Instagram x audiense

How to engage with Instagrammers and their networks

Starting on the right foot (but that could be your left)

As a brand, your social media presence is more important today than it’s ever been.

Finding your online community is the starting point to engaging with your audience and expanding your outreach by interacting with their networks. Did you know, Instagram users share their posts on Twitter between 50-100 million times per month? Our report shows what matters most to the community you want to discover, showing you a range of valuable insights to act upon so that you can up your strategy and create content with a purpose. We can’t avoid the Influencers, and neither should we. However, it’s worth updating our understanding of the term. It’s not strictly synonymous with Instagrammers, which can be used to describe anyone that uses the platform, but also, we all have potential to be an influencer to some level in the right social circles. Kylie Jenner, and Taylor Swift are common examples of Influencers, but each niche, segmented audience will have a unique collection of influencers just for them. Within this group, there’s the micro and macro influencers too. It’s not only about the number of followers someone has, in fact, a large part is the level of engagement.

Londoners & Instagrammers

Now, let's take the dive...

Since the introduction of GDPR and changes in social media APIs, Instagram removed a lot of access to its data. Therefore, companies are struggling to learn about their audience base through this channel. However, we created a report that collected data on Instagrammers based in London. Finding Twitter accounts that had posted or shared instagram content, or had instagram in their bio. Plus, the use of location data from Facebook (reminder: which owns Instagram), specifically focusing on London, we pulled together an audience, ran it through our segmenting Insights Report and voila!The summary showed an almost fair gender split, slightly weighted towards women. Their interest in brands correlated with their involvement with the city, including London Time Out, LFW, and Londonist. Top bio keywords hinted towards the self-promotion of Facebook and Snapchat profiles, suggesting that users intend to broaden their follower base across multiple platforms. This summary view will serve as our baseline throughout the analysis.

Multi-platformers

Now, let's take the dive...

The largest segment is the ‘multi-platformers’. This group loves hot content from YouTube including videos dealing with trans related issues, a review of the latest Aladdin trailer, how to thrift, indie music video links, posts from Time Out London, TFL, Jamie Laing’s documentary on fighting crime. They're fans of daily content from big celebrities such as Anthony Joshua, Kendall Jenner, Kylie Jenner, Pharrell Williams, and Chris Brown. As will be seen in the other segments, Valentines' Day hashtags are hanging over, but also a buzzing for football related hashtags. Comparing the personality to the baseline, it's easy to see that it sticks very close; they’re hedonistic, sociable, a little melancholic but value modernity. Social media comes at 60% for influencing the purchasing of something. Where, fighting for 2nd position, between 46-49% is brand name, online ads, friends and family, whilst product utility bobs at about 17%. If we think about this data in regards to the platform, it is not too surprising, the platform allows for personal presentation, showing off and staying on trend. However, just over 50% of all content posted by these users on Twitter is their own, whereas the remaining content is shared or replies.

Multi-platformers

Now, let's take the dive...

This segment is juggling and balancing many different parts, so much so that their attention is divided between all these platforms. Their likeliness to use snapchat is valued at 1.89x more than the baseline, below this, Instagram comes in at 1.24x but between that are the likes of YouTube, Facebook, and the more business, and self-growth related LinkedIn and Medium. With this narrow division of time, the segment splits their daily use each day rather evenly, with a little less use on Fridays and Saturdays.

Aspiring Actors

There's more data we can use to better understand our audience.

We’ll use the Aspiring Actors segment as an example. The audience is 60% female, and influencers include theatres @bushtheatre @LyricHammer, but mostly a lot of casting director accounts, the most unique are @hammondcox @amyhubcast @dobcasting. For this segment, these Influencers appear as opportunities for potential employment, or even advice on the industry. So, we know this is a key area of interest to channel our conversations around if we want to reach out to this segment. Valentines Day was dominating the popular hashtags, taking 70% of the list. Whereas, the hot content panel includes blog posts from blogger Beth Sandland, news pieces on Britain and London, plus TodayTix (a popular cheap theatre tickets app). Whilst hot posts are from London theatres, cinema related, actor related, and London pop-ups/ spots to check out.

Aspiring Actors

There's more data we can use to better understand our audience.

