• Careers and Employability: Instagram for Professionals
• With Corrie Jones: Founder of social media company called Untapped
• @corriejones and @untappeddigital on Instagram
• Sophisticated elements of Instagram. Tone of voice, IGTV, going live, etc.
• Tone of voice and visuals: Content is shareable, saveable, consistent, constantly updated, relatable, clear set of visuals, customer first
• What is tone of voice? Every brand has one. How you speak to the audience. Contains a tone of voice
• Zone of tone: analysing an example and picking it apart. Is it very corporate? Self centred? Using contractions, social media elements, competitions, whimsical, community, emojis
• Build hype. Very informal. Freelance opportunity
• You may want to be somewhere in the middle of corporate and fun/light-hearted. Giving information in a personable way.
• What are your three core values? Is it being honest, creative, trustworthy, human, whimsical?
• If you were a brand will you use "I" or "we"?
• A good example is innocent smoothies who have a very playful and whimsical tone of voice to sell their products in an engaging way while retaining a corporate background
• Are emojis appropriate? It builds a connection and engagement. But if you're posting something serious then perhaps limit the use of emojis
• Consider language. Contractions. We are or we're? Be consistent with your website too in conjunction with your Instagram. Get your character across on social media
• Visuals: bright colours or pared back? 1212 format - Video, text, video, text. How do you want your instagram grid to look?
• Do you want to pretty Instagram, inspirational Instagram, aspirational Instagram?
• Photography. Cohesive with filters. Bright colourful images will get someone to click.
• People will use the first 9 to 12 images to judge, engage and perhaps follow. If the visuals aren't cohesive people won't follow.
• Think about brand colours though you may not want to overcommit to certain colours and visuals in case you change over time
• Instagram Algorithm: People always want to "beat" or "hack" the algorithm. It isn't out to get you
• It is a way of sorting out the feed and deciding on the interests expressed rather than chronologically
• Instagram will prioritise what you see based on what it thinks you want to see.
• Instagram will analyse your profile
• Post frequently, post your location, use hashtags (up to 30 in total). Actively engage in activity. The algorithm notes when time is spent reading a long caption, "dwell time." Notes whether a post is shared in DMs. Is the post recent? Is it relevant? Do users look at your profile often? For how long?
• Hashtags: a maximum of 30 can be used. No down voting if you use all 30. It's best to use hashtags in a comment to hide them in there. It makes the post look cleaner, while still targeting an audience. Switch up the hashtags you use often or Instagram will class the post as spam. Research hashtags. Macro hashtags - popular and big hashtags. Micro hashtags - more condensed focus and less popular bit your post will be better seen. Use a combination of macro and micro hashtags.
• A micro hashtag is a niche community with the potential of higher engagement. More effective. Your post won't move so freely and will rank higher and stick around in that hashtag. Look at the hashtags you're using and the users looking at them. What hashtags are your competitors using?
• Instagram stories, reels, IGTV, going live. Instagram has a lot of features and will reward users who implement these
• Instagram Stories: stay in the front of the mind of your audience. Call to action to clients. Link in bio, promote new post, they are discernible through location and hashtags and can be hidden from certain people/audience. Instagram notes the engagement from stories and performs your feed better. Consider tone of voice and colour palette to match your brand, website and feed. No more than 10 to 15 Instagram stories a day as people will drop off at the constant information.
• Instagram Reels: reels give a new reach. Up to 9 thousand potential followers. Wow factor. Authentic. Go viral. No blurry images or video. No logos from other apps such as TikTok, Instagram recognises if something comes from TikTok with the logo and doesn't promote it as much. Instagram prefers original content and will promote/reward that much better. No borders or text. Not using music on everything due to copyright. Copyright free music.
• IGTV: videos longer than a minute. Vertical format. Links are clickable so that the audience can swipe up and visit your website
• Instagram Live: Engage with your audience then and there. Be authentic and honest. You could do a Q&A. Invite audience chat with you. Livestream of a new piece of art you're working on. Allows your audience to engage with you. Episodic content each week makes you become a destination and a hotspot on Instagram. Have a think about how these things can be used for you.
• Using daily Instagram stories, regular IGTV, and livestreams through "lives" builds connections and promotes your Instagram page better in the algorithm.
• Questions: is there a better time of day for posting content? That depends on your audience and their location. You can take a look at your analytics and the hours that people spend online and the most on your page when you post content
• Does the algorithm prefer pictures with borders or without? Go through analytics and see if pictures with borders perform better than your pictures without borders. Instagram doesn't have a preference
• Paying to promote your posts requires a solid strategy in place first. It requires an audience to engage with your website. Don't promote your posts if you don't have a website. A lot of brands post on the hour or half an hour. So perhaps avoid those busy times and post before or after this
• The Plannable app can be implemented in your routine to plan and post Instagram posts
• Corrie has offered to look at students' Instagram pages for free and give feedback which I will take full advantage of!
Reflection: I thought I was well versed in Instagram but I have learned a lot more about the tools available through Instagram and its importance as one of the busiest social media platforms. I haven't thought about looking through my analytics before, or the demographic of my audience, and will certainly follow-up and look at those tools. I have also made the mistake of paying to promote my work to advertise to a wider-audience. It had gained me a following but I have no website yet to capitalise on.
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