WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT INSTAGRAM - · PDF fileCelebrity gossip and sports ... News offer behind-the-scenes looks at favorite celebrities, while the ... News and BuzzFeed also

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT INSTAGRAM

Social Publishing Insights Report: Fall 2017

Instagram has emerged as a powerhouse for social media.

Six in ten adults online use the platform, and it’s well-beloved by the kids of Generation Z too. Last year it was reported that 89 percent of teens and young adults are on Instagram.

With over 700 million monthly active users, there’s never been a better time to start using Instagram to distribute your content and raise brand awareness.

Using NewsWhip Analytics, we looked at the top publisher and brands on the platform to understand their success and the best practices.

The Explosive Growth Of Instagram

Publishers On Instagram

To determine the top publishers and media brands on Instagram, we analyzed their total likes and comments on their posts from July 2017.

National Geographic continues to be the reigning Instagram champion, making our list twice for two different accounts. For the main account, there was a 36 percent increase in engagements from when we looked at NatGeo in May 2016.

This is more impressive considering that NatGeo only published 15 more posts in July 2017 (250) than in May 2016 (235).

From what we’ve seen recently, niche publishers are seeing a renaissance of social media activity. There are a few definable niches that perform well here. Celebrity gossip and sports publishers appear several times in the top 15.

As for more traditional media publishers, ESPN, Vogue, and Fox News feature.

The Top Publishers On Instagram

Fox News was the most engaging out of our general news publishers, with 6.7 million likes & shares in July. BuzzFeed News, in second place, had a distant 4.1 million engagements.

Fox News also had the most comments, 223,000 comments to an average of 63,219 comments per publisher.

Fox News’ success could be due in part to its sheer output. Of the top ten news publishers, Fox News had 313 Instagram posts, compared to the top ten publishers’ average of 172 posts.

The Top News Publishers

Only three of our top publishers accounted for the top ten articles.

TIME appeared seven times in the top ten posts for a variety of internationally-focused posts. Its snapshots into visually stunning moments drove the most likes and comments.

What other trends did we identify? In general, human interest stories, celebrities (especially the British royal family), and politics drove the most engagements for these publishers.

These publishers are also seeing success from breaking out their verticals into different Instagram accounts. The New York Times accounts for fashion and travel do well, with the fashion account driving more than 676,000 engagements in July 2017 alone.

Half of the top ten were video posts, which is an interesting change from what we’ve seen for video content on the platform.

The Top News Publishers’ Posts

1. Know your audience and hone inThe top publisher brands play to their followers’ passion by giving them exactly what they want. Vogue and E! News offer behind-the-scenes looks at favorite celebrities, while the New York Times tells stories through a snapshot and shares from its impressive archives.

2. Show them something new

TIME was able to replicate a piece of National Geographic’s success by using striking photos of far-flung places. This creates a bit of an “awe factor” and shows users something they don’t see everyday.

3. What emotions work best on InstagramThe content that works best on one platform doesn’t necessarily translate to other platforms. We’ve already seen that human interest or niche-focused are exactly what users seem to crave.

For news publishers, nostalgia works well, as does fostering sympathy and empathy. Our top news publisher, Fox News, seems to instill a sense of national pride through its content.

4. Get your audience participating

Whether it’s sourcing content from your super fans, or asking your followers their opinion or to tag a friend, this tactic works.

Best Practices For Publishers

Instagram Photo Vs. Video

Looking at both May 2016 and May 2017, we can see that these publishers are all producing more video content (except for THRASHER Magazine, which has stayed around the same).

Sports Illustrated, People Magazine, and TIME have seen almost 90 to 100 percent increases in their video output from May 2016 to May 2017.

When Instagram first launched video, there was a 15 second time limit. Now, Instagram videos can be as long as 60 seconds, giving publishers more time to make an impact.

The State Of Instagram Video

Among the top media publishers on Instagram, we can see that the average engagements for photos are higher than they are for video. But we can also see how these averages have grown between now and last May.

