Take your club's marketing to the next level with tips from the HYPE Staff
A great way to interact with your club members and spread awareness to attract new members is by using Instagram to market your organization. Instagram attracts 1 billion active users each month, and it is commonly used by college-aged students. Using Instagram allows you to highlight your organization's accomplishments, promote upcoming events and fundraisers, and even run contests and giveaways. By following these tips, you can get the most out of your Instagram profile.
Begin by setting up the basics of your profile – your username, bio, and profile picture are the first things people see when they come across your profile and are what help people find you in a search. Make sure your name is clear and your profile picture is on-brand. You can also make your Instagram a business profile that gives you access to valuable insights about the traffic coming to your account. You can assign many different categories to your profile – artist, community, education, local business, etc. Choose one that fits with what your organization is all about.
When it comes to posting to your feed, remember that Instagram is a visual-based app. If you use photos, make sure they are of good quality and in focus. Proofread any text in your post and its caption to ensure there are no spelling or grammar mistakes. Before you post any images, you can add alt text to make a more accessible experience for your followers. If you mention any other account in your post, be sure to tag them to reach their followers, too.
Within the first hour of posting on Instagram, comments and responses have their maximum impact on organic engagement. By responding to the first comments on your new post quickly, Instagram’s algorithm will show your post to more people. By boosting the activity on your account, you can attract new followers and members to your club or organization. Another way to foster more organic engagement is to tag the location in your posts and include relevant or branded hashtags. You can find new audiences and draw in even more traffic to your Instagram profile by exploring new hashtags.
Re-posting an in-feed post to your Instagram story is an effective way to increase exposure as well. Instagram also has a highlight feature where you can keep a story post on your profile for more than the standard 24 hours. Highlights stay at the very top of your profile, so it is a great way to catch people’s attention with your favorite or most important story post. Organize them into folders to keep similar stories all in one place!
One thing many Instagram users like about the app is the sense of community it can provide. A great way to make your followers and club members feel included and involved is to share user-generated content to your Instagram profile. If your organization sponsors an event and posts photos afterward, encourage guests to send in their own photos to be featured. Highlighting the members of your club improves your brand image, but it is important to always remember to give credit to the original creator of the content. Be sure to tag any user whose post you use in your account’s feed.
Here are some bonus tips:
Post Stories Stories is an extremely powerful tool on Instagram since they can be featured easily and are visible for only 24 hours. Unlike a post, posting numerous stories keeps your public engaged over time. We suggest posting at least 1-2 stories a day about the everyday activities of your club.
Post Reels and Tiktoks Tiktok is another marketing platform that has helped people become viral in the blink of an eye. Creating mini videos and posting them as Tiktoks and reels are helpful since people always enjoy a small video with music or a viral sound. Create a reel at least every two weeks and make sure to post it on Tiktok and link your Instagram account link in your Tiktok bio.
Use Canva Canva is an application that provides templates for different designs as stories or Instagram posts and these have the correct sizes Instagram uses for each. They also provide tools to edit your design like text fonts, stickers, pictures, shapes, colors, animations, etc. Using Canva is very easy too and it allows for unlimited creativity.
Follow @Bentley_SPE on Instagram to see highlights from campus events, hear the stories of student leaders, and stay in the know about what is happening at Bentley University!