Home » Misc » How to do a instagram takeover

How to do a instagram takeover


How to Host a Takeover in 6 Easy Steps

Even though Instagram takeovers seem trendy now, they first started to gain popularity back in 2012 with brands like General Electric, Burberry and Food Republic inviting Instagrammers to take over their feeds for a day.

What started out as a fun way for brands and Instagrammers to collaborate, has now transitioned into one of the valuable aspects of any Instagram marketing strategy.

If you are wondering what Instagram takeovers are and how to organize them to boost your Instagram marketing efforts, this post is for you! We’ll go through six steps of a successful Instagram takeover, covering the various types of guests and takeovers and the ways to promote your takeovers.

What is an Instagram takeover?

An Instagram takeover is the process of taking over someone else’s Instagram account temporarily and sharing content with their audience. Instagram takeovers are an incredible way for brands, individuals and influencers to collaborate and cross-promote content.

Takeovers started with brands allowing other Instagrammers to post photos to their feeds for a short period of time and have continued to evolved alongside Instagram’s feature set. Video, Stories and live video updates have all added new, and exciting, dimensions to Instagram takeovers.

Why do takeovers work so well?

According to Gary Vaynerchuk, a well-known entrepreneur and social media marketer:

These takeovers are not only fun, but are also a great example of a 50/50 value exchange—a partnership that’s mutually and equally beneficial.

With a takeover, the host gets someone who can bring value to their followers while the guest gets to reach a new audience with their content. It most cases, it’s a win-win situation.

Here’s our guide on how to organize a takeover…

6 Steps to organizing a successful Instagram takeover

1. Set goals and metrics to watch

When it comes to organizing an Instagram takeover, you might want to first consider your goals for the and the metrics you want to track.

Your goals will influence the strategy behind your takeover and the metrics you choose will allow you to measure the success of the takeover.

Here are a few goals and the relevant metrics you could consider:

  1. Increase brand awareness – Followers growth, reach, number of views, number of mentions on other channels, etc.
  2. Engage the community – Number of interactions (likes, comments, views, or direct messages), number of live viewers, etc.
  3. Promote a product or an event – Traffic to your website, number of conversions, number of attendees, etc.

For example, Kuno Creative, an inbound marketing agency, experimented with having employees take over the company’s Instagram account. Their goals were:

  1. To grow Kuno’s following, presence, and activity on Instagram
  2. To make Kuno’s company culture and values transparent and top-of-mind by consistently providing engaging visuals

The metrics they measured were followers growth and engagement rate, which they defined as (“Likes” + “Comments”) / “Followers at the end of a takeover”.

Side note: They found that the average weekly engagement rate on their Instagram account grew by +17.14% through the employee takeovers. If you are curious to learn more, Andrew Osegi of Kuno Creative wrote a great article about their employee Instagram takeovers and the things they learned from the experiment.

2. Decide on your guest

Once you have decided on your goals and metrics, the next thing to consider is who to invite as a guest. There are three common types of guests. Depending on the objective of your takeover, you might want to choose one type of guest over another.

Here are the three main types of guest you could work with for an Instagram takeover:

  1. Influencers
  2. Employees or colleagues
  3. Community members or customers

Let’s take a look at each of them below…

Influencers

The most common type of guest is influencers. With this type of takeover, influencers in your industry would usually take over your account and share content aligned with their area of expertise.

Having an influencer on your company’s Instagram account is a great endorsement for your brand. It shows your followers that the influencer trusts your brand. Your followers will also benefit from being able to hear from an industry expert. It’s similar to having a well-known guest on your podcast, Facebook Live, or Twitter chat.

What are influencer takeovers good for?

  • Providing value through useful content
  • Driving social engagement
  • Raising brand awareness

Example: Last year, Brian Fanzo, millennial keynote speaker and change evangelist, took over Buffer’s Instagram Stories to share social media and community building advice.

Employees or colleagues

The next most common type of guest is employees (or your colleagues). Through an Instagram takeover, your colleagues can give your followers an insider’s view of the company and connect with them on a personal level.

Your colleagues can share about your company from their perspectives. Their perspective of the company might be very different from yours, making such takeovers fun and entertaining for your followers. Letting them take over your company’s Instagram will also add variety to the account and allow your followers to hear from and interact with more people from your company.

What are colleagues takeovers good for?

  • Engaging your community and building relationships
  • Showcasing your company culture
  • Building your brand image

Example: In the past, we experimented with this strategy. We called it #weekinthelife where Buffer team members took turns to share about their life for a week. As a fully-distributed team, this was a fun way to share our way of working and connect with our community.

You can also invite community member or customer or ambassador of your company to take over your company’s Instagram account and share their experiences that are relevant to your company and followers.

