Do you feel Instagram is just too big a beast to tackle? Has the world of social media sent you dizzy with its jargon, algorithms, and AI?
This is the situation I found myself in recently as an extremely late adopter of social media.
For charities, Instagram is a remarkably effective way to tell stories in a visually captivating way and reach new audiences, so it’s worth giving it a shot. All you need to get started is a smartphone and a bit of creativity.
Action Hampshire’s resident social media guru Emily Stenner is holding my hand on an Instagram adventure. She’s a fabulously patient teacher and has taught me how to create and schedule a post and demystified some the jargon.
For me, getting right back to the basics is key. In this bite-size blog, you’ll learn some absolute essentials before embarking on your first post. So, why not take on a new challenge and grab Instagram by the horns?
Why Instagram?
It’s a very visual communications tool. It’s used to share photos, reels (videos) and stories. The hero of an Instagram post or story is the image rather than the words.
Bio
Your bio which features in your profile is a concise summary of your organisation or brand. It should be concise and include your web address. Having a completed profile (photo, bio, links) informs Instagram that the account is active and provides the algorithm with information on who might be interested in the content posted (having a link to a website also helps the SEO of that site). This is a great opportunity to include adopted hashtags e.g. #Hampshire #Volunteering #charity etc.
Caption
The words used to describe the text under the image. Keep it to a minimum. Instagram users don’t have a great attention span so try and keep it to less than 150 characters.
Portrait or landscape?
Instagram is all about the image so it’s important to upload a good quality, high resolution picture. Portrait images take up more vertical space on a phone screen and therefore fill the screen more naturally. Portrait images allow you to get everyone or everything ‘in shot’. The last thing you want is a team member cut out of picture!
Feed
A grid of tiles with a search option at the top. It is what you see when you open the app and features photos and videos from the people and organisations you follow.
Story
Content which disappears – a user can only view it for a period of 24 hours. You can save stories to your ‘Highlights’ if you want them to last – more on that in another blog.
Stories can feature a link unlike a regular post which is quite handy if you want to direct people to your website. Stories appear at the very top of the app, in a horizontal row of circular profile icons.
A post
Content you create which will stay viewable for a lifetime. So, if you’re a foodie and see a recipe post you like, forget all about it (I can’t remember what I did 10 minutes ago) and then when deciding what’s for dinner want to recall it, you can! You access it by pressing on the relevant brand (they appear as circles) at the top of your feed and then finding the post you were interested on their grid.
Grid
A visual layout of posts displayed in rows.
Tagging
This is a way you can make sure another organisation sees your post. Just add an @(and the organisation’s name ie action_hampshire) into your caption.
Collaborate
You can invite another organisation to share your post on their feed. If your project involved a partner organisation you can create a shared post. When you post, Instagram will ask you if you want to ‘invite collaborators’ – just click on the button and search for the organisation – simple.
Hashtag
These are clickable keywords preceded by the # symbol which categorise content and make it ‘available’ to those users searching under those topics. They connect your posts to wider (but relevant) audiences outside of your followers and help Instagram’s algorithm understand and distribute your content.
I’m keeping this information short and sweet so I don’t overwhelm my audience. Look out for more back-to-basics blogs featuring information and tips I’ve learnt on my Instagram journey. See you soon…
And if you’re feeling ready to spread your wings in the digital world, check out my blog about how to write a great blog.
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