If you’re on Instagram, you have likely seen an Instagram takeover before. And if you’re a social media manager or marketer, maybe you’ve coordinated one. Or, perhaps you’ve thought about incorporating takeovers as part of your Instagram strategy, but you’re not sure if this tactic is the right move for your company or organization.
What is an Instagram takeover? Buffer describes takeovers as “the process of taking over someone else’s Instagram account temporarily and sharing content with their audience.” Offering takeovers can be beneficial for brands of all kinds to collaborate, cross-promote, and provide new perspectives and voices on Instagram.
Up until recently, I had only observed Instagram takeovers while scrolling through the channel. That changed last week. On Wednesday, I coordinated a student takeover as part of my job at UB’s Graduate School of Education (GSE). On Sunday, I had the opportunity to take over UB’s School of Public Health and Health Professions (SPHHP)’ Instagram stories as part of UB’s Step Challenge.
The twist? SPHHP did not want me to take over. Instead, they requested that my dog, Chase Pringles, take over their account to show how he likes to participate in the Step Challenge. Chase and I were both honored.
Coordinating a takeover for someone else and taking over an account yourself are two very different experiences. Because we had never done takeovers at GSE before, our social media team had many concerns when I brought this idea to the table: How do we handle security? Do we give them a password and full access to our account, or do we post their content on their behalf? How do we know we can trust students? Should we create an agreement form? How do we find the right students to participate? What about making sure their content aligns with our brand and voice?
After lots of discussion and research (and a few helpful articles, including this one from Caylor Solutions), we found the perfect student and decided to offer her full access to our channel. We asked her to sign an agreement detailing a few ground rules and then gave her the freedom to execute the takeover however she would like. The results were incredible. Through her additions to GSE’s story and feed, she took followers behind the scenes in her teacher education program.
We learned about her friends, experiences with student teaching, and the challenges educators still face due to the pandemic. Her photos were stunning and her captions were relatable.
And I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. After featuring her takeover, GSE’s Instagram channel has 921% more content interactions, 65% more accounts reached, 343% more profile visits, and 418% more impressions when compared with the week before. I was thrilled that the metrics showed amazing levels of engagement (and I received the official OK to plan more student takeovers in the future).
After having great luck coordinating a takeover, I was excited to switch roles and take over a channel myself. Taking over someone else’s channel requires even more planning than coordinating someone else’s takeover. It was important to me to make sure that my (Chase’s) takeover was timed well, entertaining, and aligned with SPHHP’s goals for the Step Challenge.
I got to work on creating a timeline a few days before the takeover. This document included the captions, hashtags, stickers, and other aspects of the takeover I might want to use. I also prerecorded some video footage since rain was in the forecast for takeover day, and it felt crucial to show Chase “stepping it up” around the neighborhood. Finally, I did a little research to make sure I covered all the important bases of a takeover. After all, I wanted Chase’s first takeover to be a success.
Although I am not intimately familiar with SPHHP’s baseline metrics, I monitored story engagement through Instagram Insights throughout the day. Thankfully, audiences appeared to be engaged judging by reach, navigation behaviors, profile visits, and poll participation. Plus, Chase even got a shout-out in the UB Step Challenge newsletter and has a couple of handfuls of new followers now.
Instagram takeovers can help you reach new followers, delight the followers you already have, offer fresh content, and boost engagement on your channel. Whether you are asking someone else to take over your channel or doing the takeover yourself, thoughtfulness and planning are necessary. But, this will be time well spent for your account or the account you’re taking over. So what are you waiting for?
If you’ve done an Instagram takeover, would you do it again?