While the average engagements for photos have increased by 46 percent, the average engagements for video posts have increased by 53 percent, showing that engagement growth for video is outpacing photos.

When we drilled down into likes and comments, we saw that while photos saw an average of 29 percent more likes than videos, videos saw an average of 39 percent more comments than photos did.

This could be because with video, users are pausing and taking the time to view it. This creates a larger window of opportunity for engagements, rather than when users scroll through their feed and double-tap photos just to like them.

The State Of Instagram Video

What were the top videos and photos for our 30 publishers? What trends can we discern from their strategy?

The top videos are full of people; in many of them we can see close-up looks at the emotions playing across their faces. The ones from National Geographic and Tasty offer a visual feast for the eyes. Sports videos also work well — the action-packed antics translate well to digestible video snippets.

The top video tended to let users relive thrilling moments, especially for sports, or reveal an inside look into something they wouldn’t typically see, such as the behind-the-scenes video from Vogue at the Met Gala, or The Dodo’s video of a cute pig.

For photos, emotion is again key. People again feature predominantly, primarily celebrities. But even the two animal-focused posts are up close and personal, showcasing the human-like emotions on their faces.

Top Photos Vs Videos

Top Photos Top Videos

For news publishers in particular, there’s been enormous growth. Here’s how total likes and comments grew for ten different accounts from May 2016 to May 2017.

BuzzFeed News saw almost seven times as many likes and comments on their posts in May of this year compared to May 2016, and all publishers surveyed saw significant increases in the engagement stakes during the same period.

Video For News Publishers

Of the ten pages we reviewed, here’s how much video interactions contributed to their total Facebook engagements for May 2017, and how that compared to March 2016, before the 15 second video limit was extended.

You can see that the proportion of engagements from videos grew significantly for each page. ABC News saw the most dramatic increase. In March 2016, just 1 percent of their monthly interactions were attributed to video clips. By May 2017, that had grown to 79 percent, as the ABC social media team started to adapt and post more clips to their main Instagram account.

For the main BBC News account, 85 percent of their total engagements in May came from videos – up from 65% in March 2016. The growth is even more pronounced on the ABC News page, which say almost 80 percent of engagements on their videos in May. Before the video limit extension, that number was just 1 percent.

Video For News Publishers

Here’s how the proportion of videos for the seven accounts changed from May 2016 to May 2017. You can see that some publishers (BBC News, ABC News, CNN) have decided to focus almost entirely on video output.

This is somewhat reminiscent of what happened on Facebook when video was pushed to the forefront of many users’ news feeds in 2015. While we aren’t yet seeing evidence that videos are being algorithmically favored in the Instagram feed, more videos are definitely being posted in general.

Video For News Publishers

Instagram Video Length

In March 2016, Instagram made a change allowing video posts as long as 60 seconds long. Previously, the limit had been 15 seconds.

When we looked at video for Facebook in January, we saw that many top publishers were creating videos between 60 and 90 seconds long. Is there a perfect formula for Instagram too?

Using NewsWhip Analytics, we surveyed the top 20 engaging publishers and media brands of Instagram video in June 2017. We calculated the length of their top five videos to find what length had their audiences liking and commenting. 

The king of memes, BuzzFeed, had the longest average for its news vertical, BuzzFeed News. Its top five videos were all 60 seconds long.

E! News and BuzzFeed also contended for the shortest average. Both had their top video post come from a longer video, but the others in their top five were primarily two to five second long memes.

Overall, for the top 20 publishers we looked at, the average video post was 30 seconds long.

The Perfect Instagram Video Length

The publishers with the longest averages of their top five videos were BuzzFeed News, BuzzFeed Tasty, Fox News, BBC News, and CNN.

These publishers are using the 60 seconds of Instagram video to tell compelling stories. These were generally human interest or animal-focused videos, focused on invoking empathy, joy, or other heartwarming sentiments.

Like we’ve seen for successful social video before, these were often captioned, honing in on the emotions of the people and animals in them. 

