Several of the brands I follow on Instagram have really mastered how to maximize their followers’ micro-moments. For example, all of the wedding sites I follow (can you tell I’m in the midst of planning?) feature the top stories of the day in their Instagram stories. They even re-share older stories that they’ve included in their emailed newsletters and posted on their other social sites. Some of these stories are months or even a year old, but sharing them in a freshly designed Instagram Stories format makes them new again.
Following in the footsteps of my fav brands, I decided to create a “Today @ Duke Law” template that features what’s happening in the Law School that day. It’s a pretty simple template: I start the campaign with the Today @ Duke Law card to let viewers know what the corresponding slides will be about. I’ve left space underneath the Duke Law logo to write in today’s date natively through Instagram. On the following slides, I include a cute little graphic that corresponds with the event along with the event title and a CTA at the bottom directing viewers to swipe up to see the full event description on our calendar.
In order for this campaign to be effective, I have to post as soon as I wake up since sometimes we have events that start before I get to the office. There’s also a lot of prep work that goes into this campaign. All of the designs and website links have to be created and curated in advance to avoid potential mishaps. Asana has been a huge help with organizing my branded Insta-Story campaigns. Once I’ve finished designing my collateral in Canva, I pop everything into a card, set a due date, and I’m ready to go. During our first week, I received several compliments – from colleagues stopping me in the hallway to DMs from students.
Given the success of the Today @ Duke Law posts, I’ve decided to venture out into more branded content. After the election, several of our alumni won offices and my colleague put together a piece about each of them. The first slide directed viewers to the entire article and the subsequent slides featured each alum with a short blurb about them and a CTA to visit their campaign websites.
Right now our Insta-Stories have a 3-4% engagement rate. I’m interested to see how our engagement and impressions will be impacted with this new branded content.
rachel mwombela 