Instagram is always about community. Having community members or customers take over your company’s Instagram account shows that you value and trust them. It also shows that you are proud of your community and customers that you are willing to let them post on your Instagram account. Furthermore, they might share a different perspective on your industry and help create diversity in your content through user-generated content.

What are community takeovers good for?

  • Building relationships with your community and customers
  • Creating user-generated content
  • Showcasing your awesome customers

Example: Sony Alpha invites photographers who use its cameras to take over its Instagram feed and share photographs taken with a Sony Alpha camera.

Bonus: Guest on another Instagram account

Instead of inviting guests to take over your company’s Instagram account, consider representing your company as a guest for someone else’s Instagram takeover — an influencer, a community member, or even another company.

This is an excellent way to reach a new audience that has been built by someone else, without too much effort. It is unlikely that you two have the exact same followers so such takeovers help to expose your company to new people. If you have a great brand, it’s likely that your community would love to have you on their Instagram accounts, making such partnerships easy to organize. Imagine how cool it’ll be to have your favorite brands appear on your Instagram account!

What is it good for?

  • Building brand awareness
  • Reaching new audience

Example: When Brian Fanzo took over Buffer’s Instagram Stories, Brian Peters, our social media manager, also took over Brian Fanzo’s Instagram Stories as Buffer (What a Brian-ception ?).

3. Choose a type of takeover

Thanks to the amazing features on Instagram, there is more than one type of content your guests can post on your company’s Instagram account. They could:

  1. Create Instagram posts
  2. Post in your Instagram Stories
  3. Go live with your Instagram account
Instagram posts

Having your guest post on your Instagram gallery is the original way of taking over an Instagram account. This helps to add variety to your Instagram gallery.

For example, WeightWatchers invites its member to take over its Instagram account for a day to share about themselves, their favorite food and recipes, and their experiences through Instagram posts.

Instagram Stories

Sometimes, you might want to keep your Instagram gallery to a certain theme or you have set guidelines for your Instagram posts. Instagram Stories can be a great way for a guest to take over your account without posting on your gallery.

For instance, ThinkGrowProsper posts inspirational quotes and tips on its gallery so a takeover to post on its gallery might not be suitable. Hence, Ruben Chavez, the owner of the account, invited Gary Vaynerchuk to take over ThinkGrowProsper’s Instagram Stories instead.

Instagram live videos

Instagram live videos are another great way of Instagram takeover without having the guest to post on your gallery. As this feature is relatively new, I haven’t come across any Instagram live video takeovers yet. But I believe it’s happening!

If you know of any awesome brands doing Instagram live takeovers, we’d love to hear from you.

Tip: There are several other smaller details that you would want to consider. They are:

  • How long do you want the takeover to be? (Instagram posts takeovers tend to be a week, Instagram Stories takeovers are usually a day, and Instagram live videos are probably an hour or less.)
  • What content are you looking for? (It can be helpful for the guest to know what you want her or him to share — tips, opinions, product review, etc. )
  • For Instagram posts, do you want to use a branded hashtag? (You can have one hashtag for all your takeovers or a unique one for each takeover. #instagramtakeover and #takeovertuesday are popular hashtags for Instagram takeovers.)

4. Promote the takeover

Even if takeovers are common on your company’s Instagram account, it might be great to announce it and give your followers a heads up. Here are a few common ways of promoting an Instagram takeover:

Announce it on Instagram

You can announce the takeover through an Instagram post or a story a day or week before the takeover.

Shopify gave its followers a heads up about an upcoming Instagram Stories takeover. Such posts are helpful for Instagram Stories takeovers as there might be more people who would scroll through their Instagram feed than view all Instagram Stories.

Promote it on other channels

You can also promote it on your other social media channels (e. g. Twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat) to draw more attention to the takeover. People who follow your company on Twitter, Facebook, or Snapchat might not follow your company on Instagram. Cross-promotion keeps all your followers in the loop.

When Brian Fanzo was taking over our Instagram Stories, we share the fun news on Twitter, too.

We did a huge Instagram Stories takeover with @iSocialFanz today! Join in on the fun here ? https://t.co/93YiZ9IveG pic.twitter.com/GUn4vziIFi

— Buffer (@buffer) August 17, 2016

Help guests to co-promote

After you announce and promote the takeover, you can also invite your guest to do the same. There is an incentive to promote his or her own Instagram takeover if he or she wants the takeover to be a success.

Amber Mac, who was taking over Shopify’s Instagram Stories, promoted her takeover on her own Instagram account, using the same graphic Shopify used.

5. Execute the takeover

So here’s where I let the secret out…

You don’t actually have to let your guest login and take over your company’s Instagram account!

There are generally two ways to go about an Instagram takeover.

