So you’ve heard about Instagram takeovers and how brands and organizations use them to grow their business and online presence.
The only challenge is that while you’re interested in hosting one, you’re unsure where to start or how to go about it.
Luckily, as you’ll see, it’s not the hardest challenge to overcome.
In this post, we’ll share all the steps you need to successfully run an Instagram takeover that provides results for your brand.
Frequently Asked Questions
Below, we have answered your most pressing Instagram takeover questions.
What is the Purpose of an Instagram Takeover?
There are many potential reasons many brands and organizations run IG takeovers.
It’s a strategy to reach new users, introduce new products or features, gain credibility, boost engagement, generate content from a different perspective, and much more.
How do Instagram Takeovers Work?
IG takeovers are simple in theory.
It’s a collaborative effort between a brand and another brand, an influencer, your employee, or fans/customers so that the latter can post original content and interact with followers on the brand’s behalf for a limited time, usually a day or less.
Are Instagram Takeovers Effective?
When you carefully select the collaborator, Instagram takeovers are effective ways of growing your audience and much more.
It is also an organic way of harnessing the powers of influencer marketing.
How Much Does an Instagram Takeover Cost?
It depends. Some influencers receive money for Instagram takeovers, but some accept products.
Also, some takeovers are done by employees, and some influencers or celebrities are part of a brand before doing the Instagram takeover, so you don’t necessarily have to incur new costs.
What You’ll Need for an Instagram Takeover
You don’t need much to host an Instagram takeover, but the following are essential.
- A takeover collaborator: An Instagram takeover needs a collaborator that understands the assignment and can help you to achieve your goals.
- Analytics tool: When all is said and done, you must assess if the IG takeover met the goals you set at the beginning of the project.
- Content support: You must provide your partner with content support so that the content meets your quality standards. They may need to create graphics or shoot and edit videos.
How To Host Instagram Takeover: Step-By-Step Instructions
Hosting an Instagram takeover requires thoughtful planning and execution.
From clarifying your goals to choosing the right host to collaborate with, being decisive at every step of the process is the only way to get results.
STEP 1: Goals, Goals, Goals
Before jumping knee-deep into Instagram takeover waters, you must clarify why you’re hosting one in the first place.
You can have multiple goals, but ensure you settle on a primary reason you’ll judge the project’s success.
Potential primary goals include increasing brand awareness, increasing engagement, promoting new services or product features, and developing your brand’s credibility.
Understanding the why affects every other step, including who you choose as your collaborator and the type of content you’ll post during the engagement.
Clarifying the purpose of your IG takeover will also help you assess it at the end of the engagement.
Define Success Metrics
It’s also helpful to define what success looks like at this stage, including what metrics are most important.
If you’re promoting a new product with a celebrity, you may want to track sales with a promo code.
If your primary goal is engagement, then more traditional metrics such as likes, number of comments, reposts, and number of saves are more important.
Irrespective of your primary goal, you should also track the following:
- Website traffic from social referrals
- Number of new followers within the takeover period
- Increase in direct messages and much more
STEP 2: Choose your Collaborator
After carefully establishing the goal of the takeover, it’s time to choose your collaborator.
As you fill and trim your checklist, be mindful of the primary goal.
For example, if you want to increase brand awareness, you must choose a collaborator with a significant reach; one with an audience that’s considerably different from yours but perhaps adjacent to yours.
You can choose a guest Instagrammer from any of the following:
- Your employees
- An influencer or celebrity
- A known expert in your field
- Community members or customers
Examples
Say you want to build credibility for your health brand, you’ll most likely want to select a known expert in your health niche as a potential takeover guest.
The subject matter expert guest you pick can educate your audience and endorse your product.
Another brand seeking to show company culture may choose one of their employees as their takeover guest.
An influencer can invite another influencer to share the easiest way to make money on social media.
If it’s about engagement, then the interest and demography of your guest matter.
Your guest’s followers must have an interest in your industry or niche.
If there’s no intersection between what your brand offers and what your guest offers, the two audiences may be confused and unengaged.
Ultimately, your choice of takeover guest depends on your takeover goals.
