How to Use the New Instagram™ Collab Feature like a Pro
The way I grew my business was with collaborations on Instagram™.
Many and different ones. And I'm convinced if I didn't put effort, I too would be stuck at around a couple of thousand followers after years in business.
That’s why I want to tell you all about Instagram’s new feature Collab today!
But I need to backtrack...
If you know me, you know I am passionate about removing the overwhelm and bringing a little sanity to this whole entrepreneurship and Instagram life. But one thing I cannot agree with is the whole messaging that your number of followers doesn't matter, which seems to be a trend experts repeat... while aggressively trying to grow their own following.
Like, "you don't need a big audience to grow your business".
Makes you wonder, huh?
OF COURSE if they are just random or fake followers someone bought or got on a spammy giveaway, it won't matter. They will not help you.
But number of followers do matter, and a LOT, if you can grow a targeted and engaged audience. You know why?
Because sales is a number's game. You will sell to a very small percentage of your audience, both on social and email (and you can use Instagram to grow your email list, like I do!).
Because ads are not guaranteed, even if you have the budget to spend (ask any small business who is investing in Instagram and FB ads today and they will tell you!)
Because if you want to grow your business beyond the actual hours you put in 1:1 with clients, or sell a product and actually make good profit, you need an audience.
But how to grow an audience? There are a few ways.
REELS: the popular way that everyone is obsessing about right now. While I see real growth happen many times through Reels, It only happens to a small percentage of all who are trying to grow with Reels -- I love Reels and think they are super important, but doing Reels doesn't equal instant follower success anymore.
GIVEAWAYS: they are so iffy that you should only really do a couple per year and be very strategic about them. And guess what? The strategic ones that don't spam your audience are usually not the ones to bring you thousands of followers.
COLLABORATIONS: this one to me is the best way to grow your audience and the best one to grow actually leads. That's why I am such a big proponent of Live Rooms. When you collaborate you're exposing yourself to your collaborator's audience (and vice-versa) and those new people come in with a built-in trust. It's like if you met someone a party but your friends know them and tell you they are not a serial killer. Much better, right?
I can't tell you enough how much I recommend jumping into collaborations to grow your audience (even if little by little!). That's why I am COMPLETELY OBSESSED with Instagram's new Collab feature.
So, without further ado, this is how you use Instagram’s Collab feature:
It’s actually pretty simple (can I hear an amen?)!
First you talk to your collaborator to plan what you will post about and who will create and publish the post (at the end of this blog we have a great email swipe copy to invite collaborators you can use!)
Then you create the feed post, carousel or Reel and post manually.
As you’re posting, go tag your collaborator and you will see an option to Invite Collaborator, instead of tagging them, as you see it below.
Invite your collaborator, and as soon as you post it, they will be notified of your invitation.
Once they accept, the post will show in their feed as well and on the top of your Collab feed post or Reel, you will see both accounts as co-authors of the content on Instagram™ — and boom! Reach two audiences at once, by creating less content too!
THAT IS IT!
But the one issue I noticed, is that when brands would collaborate, us included, they struggling to stay on brand or represent the two brands aesthetics in the visuals.
That's why we rushed to create these two awesome sets of templates to help you jump into Collabs with ease: Let's Collab Feed Posts and Let's Collab Reels Covers.
These templates have text prompts with ideas on what to say in your collaboration and a combination of two color palettes to make it easy to combine your colors with your collaborator's and have a beautiful on brand design in our feed!
And if you need more help, we even wrote an email copy for you to reach out to your peers and invite them to collaborate with you. Here it is:
Trust me on this one:
When you collaborate with your peers, their audience will come in with built-in trust in your and your brand. It’s like meeting your best friend’s friend.
So these new followers will be quality leads for you.
Email swipe copy to invite peers to use the Instagram™ Collab feature with you
"Hey [name],
I’m loving the new Collab feature and wanted to see if you’d be up for a [post/Reel] together, so we can reach both our audiences and do less work.
I was thinking we could talk about our favorite [insert here], which seems to be a hot topic in our industry. I have these awesome Collab templates from Your Social Team that I can use to make the visuals with both our colors for us!
If you're interested, I just need one sentence about [topic], your brand colors, logo and a headshot.
Excited about this possibility!
Thanks,
[your name]"
xx,
Manu
Need to add video to your content and don’t know how? Check out our animated sets of Canva templates!
Manu Muraro is the founder of Your Social Team, an Instagram training membership and content shop to help social media managers and Instagram savvy women entrepreneurs to beat the algorithm and grow their organic engagement (yes, even in 2021). This year she also launched Your Template Club, a Canva Template subscription to provide social media managers and Instagram savvy business owners with content template designed for engagement in their inbox.
Born and raised in Brazil, Manu moved to the U.S. in 2000 right out of college to work for Cartoon Network, where she made an award winning career in creative and strategy. In 2017, Manu started Your Social Team with the mission of helping women entrepreneur and social media managers grow engagement and sales through Instagram without the overwhelm.