  1. A full account takeover where your guest gets access to your company’s Instagram account.
  2. A semi-account takeover where your guest sends you the media files to post on her or his behalf.
Full account takeover

Depending on preference and objectives, a full account takeover might be more suitable than a semi-account takeover. For instance, if you wish to let your guest go live with your company’s Instagram account, you’ll need to grant the guest full access to your Instagram account.

Advantages:

  • It will feel more authentic as your guest would have actually taken over your account.
  • There’s less hassle as you do not need to post anything on the guest’s behalf.
  • Your guest can see and quickly reply to comments with your account, especially for Instagram Stories as the replies will be direct messages in your company’s account.
  • It’s the only way for your guest to go live with your Instagram account.

Disadvantages:

  • It is less safe to share your password online, and your account might be compromised.
  • You have less control over what your guests post, when they post it, and what they do with your company’s account. (If you trust the guest enough, this won’t be a worry.)

How to set up a full account takeover:

If you prefer a full account takeover, we’d recommend using a secure way to transfer your password such as One-Time Secret. It’ll be great to change your password after each takeover as an additional security measure, too.

To use One-Time Secret, type your password on the website and create a secret link. If you want to make it more secure, you can also set a passphrase.

Once your guest opens the link to retrieve the password, the link will disappear forever, keeping your password safe.

Semi-account takeover

If you are afraid of compromising your password or if you prefer to help your guest do the posting, a semi-account takeover will be more suitable. The guest has to simply send you the photos or videos she or he wants to post, and you can post them at the times you prefer.

Advantages:

  • It’s safer as you do not have to share your password online.
  • It makes things easier for your guest, which might make the partnership more enticing.
  • You will have control over when to post the photos or videos.

Disadvantages:

  • It might feel less authentic as you are posting on your guest’s behalf.
  • Your guest will not be able to reply with your account. (They can still reply with their own Instagram account.)
  • Your guest will not be able to see any replies to her or his Instagram Stories as the replies will be direct messages in your company’s Instagram account.
  • You wouldn’t be able to let your guest go live with your company’s Instagram account.

How to set up a semi-account takeover:

For a semi-account takeover, there is slightly more work on your end. There are two main steps for you to take.

Step 1: Getting the media files

Get the images or videos from the guest through your or your guest’s preferred way of transferring files. This could be through email, Dropbox, or Google Drive.

For Instagram posts, you’d want to get a caption from her or him, too. For Instagram Stories, your guest can create stories on her or her mobile phone and save them by using the “Save” button in the Instagram app.

Step 2: Uploading the media files

For Instagram posts, you can use Buffer for Instagram to automatically post for you or to send you a notification on your smartphone when it’s the time to post.

The advantage here is that you don’t have to manually transfer the files from your desktop to your mobile phone. When you schedule an Instagram reminder with the Buffer web application, we will automatically transfer the photo to your smartphone through the Buffer app.

For Instagram Stories, you’d need to transfer the files to your smartphone as there isn’t a way to post them through the desktop directly at the moment. (A neat workaround is to schedule Instagram reminders using Buffer again but instead of posting on your gallery, press “Cancel” and go to your Instagram Stories.)

When you want to post the stories, swipe up to access the photos and/or videos added to your mobile phone in the last 24 hours.

Tip: If you are using Buffer for Business, you could add your guest as a team member of your organization and let them add posts to your Buffer queue. This will save you and your guest the hassle of transferring files and coordinating the timing of the posts. Here’s a full post on how to do that.

6. Wrap up

Once you have completed the Instagram takeover (yay!), the only thing left to do is review the performance of the takeover.

One of the best ways to measure success is to compare the change in the metrics you identified in the first step. For example: How many followers did you gain during the takeover? How much engagement did you receive?

Kuno Creative, the inbound marketing agency mentioned at the start of the article, measured their follower growth throughout the several Instagram takeovers and found that they’ve gained 450 followers since they started running Instagram takeovers.

Apart from looking at the numbers, Kuno also analyzed what worked well for them. They found that content that capitalized on trending topics, videos, GIFs, boomerangs, and high-quality images performed well during the takeovers.

Finally, the last thing to do is to show your appreciation to your guest. At Buffer, we like to give our guests a small swag token whenever possible. At the same time, we would ask the guests if they have any feedback for us regarding the collaboration.

Over to You

Instagram had pushed out many great features and improvements in 2016. I believe it will continue to do so in 2017, making Instagram takeovers even more exciting! As a recap, here are the six steps to organizing a great Instagram takeover:

  1. Set goals and metrics to watch
  2. Decide on your guest
  3. Choose a type of takeover
  4. Promote the takeover
  5. Execute the takeover
  6. Wrap up

Have you done Instagram takeovers as either the host or guest before? How was it? Do you have any tips for a great Instagram takeover?

Thank you.

