Meta’s Kirsty Wilson, global partnerships lead; Bianca Benussi, Instagram strategic partner manager; and Adam Rollo, partner solutions manager, global partnerships, shared ideas and insights with creators on how to create engaging posts that drive awareness and growth and build a community.
The trio presented during Wednesday’s instalment of Meta and Screen Australia’s First Nations creators program.
“It’s really important to think about the funnel as there are different parts of instagram for different goals – creation of all forms is possible on IG, to keep your followers up to date or reach new audiences,” Wilson shared.
“Your goals may evolve over time, and your ideas change, many times, through a single day. Instagram gives you options to fit the moment, and what you’re trying to accomplish — whether it’s sharing short-form fun with new audiences on Reels, capturing moments and vibes for your followers on Feed, Carousel or freestyling it in real-time using Live or becoming a day-in-the-life storyteller/commentator with Stories.”
Benussi added: “One of the most important signals we use in ranking is sends per reach – so of all the people who saw your reel or photo, how many of those people sent it to a friend in a DM? At Instagram, we’re trying to be a place where people can be creative but in a way that brings people together. We want not only to be a place where you passively consume content but when you discover things you want to tell your friends about. So don’t force it, but if you can when making content, think about making content that people would want to send to a friend, or someone they care about.”
Wilson also revealed several new product features on Instagram, including Polls on feed posts and reels, Notes that allow for short updates with certain people, and engagement features like Add Yours to stories and reels.
The platform is also working on increasing the number of content pieces that can be shared in a Carousel post.
“Reels is key for growth and over 3.5 billion reels are shared every single day. Reels makes up around 50% of time spent on Instagram. We’ve recently launched some great engagement tools you can use for feed posts, and reels, including the poll functionality, and Add Yours feature to reels.”
Rollo explained: “The engagement rate on your content is more important than your follower count. A good sign of how well you are doing: Likes per post, views per reel, reshares for your content.”
Rollo also unpacked the benefits of engaging the top 1% of creator’s communities with the use of Lives and Broadcast Channels to test out new content on your community, and if it goes well there, sharing it to Reels or Stories.
Another feature to be introduced is cross-posting from Instagram to Threads, which now boasts 175m monthly active users.
Instagram reported it is seeing success across various verticals on Threads, since the apps launch in July 2023. Books, health and wellness, art, photography, and also comedy are just some of the verticals where creators are growing solid communities.
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