Six Simple Tips for Optimizing Instagram Takeovers
By Dave McDonald, Associate Director of Social Media.
Since the introduction of Instagram’s story feature, takeovers (when an influencer or community member “takes over” your channel’s story for a set time) have been one of the best ways to showcase what makes a brand or organization unique. Whether it’s a student showcasing a day in their life or a staff member highlighting department culture, a takeover, when done properly, can give your followers a sneak peek into what makes an organization tick.
However, not all takeovers are created equal. In order for things to run smoothly, there are a few key factors to take into consideration to ensure things go well for both the brand managing the takeover and your followers watching it. Here are a few essential tips for optimizing these events:
Create a set of guidelines:
Handing the keys of your account over for the day can be nerve-racking. To ensure everything goes well, it’s important to have a strong set of guidelines addressing what’s appropriate to post and what’s not, and how your guests can kick off their takeover in a way that best engages your followers. While each set of guidelines will be different based on the intention of the takeover, some essential points to include are:
- A summary of your takeover and its goal
- Ideas about what to post
- What not to post. Examples may include:
– Profanity
– Personal attacks
– Pictures or videos containing nudity
– Personal information about individuals without their permission
– Business promotions of any kind - Tips for getting started
It’s also good for those taking over your account to know that you’ll be monitoring the takeover throughout the day and you’ll be available for questions in case they run into any tricky situations. Looking for an example? Check out our template.
Utilize Instagram’s interactive stickers:
Using interactive stickers during a takeover is a great way to increase engagement throughout the day. Whether it be using the “poll feature” to gauge interest on a certain topic or using the question card so the person taking over can take questions from your followers. Incorporating stickers into a takeover will turn a one-way viewing experience into a two-way conversation, allowing your audience to build a connection with your takeover guest and your organization.
Keep the takeover between 20 to 25 slides:
Getting the opportunity to take over a brand’s Instagram account is exciting, but even the most engaging takeovers can go stale if your guest takes up too much airtime. After kicking off your takeover program, if the exit rate (bounce rate) and tap forward rate (the percentage of viewers skipping story slides) on your story analytics start to rapidly increase, it could be an indicator that your takeovers are too long. To avoid this, it’s best to keep your takeovers between 20 to 25 story “slides.”
Pro tip: Send your takeover guests a meeting invite so they know when to begin their takeover and when to log off. This will help keep each of your takeovers a similar length.
Use captioning whenever possible:
When creating content, it’s important to keep it accessible. Using Instagram’s story captioning feature whenever possible is a great way to ensure all of your followers have an optimal viewing experience. Fortunately, Instagram has made adding captions to your stories extremely easy. All you need to do is tap the “captions” sticker after you’ve finished recording and Instagram will automatically caption your video.
Save the takeover as a highlight:
Since stories only last for 24 hours, adding a takeover as a highlight on your brand’s profile is a great way to ensure those that missed it can still view it later. Based on how you present highlights on your profile you could either have one highlight that you add all of your takeovers to or create a highlight for each one. However, you set it up, using highlights is a great way to increase the lifespan of these events.
Note: Each highlight can only hold a max of 100 slides.
Turn on two-factor authentication and change your passwords regularly:
Not only is this good cyber hygiene, but utilizing two-factor authentication and changing your password after each takeover is a great way to keep track of who’s logged into your account. Whether you’re using a two-factor authentication app like Duo or having a code texted to your phone, having this feature turned on, gives you control of who can access your account even if the password gets shared far and wide. Similarly, changing your password after each takeover will automatically log all other devices out of your account, so you can start fresh knowing you’re the only one with access.
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Is there anything I missed? If you’re an Instagram takeover pro, sound off in the comments with your go-to tips. Until next time!
