Accomplishments
Things we improved this year
1. Using IGTV (the Instagram TV feature) more
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IGTV is a feature that Instagram launched three years ago that allows users to post videos up to 60 minutes long. We decided to increase our use of IGTV to see how our followers respond to longer videos. We received great feedback, with IGTV videos having some of the highest engagement rates of all of our posts. See our posts with IGTV
2. Creating a more visually pleasing Instagram profile
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To make our profile more visually pleasing, we implemented a more cohesive color scheme for our highlight cover photos. See our Instagram profile
3. Using the right length for captions
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We found that user response varies by social media platform and by caption length. For example, on Twitter, long threads of tweets do not receive nearly as much engagement as short tweets. However, on Instagram, we saw that the most effective caption length was about 3-5 sentences.
4. Using hashtags
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Hashtags have a large impact on social media posts; the words used in hashtags can help introduce posts to an audience beyond the account’s followers. For example, a post with a hashtag that says “#organiccatfood” can appear on someone’s Instagram explore page if they have recently searched for products for their cat. When people find posts through hashtags, it increases the number of post impressions and gives a user the opportunity to follow the account.
We have recently started using hashtags on our posts to increase engagement. We found that using too many hashtags (more than 10) makes people feel overwhelmed so we aim for 4-6 on our posts.
5. Implementing cross platform marketing
We noticed that we have very different audiences on our social media platforms. Our followers on Facebook and Twitter are primarily parents and teachers while on Instagram and Snapchat, they are primarily students. To gain more followers on all of our social media accounts, we decided to implement cross platform marketing, by promoting certain platforms on other platforms. For example, we would advertise our Instagram on Twitter or vice versa.
