On this month’s Office Hours, Product Manager Reggie and Marketing Manager Anna were all about Instagram. They walked through the different capabilities of Fanbooster direct and indirect posting, important IG strategy considerations, and tips and tricks for using Instagram on Fanbooster.
Read below for the insights they shared, or look for the other topics that came up during the general Q&A section.
Table of Contents
The Instagram API - 4:20
Reggie reviewed the specifications of Instagram’s API. In particular, he discussed the capabilities of direct posting, and then how you can use indirect posting to accomplish anything else you may want to publish to Instagram. Use this chart to help you:
If you need a refresher on how to post indirectly with the mobile app, SMS, or email, you can find it here.
Instagram First Comment - 7:35
Reggie also announced that the next update on the product roadmap will be a feature that allows users to schedule a comment in addition to their caption. Many people leverage this tactic on Instagram to keep their original caption clean and short, but still have a place to add their hashtags or any additional content.
Reggie also noted that Fanbooster will have built-in validations on the content of your first comment. This means that we’ll keep track of your character limit and hashtag limit before you schedule the post, and let you know if the post needs any changes before you’ll be allowed to publish it. Keep an eye out for this feature in the coming weeks!
Converting to an Instagram Business Profile - 10:15
Not only will converting your personal profile to a business profile help your profile play well with Fanbooster, but there’s some additional benefits. Anna walked through these, including:
- Adding brand contact information (i.e. phone number, email, and business location)
- Business advertisements
- Built-in eCommerce features
- Access to analytics
How to convert to an Instagram Business Profile - 12:10
Converting from a personal page to a business page on Instagram can be done in about a minute or two – just skip to this part in the replay for a screenshare of all the steps. To see the steps written out, use this how-to article from our blog.
Instagram Tips and Tricks - 13:52
Anna listed out her top Instagram tricks that can elevate a brand’s profile above the rest.
First on the list is leveraging IGTV, not only for sharing video content, but to expand opportunities for adding links to your site. While only IG accounts with more than 10,000 followers can add links to their Stories, anyone can add links to IGTV.
Next on the list, Anna recommended using Stories regularly in addition to your usual posts. Stories usage has consistently increased since the release of the feature, and offers more opportunities for engagement. Use the stickers that IG offers to host a poll, ask for questions, create a one-click DM, test users with a quiz, or any other engagement opportunities the stickers afford you.
For help expanding your organic reach, Anna suggests leveraging carousels. When you add more than one image to a post so that users can swipe through to view them, it gives you extra chances to appear in the news feed.
The first time followers see your post, it will show the first image in the carousel. If the user doesn’t engage with the post, the next time they log onto the app, Instagram will often show them the second image in the post on the newsfeed again. There’s diminishing return to adding more images for extra appearances, but adding at least a second or third image may get more eyes on your post.
Another way you can drive traffic to more links than just the one in your bio is to use a landing page tool. One like linkin.bio will allow you to keep the same link in your profile bio, but allow users to choose the post they wanted to know more about on a landing page.
Claiming your location - 20:08
One of the most important tips that Anna talked about was claiming your location. If you don’t claim your business location, customers won’t be able to tag your business or let their followers know where they are when they visit you.
Instagram has also become an important part of reputation management. Businesses are finding that more and more potential customers use Instagram like Yelp, and search through content that has been geotagged at certain places or businesses to get an idea of what the experience looks like. If you don’t claim your location and allow the public to tag their content at your business, the only content these potential customers will be able to look at will be your account’s posts, which may come across as less authentic.
Speaking of all these people that will be geotagging your location, did we mention it’s a goldmine of user generated content? If any customers take great shots that show off the experience at your business, feel free to shoot them a DM and ask for their permission to repost it.
For a walkthrough in how to claim your location, skip to this part in the replay video or use this guide from the blog.
How to improve your hashtag game using Fanbooster - 22:50
The last tip for your instagram strategy was to use hashtags. Instagram users can follow hashtags the same way they follow accounts, meaning that posts using relevant hashtags will be shown in the feeds of new viewers.
In Fanbooster, you can easily populate your posts with hashtags or hashtag combinations you’ve used in the past by clicking on the hashtag symbol in the post composer and using “hashtags” or “combinations.” “Most popular” will show you a list of general trending hashtags.
Another great way to save templates of longer hashtag groups is to use the “Snippets” feature under the scissors symbol in the post composer. Name your snippet, and then you can type in anything you know you’ll often want to add to posts. This can be hashtags, a boilerplate sentence, account tag, or anything else. Click on your saved Snippet whenever you want to add it to a post.
Q&A - 26:00
During the Q&A, we covered a range of topics and questions about various features, social media strategy, and using the tool. Skip to any of these questions and topics to hear more
28:17 – Is there a new place to log in now that we’re Fanbooster? Log into the tool using app.fanbooster.com
31:08 – Deleting personal accounts if you have Business Profiles
32:15 – Images sizes and editing media for Instagram using Fanbooster
34:10 – Good sources for education on Instagram strategy as a whole. Anna called out her favorites, Social Media Examiner and Savvy Social
35:00 – Using the Snippet tool
35:52 – Using the same hashtag and being shadowbanned
38:00 – Canva integration for whitelabel users
39:30 – Setting up Content Syndication, using RSS feeds to populate your syndicated content, and using the “list view” trick to mass delete syndicated posts
48:00 – More on mass deleting using list view
