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Stephanie Winans

Business & Marketing Strategy Consulting

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Instagram’s New Algorithm: Upping Your Instagame

April 22, 2016 by Stephanie Winans Leave a Comment

Remember when (cue Alan Jackson for you country fans)… Facebook was the only social network whose algorithm changes could get your panties or whitie tighties in a bunch?

Instagram recently announced that their feed will change from a chronological feed to an algorithm-based feed.

So what does this mean for your station or show? It means that you need to keep doing what you’re doing and just create good content.

Users are upset because they don’t like change and enjoy the existing Instagram user experience. Marketers are freaking out because they envision (and wisely so) that this change will make it more difficult for their posts to hit follower feeds unless they buy ads.

Instagram Algorithm Change

But you aren’t a marketer. You aren’t pushing a product and trying your best to find a creative way to sell on social. You’re selling the one thing that organically performs well: engaging content.

The trick is that you need to know what “engaging content” is. The silver lining of this change is that Instagram will make that obvious for you if you’ll listen. You won’t have to worry as much about the best time to post and whether you need to repeat posts throughout the day to reach more of your audience. You can focus on testing and measuring what types of content work instead.

So how do you do that? You regularly measure which types of posts drive the best results. If your station doesn’t subscribe to social media measurement or listening tools, you can setup an Excel spreadsheet and track your progress on your own. Here are tips to making the algorithm work for you:

  1. Define “success” first. Are you trying to drive likes, comments, or traffic to the website? Increase your followers? Know what you need to measure.
  1. Research hashtags regularly. Post a combination of hashtags with each post. Limit yourself to 7 or fear looking like a spammer (someone has to tell you that!). Include a mix of station hashtags, market specific local hashtags, relevant to that post hashtags, and trending hashtags to increase your reach. Note whether certain hashtags seem to drive more engagement.
  1. Pay attention to post types. Does your biggest response come from personality-focused posts? Entertainment news? In-studio video? Personal posts unrelated to your radio show? Track your posts long enough and you’ll know what your listeners want to see from you. Here’s a creative example on how to use Instagram video to promote entertainment headlines from Shoboy in the Morning.
  1. Spend time on your captions. The best images or videos fail to get response without a strong caption. Think of the caption as your on-air tease; craft it carefully. Track whether certain types of captions drive more engagement (i.e. short ones vs. long ones, questions vs. fill in the blanks).
  1. Ask for the engagement you want (but don’t sound desperate). “Double tap if you agree” after posting an opinionated caption is a classy way to ask for engagement. “Tag everyone you’ve ever met” is not.
  1. Try new things. If no one likes it, Instagram will make sure it gets buried in the feed. You can take some risks and see how your ideas pan out.
  1. Leverage what you know about Facebook. The Instagram algorithm-based feed will react similar to Facebook’s News Feed. Although Instagram is a visual social media, Facebook (and the rest of the web) is becoming that, too. It’s a fair assumption to begin with that the types of content that do well within the News Feed will do well on Instagram, too.
  1. Re-strategize. That’s right. When you collect this data, you need to set aside time to interpret it and shift your strategy. If no one ever likes your posts about your pet squirrel, it’s time to tell Rocky you’re sorry but he isn’t an Instaceleb.

For an excellent write-up on how all of your favorite social media networks’ algorithms work, check out this Hubspot post.

Photo credit: Flickr/miguelb

 

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Instagram, radio, social media, talent

#Instavideo: How Radio Can Take Advantage of Video for Instagram

July 7, 2013 by Stephanie Winans Leave a Comment

Right when you get the hang of Instagram, the Facebook-owned social network comes out with an update to compete with social video powerhouse, Vine (owned by Twitter). You can still add photos to Instagram, but now you can also share 15-second videos.

Much like Vine, Instagram allows you to stitch together video clips into a 15-second montage. You can apply one of 13 Angela Perelli and Stephanie Winansfilters and use the Cinema feature to stabilize your video, too. Don’t forget to choose your thumbnail so users who don’t press play still get a sense of what the video is about.

So what kind of videos should you share? Here are some ideas to jumpstart your brainstorming:

 

  • What’s happening in the studio between commercial breaks?
  • Record one Q&A from your next in-studio guest. Consider captioning the video with your question and leaving the 15-second video for your guest’s answer.
  • Video your next musical guests singing the hook to their latest song live.
  • Share intriguing clips of morning show stunts, driving viewers to the website for longer video.
  • Get creative with promotion announcements. Shoot video of yourself announcing the latest contest or promotion, or of the studio while the promo plays. Giving away a flyaway? Head to the airport to record a plane taking off.
  • Develop a street promotion with a specific hashtag. For example, give away t-shirts or concert tickets on the street and shoot video at different locations. Get client sponsorship to monetize the promotion.
  • Ask your Sales department which clients play the station in their businesses. Shoot the staff dancing to the music.  Better yet, create a promotion and ask local businesses to upload their own videos.
  • See someone jamming in her car to your station? Shoot a quick video (and get her permission to post).
  • Record a ride in the station vehicle.
  • Record hints to trivia contests and post with the time the contest airs. Be sure and comment with the answer after the contest is over, as listeners will comment and guess just for fun.
  • Develop a character for Instagram, or make an on-air character come to life. Shoot regular video and create a hashtag for this feature.
  • Share video of an artist meet-&-greet.
  • Create a feature just for Instagram video. For example, “Ask Steve.” Have listeners email questions and post a video every Monday of Steve answering a listener question. Using the hashtag #AskSteve would allow users to watch any “Ask Steve” videos they’ve missed.
  • Create testimonials. Ask P1 fans at events if you can post video of them sharing why they love the station or show.

 

Whatever you do, just do it. Radio’s only disadvantage is that it’s an audio medium in a visual world. With Instagram video (and other video platforms, too), you have the opportunity to bridge that gap.

Note: If you don’t see the upload video option in your app, check for an Instagram update and make sure your phone’s operating system is up-to-date.

 

Also published on The Randy Lane Company blog.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Instagram, promotion, radio, sales, social media, video

Social Media Tips for Small Business [Audio]

June 6, 2012 by Stephanie Winans Leave a Comment

I had the pleasure of being a guest on It’s Just Business, Wink 107.1/Ohio.

I gave the Business Crash Test Dummy, Kim Turner, feedback on a recent issue he had with Yelp. I answered several caller questions about small business and social media, including whether you should self-promote on LinkedIn, the Facebook cover photo no-no’s, and which platforms to choose if you’re just getting started.

To listen, click here.

Filed Under: Business Tagged With: cover photo, engagement, facebook, followers, imagery, Instagram, LinkedIn, pictures, social media, social media service, twitter

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