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How to Skyrocket Your Instagram Engagement

Today’s a sad day. Our intern, known in the office as JenZ (because her name is Jennie and she’s a Generation Z. Get it, guys? Get it!?), left us yesterday.

But, before she left she graced us with some Insta-wisdom. If boosting engagement on Instagram is on your to-do list then listen up! JenZ has two simple steps to start adding to your strategies tomorrow.

Step 1: Understand the Algorithm

• Interest – Based on user’s past behavior on similar content, JenZ says if you’re interested in animals then your explore page is probs filled with adorable puppies.
• Timeliness – New posts are now prioritized. Dive into insights to find out when the majority of your audience is most active. And post during that time frame. If your post is getting a lot of engagement when it’s first published then Instagram recognizes this as quality content.
• Relationship – Get a little love flowin’ by tagging people in posts. Doing this will make Instagram think you have good relationships going and will prioritize your posts to audience feeds.

Step 2: Improve Interactions

Your number one goal should be to consistently put out high-quality content that is relevant to your audience. Here’s how you can jumpstart this process.

• Take advantage of Instagram’s many features.
  • Use Highlights to showcase different areas of your brand, product, or services. This throws stagnant images into interactive, watchable content.
• Include CTAs
  • Give viewers a little push by calling out specific actions. Want followers to comment, ask them to. Looking to get feedback, set up an Instagram poll or a rating slide bar in stories.
• Hashtags
  • No one wants to see 30 random hashtags that are pretty much just hype words. So #basic. Instead, JenZ says to use a mix of trending and industry-specific hashtags and don’t use more than 20.
  • Also, categories with hashtags matter. Use content hashtags that relate directly to your image, industry hashtags relate to the clients you serve, and niche hashtags that appeal to your target audience.

There ya have it. This smart cookie has left the building and gone off to a better place…#collegelife. Smash the button below to read the rest of her suggestions.

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13 Examples of Successful Co-Branding Partnerships (And Why They’re So Great)

We’ve been in a writing rut lately. Seems like every summary in here follows the same pattern. So for that reason, you’re not getting a typical intro today. We’ll just give you the need-to-knows. Sooo…here:

Topic: Co-Branding

What it is: Partnering with another brand to market one thing

Why it matters: You can get in front of a new audience in an authentic way

And because we always like to shine a light on the original content creator, this post comes from Sophia Bernazzani at HubSpot.

Moving on…below are a few examples of successful co-branding campaigns. Should be a little bit of inspiration for your Friday.

1) GoPro & Red Bull — Stratos
These two brands just make sense together. They’ve done a few collabs, but the most ambitious was “Stratos.” You might remember this one.

Felix Baumgartner jumped out of a space pod 24 miles above the earth. Watch the full story here.

2) Pottery Barn & Sherwin-Williams — Color Your Room
Together, these two brands created an exclusive line of paints. Then, a section was added to Pottery Barn’s website that helped customers select paint colors that complement their furniture choices.

They also created a ton of “how-to” resources to help customers paint and decorate their houses. See the campaign here.

3) Airbnb & Flipboard — Experiences
You probably know about Airbnb, but have you heard of Flipboard? If you’re not familiar with them, they’re a news aggregator that collects content users are sharing on social media. These two partnered together to share lifestyle content that Airbnb’s users would be interested in.

That partnership then turned into a project that allows Airbnb users to connect with hosts on common interests. More about the partnership here.

Welp, we’re running outta room and have only covered 3 of the 13. Take the jump for everything.

(PS – Even though all of these examples are huge brands, you can still do co-branding no matter how big or small your company is.)

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The Land of Land Rovers

Bumpy roads are tough. Mountains are steep. To reach the top, you gotta have a bit of courage and a bit of confidence.

After driving rough roads, at last, you see magnificent views… of the Himalayas that is.

Land Rover’s latest ad introduced us to the people of Maneybhanjang, also known as the ‘Land of the Land Rover’. This small village on the Nepal-India border is known for its 42 Land Rovers and a 3,636 meter climb!

This piece is filled with courage, pride, and determination. The video’s about 3 and a half minutes long, but don’t get us wrong once you start you’ll need to finish.

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