Looking at the job industry panel in the socioeconomics tab, 2.4% of the audience are in the production industry, with 1.46% from arts, entertainment, sports and media. The data also shows how this segment over-indexes in their interest in food and drink by 15%, with twice as much interest in the beverages sub-category, and over 3x for desserts and baking. Not only do they have a sweet tooth, but a sweet heart! The personality tab scores this group as more agreeable, open and conscientious. They have more drive, persistence, and are more dutiful and trusting of others, accommodating, and uncompromising compared to the baseline. These attributes should potentially help them fight for their dreams as actors and assist them in being the social, contact-making, butterflies they’ll have to be. Maybe this sociability plays into them being 30% more influenced by friends and family compared to the baseline when it comes to purchases. They’re also 25% more likely to use credit cards when buying, but 15% less likely to act in a spur of the moment. These social, foodie actors will be found spending most of their time on Pinterest (2.22x), closely followed by LinkedIn, probably for all the networking! Learning that one of their main pastimes revolves around food, can be a great way to start a conversation or if a food brand is looking to key into a new audience then this is one of them.

Fashion

the best ways to engage with your community

Using the top bio keywords as an early indicator, 16% include fashion, and beauty/artist featured in 7-8% of accounts. The demographic is 70% female, and the interest tab shows a 32% increase in style and fashion.Clearly, this is a Fashion segment but even then, what are the best ways to engage with this community? Well, their influencers include fashion/beauty directors, stylists, writers and PR agencies including @SundayTimesLC @pushprlondon @JaneBrutonUK. Hot content is made from fashion related videos, predominantly YouTube, but also posts by fashion houses or magazines reporting on the latest runway styles for AW19, as well as reporting on the passing of Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld.

Fashion

The best ways to engage with your community

Heading to the multi-channel activation tactics shows the popularity of such newspapers and magazines, including the top spots taken by Times Fashion and NYT Fashion, plus British Vogue, Vogue Magazine and ELLEUK. These are prime formats to target this audience as they already have the disposable income to spend on buying the media, so are more prepared to invest in your brand. Plus, they will see the ads repeatedly as the flick through the pages, and have more time to read at a leisurely pace and take the information in. According to the personality insights they are more agreeable, extraverted, conscientious, and open. More confident and content, driven, organised, calm-seeking but energetic. They are appreciative of art and emotionally aware. This might link to their use of Pinterest which is their social media of choice, being 4.33x more likely than the baseline to use this platform, with Medium coming 2nd with 2.29x. Alongside being influenced most by friends and family, there use of the desktop is 3% more than the baseline, whilst their mobile use is 15% less than the baseline. This perhaps gives the space for more blogging content, as well as the physical papers and magazines that this segment are fond of.

Content Creators

Bios as business cards

The Content Creators segment is a bit more varied, and seem to use social media to promote themselves and their work, with more people using ‘email’ or ‘gmail.com’ in their bio as an alternate, maybe more professional, way of making contact and serious enquiries. Using their bio as a sort of business card, 'instagram' is used by 10% fewer users than the baseline, whilst 13% more than the baseline favour the shortening ‘ig’ instead. This audience is rather connected in social circles and focused in their aims which can be seen by their influencers including other content creators, podcast/dj/radio hosts. The hot content and hot posts they’re interested in appears as a mix between work and leisure, including music and beauty, and a popular light-hearted podcast titled ‘3 Shots of Tequila’. This show is also a popular hashtag, which exemplifies its level of popularity and engagement.

Content Creators

Bios as business cards

Black musicians and influencers have a notable presence in this segment compared to the other ones. They also have more interest in society, including unrest and war, dating, and social institutions. This might link to the their slightly less agreeable and less conscientious personalities, which are a bit more fiery, cautious of others and contrary. However, they are also more laid-back, care free, content, seeking exciting, imaginative, and driven by ideals, harmony and liberty. This combination, as well as more interest for music, particularly hip-hop, displays a rather artistic and expressive audience, favouring Twitter and SoundCloud. They over index in social media, online ads, spur of the moment purchases and mobile phone usage. Contrastingly, they are 40% less likely to use credit cards for purchasing, why do you think this might be?

Foodie Travellers

Influencers can go beyond individuals and brands

If you have an Instagram account, you know that avoiding food or travel photos is near impossible (and why would you want to?), but we found a segment that combines the two rather well! Welcome Foodie Travellers!This audience starts pushing into the 35+ age groups, but to have enough money to go comfortably travelling it can take a little time to save up. Or they might be at a point in their life when they're looking for more adventure and excitement than just what’s outside their front door, you might have to be above the younger age ranges which of course will be found on Instagram. However, this is a London based audience, and these Instagrammers will share the view into their home and take pride in what this city can offer. Influencers include London based magazines with food columns, as well as more independent food businesses and street food, including Borough Market, Brockley Market, but also some growing chains such as Honest Burgers. Popular relevant hashtags are #fresh #wine and #vegan, and hot content includes promos for new menus and restaurants in the city, but also more travel based pieces such as KitKat’s growth in Japan and top places to eat in Sicily.

