Q. What do you want to achieve with your social media account/s? Select all that apply:

A. Reach

B. Awareness

C. Engagement

D. Follower growth

E. All of the above

If you selected E, you’ll love this not-so-new Instagram feature that many brands have been using to maximise all the above metrics but at the same time, many brands have yet to take full advantage of. (But hey, if you chose one of A-D, you’ll still be a winner.)

Instagram’s Collaboration feature is basically a social media duet. When using the Collab feature, one of the parties creates the post, and selects Invite a Collaborator in the tagging section. From here, another account is selected and they will receive a request notification to accept (or decline!) the collaboration. The post will then appear as below as a live post on both accounts:

Wondering why you should be using the Collab feature on Instagram? Here our our tips on how to best use the Collaborator feature:

• Competition: Host a competition with another brand and make things so much easier with one post for your followers to enter the giveaway on. No more “head to @brand’s page to enter”!

• Influencer partnerships: Utilise your relationship with brand ambassadors and influencers to mutual benefit and share content to both feeds, enhance brand awareness and boost advocacy on the product or service.

• Product launches: Tag your brand’s parent or global region account when a new product launches to promote the wider brand/company. This could also be done with retailers if distribution at their store is new.

• As we mentioned earlier in the article, the reward for using the collab feature can be extraordinary in several areas: reach, engagement, brand awareness and follower growth.

We’ve used the collab feature with one of our clients, @nyxcosmetics_australia to great effect recently:

We’ve got some more tips that we’ve discovered when using the Collab feature on Instagram:

• The collab post appears on both feeds once approved so ensure this is planned into the content calendar if the feed aesthetic is important to you! An account may request a collaborator tag without prior request so something to keep in mind for this instance to not throw a spanner in the works of your beautifully curated feed.

• We would recommend always running the collaboration tag idea by the other account you wish to link with. As above, they may decline/remove the post should they not want it on their feed.

• The collaboration tag feature on Instagram is only able to be posted natively via the app at this stage, but hopefully the API can be updated for scheduling systems to include the feature.

• Reporting on post results? Take every single like, comment, save and view! You’ve earned it for creating great content.
  

Got any more tips, ideas or questions? We’d love to hear!