My intention is to tell there more and more stories on Instagram with #kolmesarja hashtags. It means "series of three" and I've been doing those since I started using Instagram in 2013. Three is a magigal number in Instagram (there's 3 pictures on each row) but also in story telling: stories have 3 parts: the beginning, the middle part and the end.
So let's see what kind of stories I am able to tell here.
The first post is about the best 9 site which is a great and simple tool for analysing not only your own content but also the content your competitors produce.
It gives you ideasabout how you could improve your Instagram feed.
Next I am sharing the results from three business accounts I am updating.
1. CMADFI account
CMADFI is an event that I am organizing for the 8th time now. I brought the CMAD (=community manager appreciation day) idea to Finland. The first two events were organized by a reasearch project of Tampere Technical university I was part of. We were studying how companies were using social media for innovating with their customers and that's something that belongs to community manager's duties. So it was easy to convince the group our project should host an event dedicated for community managers. Since the project ended I've been organizing the event through my own company. It is a great task for this small company (=me only) but I've got help from great people and companies. :)
I have defined visual identity for my company on Instagram and I did have some sort of idea for @CMADFI too but it was based on a Japanese application that changed which meant also that I lost most of the elements I had used earlier.
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| Two years ago the feed looked like this |
I had also used Lo-Fi filter for the pictures but now that Instagram removed the frames I gave up this theme and have not found a new way yet. As there will be quest posters on that account in the future too I am wondering if I just allow them to post what ever they want. The pictures with Lo-Fi filter were posted by me, the others by Karri Anttila from Lvngroom company. Lvngroom is one of the companies that are organizing the CMAD event - their role is to capture the event in photos. When you organize an event, you need to name some one do the photographing - otherwise you wake up and realize you do not have enough good photos, only some random shots.
2. Piilotettuaarre account
And this is what my company account @piilotettuaarre's best9 looks like. As you notice I've used the Lo-Fi filter here too. I used it in all of my accounts which made it easy for me to repost the pictures to other accounts and created some sort of recognizable element for me. Instagram removed the ability to add frames to its' filters in December and at first I was really confused about the reasons for removing and and also angry about how Instagram was about to break my perfect feeds with the change. But then I recreated the borders with Gimp and added them to Canva and voilá - my feed looks still coherent. And the bonus is that now that everyone isn't able to use the frames anymore my frames are more mine than they were before.
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| This is how @piilotettuaarre looked like in November. Note the symmetry: there's one column with black & white pictures and every ninth pic was a selfie or a challenge picture. And there were also bitmoji pics on the feed. |
The idea of my company account is to inspire my followers so that's why I repost a lot. The white photos are mine and the others are regrammed. I have created an own filter for my regrams: #piilotettuaarrehyväksyy (aka Hidden treasure approves).
And note that I only post good examples as I don't want to shame anyone. :)
3. Jjanhone account
The last example here is my own personal account, @jjanhone.
Last year was one big test on the account. Each month since February had its' own visual theme.
February was a pastel month and the first month when there was the same font on each photo I posted:
March was a black and white month. I also had some fun doodling:
In April I participated "April love" challenge and had Mr Sandman as the main character of each picture:
In May I created the biggest puzzle I had ever created:
and in June I played with rainbow titles:
in July I played with the shape of Finland:
and in August I used one certain filter of Sketch application:
September was a Snapchat month - I really like using its' Bitmoji stickers:
In October I visited Sweden and had my Playmobil assistant in each photo:
In November I played with blue dots and Queen lyrics in honor of the Bohemian Rhapsody movie. Oh boy, it was fun!
In December I posted my own version of advent calendar - only 12 days, inspired by the song 12 days of Christmas.
After that I started a completely new feed that is based on the series of three. It was inspired by the results of #best9. My followers liked the rainbow text banners, seeing familiar characters on my photos. I also learnt that I should take more photos from museums and sunrises.
So while last year was one big test of different visual styles this year I will concentrate on stories.
What did you learn from your #top9? You can find it from https://2017bestnine.com .
