Instagram embraced the Dark Side on Monday, by letting one of the most famous villains in history post a selfie to its platform.
The official Star Wars Instagram account launched a few days ago, announcing its arrival with a self-taken photograph of the series primary antagonist, Darth Vader. Although the next Star Wars movie isn’t due to come out for another two years, Disney’s marketing team is already kicking into action, now that it owns the rights to the wildly popular franchise.
The Star Wars Instagram account is a marketing goldmine, expect plenty of Star Wars related inside jokes, quotes, costumes and behind-the-scenes pictures to populate the account. It already has 150,000 followers, with 30,000 of them signing up within the first four hours of the Darth Vader picture going up.
Hollywood marketing is a natural fit for the highly visual, youth-centric Instagram, which is good news for its parent company, Facebook. The older platform has struggled to get much celebrity engagement despite testing several new features to attract them, such as a version of its mobile app designed specially for celebrities. While Instagram may not have the revenues, it’s still Facebook’s crown jewel when it comes to staying relevant among younger users.
