Why NASA Landed on Instagram

nasa instagram accountIn order to expand its audience, The National Aeronautics and  Space Administration (NASA) recently landed on the photo sharing site Instagram.

NASA’s image content will include Earth science, aeronautics, spaceflight, astrophysics, and historic photos as well as video.

The first day on Instagram, NASA featured the launch of its Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, a robotic research mission that will orbit the moon. Instagram is a good fit for the space agency with its rich visuals of space and the Earth. Their followers grew rapidly, to 32,000 within minutes of its first post.

NASA also uses social platforms Google+, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Foursquare, Reddit and Flickr to tell their story. When Instagram tweeted to welcome NASA to its site, within one day it had been retweeted 1,000 times and 500 had given it a “favorite.” NASA had over 4.7 million Twitter followers, more than any other federal agency.

As NASA uses social media to reach a different demographic, other marketers can learn from their Instagram experience and adopt similar practices.

Can you think of ways you can use this growing social media tool? Whether you’re a construction or utility  company an academic institution or health care  agency, there are many ways to tell your story through pictures.