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The Instagram Photo That Launched a Travel Brand – Digital Marketing News This Week

Jeremy Kressman

Photo Credit: The popularity of Murad and Nataly Osmann's iconic #followmeto photo project has helped the couple launch their own photography business, as well as inspiring thousands of copycats. Flickr / Leo Hidalgo

Skift Take

Instagram is no longer just an "experiment" for the travel industry. The service's most popular content creators and marketers are increasingly turning their posts into big business. Whether that's a good thing for users is another story.

This week, we're talking about travel marketing on Instagram. To be more precise, we're talking about one specific Instagram photo, taken by couple Murad and Nataly Osmann, that's symbolic of the larger shift happening among the platform's travel marketers and creators. In 2011, Murad came up with the now iconic photo concept, with him holding his girlfriend's hand during a work trip in Barcelona, adding the hashtag #followmeto. What once seemed like a fun photo gimmick is now, five years later, a global phenomenon embraced by hundreds of thousands of other photographers and imitators, as well as a profitable business. Not only have the couple launched their own website, they've also scored a book and TV deal as well as work on ad campaigns with

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