GoPro Social Media Strategy: YouTube, Instagram & Beyond

Introduction to GoPro and Social Media

The GoPro camera is an action-oriented personal camera that can be mounted virtually anywhere and record spectacular action sequences with a stillness and clarity never before possible through handheld equipment. GoPro's use of social media — particularly YouTube, where user videos are uploaded and shared with millions of viewers — is a highly effective way for the company to market itself to consumers, who are given numerous examples of exactly what they could do and capture with their own GoPro-mounted camera.

Brand Identity and Content Strategy

GoPro has branded itself as the camera for all things extreme. Its tag at the end of its online videos is "Be a Hero," displayed at the end of videos such as that of a man training a pelican to hunt fish and fly. The camera company appeals to individualistic people looking to do something different, something exciting, something off the beaten path — something that matters both to themselves and to the world. People can capture moments in their lives — such as splashing with their kids in the waves at the beach or sledding down a hill — with unbelievable clarity made possible by GoPro technology.

GoPro is so innovative that its cameras were used to make the world's first-ever first-person point-of-view full-length action film, Hardcore Henry, which dared to reinvent the action film genre and won praise for its unique visual approach to cinema (Bishop, 2016). GoPro is thus situated on the cutting edge of camera technology and encourages users to post via Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube all the great footage they are able to capture.

Instagram: User-Generated Content and Engagement

GoPro emphasizes "the feedback loop between adventure, social media, and the gadgets themselves" by demonstrating that amazing pictures and video can be taken using GoPro cameras (Burney, 2015). Using Instagram, GoPro was able to draw massive attention to its brand. In 2014, for example, the company increased its Instagram content output by nearly 100%, posting more than 40 pictures and nearly 20 videos per month by year's end (Burney, 2015).

Those posts translate into consumer engagement, as the consumer feels it is part of a special activity and that GoPro is more than just a manufacturer — it is also a promoter of the lifestyle and content that users want to see actively supported via social media. By promoting the sharing of content, GoPro essentially gets consumers to act as marketers for the company. In exchange, consumers receive the benefit of being able to share unique and visually stunning footage on a platform seen all over the world by like-minded individuals.

GoPro's usage of Instagram serves as a networking tool in which consumer and manufacturer are aligned in a single mission to deliver outstanding content and the technological means by which that content can be captured. As Burney (2015) notes, "high-quality user-generated content is the key to" GoPro's successful use of Instagram. The added element of competition that GoPro utilizes — contests for Photo of the Day or Video of the Day — helps to promote even greater engagement with users.

References

Bishop, B. (2016). The making of Hardcore Henry, the craziest first-person action movie you'll ever see. The Verge. Retrieved from http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/16/11248318/hardcore-henry-gopro-movie-director-interview-sxsw-2016

Burney, K. (2015). Why you should envy the GoPro Instagram strategy (and how you can emulate it). Trackmaven. Retrieved from http://trackmaven.com/blog/2015/01/why-you-should-envy-and-emulate-gopros-instagram-strategy/

Locke, E. et al. (2000). A Theory of Goal Setting and Task Performance. NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Weldon, M., & Eadie, W. (2009). 21st Century Communication: A Reference Handbook. Thousand Oaks: SAGE.