Although influencer marketing is a very popular topic nowadays, however, it doesn’t mean that it requires a ton of money or a lot of effort to use the influencers’ power to promote your brand’s channel.
One of the easiest and organic methods to work with another brand or person in order to accomplish your marketing objectives is by running an Instagram takeover.
Don’t quite understand what I’m talking about?
An Instagram takeover is when one user temporarily takes over another account to create a specific content and share it on Instagram with their audience. Takeovers usually are between influencers and brands’ Instagram accounts.
Sounds tempting, isn’t it?
However, the behind-the-scenes work needs to be done in order to organize and host a successful Instagram takeover.
Let’s dive right in the process and you will receive the main steps how to make your first Instagram takeover effective.
Why to run an Instagram takeover?
Actually, Instagram takeovers are not only fun, they are also considered as a perfect example of 50/50 value exchange, in other words, a win-win situation for both parties.
With an Instagram takeover, brands get someone who helps to build trust and brings value to their followers while another person, for example, influencer receives an opportunity to reach a new, wider audience to show their content.
Now, as you know why it is beneficial to organize an Instagram account’s takeover, let’s discuss how to get started with it.
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1. Set goals
When it comes to running an Instagram takeover, the first thing which you need to consider is what you want to get out of your takeover.
Getting clear on what do you want to accomplish, will help with your whole strategy, starting from who will host the takeover and ending with the metrics you should use to measure your success.
Your Instagram takeover’s aims can be:
- Boosting brand awareness. This can be measured by followers’ growth in your Instagram account.
- Promoting a new product, service or an event. This can be measured by a number of event attendees, traffic to your website or amount of conversions.
- Increasing engagement with community. This can be measured by a number of interactions, such as likes, comments, views or link clicks as a result of the takeover.
So, decide on at least one specific goal for your takeover and try to achieve it.
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2. Choose your host
Once a decision regarding the goal is made, it is time to select the right person who will help to improve your Instagram marketing strategy and meet your aim.
Most probably that when you imagine your takeover’s dream host, you think about your industry’s influencer or celebrity. Although popularity and a million of followers seems like the first thing to which you need to pay attention, but this is not true.
Without a doubt, the bigger amount of followers your host has, means the higher exposure your brand can get. However, followers’ number isn’t the most important thing.
Instead, choose the one whose values align with your brand. What is more, your Instagram takeover host’s audience should match your target audience, in this case, you need to figure out what makes up a majority of your host’s followers. Don’t forget to check engagement of host’s audience (number of likes, comments on their posts). What else you can do is to look at what other brands that host has worked with in the past.
Here are the 3 main types of hosts you can work with to do Instagram takeover:
- Influencers. This is the most common type of host for a takeover. Having an influencer on your Instagram account is great endorsement of your brand. It shows your audience that the influencer or in other words, industry expert, trusts your brand.
If your goal is to increase your brand awareness, then influencers are considered as the best choice for your Instagram takeover.
- Community members or customers. As Instagram is about community, then inviting community members or customers to take over your Instagram account is also considered a great way to show that you value and trust them.
If your aim is to promote products, services or events, it means that community members can be the perfect choice.
- Colleagues or employees. This type of hosts will attract attention of their friends who want get a behind-the-scenes view at how their work day is organized. It is beneficial because your employees will more likely connect with an audience on a personal level sharing about your brand from their perspective.
In order to make your takeovers entertaining, allow your colleagues to take over your brand’s Instagram account. In this way, they will make your brand’s Instagram account more variable and provide followers with an opportunity to interact with people who are working within your brand.
If your goal is to drive engagement, then your colleagues are the best fit for your Instagram takeover.
Overall, choose the host for your Instagram takeover who you believe suits your brand’s account the most and try to accomplish your aim together.
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3. Decide on the type of a takeover
When you have already understood what you want to achieve and who will host your Instagram takeover, it’s time to find out the specifics of how to run a takeover.
So, you need to answer several main questions about takeover’s content with your host:
- What kind of content will be shared during a takeover? (Will a host create the Instagram posts, go live with your account or post in your Stories?)
- When are you hosting a takeover? (Will it last one hour, one day or even a whole week?)
- How often takeover’s content will be uploaded? (If you know active hours of your audience, provide a content’s schedule to a host to ensure that he/she will post when your audience is most engaged.)