Brought to you by

Did you find this article helpful? You might also like our all-you-need social media toolkit.

Get started for free now

How to Host an Instagram Takeover in 7 Steps

Instagram has an impressive 1 billion monthly active users—that’s millions of people logging in each day. It’s clearly a great place to connect with potential customers, particularly younger consumers (recent data shows nearly 62% of Instagram users are aged 18-34).

While there are many ways to promote your brand on the platform, including running ads and sponsoring posts, one of the most effective (and sometimes free) ways to grow your audience is by hosting an Instagram takeover.

What is an Instagram takeover?

A unique marketing tactic for your business, an Instagram takeover is when you partner with someone to take over your account for a short time, whether it’s one day or several. The host announces themselves to your audience and proceeds to post updates throughout the specified time. This host of the Instagram takeover can be an employee, an influencer, a business or an industry expert.

Takeovers help increase engagement and reach on Instagram. They give your audience a unique perspective of your business. They can also help elevate your brand, showcasing key products or differentiators to existing customers and new audiences.

Sometimes takeovers are more about elevating other people than simply promoting your brand. A great example of this is when the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) had their March Resident Scholar, Dr. Katherine Mills, take over their account for a day.

Dr. Mills posted to the ASA account throughout the day, highlighting meetings with ASA leadership and politicians during a trip to Washington, DC advocating for the physician anesthesiologists and safe care for patients.

How do Instagram takeovers work?

With an Instagram takeover, you’re handing over the proverbial keys of your account over to a guest for a specified time, whether it’s for one day or a few days. That person (or business) posts their own content on your account. If this makes you nervous, don’t worry—we’ll explain how takeovers work (including how you can protect yourself from risks) and provide some tips on how to make sure your takeover is successful.

How do businesses benefit from Instagram takeovers?

Instagram takeovers are a modern way to generate buzz about your brand or products. They provide many benefits to businesses, including the opportunity to collaborate with popular influencers or content creators who are relevant to your audience.

Here are some of our favorite benefits of Instagram takeovers:

The ability to reach a new audience

When an influencer with a large following takes over your account, you have the potential to reach new audiences. Influencers will notify their followers of the takeover by posting an Instagram Story or post to head over to your account to follow along. Takeovers help build your followers on Instagram, as some of the guest host’s followers will likely start following and interacting with you as a result. This benefit can last long after the initial takeover has ended.

The opportunity to build trust and credibility

Partnering with a guest host helps establish trust with their followers. This partnership gives your company credibility with a new audience who may not know about you or your business. It lends social proof since people trust the recommendations of others. When an influencer promotes your brand on their own page—and their followers see that content—you’re more likely to earn the trust of those individuals.

Engaging with an employee or industry insider gives you credibility with your own followers, particularly when that person is an expert in their field.

Increased engagement with your posts and account

Instagram takeovers provide a compelling way to encourage more engagement on your posts. If you’re collaborating with someone who has an active, loyal following, you can expect to see more Instagram likes, comments and shares on your content. This increased engagement can also help increase your reach because Instagram’s algorithm favors posts with high engagement.

A behind-the-scenes look at your business

Takeovers on Instagram give your followers a glimpse under the hood of your business. They help showcase an authentic side of your business and can highlight your company culture, products or services.

For example, let’s say you own a bakery. You could do an Instagram takeover with one of your pastry chefs and have them show your followers how they make some of your most popular desserts.

More traffic and sales for you

By increasing your brand’s reach and engagement, Instagram takeovers can also lead to more traffic and sales for your business. If you’re promoting a new product or service, an influencer takeover can help get the word out.

Make it easy for your followers to navigate to your website by coordinating your and your guest host’s Instagram link in bio tools. You can also use hashtags to increase exposure and discovery (more on that below).

How to run an effective Instagram takeover in 7 steps

Take some time to plan your strategy, identify your ideal guest hosts who align with your brand and values, and promote your event will help you get the most out of your Instagram takeover. The following steps are focused on helping you plan the perfect takeover.

1. Establish your takeover goals and KPIs

Before you start looking for guest hosts, it’s important to establish your goals for the takeover. What do you want to achieve (e.g., brand awareness, follower growth, improved post engagement, customer leads, etc.)?

Make sure to establish some KPIs (key performance indicators) so you can measure the takeover campaign’s performance. These could include:

  • The number of new followers you gain during the takeover
  • The amount of engagement on your posts
  • The number of website clicks or sales you generate

The goals should be clear to everyone involved in the takeover, so posts can be tailored to help you achieve them.