BuzzFeed News’ top five videos had arguably the most serious content. While two of the top five videos were similar to the other visual storytellers here, focusing on human interest, heartwarming sentiments, and things viewers wouldn’t see everyday, three of the videos honed in on racism, police injustice, and gentrification.

Instagram Video Length: News Publishers

What were the other tactics that these top publishers used to squeeze as much as possible out of their video posts?

1. Pack in the action: many top publishers on Instagram are sports-focused, and their videos highlight thrilling stunts and plays

2. Behind-the-scenes: Another tactic for sports, pop culture, and other niche publishers is to show inside looks at something followers wouldn’t have the opportunity to see elsewhere

3. Create art: Instagram is a visual-first format. You can catch followers’ attention with stunning visual clips just as you can with photos

4. Be relatable: Many of the top publishers incorporated video memes into their content. Decide if this works for your brand and experiment.

Instagram Video Length: Other Tactics

Instagram Captions

A great caption can make or break your post. While a stunning photo or video will catch your audience’s eyes, a well-written and clever caption can hold their attention. Captions add context, create a deeper connection with the content, and can encourage more engagement.

We analyzed 25 top news publishers and media brands to find out. Looking at their 20 top posts, we looked at word count, emoji usage, hashtags, mentions, and calls-to-action within their captions.

The average word count varied across the publishers, but the median words-per-post was 13 words.

TIME, Vogue, National Geographic, and Tastemade had the longest word counts. These publishers used their captions to add background to their posts, whether it was the thoughts of the photographer, or the entire recipe behind a delicious photo.

The Perfect Instagram Caption

The publishers we looked at generally kept emoji to one to three per post, if they decided to use them. The most used emoji was the camera emoji, used to credit the photographer behind a post.

Other emoji spoke to humor, love, or other feelings that spoke to the users’ own emotions, such as the applause emoji or praying emoji.

The Perfect Instagram Caption

Hashtags on Instagram are great for helping users discover your content, or for tying a campaign all together. But how many hashtags are too many and will seem like a grab for attention to your users?

The average amount of hashtags per post was only one hashtag, due to many of the top 25 publishers not using hashtags. Out of the publishers, only 12 of them had an average that was greater than zero.

The same applied to mentions. These too were used sparingly but effectively. Much like using a hashtag, mentioning other users can make followers interested to learn more about the post and further content.

Calls-to-action also performed well for publishers. 27 percent of the 500 posts we analyzed used one of these tactics to drive follower engagement. When we ranked these 500 posts by the most commented ones, half of the top ten commented posts prompted their followers to take an action.

The Perfect Instagram Caption

Instagram Vs. Facebook For Brands

With so many social platforms, it can be overwhelming to know which is best for your brand. In an ideal world, your brand is on every appropriate platform, delivering killer content that wows your fans and boosts your brand’s reputation.

We looked at several brands’ Facebook engagements vs. Instagram engagements in July to find our how audiences are reacting across platforms.

In our data, we saw that Instagram generally attracted more likes and comments per post than Facebook. This was especially true for smaller brands, and those in the food, fashion/beauty, and travel sectors.

Facebook is a hub for everything social media, while Instagram has a tighter focus and prompts the user to take an action while scrolling through.

Facebook posts can be better distributed beyond the platform, as sharing is one of the main user actions.

Facebook Vs. Instagram

What to remember about Instagram vs. Facebook for brands?

1. Try different visual methods: Photos still rule the day on Instagram and there are different creative opportunities that brands can employ, such as Marriott’s photo collage on the left. On Facebook, the name of the game is video.

2. Be positive and inspire: On Instagram, inspiration content is king. Just look at Bloomberg. Rather than share business content, the brand publishes inspirational quotes and photos.

3. Go niche: While niche publishers are having their day now on Facebook as well, Instagram makes it easy for users to discover content around their passions. Employ hashtags to help fans find your content.

Instagram For Brands

Instagram Influencers

Sponsored posts drive more than 19 million engagements weekly, according to our July data. So what can we learn from this and how can we kickstart our own influencer campaigns? We turned to our data to find out.

