Published · June 21, 2024, 07:43 h
Rumors say that the official Instagram account of the Household of His Majesty the King was prepared to
go out into the world in 2017. But the reality is that it has taken ten years to wait, the decade of the reign of Felipe VI accompanied by Queen Letizia. In any case, we finally have on screen
Casa Real’s verified profile on Instagram.
For the purposes, the global showcase of our monarchy and a new platform for monitoring Queen Letizia, the true engine of visibility of the Crown.
A shame to have lost the splendor of the first decade of the monarch, with her promotion to the first division of global celebrities. Let us console ourselves by observing, from a space orchestrated by Zarzuela, the transfer of viral powers to Leonor.
In reality, this is a profile that thinks, above all, of the Princess of Asturias, as proven by the photo that inaugurates the new Casa Real Instagram profile. Is
Leonor who is in the foreground and it is Sofia, his squire, who occupies the center of the image. The kings remain in the background, Letizia because she barely stands above her head and King Felipe, because of her height. It is just the first snapshot of a gallery in which different moments of the celebration of the anniversary of the proclamation are seen.
The second publication shares a video that summarizes the day that celebrated the ten years of the reign of Felipe VI, with more prominence for the citizens who came to watch the event.
It is a good sign that Casa Real shares this type of pieces, since video has become the preferred format on IG, almost overtaking photos. The reason is obvious: while photographs can be used freely, videos must necessarily be shared in the Instagram post.
The Instagram of Casa Real, in detail
We are checking it every day in the profiles of the different European royal houses: the royals’ communication teams prefer to share video rather than publish photographs. It is always more favorable to the monarchs to see them in action, shaking hands, spreading smiles and giving themselves away at their patronages and charity events. Furthermore, it is possible to listen to them, something that modern sovereigns demand more and more.
Not only being a fashion reference is Letizia’s objective and, without a doubt, it will also be Leonor’s concern.
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This practical reason is not, however, the only one that leads communication teams to favor video. The truth is that it is not so easy to achieve the aesthetic standards that Instagram imposes on its stars, especially in photographs. This
It is not a social network to post any photo and, above all, this is not a social network to post purely informative photos that can be easily understood on a Twitter profile or in an official repository for the press.
Here we have to raise the level.
This is the real problem that Casa Real will have to solve: catch up with the rest of the
royal accounts that are already successful on Instagram. Our hunch is that it is going to be a complicated challenge, at least in the short term. The clues that the communication team has left in the first official profile of the Crown on IG do not allow us to be very optimistic in this regard. We are missing a graphic design that is a little more aesthetic, modern and current.
Perhaps the problem is purely generational: it is necessary to understand that this is a 21st century communication platform that addresses a
100% digital public. It is necessary to understand the aesthetics of IG and think of this channel as a more visual space, and not just a social network in which to upload the same graphic material that you already shared on your Twitter account.
With
only two publications in sight and one typo recorded in one of its logos, there is a long way to go. For now, this profile is more of the same. In February 2021,
three researchers specializing in international protocol published in Janus.net, an academic journal specialized in international relations, a comparative analysis of the use of social networks between the Spanish and British royal houses. One of the most compelling conclusions had to do, indeed, with the quality of the photos.
What experts say about the use of Crown networks
«Although the Spanish royal house does usually use its networks for diplomatic matters, its communication style is not adapted to the language of social networks. “Their messages are too institutional and tend towards coldness,”
the specialists concluded. «From the point of view of the semantics of the images, we consider the Windsor style much more coherent: the close-up shots so typical of the British royal house exalt their protagonists and exalt their power. And with frontal photographs they manage to generate a lot of closeness with the viewer. Their technical mastery is also superior: they use different cameras and lenses, they use stabilizers, etc.
“It is evident that
the scenery is much more careful. In this way, they achieve aesthetically very beautiful and carefully planned images, in which each shot has been designed to generate the appropriate values. In the Spanish case, we can say that they seek to convey naturalness, verisimilitude and absence of image manipulation, but the style of their photographs and their framing goes against this message,” the researchers say. “The characteristic shots of the Spanish royal house, taken on the spur of the moment, convey inferiority or weakness.”
Specialists in communication and international relations are exhaustive: the way in which the Spanish royal house uses graphic resources and language in its social networks results in “distant communication, which makes the task of generating empathy among Internet users difficult.” His photographs lack the journalistic style that general information newspapers require, but they are not what a communications director would want to raise the image of any client.
Will Zarzuela finally realize that Instagram is not a means of communication, but a showcase for daydreaming?
