Animal Welfare Professionals

My name is Tiffiny. I volunteer, do playgroups, and take photos of my local shelter's animals. I am trying to get the Instagram account I run to get noticed by the public and help it grow. Do you have any suggestions or hashtags that you feel helped get your Instagram noticed? Any suggestions on my posts or anything please let me know. Thank you for your help!! https://www.instagram.com/boxelderutadoptablecritters/

Tiffany,

There are several things you can try.

1. Put a link to your Instagram account at the front counter, asking visitors to follow you. Also consider making the ask on Facebook, too. Including literature about it in anything you distribute is helpful, along with asking public facing staff to simply ask people to do it.
2. Consider reaching out to the top influencers in your state: Influencers in Utah: TOP 10 Utahn influencers on Instagram
3. You have several schools/universities in your area, create literature that volunteers can post around the campuses asking for support. Tag those schools in your posts, they probably have their own Instagram accounts.

Good luck!

Gina

My name is Tiffiny. I volunteer, do playgroups, and take photos of my local shelter's animals. I am trying to get the Instagram account I run to get noticed by the public and help it grow. Do you have any suggestions or hashtags that you feel helped get your Instagram noticed? Any suggestions on my posts or anything please let me know. Thank you for your help!! https://www.instagram.com/boxelderutadoptablecritters/

Gina, do you have any suggestions for what to say/ask when reaching out to influencers? 

Tiffany,

There are several things you can try.

1. Put a link to your Instagram account at the front counter, asking visitors to follow you. Also consider making the ask on Facebook, too. Including literature about it in anything you distribute is helpful, along with asking public facing staff to simply ask people to do it.
2. Consider reaching out to the top influencers in your state: Influencers in Utah: TOP 10 Utahn influencers on Instagram
3. You have several schools/universities in your area, create literature that volunteers can post around the campuses asking for support. Tag those schools in your posts, they probably have their own Instagram accounts.

Good luck!

Gina

My name is Tiffiny. I volunteer, do playgroups, and take photos of my local shelter's animals. I am trying to get the Instagram account I run to get noticed by the public and help it grow. Do you have any suggestions or hashtags that you feel helped get your Instagram noticed? Any suggestions on my posts or anything please let me know. Thank you for your help!! https://www.instagram.com/boxelderutadoptablecritters/

My suggestions would be:

1. Follow them all
2. Try tagging them in some of your posts
3. Reach out directly and ask them to follow and share your posts. (if you don't ask, the answer is always no)
4. Be bold

Gina, do you have any suggestions for what to say/ask when reaching out to influencers? 

Tiffany,

There are several things you can try.

1. Put a link to your Instagram account at the front counter, asking visitors to follow you. Also consider making the ask on Facebook, too. Including literature about it in anything you distribute is helpful, along with asking public facing staff to simply ask people to do it.
2. Consider reaching out to the top influencers in your state: Influencers in Utah: TOP 10 Utahn influencers on Instagram
3. You have several schools/universities in your area, create literature that volunteers can post around the campuses asking for support. Tag those schools in your posts, they probably have their own Instagram accounts.

Good luck!

Gina

My name is Tiffiny. I volunteer, do playgroups, and take photos of my local shelter's animals. I am trying to get the Instagram account I run to get noticed by the public and help it grow. Do you have any suggestions or hashtags that you feel helped get your Instagram noticed? Any suggestions on my posts or anything please let me know. Thank you for your help!! https://www.instagram.com/boxelderutadoptablecritters/

Tiffany,

There are several things you can try.

1. Put a link to your Instagram account at the front counter, asking visitors to follow you. Also consider making the ask on Facebook, too. Including literature about it in anything you distribute is helpful, along with asking public facing staff to simply ask people to do it.
2. Consider reaching out to the top influencers in your state: Influencers in Utah: TOP 10 Utahn influencers on Instagram
3. You have several schools/universities in your area, create literature that volunteers can post around the campuses asking for support. Tag those schools in your posts, they probably have their own Instagram accounts.

Good luck!

Gina

My name is Tiffiny. I volunteer, do playgroups, and take photos of my local shelter's animals. I am trying to get the Instagram account I run to get noticed by the public and help it grow. Do you have any suggestions or hashtags that you feel helped get your Instagram noticed? Any suggestions on my posts or anything please let me know. Thank you for your help!! https://www.instagram.com/boxelderutadoptablecritters/

My name is Tiffiny. I volunteer, do playgroups, and take photos of my local shelter's animals. I am trying to get the Instagram account I run to get noticed by the public and help it grow. Do you have any suggestions or hashtags that you feel helped get your Instagram noticed? Any suggestions on my posts or anything please let me know. Thank you for your help!! https://www.instagram.com/boxelderutadoptablecritters/

Tiffiny,

We created a QR code to add convenience to the process. Anything we hand out has the code. Currently, we are getting an average of 20 new followers a week.

