OUAI
this is not an official guide associated with Ouai or Instagram
Who is Ouai?
Ouai is a luxurious hair and body care line founded in 2016 by celebrity hairstylist Jen Atkin. Ouai transforms your typical self-care routine into lavish experience you look forward too. Ouai originally launched as a hair care brand, featuring staple products, such as dry shampoo, shampoo, and conditioner. After a successful launch, the brand then started to incorporate more products. These products featured items such as, shampoos and conditioners targeted for certain hair types, hair masks, styling products and hair oils. After coming out with more hair care products, Ouai then decided to take a new adventure on and create perfumes. Scent was something that Atkin heavily focused on perfecting for their original launched in 2016, so it was only natural for Atkin to create a fragrance line with their signature scents. After incorporating fragrance in Ouai’s product line up, the brand started incorporating body care items. These body care items include scrubs, lotions, and cleansers.
Ouai’s Voice
The brand’s voice is expensive, but relatable. I believe Ouai does a good job communicating what they are and who they are to the consumer. They keep things light and fresh, but humorous at the same time. This can be seen throughout their content on their Instagram, with the color scheme and content they post.
Ouai’s Current Instagram Presence
Ouai currently has 1.3 million followers on Instagram and feature multiple highlights on their profile. The brand seems to focus 1–3 times a day on their feed. On average, it seems they post once a day, posting more on product launch days. Their likes vary anywhere from 300–10,000 likes. A surprising takeaway is their product photos get the most likes, ranging in the thousands. Their selfies get a few hundred likes, on average.
Ouai’s Content
As mentioned, Ouai features many highlights on their profile. On Ouai’s highlights, it showcases many of their iconic products (new and retired), tutorials, education on their products, media shout outs (“buzz”), and behind the scenes of their photoshoots. Their content varies but follows a theme, which is an aesthetically pleasing feed. Ouai post customer-selfies, their products, memes, and videos. Their feed is very pleasing to look at, and gives a luxurious, yet simplistic, modern feel.
Instagram Best Practices
On Instagram, an effective plan of action is to post high quality content, conduct contests with prizes, engage with your following, and use hashtags to gain discovery. Engaging with your audience is important because many followers want to feel heard, and connected to the brand, or person, they are following. On Instagram stories, it best to partner with influencers, creating engaging stories, user filters, and gifs. An effective practice also related to stories, is linking the product the creator is referencing too. By add a “swipe up” link to the story, it makes it easier for the viewer to directly reach the product.
Ouai’s Best Practices
Ouai uses high quality images on their page, creating a clean and crisp content for their followers to view. As mentioned earlier, Ouai’s content on their platform is effortlessly perfect from the follower’s eye. Ouai also does a good job creating engaging stories for the followers to engage in. Ouai often asks for the follower’s feedback on product ideas, existing products, and what the follower, consumer, wants to see from their brand. Their stories, like their posts, are also aesthetically pleasing, and high quality. As the founder, Atkin, is very connected with high profile influencers, the brand is also heavily advertised from Atkin’s influencer friends. Examples of these influencers include, Chrissy Tegan, the Kardashians/Jenners, and more. I also find it effective when Ouai post funny memes which are related to the brand and self-care.
How Ouai Can Improve their Best Practices
As Ouai follows many of Instagram’s best practices, they could improve their practices as well. Ouai does not seem to be actively engaging with their follower’s comments on their posts. However, they do a good job at creating engaging stories. By incorporating better engagement within their posts, they could create a higher like average on their photos, as their followers will be more encouraged to engage with the brand. Ouai also does not use hashtags on their posts. As the brand does have a larger following, they could still benefit expanding their reach. Ouai could also expand their reach with the use of hashtags. This would result in more followers, likes, and products sales.
Keep in Mind
o Engagement in important.
- Engagement keeps your follower’s attention and to make them feel connected to the brand.
- Followers want to feel like they have a say within the brand. Story engagement can be beneficial, but engaging in comments will leave a longer impact as the engagement doesn’t expire, like stories.
- Many consumers turn to social media aid in customer service response, monitoring the comment section should be done regularly.
o Exposure is still relevant regardless of follower count.
- Hashtags are important. By using hashtags allow you to expand your reach, which often results in more likes as more consumers will see your post. This can be beneficial as it can results in more sales and more brand awareness.
- Incorporating smaller influencers, like TikTok star Addison Rae, can also expand your reach. Relying on big names like the Kardashians is not always the most effective. You will also expand your reach by engaging in a new audience.