Analysis

This recommendation report was written based on research from online databases as well as a local study done on the IUPUI campus. From this information, we have determined recommendations for improving your Instagram presence and better connecting with a younger generation of viewers. These include:

Increasing the use of photos and videos to improve connection with an audience
Utilizing Instagram stories to create dynamic content and add credibility
Using photo carousels to increase engagement from viewers
Incorporating hashtags to reach a wider audience

Utilizing Visuals to Tell Stories and Connect with Audience

Utilizing visuals in social media marketing is key to connecting with your audience. Online content with relevant visuals attracts 94% more views than text-only. Visuals help improve social media interaction. Social media posts with visuals have 120% more engagement than posts without. Visual storytelling in marketing works because our brains process visuals faster, but they also save the information more effectively when it’s delivered visually (Thomspon, 2020).

Photos and videos are excellent visuals to authentically connect with an audience and educate about a group of people they might not know that much about. As DSI has already seen with the Lucky Mama Project, people connect with photos and the stories that go with them more than graphics with statistics or quick facts.

Important things to consider when taking photos are:

The age of the individuals being photographed
The consent to take photos of the individuals
The use of a photo-release

Photos are good for triggering an emotional response from an audience. According to Dominique Harrison, in her thesis for her Master of Arts in Brand and Media Strategy, said "These emotional advertisements promote support of their cause through volunteering, fundraisers, and donations. Emotional appeals aim to stimulate the consumers’ emotional response and encourage action" (Harrison, 2020). Putting faces to those impacted by the organization is more likely to spark action from the audience.

Our survey results for the most part coincided with this research. When asked what kind of content our survey group of IUPUI students would like to see from a nonprofit organization, 47.4% said they would like to see behind the scenes content of what it is like at the organization, 26.3% said photos of the families or individuals helped by the organization, 21.1% said they informational graphics, and 5.2% said videos.

While DSI currently posts informational graphics on Instagram, a healthy mix of other content, especially photos and behind-the-scenes content is predicted to be the most successful for creating more interaction from college students.

Increasing Instagram Outreach

Instagram has become an important marketing tool for many organizations. Instagram provides a variety of features that allow for a large range of content such as stories, carousel posts, hashtags, Instagram Live, IGTV, and Instagram ads. With over 1 billion uses worldwide, Instagram has become a staple in social media platforms. It is influential in the success of countless organizations and businesses by allowing them to instantly connect to their intended audience.

The Set-Up of Instagram Stories Increase Engagement

Not only does Instagram attract a large number of users overall, but specifically Instagram Stories has over 500 million daily active Stories users worldwide. One reason why this feature of Instagram is so effective at engaging an audience is because of the story-telling aspect that draws an audience in.

The Global Giving Team is a nonprofit organization that supports other nonprofits by connecting them to donors and companies. They have supported over 30,000 nonprofit projects and have helped raise more than $607 million since their start. From their experience they have collected marketing tips and claim that “by using the Instagram Stories feature to its full potential…It makes you want to know more. It makes you feel like part of its story” (2019).

Other nonprofit organizations have had success through the use of Instagram Stories because it compels its audience to continue to watch and makes them feel connected to their message. Clicking through slides on Instagram Stories is like pages in a book and with each slide, the audience gets to know more and more.

The Dynamic Features of Instagram Stories Improves Audience Attitude

Instagram Stories help organizations create unique content which improves audience attitudes towards them. This tool also makes it very easy for the user to edit content to be more eye-catching and interactive.

Three Professors in the Department of Marketing and Market Research in Business Studies at the University of Zaragoza in Spain, Daniel Belanche, Isabel Cenjor, and Alfredo Pérez-Rueda, agree that Instagram is an effective marketing tool, even more than Facebook. Their research “results confirm that the more dynamic social-media formats (i.e. Instagram Stories) enhance users’ attitudes toward an ad more than the more static formats” (2019, p. 16).

The tools available to Instagram users allow them to create more dynamic content which is more appealing to users. Instagram stories can be used to not only reach a large number of people but improve customer attitudes and engage the audience.