2. Choose a takeover host

When you’re planning your takeover, identify a host that makes sense for your brand. They should have a similar target audience and be respected in their field. Consider the following when selecting your host:

  • Influencers: Instagram influencers often, but not always, have a lot of followers. Their followers view them as experts in their niche. Collaborating with an influencer puts your brand in front of their loyal audience. Influencer posts, paired with hashtags, can also foster engagement and interest.
  • Customers: Giving a customer the keys to your account provides social proof and is a good way to show off your products. The customer’s voice is a powerful one. It fosters a feeling of community and demonstrates that your business values customer input.
  • Employees: Employee takeovers can make brands seem more relatable. A takeover gives your employees some recognition and reveals the human side of your business. This type of employee advocacy provides a unique look into your business.
  • Industry leaders and experts: Consider doing a takeover with an industry luminary, someone who offers valuable knowledge about your niche. Experts can provide content to your followers while reinforcing your company’s leadership.
  • Businesses: Partnering with another business—particularly one with a firmly established customer base—can elevate your brand in your industry and introduce your business or products to a new audience.

3. Select a type of takeover

There’s more than one way to execute a successful Instagram takeover. It’s important to be creative, but also to align your takeover to your specific goals. Here are three common approaches to consider:

  • Instagram post takeovers: This type of takeover generally involves having your guest host take over your company’s Instagram account for a fixed period of time and post content related to your industry, product or service to your feed. It’s a straightforward approach to a takeover that can be very effective in promoting your brand.
  • Instagram Story takeovers: A Story takeover involves having your guest host share a series of images or videos to your company’s Instagram Stories. These behind-the-scenes, action-oriented strategies generate engaging content while giving your followers a sneak peek of something specific to your business.
  • Live video takeovers: Live video takeovers generate excitement and build anticipation for an event or announcement (e.g., a new product launch.) You can also use live video to host Q&As, announcements or interviews.

4. Outline Instagram takeover guidelines

Once you’ve chosen your guest host and type of takeover, it’s time to create some guidelines. This will help ensure the guest’s posts are aligned with your brand voice and goals. Your guidelines should answer the following questions:

  • What type of content will be included in the takeover?
  • How long will the takeover last?
  • Will the content be pre-planned or spontaneous?
  • Who will approve the content before it’s posted?
  • What are the requirements for posting content?

Don’t be too restrictive. Set your expectations, but allow the guest host enough freedom to be creative and use their own voice.

5. Set permissions to your account

Now it’s time to give your guest host access to your account. One way to do this is to provide the password to the guest host (just make sure this is someone you can trust).

If the guest host is an influencer, they’ll likely have their own Instagram Business Account. Connect their account with your

Business Account through the Instagram settings. This will allow them to post content to your feed as if they were posting from their own account.

You can also give guest hosts access to your Instagram account by adding them as a contributor to your Meta Business Manager. Meta provides detailed instructions for how to do this via their Help Center.

Alternatively, you can streamline permissions management by implementing an approval process with a social media management platform like Sprout Social. With a message approval workflow, you can collaborate effectively with partners and guests on tone and content.

6. Choose a branded hashtag

You can promote your takeover ahead of time using Instagram hashtags. Any branded hashtags associated with the takeover should be easy to remember, specific and relevant.

Branded hashtags help your followers keep track of the takeover and see related posts in one place. You can also promote the hashtag to encourage your followers to use it when posting about the takeover to increase exposure and discovery.

7. Finalize the details and launch

The final step involves a few key details including choosing when to post. We’ve put together some best practices about when to post on social media to give you a starting point. However, you should also review your account analytics to see what times have historically been best for you.

This should also be the time to determine if you want a full account or semi-account takeover:

  • Full account takeover: The guest host has complete control of your account for an agreed-upon time frame (e. g., a day, 6 hours, a weekend).
  • Semi-account takeover: The guest host can post to your feed, but you maintain some control over other aspects of the account. For example, you might approve all content before it’s posted or schedule posts ahead of time. Social media management platforms like Sprout make it easy to plan and schedule Instagram posts.

You’re ready to launch, but there’s one more thing…

Promoting your Instagram takeover

With your takeover ready to launch, it’s time to start promoting it on Instagram and beyond. This will help ensure your followers are aware of the Instagram takeover and get them excited about the content to come.

Before the day: Tease the takeover on Instagram and your other social media channels. Send an email to your subscribers. Request the guest host post about the takeover to their followers and community. You can also announce the takeover on your website.

On the day of: Post a photo or video on your Instagram feed or Story to announce the start of the takeover and introduce the host. Make sure to use the takeover hashtag. The guest host can repost this content to their followers as well.

After the day: Recap the takeover on your website and share highlights on social media. You can even create an Instagram Stories Highlight reel with the best posts from the takeover (your guest host will likely want to do this too).

And, of course, be sure to thank your host.

