LG hands out 30 phones to popular Instagrammers to drive brand engagement

LG Electronics Australia has completed a six-week social media influencer program designed to increase awareness of LG mobile’s latest smartphone release.

As a smaller player in the smartphone space, LG said it needed to look to creative ideas to gain cut through. To do this, it recruited 30 social media influencers to become ‘G4Recommenders’ for the duration of the campaign.

The influencers were recruited to engage with the brand on social media due to their exciting, engaging and popular Instagram pages. Influencers included a mix of foodies, fashionistas, photographers and an even split between males and females.

In order to effectively run the campaign, LG engaged end-to-end collaboration platform, Hypetap, that connects an invitation-only network of agencies, brands and influencers. The company claimed the platform was instrumental in communicating with all influencers regularly, and also provided an integrated reporting tool.

“It was clear we needed to take a approaches to media when we launched this year’s flagship device, the LG G4," LG Australia mobile communications marketing manager, Brad Reed, said. "Being aware of the power of social media is one thing, turning on that power to support your brand in a relevant way is not necessarily that straightforward.”

Reed recognised that with social media, brands can easily overstep in the social space and be viewed cynically.

Read more: How to engage in influencer marketing: The controversy and the opportunity

"We wanted to ensure that we created something new and different that would in turn develop unique and creative content engage the audience," he said. "We were delighted with what we saw from the G4Recommenders as an initial trial. The level of engagement and creativity of the posts exceeded our expectations.

"Judging by the feedback we have been able to convert customers across to our brand and created an independent voice to support awareness building for the G4. The challenge is now to continue this success and expand it further to develop an even larger group of advocates for the brand."

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