Instagram is an extremely powerful channel for interaction with your audience. In fact, according to Forrester, Instagram has the highest engagement rates between brands and customers compared to other major social networks. While you may already be investing time and effort into growing your following, it’s possible that you’re not taking full advantage of Instagram’s engagement potential.
One of the earliest engagement practices on Instagram doesn’t have its origins in a branded account; instead, it’s something many Instagram users do as part of their ordinary network interactions. I’m talking, of course, about “regramming,” the practice of posting a photo from someone else’s Instagram account to your own, along with appropriate credit. This helps the photo get a greater exposure, saves the regrammer time on generating their own content, and draws attention to the original poster’s account and photography skills.
For businesses on Instagram, regramming isn’t just a time-saving curation technique—it’s also a great way to connect with their Instagram audience on a more personal level. Sure, an occasional comment or a heart from a recognizable name is flattering, but it doesn’t compare to the pleasure of seeing your own photo in their Instagram feed. Finally, seeing that an ordinary user can gain visibility through your brand’s account can encourage others to strive for their photos to be shared by your business on Instagram.
We have talked about ways to leverage user-generated content in the past and many techniques, such as tutorials and creative customer use cases, could also apply to regramming your followers’ photos. However, there are some unique UGC approaches marketers can learn from the most successful branded Instagram accounts. We go over the best techniques and examples in the art of regramming below.
6 ways to get user-generated content on Instagram
1. Create a consistent branded hashtag
Most marketers can skip right over this point, since hashtag creation is one of the first things you should have arranged when you create your social media marketing plan. But now would be a good time to check in on three standard branded hashtag questions: Is your hashtag unique? Is it short? Is it easy to spell and remember? Take a look at your existing hashtag and try to evaluate if it’s in the best possible format for Instagram. Who knows, maybe you can express the same idea better in emoji.
2. Make a separate hashtag for submissions of user-generated content
Creating a consistent hashtag for Instagram is very important, but depending on the nature of your business, it may not be the best pool from which you should expect to draw your regram library. The reason is that you should be monitoring the official hashtag for possible customer support concerns, feedback on your product or any other customer interaction that deserves your attention.
Instead, you can follow the example of the fashion retailer Forever 21, who created a separate hashtag for submissions of user-generated content. This practice allows you to have an already-filtered photo feed from users who have posted content with the expectation of it being shared to a wider audience.
3. Monitor photos you’re tagged in
You may be missing the most obvious opportunity to find user-generated content: your own
‘Photos Of’ tab. Many Instagram users tag brands in their posts for greater exposure; or, if it’s a fashion or cosmetics brand, to inform their audiences of the products they use in the photos. Helping them out with a regram can encourage other members of your audience to adopt the practice of tagging and, in turn, generate more curated content for you.
A similar rule goes for brick-and-mortar businesses: make sure to create a proper geotag for your store and regularly check new photos from your location. To monitor geo-located posts, set up an Instagram search stream in your Hootsuite dashboard. To do this, select streams from the launch menu, choose a tab to host the stream, click “Add Stream,” and select Instagram from the list on the left. Then, select the location tab, choose your desired Instagram profile, enter a location, and select a location from the list that populates.
One company that’s great at leveraging user-generated content on Instagram is Ben and Jerry’s, which often regrams photos taken at their Scoop Shop locations. This helps the ice cream brand build brand loyalty among ice cream lovers, diversify their Instagram feed with customer’s photos, and also serves to drum up more business in their brick-and-mortar shops.
Regramming is a quick way to find relevant user-generated content without looking too far beyond your storefront!
4. Organize an Instagram contest
If searching through existing photos doesn’t yield the desired results, give your audience an opportunity to create brand new content. Instagram contests are one of the most popular ways to acquire user-generated content specifically for the purpose of including it in your own feed.
Make the opportunity to get featured in your Instagram feed the main prize, but have a plan in mind for all the other user-generated photos you will have—maybe you can archive them for future use, or have several different victory tiers. Either way, make sure you recognize every participant, because even if they didn’t make it to your syndicated feed, they have increased your visibility with branded hashtags and user tags.
5. Make a submission form
Even if you have established the right hashtags and proper tagging practices among your fans and followers, you may not have time to browse through the posts on a regular basis. Your customers may also want to submit original photos without filters, or videos that go over the length limit imposed by Instagram. In that case, it may be wise to create a submission form specifically for Instagram content and post the link in your Instagram bio—like GoPro did to receive for more amazing footage from their customers.
6. Encourage Instagram engagement during live events
Devoting props or activities for Instagram engagement during a live event organized or sponsored by your business can accomplish several things at once. First, you get a higher visibility across more social media channels. Audience photos also provide you with a nice photographic chronicle of the event without the need to hire a photographer. Finally, for the purposes of our current discussion, encouraging attendees to share event photos on Instagram can create an impressive library for regramming.
Grey Goose Canada’s #SummerSoiree creates a myriad of Instagrammable moments for attendees, generating over 9000 posts.
To encourage people to take photos, create more “Instagrammable” experiences for them: this can be a photobooth with props, a hard-to-resist decoration or menu item that just begs to be photographed, or even a real-time Instagram contest! Whatever you choose, make sure to devote a team member to monitor new Instagram posts during the event to avoid any missed opportunities.
Now that you know how to acquire high-quality user-generated content in a reasonable amount of time, here’s a brief reminder on how to share that content for everyone’s benefit.
Best practices for regramming photos on Instagram
1. Always give credit where it’s due
If you decide that a user’s Instagram post is worth sharing, don’t forget to include their username in the caption or tag them in the photo. They created high-quality shareable content with your name on it and they deserve to be recognized for it!
2. Avoid edits if possible
It’s best to share the user-generated photo or video in its original form, to avoid the risk of offending someone by tampering with their work. Of course, if the photo or video in question comes from a submission form and has to be edited for length or resized, you don’t have much choice.
However, now that Instagram has lifted its photo cropping restrictions, there are few reasons to make your own edits to user-generated content. If you absolutely have to adjust something, make sure to ask for permission from the user first by sending them a DM or leaving a comment.
3. Use Hootsuite for Instagram
You may already know that Hootsuite allows you to monitor and schedule your Instagram posts, but have you tried the new regramming feature? Now, when you view another user’s Instagram post in the Hootsuite dashboard and mobile apps, you can tap on the ‘Reshare’ button to share the post on your own Instagram account (as well as Twitter, Facebook, and others, if you wish). The image and caption, along with photo credit to that user, will be copied into the compose box so you can edit, send, or schedule as you see fit.
Start sharing user-generated content on Instagram today! Add Instagram to your Hootsuite dashboard.
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