Meta remains a force in the digital-first ecosystem thanks to its family of services: Facebook, Instagram, Threads, WhatsApp, Messenger, and its Reality Labs VR and AR division.
At the TellyCast Digital Content Forum this morning, Meta’s entertainment partnerships lead for Northern Europe, Dan Biddle presented a keynote digging into one of those platforms in depth: Instagram.
“You’ve got limited resources more than ever working in digital, you’ve got an enormous number of platforms and choices, so how do you use your resources as smartly as possible according to your strategy and goals?” said Biddle by way of introduction.
Instagram, he explained, is a classic marketing funnel with its different content formats. Reels drive awareness and growth; Carousels, single photos, stories and livestreams drive engagement and community; but stories and livestreams, as well as Instagram’s broadcast channel feature, also deliver conversion.
Biddle offered some secrets to success with all of them. Reels is Instagram’s short-video format, and the key to doing them well is partly relevance and timeliness. “Are you on trend? Are people going to be searching for this stuff and talking about it?” he said.
“The next part is relatability. Are people going to share this content? 3.5bn Reels are shared every day into DMs, into messages,” he explained. A big spur for that is relatability, so Biddle sees that as something creators and media companies alike need to think about more.
Finally, retention. “Did people watch it to the end? In the case of Reels, did they loop it? Did they watch it two or three times? Get them to watch it to the end, and then ideally watch it again,” was his advice. That’s why Instagram strongly advises people not to put ‘end-boards’ in their Reels, because that’s a friction point that will encourage them to swipe to the next Reel in their feed. “Don’t give people a reason to swipe… Don’t use an end-board!” he said.
Carousels are a very important format for Instagram now: multi-format posts including videos and photos that people swipe through.
“I suspect a lot of people are sleeping on carousels,” said Biddle. “Because you can create a Carousel with up to 20 slides now, you can build out a narrative… [that’s] super-powerful.” And unlike Reels, Carousels are tailor-made for end-boards. “Ticket sales, merch, click-though, whatever it might be, you can put that on that end-board… you have the ability not to be punished for that in the way that you might be punished on Reels.”
Another tip is to put music tracks on Carousels, because that means they will be shown to people within the Reels service, not just in the main feed. Carousels can also be cross-posted to Threads, Meta’s rival to X (formerly Twitter), which now has more than 275 million monthly active users.
“It’s a really low-maintenance, two minutes, give minutes a day way of growing your audience on Threads,” said Biddle. “Between 30% and 80% of people’s Threads are being seen by unconnected audiences: people who don’t follow them yet.” So it’s a good way to increase followers on that platform.
Single photos aren’t as key to Instagram as in its early days, but Biddle noted that “a photo still says 1,000 words: if you’ve got a great photo, you can still use it to reach large audiences… don’t give up on that.”
Stories are still a popular Instagram format, but Biddle was honest in his appraisal of where they might sit in people’s content strategies.
“You shouldn’t say ‘no, I’m not going to do Stories on Instagram’. Being there on a relatively regular basis is useful. But you don’t need to be there all the time… if you have a team, I would put them to work on Carousels and Reels instead of Stories if your goals are top-of-the-funnel audience reach,” he advised.
“Be sparing with stories. Be strategic and very targeted,” added Biddle, harking back to a few years ago, when creating long, multi-part stories was a popular strategy. Now, those kinds of posts should be Carousels instead. “Maybe you could be spendin gmore time creating the content that reaches more audiences…”
Livestreams, which go only to followers, are about creating “a you-had-to-be-there moment” for your community. “The most powerful part being ‘live with’ where you can bing in up to four other accounts to engage in one live interaction.” said Biddle.
“So for a TV show you can bring in the talent and get them to engage with Q&A which you are hosting on your account… Think about how you can bring audiences closer, deeper down this funnel. You’ll have a smaller audience at this point, but it will be more engaged.”
Finally, Instagram’s broadcast channels, which enable creators and brands to message fans directly, are a hugely powerful feature.
“These are the people who will float your economy for the entire year… the people who are going to receive messages from you in their DMs. There is no algorithm preventing you from reaching those people,” said Biddle. “This is the superfan, the concentrated core. If you post tickets, they will buy the tickets… they’re going to buy the t-shirt, they’re going to click on the links.”
