Instagram

UN Biodiversity

APPROACH

Currently, Instagram content is curated using micro-influencer marketing. Since beginning this influencer marketing strategy in December 2018, the follower count has grown from 43,000 to 280,000+ as of June 2020.

This is largely because each influencer brings with them a set of highly-specific hashtags used in their particular discourse community, and therefore brings their existing audience with them to the channel.

CONTENT TYPES

Instagram is a visual medium, so all posts should be high-quality photography, or 1-minute videos. Nothing text-heavy (unless it is a video slideshow or meme) should feature on the platform.

Remember to: have fun, research, and create your own projects and content types!

STORIES

Taking note of the increasing trend towards video content on Instagram, we began to use stories regularly in December 2019. The stories feature is a good way to share content with CBD messaging, as stories can be posted at any time without interrupting any ongoing takeover.

Informational

The informational stories such as “What is #Cop15” and “What is the #CBD” teach our Instagram followers about the Convention and its processes.

The questions for this series can be found through crowd sourcing or through scheduled events. For example, when hosting the first @unbiodiversity takeover week, a follower asked: what is CBD? She created an informational story explaining the Convention as a response. Another example: the Cop 15 story was created because the communications team wanted to highlight Cop 15. In short, these stories function to explain CBD operations and events in simple terms.

The format for this series can be found in the "Instagram Format" folder on Canva. To post the stories you must download them onto your phone from the mobile Canva app. The last slide must be posted separately from the rest of the slides because the question sticker on Instagram must be inserted into the last slide.

These stories should be posted at least twice monthly. If interested, interns can work with takeover accounts to create specific informational stories about their subject. For example, with @nycbotanist you could create "What are #UrbanForests".

Q&A

The Q&A video series and the complementary IGTV series, “Ask a Programme Officer”, supplement the informational stories and posts.

The questions for this series are found through crowd sourcing. To crowd source the questions, post a "question" sticker on Instagram and choose the three best questions to follow up.

Send the Programme Officer in charge of the chosen topic an invitation to participate in a video Q&A with the questions attached.

Film Q&As in Amy's Office. Hold the camera vertically. Microphone is not necessary unless you want to use one. Read questions and then begin filming after each question has been asked. Always film an introduction. Always ask if there is anything else (case examples etc.) that they would like to share. Sometimes the extra bit ends up being the best material!

Editing should not take a long time. Simply cut any pauses at the start and end of the video. Note that the stories will upload in 15 second increments to a total of 60 seconds (4 slides). Also, when posting the questions from the original story, only the first 15 seconds will upload - the rest must be uploaded separately. For the first and last slide, use formatting found on Canva and for the last slide add a "Any more questions?" sticker.

For Twitter make a GIF as a cover (format on Canva then compress). For Facebook film one part of the interview horizontally and upload the raw footage.

Advocacy

The advocacy stories allow us to help our followers help the environment. If there is a cause or a disaster that the CBD wants to help - post an advocacy story with links to places to donate.

Make sure to tag relevant flotilla members and charities.

Formatting can be found on Canva. But feel free to have fun with the design!

Takeovers

The introductory takeover stories help raise engagement rates with our followers. Ask takeover accounts to film a short video telling us: who they are, where they are, and something about biodiversity.

Influencers will resist - you must persist!

News

If you have time, posting important CBD news as stories can help educate our followers and keep them engaged.

Post articles using photos from the article or pixabay or simply re-post a relevant post from a flotilla member. Tag the parties involved.

For the design have fun! Use stickers! Contrasting font always look great! Make sure to link to the relevant article or post.

Influencer Takeovers

A Quick How To

At the moment, every week, we select a small-scale science and biodiversity influencer from a particular community (e.g. macro insect photography, microscopy videos, charismatic wildlife photography, mycology, SCUBA photography, sustainability experts, lifestyle bloggers), and give them the password to take over the channel for a week.

Look for accounts with a good reputation and long history of posting: they are more likely to handle the account responsibly, and use features like stories.

We change the header every week to reflect who is taking over the channel.

To reach out to the influencers, send them the following message on Instagram along the lines of: "Hello! We really enjoy your content [give a reason]. Would you be interested in taking over @unbiodiversity for a week?" If they respond, ask them for an email address for easier communication and send the additional information on the takeover.

Here ire the basics that should be covered in the correspondence:

For the takeover, it's pretty straight forward. We'd turn the account over to you for a week, and you would post content of your choosing - photos accompanied by personal experiences and factual information about species, ecosystems, etc.

We ask guest editors to commit to post once per day during their week (Monday-Sunday). You can of course post more if you want and you are free to use stories, IGTV and other features.

In the first post, we recommend that you introduce yourself and explain what you'll be focusing on during the week. And it's always nice for people to hear a personal story about how you got interested in biodiversity/nature.

We encourage you to interact with users who engage with your content as well as other IG accounts with related themes. We discourage any comment on issues of controversy or matters of national policy/politics.

If useful, this form can be used to collect information from individuals interested in doing a takeover.

Once they have confirmed, enter the guest editor's name, IG handle and other contact info in the Instagram calendar with the date they will be taking over. Upload any relevant documents as well.

On the Thursday before the takeover begins, contact the influencer and make sure they are prepared to start on Monday. Check in and/or help throughout the week as necessary.

For posting times anything goes, just advise that if they are posting multiple photos in a single day that the posting times should be at least a few hours apart.

internal Takeovers

A Quick How To

Whenever possible, @unbiodiversity takes over its own account. This helps followers learn more about the Convention. Choose a topic related to the monthly theme or an important event as your focus.

At the start of the week, consider recording a quick introductory video similar to the introductory stories for other takeovers. Feel free to tag your personal account in the bio.

During this takeover we post once or twice per day. We source the photos from photo banks or Flickr and give credit where necessary.

ANATOMY OF A SUCCESSFUL POST

A tale of two frogs

Comparing the analytics on these two visually-similar images reveals the advantages of an micro-influencer marketing approach.

The most important number from comparing the image analytics is under “discovery”: the latter photo, posted by an influencer in the herpetology photography community (wildlife photographer Ronald Zimmerman) on our behalf, reached 42,361 accounts as compared to 6,520. Of those, 54% were not already following our Instagram account (as opposed to 3% on the other photo), meaning 54% of those 42,361 people found and interacted with the image through hashtags or search functions.

The next most important numbers are the comments (102 versus 5) and shares (168 versus 0). Commenters like the feeling of interacting with an influencer “celebrity” and are more keen to ask questions to the expert, or leave feedback on the captions.

Both of these factors account for the rapid follower growth during takeovers.

General Tips

Tips

Links do not work in the photo captions, however they do work in Instagram stories.
Videos longer than one minute will not get many views until the end.
Always geo-tag posts.
Use emojis to create line-breaks if Instagram is glitching.
Always answer or like comments.
Be sure to check the messages that we do not receive in our primary or general inbox for important offers.

Branding advice

Branding

The highlight video colours come from our brand guide on Canva. To insert new highlight click edit cover and insert your own downloaded story from Canva with the intended colour.
Keep highlight names to two words maximum.
Use the story formats previously developed when possible, while keeping it interesting with different uses of our brand palette.
When a takeover account posts a new post always share the post as a story with "New post!!!" written in a contrasting colour on top of the image.
To find emojis we use most often check past posts. Anything with nature and a smiley face should work. We also favour the glasses face and the microscope.