- What hashtags will be used? (Will you create one unique hashtag to promote a takeover?)
All in all, figure out what type of content makes sense for your host to create. Most likely if you run Instagram account about fashion, you will not choose an influencer who promotes a healthy lifestyle to host your Instagram takeover. Actually, the selected host should understand a lot about your brand’s niche and create content which attracts your Instagram audience.
Here the big picture thinking is crucial element because it helps you and your host to prepare for takeover to be successful.
It doesn’t mean that you need to control every tiny detail of your Instagram takeover. However, it is important to create a clear plan of what, how and when needs to be done, be transparent about you expectations and at the same time providing your host with a freedom to express authentic self.
4. Figure out your access plan
Another important thing that you need to consider is how much access you want to give to your takeover’s host. Although it is ideal when you can rely on the host who takes over your Instagram account, but you should be careful with sharing the password, there are chances that your account may be compromised.
What you can do in this case, is to create and give a temporary password to your host. Don’t forget to change it after your Instagram takeover ended.
Moreover, there is another option that you can use – it is a semi-account takeover. Your influencer may send you a post in advance to upload on his behalf. Keep in mind that in this way you make your host feel limited and he will not be able to interact with your audience from your Instagram account or go live. However, your host will have an opportunity to leave comments on your post from his own profile that probably can seem better because an audience notice the partnership between influencer and your brand.
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5. Promote your takeover
If you want as many audience as possible to be interested and engage with Instagram takeover, then it’s time to start promoting it. This strategy will induce your audience to keep an eye out for special content throughout a day.
Begin announcing your upcoming Instagram takeover within a week or several days before the event will happen.
There are several ways of promoting an Instagram takeover:
- Promote on Instagram. You may announce your takeover through Instagram post or Instagram Story. Keep in mind that promotion using Instagram post is considered as more effective because there are more users who will scroll through their Instagram feed rather than watch Instagram Stories.
- Announce on other social media channels. In addition to promoting on Instagram, you could also announce your takeover on other social channels, such as Facebook, Twitter or even Snapchat. In this way, you will grab attention of a wider audience and send them to your Instagram takeover.
- Ask your host to co-promote. You can give pictures to a host of your takeover, so he will share with his audience too.
Overall, try to promote your Instagram takeover everywhere in order to get as many eyes on it as possible. This is particularly useful if Instagram profile of your brand isn’t very succeeded and engaged as your accounts’ on other social media networks.
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6. Do the takeover
Ready for the big day? The time has come!
A takeover’s day can require a little or a lot of work and time, however, it depends on decision you have made with your host.
If you agreed on a semi-account takeover, then you will be responsible for uploading a post on behalf of your host. In this case, you need to gather all pieces of content and post them on the right time. Furthermore, don’t forget to add catchy captions and relevant hashtags to reach a larger audience.
Although, if you provide your takeover’s host with a full access to your Instagram account, probably, you will prefer to log in into your profile due to the several reasons. Firstly, you want to be sure that the host will upload a content on time without any problems. Also, you want to start engaging with an audience as soon as a post appears on your Instagram account.
No matter if you have chosen a full account or semi-account takeover, your task is to ensure that a content is uploaded on Instagram at the right time and communication with audience has started.
7. Analyze the results
Once your Instagram takeover is over, don’t be tempting to relax thinking that it was a successful takeover.
You shouldn’t skip an important step which is to review the performance of your Instagram takeover and use this knowledge to determine what you can do differently during the next takeover. Remember, measurement is the key to learn and grow. Analyze the results of your takeover and find out what you did well and what needs to be improved.
Actually, a takeover’s goal chosen during the 1st step indicates what metrics you should track. For instance, if your main objective was to boost your brand awareness, it means that you need to pay attention at an amount of new followers you have gained from the takeover’s starting day.
Did you accomplish the goal? The particular metric will show!
However, if Instagram takeover didn’t give you the results you expected, then don’t forget that it is also about being social. So, look at qualitative feedback from your audience, as their comments can help you to improve and make something different in the future.
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In conclusion, running Instagram takeover is considered as an effective way to achieve your marketing strategy aims.
In today’s article 7 key steps were reviewed how to host a successful Instagram takeover. So, don’t wait for the better results of your Instagram performance, instead apply the knowledge received today and try to make your Instagram takeover.
Have you ever tried to run an Instagram takeover? If yes, share your experience in a comments section below!