Measure your takeover’s success

After the dust settles, review your takeover’s performance and evaluate metrics against the established KPIs. Take some time to understand what worked and what didn’t so you can optimize your takeover strategy for next time. Here are a few key metrics to measure:

  • Number of new followers: Keep track of how many new followers you gained during the takeover period and compare this number to your average rate of growth.
  • Post engagement: Review your post engagement (Likes, comments, shares) to see if it increased versus what’s typical for your account.
  • Hashtag usage and mentions: Review how often your hashtag was used and see if you can spot any patterns. Also, check for any new mentions of your brand.
  • Website traffic: Check your website analytics to see if traffic increased or traffic patterns changed.
  • Website conversions/signups: Did you see a spike in sales or an increase in conversion (e.g., newsletter signups)?

A social media management tool like Sprout can simplify campaign measurement associated with an Instagram takeover. Sprout provides dashboard-style Instagram analytics that let you easily see post performance, hashtag usage, audience engagement and more.

Examples of Instagram takeovers

Now that you know how to execute an Instagram takeover, check out some examples from brands that have done it well.

Samantha Pollino’s Hamilton Musical takeover

In May 2019, Samantha Pollino hosted an Instagram Story takeover on the official Hamilton Musical Instagram account. Pollino played Woman 2 in the Phillip Company production of the show. She did the takeover when the show was in Dallas, posting Story videos throughout the day of behind-the-scenes footage. She used Story elements, adding hashtags, Instagram handles, stickers and music to her posts. She also engaged with followers—for example, inviting them to ask questions which she promised to answer on Twitter.

Pollino has just under 21,000 followers on Instagram, so this is a great example of how an insider with a modest following can produce some engaging and unique content.

Penn Admissions student takeover

In 2019, the University of Pennsylvania Admissions department gave one of their student ambassador’s the keys to their Instagram Stories for a day. She recorded her day on campus as a UPenn student: walking to class with friends, enjoying a meal in the cafeteria and attending class. She even recorded one of her professors writing on a chalkboard.

The takeover provides a brief, but impactful, glimpse into the life of a student at Penn, complete with some compelling footage of the campus, classrooms and student spaces.

Jessica Capshaw’s 300th episode takeover for Grey’s Anatomy

Many may know Jessica Capshaw as Dr. Arizona Roberts in the long-running ABC show Grey’s Anatomy. Capshaw took over the show’s official Instagram Stories to celebrate the milestone 300th episode. This gave the show’s fans and followers a unique glimpse into the show’s production.

Capshaw’s posts included cameos from fellow cast members, a brief spotlight of the hair and makeup trailer, shots of the cast and crew gathering in a dining area and many more insider treats.

Launch and manage Instagram takeovers with Sprout

Instagram takeovers provide a powerful way for businesses to mix up their account’s content, increase engagement and reach new audiences. Sprout is the perfect tool to help you plan, execute and measure your Instagram takeover. With Sprout, you can easily see post performance, hashtag usage and audience engagement.

Download our Instagram for Brands guide and learn how to build a comprehensive high-impact Instagram marketing strategy.

How to take over the world? Newbie on Instagram!

0 Lucky and minions of fate - this is how you can call those who managed to break into Instagram at the dawn of its development. Low competition, simple rules, growing popularity, the public not spoiled by chic content have done their job: the old-timers of the social network have a multimillion-dollar army of subscribers, excellent income from advertisers and a chic life. Today, repeating their success is much more difficult, although there are special services for buying likes and followers on Instagram and training courses for bloggers. What should a newcomer do who decides to start a profile on a popular site and bring closer the day when it will bring the first money?

Contents
1. We plan a strategy.
2. Fill out profile
3. Subscribers: where to get them?
4. Content for Instagram
5. Types of content: pay attention to everyone!

Planning a strategy
Before you start filling out and creating an account, you need to answer a few questions for yourself:

What is your niche? Decide on your role: then you, what message about yourself will you carry to the world? A beautician, a young mother, a programmer, a political scientist, uncle Misha with golden hands, a promising young singer?

Look at your successful competitors, note interesting tricks and shortcomings. How do they communicate with the public and do they do it at all? What is your first impression of their account? What influenced it?

Be clear about your USP - your unique selling proposition, even if you don't plan to sell anything yet. What will be your feature, unlike many people similar to you, thanks to which they will remember you, want to get to know you better?

Find your target audience. Suppose these are women aged 28-35 living in Russia or a particular city. See what they “breathe”, who they subscribe to, what they repost.

By doing this in writing, you will have a clear idea of ​​what your Instagram profile should be like. Such a foundation strategy will help you not to waste time on stupid actions, and immediately start moving towards your goal. It's time to start designing your personal page!

Filling out the profile
We hope that even at the registration stage you thought well about your nickname - it should be memorable or correspond to your occupation, surname or creative pseudonym. Agree, it’s strange to imagine yourself as a vamp building a business with the nickname “baby296327"? Once logged into the account, a person should have a chance later to easily find him through the search.

