It’s time for another @fast marketing update

Today I’ll be sharing how we developed our newly launched Instagram series: http://www.instagram.com/gofast  (a thread)

Half the battle of building a presence on IG is first deciding exactly what it is that you'll be posting.

There are dozens of factors to consider (e.g. visual identity, voice, the messages you want to communicate) as well as making sure your page actually worth following.

As we brainstormed ideas, one theme repeatedly emerged:

Fast is only as successful as the businesses who install Fast Checkout and the people who use it.

As we brainstormed ways to highlight both people who buy stuff and sell stuff online, nothing we came up with felt original enough for Instagram.

It was then that we realized: Fast doesn’t actually belong to us, Fast belongs to all of us.

If we wanted to do something truly original, we needed to cede some of the creative control of our own brand.

So we decided to collaborate with several artists in a series called "Fast Belongs To All of Us."

In this collaboration each artist ‘owns’ the Fast brand for a series of three Instagram posts, sharing their own interpretation of our still evolving brand.

This allows us to tell the Fast story in a way that feels unique every time someone sees it.

Here’s what we hope to with this series:

1. Get a 3rd party perspective on our brand to help us get out of our own bubble. Outside people are able to make creative observations that we’re blind too.

2. Our brand is still young and evolving. Having a public space to experiment in let’s us see what resonates and what doesn’t. We can take the elements that work, and discard the elements that don’t work.

3. We want the artists we work with to be so proud of their work, that they’re eager to share it with their Instagram communities. This gives us access to audiences that otherwise wouldn’t see our brand.

4. We will use the content both organically and for paid promotion.

While not every piece of art will be right for an ad, many will be. We will leverage the art that most grabs people’s attention, and fine-tune from there.

5. No art is currently off limits. Could be digital art. Could be a painting. Could be comedy, calligraphy, dancing, singing, anything.

The point is to take some chances, learn more about our brand, and create a community that appreciates boldness.

This means some of what we post will work, and some of what we post will flop. And we’re ok with that.

By better understanding how the world sees our brand, we hope to better understand our own brand.

We launched this series with our first artist early this week: @aleeplaza

Not only are we highlighting each artist’s work, we’re sharing the inspiration behind each post. You can read more about our campaign on our Instagram: http://instagram.com/gofast