Hospitality)

Followers: 600 k

Why We Love It: Taco Bell has reinvigorated it's brand and found a whole new set of customers by being incredible at the social media game. Their feed is colourful, expressive and if nothing else hilarious!

Go Pro (Technology)

Followers: 6.3 million

Why We Love It: Instagram is the perfect medium for Go Pro because the brand is truly able to show off the incredible photo quality (and angles) their cameras are capable of. We look at this Instagram and all we want to do is be where that photographer is and be able to take the kinds of photos they can take. The solution to that problem is right there in the branding.

Blue Jays (Sports)

Followers: 350 k

Why We Love It: We just love the Blue Jays. And right now the Blue Jays Instagram is giving it's fans a chance to celebrate their series of epic wins, again and again. By showing their accomplishments the Jays are furthering building brand love.

The Corcoran Group (Real Estate)

Followers: 7 k

Why We Love It: The envy inducing photographs that scatter this Instagram, prove why this real estate firm can call themselves the largest residential real estate brokerage in Manhattan. Their captions make you feel like you are already living in each home and the photos allow you to dream of it. The best part, it doesn't feel like their selling, maybe just showing off.

The homes are made easy to find your potential buyers, as the online code's are left in the details.

Pottery Barn (Retail, E-commerce)

Followers: 625 k

Why We Love It: Pottery Barn does a great job of combining advertorial photos, with real life home design photos. They also are very good at pulling at your heart strings by consistently posting photos of pets in their Pottery Barn laden homes #pbpets.

Nike (Retail & E-commerce)

Followers: 21.5 million

Why We Love It: Nike has been on top of the Instagram game for a while now. Whether posting inspired outfits, unbelievable athletes or introducing new products, each post features beautiful photos, smart tag lines (usually a motivational quote) and hashtags. #justdoit.

The bottom line is their Instagram is inspiring and motivational and that's what Nike needs. They need you to be active, so that they can be your number one choice for athletic products.

Canadian Woodworks (Home Services, Art, Retail)

Followers: 34 k

Why We Like It: This one may seem out of the blue, but this is one brand that has truly made Instagram work for them. This small-business Canadian wood working artist out of Acton, Ontario has only 400 likes on Facebook but, 34,000 on Instagram. It is a great demonstration of the power of shared images.

The followers? They are people who generally love and are curious about what the artist is creating. More impressive is when you read through the comments, there are constant questions and detailed replies on the process used to make furniture like the one below. Impressive!