Sahail Ashraf — January 12, 2018 — January 12, 2018
Let’s say you have a client who has an Instagram profile. You’ve come into the game a little late because that account was there before you could get your hands on it. It isn’t doing too well and all the signs show that the account will soon be a liability rather than a shining example of how amazing your client is.
You’ve got to get to work fast, and that requires an emergency plan that you need to put into place straight away.
There are a few things you can do to rescue the situation. A lot of this relies on there being some work in place on the account, which we’re going to assume is the case.
The business profile
We’re going to start out by basically insisting that you pick up an Instagram business profile before you do anything else. In fact, if your client doesn’t have one, that’s a big problem. Putting aside the fact that it gives you a set of analytics straight away through Insights, you also have the huge bonus of accessibility.
Clients who have Instagram Business Profiles will see that customers can now contact them directly through the platform itself. This has huge benefits attached to it. It also makes the business seem more on the ball and aware of what is going on.
But the real benefit is that accessibility. If your client has that profile it just makes communication a whole lot easier.
The look and feel
If the Instagram account is looking tired, then it is tired. You have to act fast to reduce the impact of drab, poor quality visuals. This is where you focus on taking away any stuff that can bring the account into boring, dull territory.
The very best Instagram accounts have a look and feel that is entirely uniform. The colours and the images carry the same style throughout. Alongside that, there is more uniformity in the captions. Brands are using the same vocabulary and the same tone, so that an audience can rely on them.
If you are able to, get rid of any of the old posts that are no longer relevant to your audience. We’re talking about posts that don’t do the brand any favours. They don’t necessarily have to be embarrassing, but they may be ‘off topic’ and they will most likely stand out. There’s no need to hold onto stuff that means nothing or is just plain annoying. Look at the thrust of your marketing message and ensure that the posts that muddy that message are gone.
Wake the feed up
One of the biggest reasons for accounts to slowly die is the post rate not being what it should be. You should be looking at posting at least once every day. It’s ideal to post more than once. Of course, these posts should be uniformly amazing, so it’s your job to make sure that they are, and that the high quality is happening every day.
Spruce up the feed with fun targeted posts that deserve to be shared. Or just post more. If you see the post frequency as being the pulse of the account, you’ve got to resuscitate. This is not a lot of work, it just requires that you quickly get to know the audience and give them what they want, quickly and consistently.
Test your metrics and see what the audience has responded to so far. Then give them more of it. One of the quickest ways to rescue a dying Instagram is to get some regular content out there, and fast.
This works on different levels. Once the client sees that you are kick-starting the feed again, the account will start to feel better. You’ll all notice the difference.
UGC
That stands for ‘user-generated content‘ and it is the Golden Ticket to a fast-growing community on Instagram. We’re dead serious about this. If you can quickly gain some user engagement and put it to good use, you’ll be looking at a rescue plan that gets quick results.
This really works well if you are able to put together some quick and high quality hashtag work. If you have an audience already (no matter how engaged they are) it shouldn’t take long to put together a hashtag and contest or two that involves UGC. Once you have that content up on your feed, you’re already presenting high quality, engaging content.
Because it is UGC you need to give credit to the user who created the content. But once you’ve got your processes in place for this, you can expect rapid growth. We would start a competition, one that has a relevant and valuable prize, and take it from there.
Go after the bots
It’s no secret that much of social media is plagued by bots. Perhaps ‘plagued’ is the wrong word, because some bots are incredibly useful. What you need to do with the client’s Instagram account is get rid of the bots that are not useful, and are instead downright damaging.
There is no way around the work. You will have to take a look at the followers that the client’s account has and ensure that ‘followers’ that seem odd, or just plain weird, are removed. This is sometimes quite difficult to grasp, but if you’re looking at followers that offer platitudes and praise, always, then there is a possibility that they are bots.
Test it, of course. Comment back, and ask them a genuine question. Bots find it hard to answer questions they’re not programmed to. This is not a problem that is going to go away anytime soon, but the least you can do is help your client have a follower base that will engage if you are working on engagement. Engagement is something bots can’t do.
Get tag happy
The client should have followers, and if you’ve worked hard to get rid of bots then you should quickly get to work on re-energising the followers that are left and attracting new followers.
Get current followers to tag their friends on Instagram, with some kind of incentive behind that tagging. A contest or other kind of incentive can help, and if your current followers are able to tag their friends, you should see a corresponding increase in interest and engagement.
Try the above if you need to rescue a client’s Instagram. It works, and the more you do the above the better the results.
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