We analyzed five brands’ average engagements per post in June, and measured them up against the engagements of a recent influencer post for that brand.

The difference is staggering. For JetBlue, a paid post from Victoria Justice drove 102 times the amount of average engagements that JetBlue had per post in June.

Even Urban Decay, which does quite well on its own, saw a noticeable difference in engagements from a sponsored Cats of Instagram post.

Small brands aren’t left out from the world of influencers either. We can see Postmates’ influencer post drove significantly more likes and comments than the brand’s average.

Impact Of Instagram Influencers

So how can we find the influencers that are most relevant to us? It’s doubtful that the majority of us have the budget to get a Kardashian flaunting our brands, and to be honest, it may not even be effective. Engagement rates can be as much as 60 percent higher if you go with a micro-influencer with a smaller but more loyal following. 

It’s worth finding someone that really speaks to your brand’s values and overall story.

There are two great ways social data can help with this. In NewsWhip Analytics, we can find the top influencers in specific topic, who are already receptive to creating sponsored posts, such as Millennial moms.

We can also identify sponsored posts that have a specific hashtag as well, such as #avocado. If you’re a foodie or fitness-savvy brand, influencers creating sponsored content around avocados might be right for you.

How To Find Influencers

It’s clear from our data that influencers can have a significant impact on a brand’s reach.

Not only are influencer audiences often bigger, but influencers already have the trust of their followers. Nielsen found that 92 percent of customers trust the recommendations of a stranger (aka influencers) over brands.

What To Remember About Instagram Publishing

What To Remember

Instagram is a different platform than Facebook and the others, and knowing how to best appeal to its users can yield incredible results.

When Meena Thiruvengadam joined us at WhipSmart, the global head of audience engagement at Bloomberg told us, “For [Bloomberg], certain content performs better on certain platforms, so we look to make sure we’re highlighting the right content on the right platforms, but we don’t try to force everything on every platform because the way people consume content is different.

I think people can tell if you’re cutting corners and just putting the same thing up everywhere. Communities tend to appreciate it if you cater to the way content is consumed on the specific platform. For instance, something like Instagram, works for business brands because a lot of business content speaks to people who are looking for inspiration, motivation and education, and things like that.”

So what will work on Instagram for you? On the right, our nine must-do tips for Instagram publishing, to make sure your content gets the double-tap.

1. Know your audience. What storytelling angles appeal to them on Instagram? Pay attention to the top Instagram accounts, along with top accounts in your industry

2. Concentrate on niche topics to fuel users’ passions

3. Offer behind-the-scenes content, inside peeks, or something users wouldn’t see everyday

4. Use captions to foster deeper connections, through adding context, relatable emoji, and more

5. Experiment with video posts to spur more comments

6. Encourage engagement by asking questions, hosting giveaways or or tag friends

7. Be visually striking; create a unique aesthetic and tone for your native content

8. Partner up with related publishers, influencers, and brands so that you can reach new audiences

9. Use social data to learn from your content wins and losses, and to reengage your audience

About NewsWhip

NewsWhip is a social discovery and content analysis platform that tracks and predicts engagement from the world's news and social, powering a suite of products used by journalists, editors, marketers, communications and PR professionals.

Our Spike dashboard shows journalists and PR professionals which events, stories, and influencers are getting the most social engagement, in real-time, globally or locally. Tracking a wide range of digital objects — including articles, videos, Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube posts — Spike gives a singular view of what content is performing on social and predicts which stories will go viral next.

Use Spike to:• Find tomorrow’s stories, today• Save hours of ‘discovery’ time• Increase readership and revenue• Better manage reputations online

NewsWhip Analytics is the only tool that gives you an understanding of how your competitors are performing across the web and major social platforms. Analytics is armed with the world’s most comprehensive data of how stories are engaged with on social media since January 1, 2014.

Use Analytics to:• Understand what’s working and why in your content portfolio• Benchmark your performance, and competitors’, against KPIs• Research what resonates around events and seasons, and within verticals• Direct your social distribution strategy and guarantee ROI on your content

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