Is your arts organization using Instagram? As you probably know, the organic reach of Instagram continues to diminish, but it is still underpriced attention, as you can reach incredibly targetted audiences for a low price.
The challenge for me is to come up with great content that isn’t just another photo of a truck loading into the theatre, a lobby photo, or stage hands getting a show set up. These are interesting once in a while, but good quality variety and content is key. Check out this space in the future for another post about Instagram stories and video.
Following hashtags and regularly searching your venue or organization in ‘Places’ is a great way to find what others post that may be relevant to your audience.
How to follow a hashtag:
- Do a Google and Instagram search for popular hashtags for your type of business. For example, if you are an opera company that is presenting Rigoletto next season you may want to follow #verdi #soprano #aria
- Search on Instagram what other opera companies use for hashtags
- Tap any of those hashtags and then tap Follow.
- Then you will start seeing those hashtags show up in your news feed.
How to search for photos at your Place:
- Tap the magnifying glass icon to display the Search tool then tap the “Places” tab
- Start typing in the name of your place, and once the correct one comes up click on it
- Search for photos that are geotagged with your location
Once you find photos that you would like to share on your own feed, make sure you ask permission to share the photo. Once you have permission, you can either use the Repost app to share the photo or take a screenshot of the photo and share it. Make sure you credit both the account who posted the photo, as well as the photographer.
Sharing other people’s photos offers a much better variety of content on a news feed, but you need to make sure the photo is relevant, on brand and credited properly.