Rebecca Minkoff's Secret to Success: Instagramming Pictures of Her Shoes

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Rebecca Minkoff, Instagram

In terms of content and engagement, Rebecca Minkoff has one of the strongest branded Instagrams out there. The company is also in the rare position of having translated the success of the platform into sales. Speaking at WWD Digital Forum yesteray, Cofounder and CEO Uri Minkoff said that Instagram was "largely responsible" for the brand's 100 percent year-over-year footwear sales increase last year.

The game changer, they think, was Rebecca's "Shoetography" feature—basically a snap of Rebecca's shoes every day (see: right). According to Uri, each post started to get thousands of "hearts," and he realized that "something as simple as posting a pair of shoes was a successful way to garner engagement in a short amount of time."

Minkoff says they were also able to translate engagement directly to sales, the holy grail of branded social media; Bloomingdale's had to reorder the fall 2012 styles that Instagram focused on. And now—like many brands that are investing in social media—Rebecca Minkoff is getting even more serious about conversion. Rebecca Minkoff just launched a subscription-based weekly promotion, where a surprise offer is revealed on Instagram on a weekly basis. "The future of Instagram is [figuring out] how to align it more toward sales," says Minkoff said.
· Rebecca Minkoff Makes the Most of Instagram [WWD]
· As Brands Put More Resources Into Social Media, You Can Expect a Harder Sell [Racked]