STEP 3: Determine the Takeover Format and Logistics
Instagram takeovers go in one of the following four ways:
- Instagram post takeover: During this takeover, your guest posts content to your main feed.
- Instagram stories takeover: This type of takeover allows your guest to share personal experiences with your audience via Instagram story. They are more personal. We recommend this for guests your followers are familiar with. When done well, your followers will look forward to your guest’s stories if they have a theme.
- Instagram live video takeover: This type of takeover is more suitable when your guest is showing how your product works or an expert is educating your followers. It creates more opportunities for engagement as your followers can ask questions and interact directly with your guest.
- Instagram post collaboration: In this type of takeover, the brand and the guest co-author a post or series of posts. You’ll see the brand and the guest’s IG name as the authors of the post.
What format works best?
You must decide which of these formats works best for your goal.
It also depends on your guest’s availability.
Are they available for a live video? What works for them? Perhaps they want to send you the content then you post on their behalf.
There are different arrangements you can have with your guest.
Ultimately, it all depends on your goal, the guest availability, and the agreement you can strike.
Lastly, after agreeing on the format, you must also conclude on other details such as:
- Hashtags
- Number of posts per day
- How to promote the collaboration
- Duration of the takeover
- Boundaries and limitations on what the guest can post or talk about
STEP 4: Promote the Instagram Takeover
You must promote your Instagram takeover and build anticipation for it to succeed, even if you’re using Rihanna.
One of the purposes of running promotions is so that people can turn on notifications for your content.
Depending on the scale of the Instagram takeover, you can start the promotion a week prior.
Ensure the promotional content indicates what the guest will be doing.
If they’re hosting a live video, say so.
If you’re doing giveaways or running a contest during the takeover period, make it clear too.
Lastly, promote it everywhere.
Promote it on your other social media channels.
Engage your guest to promote it on their social media handles as well.
You can even run sponsored posts on IG to reach more people.
STEP 5: Give Access to the Guest and Launch Takeover
Let your guest know how they can gain access to your account if they’ll be posting themself.
There are several ways to do this, including connecting their account to your Business Account.
Whichever way you grant them access, ensure it’s safe and secure.
If you’ll be posting on your guest’s behalf, streamline the approval process, so the gap between when they make the content and the time you publish the post is minimal.
If you typically have one social media person managing all your pages per time, assign one person to Instagram during the takeover duration.
This way, it’s easier and faster to reply to comments and DMs and reshare content to your other social media channels.
STEP 6: Analyze the Takeover
After all is said and done, you want to measure if the takeover was successful or not.
This step should be straightforward if you’ve clearly defined your goals and success metrics in STEP ONE.
By poring over the data you can assess what worked and what didn’t.
For example, you can learn that the live videos were more popular or that sales skyrocketed after posting a story.
STEP 7: Follow Up on Your Guest and Giveaway/Contest Winner(s)
A simple thank you to your guest afterward is polite and great for the relationship.
You can share some of the feedback you got from the takeover.
You can also ask for their feedback on what you can work on.
The last thing your brand needs to taint its credibility is not fulfilling your promise to your fans and followers.
So, ensure that you assign this responsibility to someone on your team.
Similar Tutorials Types to Check Out: Instagram Takeover
The tutorials below will show you how to make money on three social media channels.
- How To Get a Sponsor on Instagram: Have you got a large organic following on Instagram and are looking to collaborate with a sponsor? This guide shows you how to land an IG sponsorship deal.
- How To Make Money On TikTok: If you’re looking into ways to make money online, TikTok is a viable option due to its fairer algorithm. This post shows you all you need to know.
- How To Make Money On Pinterest: Pinterest is an interesting social media, but did you know you can make money on it too? This tutorial shows you how.
Wrapping Up: Instagram Takeover
An Instagram takeover is a fantastic way to shake things up on Instagram and offer fresh perspectives to your followers.
When done well, it can also have tremendous results, such as improving a brand’s credibility and increasing reach.
I hope following the steps highlighted above helps you find success with your Instagram takeover.
Let me know in the comments if you have any experience with Instagram takeovers, I’d love to hear your story.
I’d appreciate it if you shared this post with your followers too.