My name is Tiffiny. I volunteer, do playgroups, and take photos of my local shelter's animals. I am trying to get the Instagram account I run to get noticed by the public and help it grow. Do you have any suggestions or hashtags that you feel helped get your Instagram noticed? Any suggestions on my posts or anything please let me know. Thank you for your help!! https://www.instagram.com/boxelderutadoptablecritters/

My name is Tiffiny. I volunteer, do playgroups, and take photos of my local shelter's animals. I am trying to get the Instagram account I run to get noticed by the public and help it grow. Do you have any suggestions or hashtags that you feel helped get your Instagram noticed? Any suggestions on my posts or anything please let me know. Thank you for your help!! https://www.instagram.com/boxelderutadoptablecritters/

My name is Tiffiny. I volunteer, do playgroups, and take photos of my local shelter's animals. I am trying to get the Instagram account I run to get noticed by the public and help it grow. Do you have any suggestions or hashtags that you feel helped get your Instagram noticed? Any suggestions on my posts or anything please let me know. Thank you for your help!! https://www.instagram.com/boxelderutadoptablecritters/

Hi Tiffiny,

I started helping out with my rescue's Instagram and Facebook starting last year, and feeling the same as you, I took a short social media course run completely online through University of Illinois Chicago. An article I found helpful that gave an introductory to social media and social media measurement is linked here: http://www.convio.com/files/Convio_Social-Media-Guide-DevR2.pdf. It talks more about forums as a whole and the measurement part of social media which can be a pain to track but really can help with gathering more followers! 

Our org is trying to gain more followers as well, but one thing that has helped is using our professional dashboard - which both Facebook and Instagram offer. If you have access to this from your organization or if they can even send you screenshots, you could see which time of day is best to post and gets the most engagement, which posts have gotten the most views, etc. 

Another tool we have used is Social Champ - which allows us to tee up future posts and schedule them as well as get them approved if your org does that. Find it very helpful when a busier week is coming up but we want to make sure our posts are still being scheduled as consistency is also key to gaining followers. They also do discounts for nonprofits.

Apologies if these are all things you already know, but hopefully helpful!

My name is Tiffiny. I volunteer, do playgroups, and take photos of my local shelter's animals. I am trying to get the Instagram account I run to get noticed by the public and help it grow. Do you have any suggestions or hashtags that you feel helped get your Instagram noticed? Any suggestions on my posts or anything please let me know. Thank you for your help!! https://www.instagram.com/boxelderutadoptablecritters/

Thank you so much for the helpful information.  I can't seem to get the PDF to open and would love to read it. I will give these suggestions a try! 

Hi Tiffiny,

I started helping out with my rescue's Instagram and Facebook starting last year, and feeling the same as you, I took a short social media course run completely online through University of Illinois Chicago. An article I found helpful that gave an introductory to social media and social media measurement is linked here: http://www.convio.com/files/Convio_Social-Media-Guide-DevR2.pdf. It talks more about forums as a whole and the measurement part of social media which can be a pain to track but really can help with gathering more followers! 

Our org is trying to gain more followers as well, but one thing that has helped is using our professional dashboard - which both Facebook and Instagram offer. If you have access to this from your organization or if they can even send you screenshots, you could see which time of day is best to post and gets the most engagement, which posts have gotten the most views, etc. 

Another tool we have used is Social Champ - which allows us to tee up future posts and schedule them as well as get them approved if your org does that. Find it very helpful when a busier week is coming up but we want to make sure our posts are still being scheduled as consistency is also key to gaining followers. They also do discounts for nonprofits.

Apologies if these are all things you already know, but hopefully helpful!

My name is Tiffiny. I volunteer, do playgroups, and take photos of my local shelter's animals. I am trying to get the Instagram account I run to get noticed by the public and help it grow. Do you have any suggestions or hashtags that you feel helped get your Instagram noticed? Any suggestions on my posts or anything please let me know. Thank you for your help!! https://www.instagram.com/boxelderutadoptablecritters/

My name is Tiffiny. I volunteer, do playgroups, and take photos of my local shelter's animals. I am trying to get the Instagram account I run to get noticed by the public and help it grow. Do you have any suggestions or hashtags that you feel helped get your Instagram noticed? Any suggestions on my posts or anything please let me know. Thank you for your help!! https://www.instagram.com/boxelderutadoptablecritters/

My name is Tiffiny. I volunteer, do playgroups, and take photos of my local shelter's animals. I am trying to get the Instagram account I run to get noticed by the public and help it grow. Do you have any suggestions or hashtags that you feel helped get your Instagram noticed? Any suggestions on my posts or anything please let me know. Thank you for your help!! https://www.instagram.com/boxelderutadoptablecritters/

My name is Tiffiny. I volunteer, do playgroups, and take photos of my local shelter's animals. I am trying to get the Instagram account I run to get noticed by the public and help it grow. Do you have any suggestions or hashtags that you feel helped get your Instagram noticed? 

#MarketingandSocialMedia

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Tiffiny Duke
Volunteer
Brigham City Animal Shelter
UT
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