Unless you’ve been living under a rock of late, there’s a war on Instagram where large sums of money and globally-recognized influencers are all losing… to an anonymous egg.
Not a Fabergé egg, not a perfectly-lit quail yolk atop a bed of Wagyu tartare.
A simple, inoffensive, brown, slightly speckled egg. This egg to be exact:
This humble egg now holds the current world record for likes on Instagram. And at the time of this writing, with just a single post and over 31 million likes, the Instagram Influencer Earnings Calculator puts @world_record_egg’s potential earnings per post at somewhere between $7,809 – $13,015.
Of course, this data is somewhat incomplete as there is only one post so far, but the mysterious account promises that “we’re only just getting started.”
So why are we discussing this?
Think about it: As reported by the N.Y. Times (yeah) world_record_egg dethroned Kylie Jenner’s birth announcement (18.3 million likes) and crushed the well-funded stunt from Japanese billionaire, future “moon tourist” and Zozotown founder Yusaku Maezawa who offered $9250 to 100 random people who retweeted him (5 million).
So here you have a completely unknown Instagram account – without the influencer-power of a Kylie Jenner, nor the $925,000 bait of a billionaire tweeter – beating them all at the “likes” game.
How did @world_record_egg do it? How did an unknown account garner the largest collection of likes in the history of Instagram?
They simply asked.
There’s an important lesson here in genuineness, in the value of understanding when it’s okay to simply ask for something. Whoever is behind @world_record_egg knows that:
1) no one has a problem with eggs, there’s something to be said for universal inoffensiveness
2) people love to rally support for a digital cause, even something as benign as gathering likes,
3) as it is anonymous (for now anyway) there is no ulterior motive – until we find out this was brought to us by the American Egg Board (we’re watching you)
4) everyone likes being a part of a world record, which has a long history of success from largest food items, the longest human chain, etc… and finally
5) absurdity and mystery can be highly effective curiosity-driven marketing tools.
It’s truly amazing what a well-crafted, sincere message and a stock photo can accomplish when executed properly. We’re not saying we can deliver you world_record_egg numbers, nor are we saying that sponsored messaging and influencer content are ineffective. What we are saying, in fact, what @world_record_egg is saying, is that with the right tools, the right messaging, and the right approach to how you wish to accomplish your digital goal, you can attain some impressive metrics.
