5 ways your credit union can grow an engaged Instagram following

A few weeks ago, I attended a breakout session at INBOUND17 with one of the Instagram guru’s, Peg Fitzpatrick. The title of the session was “How To Grow An Engaged Instagram Following.  In this session, Peg Fitzpatrick, social media strategist and co-author of The Art of Social Media, shared some of her engagement tips and highlighted some key metrics to grow your Instagram account using data and analytics.

Here are 5 tips I took away from this session that can help your Credit Union grow an engaged Instagram following.

  1. Set Your Style

On Instagram, consistency is key. Make sure your account has a consistent style with font, colors, and photo filter style for every post you share on your account.  Adding your branding logo or URL is optional, but if want to make sure you get credit for your images, then make sure they are branded if others share them across social media. Just mix these up and don’t brand ALL of your images.

  1. Add Variety In Your Posts

Eating the same thing for breakfast every morning gets old after a while, well so does your Instagram feed. Make sure your posting a variety of things including photos, videos, Boomerangs, Hyperlapse, etc. Keep it interesting so that your followers will want to remain engaged.

  1. Use User-Generated Content (UGC), NOT Stock Photos

It is true…Peg used a statistic in her presentation that “77% of Instagrammers prefer user-generated content over professional photos!”  

While stock photos are pretty, they aren’t genuine, and we can all recognize them easily. Your members want to see your behind the scenes photos of your employees! They want to see real photos! Share content generated by other Instagrammers as it relates to your credit union.  

If you don’t have enough content, ask your members to share some of their own by creating a hashtag that members can use to be feature on your account like #mycustory (plug in your CU’s name in place of “cu”).

  1. Posting Tips to Grow Your CU’s Instagram Account
  1. Make sure you post regularly. Our general rule of thumb is to post once per day on Insta, including weekends.
  2. Choose two to three times per day to go in a check comments. And always reply to comments, not just liking them.
  3. Find the best times for your CU to post using Iconosquare metrics.
  4. Geo-tag posts to reach local people and new members.
  5. Host and participate in Insta takeovers at your CU.

 

  1. Video, video, video!

Video is the most effective medium to communicate with your members. There are several tools out there today to create custom videos, but Peg recommends using Wave by Animatron. This free online software tool allows you to create engaging marketing videos to share on Instagram.  

We are excited to give this tool a try ourselves!

Another related post: Instagram Strategies that Really Work for Credit Unions

For more, visit our Social Stairway Blog or contact us today on our website or via email at info@socialstairway.com.

Tara Moseley

Tara Moseley

Tara comes to Social Stairway with a very strong background in Project/Program Management and Technical Consulting. She has implemented large-scale projects across various industries and is also an experienced ... Web: www.socialstairway.com Details