Zack Bates is all about luxury innovation and recently known for the instagram app he developed. In 2011 he quit his 9 to 5 to build a company around of country club cocktailing and rubbing shoulders with the luxury elite (which makes for some pretty good Instagramming). His company Private Club Marketing advises some of the most exclusive private member’s clubs and notable luxury brands in the United States. His personal Instagram @ZackBates grew to over 70,000 followers last year as he began to grab the attention of other influencers and aspirational followers.
“I’m pretty sure I was getting addicted to my Instagram feed. I kept catching myself zoning out at home and the office swiping north to look at a continuous feed of some of the great things my favorite brands like Burberry, Ralph Lauren and A. Lange & Söhne, as well as influencers like Adam Gallagher (@iamgalla) and Tom Claeren (@tomclaeren ) were up to, but a lot of the content I really didn’t care for. In my opinion much of it was a huge waste of time,” said Zack.
There are tons of articles supporting Zack’s claim of social media’s time suck. CNBC journalist Mark Fahey wrote an article last year called, “Time Wasted on Facebook Could Be Costing Us Trillions in Lost Productivity“.
“I reflected on how much time I was losing and what that equated to in lost productivity for myself, my family and company. 20-40 minutes per day comes out to quite an expensive distraction over the course of a year… although we were gaining exposure and traction, it wasn’t part my business marketing strategy”
In response, knowing he didn’t want to sever his online connections to the outside world or cut the cord from social media altogether, Zack decided to create an app. Enter: CustomFeed.
CustomFeed allows Zack and his growing instagram app membership to build organized lists of their favorite brands, influencers, friends, family, and more… and have those segmented lists with recent photos emailed to their inbox. He even has accounts set up for his company and clients to track their competitors and influencers.
“It’s fun to just get an email with what’s happened with a handful of my friends. My first list was, of course, my entire family, I could never keep up with everything they post” said Zack, “But my second was inspired by Forbes writer R.L. Adams and his recent article “10 Impressive Instagram Profiles To Follow” with profiles like friend Manny Khoshbin @mannykhoshbin, and David SK Lee @ferraricollector_davidlee.
In addition, Zack says he gets a daily email of institutional luxury fashion brands like Louis Vuitton and Hermes have posted, they wines and spirits such as Ruinart and Glenfiddich.
Check out the free instagram app and make your own luxury lists at CustomFeed.net
Here is Zack’s curated list for Destination Luxury of the 10 Ten Luxury Accounts You Should Be Following.