Next, set a nice, bright, simple avatar without small letters, frames and effects. It can be your logo or a good portrait.

The next step is the proper design of the profile header. You only have a few lines to write: who you are, what you offer / what you do / what you have achieved. This is your chance to motivate the occasional reader to spend 10 minutes of their lives reading further. Hook, intrigue! Be sure to include a link to the site or YouTube channel (if you have them), contact information for advertisers, especially if you rarely read a personal message. You can also put your location and copyright hashtags here.

Subscribers: where can I get them?

A blogger without followers: like a bird without wings. What is the point of writing, creating, investing a lot of time and effort if no one but your mother and 10 friends see your work? Many users have a herd feeling: they accidentally went into the profile, they seem to like everything, and would subscribe, but somehow they don’t want to be one of fifty close friends . .. It’s necessary to have a solid figure in the “subscribers” column even at the initial stages.

To do this, you can turn to a quality Instagram promotion service with good reviews, for example, ALL-SMM. Even millionaire bloggers admit that at first they used the services of such sites, because no matter how high-quality the content is, without likes and an audience, the social network algorithm will throw it to the end of the feed. After cheating, start increasing the natural influx of subscribers:

- put hashtags and geolocation tags;
- add yourself as friends to your target audience, like them and comment on photos;
- Promote your account in the comments of the leaders of your niche, entering into dialogues with users;
- regularly post interesting content;
- buy advertising from Instagram itself or in well-known profiles, negotiate with bloggers about mutual PR;
– participate in liketimes, mutual subscriptions;
– set up traffic to your account from other social networks by linking accounts in the settings;
– take part in giveaways, arrange contests, giveaways, etc.

Content for Instagram

So, let's start filling the page! You should not post everything in a row, laying out every day everything that “fell on the soul”. We remember the strategy, mission, the desired virtual image and publish only what corresponds and with the optimal frequency - 2 times a day or less. A long silence here is as harmful as the daily "bombing" of subscribers' feeds with dozens of successful selfies and photos from trips. All publications should have a common style, look beautiful in the general stream. Choose your favorite filter, font for captions, etc. Pictures of various formats copied from the Internet, interspersed with screenshots and frames from a professional photo shoot - an example of an unsuccessful profile without a sense of style. Visually oriented people will not look at posts in more detail - and there are most of them in the photoset.

Types of content: pay attention to everyone!

Instagram has long ceased to be a network with beautiful photos. Now this is a complex system, where each method of conveying information has its own advantages and must be fully present in a successful account.

1. Photos and videos, animations: high-quality, live, original.
2. Text under the post: many people go to bloggers to read their thoughts or news, and then discuss them in the comments.
3. Stories - short videos recorded in real time, disappearing after a day. Many have long abandoned the crowded feed and watch only them.
4. Live broadcasts and IGTV.

Having dealt with each type of content in detail, actively communicating with subscribers, regularly updating the page with relevant interesting content, you will definitely succeed and start making money on Instagram. Good luck!

8 ways to increase your reach on Instagram

Ever since Instagram changed the News Feed algorithm, many marketers have noticed a drop in their post reach and engagement.

However, you don't need to worry about this. On the contrary, this innovation may well help you reach a much larger audience than your current one. And in this article we will figure out how to do it.

Find the best time to post

Despite the fact that Instagram, like Facebook, uses an algorithmic feed, posting time still matters. Posting content at the right time can increase the engagement of your followers, which in turn can cause the social network algorithm to "promote" your content by showing it to more users.

If you're using an Instagram business profile, then you need to check Instagram Insights to find out when your followers are most active.


To determine a more accurate time for publication, we advise you to analyze your profile in the instahero service. It will fully analyze your audience and determine which audience should be removed from subscribers so that your reach grows.

What other benefits does the service have:

Price . The service has the possibility of free analysis, which will allow you to understand the general statistics of your account, namely 30%. To analyze the entire audience, there is a full analysis, the price of which depends on the number of subscribers in the account.

Audience Definition . The service defines accounts: mass followers, inactive, by gender, foreign, commercial. Determines their gender, age, country, language. And also which gender is more active in the profile.

Time to publish . The service will provide information on which days and at what time of the day subscribers are more active on Instagram. This will help to create an accurate content plan and get more coverage for the published content.

Removing bots. The service has a precise removal of bots, which will help you get rid of inactive profiles that only spoil the statistics.

Monitoring. With the monitoring service, you can get detailed information about any changes in profile statistics. With the help of monitoring, you can understand what content your subscribers like the most, whether it is worth deleting bots.

Experiment with video

Some research shows that Instagram photos get more likes and comments than videos. At first glance, it may seem that photos will be preferable to you over video. Maybe it is so.

