Welcome to our second post in the March blog series on influencer marketing! we hope you found last week’s introduction and FAQs for influencer relations to be instructive and insightful. As a lifestyle PR agency, this week, we’re sharing some of our experience helping brands use Instagram to connect with important audiences.

Beyond traditional press coverage, Instagram is a powerful way to engage with the right people at the right time. As one of the fastest growing social destinations, Instagram currently has 121MM monthly active users. Note that 60 percent are female and 55 percent are Millennials. Moreover, the community on Instagram averages 25-35 minutes per day.

Colorado Mills, the largest outlet and value retail destination in Colorado, recognized the value of connecting with Instagram’s audience, but needed to significantly grow its own audience of followers on Instagram to make an impact.

Curator designed a year-round influencer program with parenting and lifestyle bloggers to speak to local suburban families and Millennials. Four different Denver bloggers created content to highlight critical retail seasons such as Mother’s Day, back-to-school and the holidays. The bloggers shared their shopping experiences in blog posts and amplified that content across their social channels. To see the program in action, read our Mother’s Day gift guide from Denver supermom, Marisa Atwood of Penny Wise Mama. Her Instagram post pushed her followers the Colorado Mills Instagram for a daylong takeover.

Additionally, we worked with the bloggers to execute a “takeover” of the Colorado Mills Instagram channel to cross-promote her content and followers. We also offered a gift card giveaway requiring contest entrants to follow Colorado Mills on Instagram to be eligible to win. The results exceeded expectations, with more than two million impressions from the content and a 300 percent increase in followers and significant increase in engagement.

By focusing on a strategy that leaned into Instagram, we developed a unique and ownable position by giving suburban families and Millennial shoppers an experiential reason to choose Colorado Mills. Tune in next week for our third series post on the power of blog ambassadors! Don’t forget to catch up on last week’s crash course in influencer marketing here.