Foodie Travellers

Influencers can go beyond individuals and brands

The interests tab reflects the travel vibes, including facilities, destinations and speciality travel. These explorers are more agreeable, open and conscientious. They’re calm under pressure, trusting of others, confident, and a bit more uncompromising. All great traits to have when seeking adventures, whether that’s on the local streets or plane and train journeys away. This goes in hand with being influenced 25% more than the baseline by friends and family, plus they are 7% less likely to be influenced by brand name, which might be a result of often trying out new food places and more pop-ups/food stands. However, for such an open-minded segment, only 23% would purchase something spur of the moment in comparison to 72% of the baseline. They favour the desktop and the mobile phone even less compared to the full audience. Considering they are 4.96x likely to use Medium, followed by 4.29x for LinkedIn, with Pinterest at 3.26x, and Instagram at 1.55x, there might be a correlation as a result of these platforms having a better UX on larger screens. This could imply a business based segment looking for visual and written inspiration.

DJs (don't kill the groove)

dedicated segments reveal their unique traits

This report and analysis has shown us the varieties of creativity in these segments, and this next segment is no exception. 10% include 'DJ' in their bio, 8.3% include 'music', 7.5% include 'bookings', 55% are male, and 42% are aged between 24-35 years old. They share a particular genuine interest in hot content, with music from YouTube, particularly from SmoothVee, and hot posts from the scene including Wiley, Tim Westwood, Charlie Sloth, DJ Target, and DJ EZ. Their interest in music is made evident by the 27% increase, 9% more in hip-hop, and an increase in radio and podcasts.

DJs (don't kill the groove)

DEDICATED SEGMENTS REVEAL THEIR UNIQUE TRAITS

However, according to insights from IBM Watson, they are less agreeable, less conscientious, more extraverted, hard-hearted, self-focused and proud than the baseline. Their industry contains some difficult paths to follow and to stick to, so self-belief and a tough attitude can help against the naysayers they might come across in life. They’re half as less likely to use credit cards whilst being 25% more influenced by brand names, so this appears to be a key way to grab the attention of this segment. Mixmag, XXL Magazine are publications that are unique and interesting to this segment. Plus, most of their attention is given to SoundCloud which they’re 6.44x likely to use, followed by Snapchat at 1.68x, and Instagram sits lower down at 1.47x.

Pulsar x Audiense Intergration

using pulsar trac to take things up a level

Considering the fashion segment, we thought it would be worth having a quick look at the mention of sports brands across the whole audience. Surprisingly, it showed the occurance of mentions to be far fewer in the fashion segment, whereas the most came from Content Creators. With the ability to view all of these mentions for each brand name, we can consider the content of the tweets to find where to narrow our focus further. This example shows how we can compare competitor brands, and with a few filters we took away the noisey, spamming accounts to leave us with the most representative selection.

fashion

content creators

Audiense integrated with Pulsar, and since then you have had the ability to gain further insights into your audiences. We used Pulsar TRAC to look more closely at the conversations these segments were having.

CONTENT CREATORS

What value does this provide us with?

Instagram is essentially a closed sourcehOWEVER, AUDIENSE INSIGHTS PROVIDES US WITH A VIEW INTO THE COMMUNITIES USING THE PLATFORMIT DIRECTS US TO THE CONVERSATIONS THEY ARE ENGAGING WITH AND TO THOSE THAT INFLUENCE THEMit lets us gather a comprehensive image of unique audiences to cater our content towards

What's the next step?

THE DIRECTION YOU TAKE COULD INVOLVE:

• RE-SEGMENTING AN AUDIENCE YOU ALREADY HAVE
• FILTERING IT FURTHER USING SIMILAR TECHNIQUES UNTIL YOU FEEL YOUR AUDIENCE IS AT THE LEVEL OF UNIQUENESS YOU DESIRE.
• CREATE CONTENT! BASED ON YOUR FINDINGS, YOU HAVE IDEAS OF WHAT TONES TO TAKE & WHAT INTERESTS TO SHOWCASE
• PUBLISH YOUR CREATION. GET YOUR MESSAGE OUT THERE. USE THE ACTIVATION TACTICS TO DISCOVER THE CHANNELS YOUR AUDIENCE ARE LISTENING TO, WATCHING, AND READING. - INSIGHTS REPORTS SHOW THE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS SEGMENTS ARE LIKELY TO BE FOUND ON...USE IT!

How to engage with Instagrammers and their networks

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hi, I'm Josie and it's my 4th month at Audiense. This analysis was going to be difficult due to the restrictions in accessing Instagram data but I held out faith, and I feel like we have something useful to continue working with. I discovered segments of the Instagram community and I learnt effective ways to reach out to them and the best ways to engage with them. The report was generated within a couple of hours, but it takes effort to bring a human perspective to the table. Now it's your turn to dive deeper.