However, if you take a closer look at the research data, you can see a lot of interesting things. Take, for example, the study by News Whip, whose team studied the Instagram accounts of 31 publications. It turned out that the photos do collect more likes, but the videos are commented much more often. On average, videos were commented twice as often as photos.


It is not known how the Instagram algorithm treats comments and likes - the same, or someone "outweighs". But, judging by the fact that a comment requires more effort from the user than a like, it can be assumed that posts with a large number of comments will rank higher.

Organize contests and ask questions

Asking users questions and calling them to action is not new, but effective. And, of course, never forget about contests. Everyone loves them.


The Buffer team, for example, tried the following options:

  • Subscribers were asked to share their favorite holiday emoji combination.
  • To participate in the contest, the user was asked to tag a friend they would vote for as the best marketer (both automatically become participants).
  • The user was asked to mark the best specialist in social networks.
  • Subscribers were asked to share a list of books they planned to read in the near future. The winner received a book from his list as a gift.

Contests are usually accompanied by a huge number of comments. However, so that they do not bother subscribers, you do not need to conduct them too often. Take breaks for a few months.

For drawings, you can consider the service You to Gift . It is fully automated and will do everything for you: check the conditions, collect the database and the list of participants.

Among the main advantages of the service:

  1. Price. Using this platform is free!
  2. Wide functionality. You can hold any type of contest: from Standard to Like Time.
  3. Free advertising. After placing the competition on this platform, it will be seen by hundreds of site visitors who can take part in it.
  4. Honesty. You to Gift will help determine the winner using a built-in or third-party randomizer. For each competition, an open database of participants is provided, where users can find out their number and make sure that they are on the list.
  5. Simplicity and convenience. A clear interface makes it easy to navigate the service. And if you have any questions, you can contact technical support.

Maintain user-generated content

Brian Peters, marketing strategist at Buffer, increased his company account followers by 500% in 6 months. His secret is user-generated content.

Supporting user creativity can generate a significant response from the audience, which in turn leads to increased engagement. Since the Instagram algorithm now pays attention to who and how the user interacts with when forming his news feed, it would not hurt you to start building relationships with subscribers.

In addition, Crowdtap found that user-generated content is 35% more memorable and 50% more trusted than traditional media and non-user-generated content.

Tell stories

As noted in Buffer's 2016 annual State of Social Media Report, only 16% of participants surveyed have ever created a "stories". And now is a great time to stand out from the crowd and start mastering this tool.

"Stories" occupy an advantageous position - above the news feed. This is another great opportunity for the brand to get noticed. If followers view your “stories” on a regular basis, this can cause the Instagram algorithm to promote your posts. Live broadcasts work on the same principle, so feel free to try yourself in this area.


However, it is worth noting that “stories” are ranked in much the same way as regular posts in news feeds.

Run ads

Yes, that's pretty obvious advice. But they should not be neglected, and it is even better to use all the techniques in the complex. We talked about how to run ads on Instagram here.


Post less

Better one good photo instead of twenty mediocre ones. Just remember it. And the next time you decide to post something, stop and think about what this content will bring to your brand? To take in quantity is a dubious achievement. Work on quality.

Create exclusively for Instagram

Instagram is a very visual social network. First of all, images are valued here, and only then they pay attention to the text. Therefore, what works well on Instagram may show a completely different result on another social network. Consider this.

Alexander Popov , Marketing Director, SocialKit:

Genuine activity is the key to attracting attention and retaining an audience. Over the past year, Instagram has added a ton of new tools that can be used to attract and retain audiences on business profiles. So, for example, the arrival of new products in the online store can be published interactively in Instagram Stories. The same content, but in the form of static slides, can be formed as a presentation (carousel) and duplicated in the profile feed.

More engagement for subscribers will be given by the periodic launch of online broadcasts, where there may be reviews of new products, services, or some kind of interaction with customers. This increases customer confidence in the business profile, encourages action (likes, comments) and attracts a new audience.

As for the time of publication - yes, this can also matter, but it all depends on the topic of promotion. Business accounts have an activity schedule, based on which you can build the right publishing strategy. In our opinion, the most relevant format now is composite media (carousel). it works best for audience retention. The main thing is to create slides correctly so that engagement grows with each slide, and does not fall. As for Instagram Stories, as practice shows, people quite often click on the profile avatar. That is why the presence of any materials in this section indicates, firstly, high activity on the part of company representatives using Instagram as an advertising platform, and secondly, in a time frame, it can clearly show subscribers the influx of new products and reflect the dynamics of business development generally.

How to simplify the maintenance and promotion of an Instagram account?

Adhering to all these tips is very simple - you just need to find a good assistant to work with your instablog. We can advise you to resort to the help of services for promoting on Instagram.

Learn more