Some ways that DSI could use Instagram Stories include:

Quick picture or video updates from events
Short polls to get an insight into the preferences of your followers
Easy reminders for upcoming dates or events
Reemphasize and draw attention back to an earlier DSI post
Story takeovers from staff or families to give insight into the organization

IUPUI Dance Marathon does a great job of utilizing stories to provide information and show their events. Jagathon is their big event and they post updates to their story all throughout the night. They incorporate videos, pictures, and polls into their stories to increase interaction and make the viewers really feel like they are there experiencing Jagathon.

Another feature of Instagram stories is the ability to make them into a highlight which will be featured on your Instagram page right underneath your bio. This makes it so the story stays longer than 24 hours and anybody can watch the story as many times as they would like. This is also a great way to share information about your organization and make it easily accessible for anybody who comes to your Instagram page. IUPUI Dance Marathon uses highlights to show how to register for their events, share FAQs, and show each of their events from past years.

Story Takeovers Increase Credibility and Enhance Follower’s Perspective

The last suggestion of story takeovers from staff or families allows for more authenticity which will increase your credibility. Story takeovers would show the day in the life of certain staff members and their jobs in the organization or families who have been impacted by DSI. This can increase the family feel of your Instagram and show the people behind your organization.

Marketing consultants claim that companies who take an authentic or unscripted approach to their digital marketing will increase consumer loyalty. Best-selling authors and professional marketing consultants, Stephen Denny and Paul Leinberger talk about how “reworking the brand to be unscripted and achieving “heroic credibility” by standing by their values” (2020, p. 82). They highlight that an effective way to gain trust is through transparency and vulnerability in an effort to show the customer their true values.

Local Survey Supports Instagram Stories

In our local survey, we wanted to know exactly how IUPUI students prefer to use their social media. We asked IUPUI students which part of Instagram they are most likely to look at and over half of them answered Instagram Stories. Additionally, a majority of viewers would prefer to see pictures from the everyday life of the organization or of photos of helped families and individuals.

People enjoy getting a behind-the-scenes look into an organization and want to know who they are supporting. Instagram Stories would make it extremely easy to provide quick and authentic updates about what is going on at DSI.

Getting the Most Out of Instagram

Maximizing all of Instagram's features, including hashtags, are excellent methods to increase Down Syndrome Indiana's post engagement and outreach.

With over 1 billion uses worldwide, Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms today and is a great marketing tool. The Search Engine Journal (SEJ) which is run by marketing experts shared a study that found that Instagram carousels are the most engaging post type. “Carousels have an average engagement rate per post of 1.92%, compared to 1.74% for images and 1.45% for videos” wrote Matt Southern, Lead News Writer at SEJ. Carousels are posts with multiple slides of pictures and, or videos that allow accounts to share more material and better interact with their audience.

DSI could post carousels including:

A day in the life of a local family
Pictures and video highlights from past events
"Photo dumps" of the month at DSI

Falcon.io, a platform that specializes in social media monitoring and analytics, also agrees and encourages the use of Instagram carousels because “Instagram video formats are an increasingly invaluable tool for targeting a selected audience.” Instagram is often seen as a platform for sharing pictures, but their video tools are great for increasing outreach and are often overlooked. Videos also allow for more information to be shared with users, this could be an opportunity to share more about the organization's role in our community and Down Syndrome in general. These two experts agree that utilizing carousels is a great marketing method and including videos in those posts can take user engagement even farther.

Utilizing Hashtags to Extend Your Reach

Hashtags have grown in popularity over the years and are now used on a variety of social media platforms as they are a great way to reach a wider group. Later, an Instagram marketing platform, posted on their blog, "the right hashtags can put you in front of your target audience, even if they haven’t connected with you before" (Chacon, 2021). However, it is important to ensure that the hashtags you use are tailored specifically towards your brand and target audience.

Possible hashtags for your posts are:

#downsyndromeindiana
#buddywalkindy
#volunteerwithdsi

Jenn Chen, a writer for Sprout Social, a top-rated social media software company, agrees and expands on this point by saying, "The most general branded hashtags are often placed in the Instagram bio along with a call-to-action for using them" (Chen, 2021). Encouraging your followers to also utilize the hashtags in their posts is a great way for DSI to get their name associated with events and actions while spreading awareness. Utilizing hashtags effectively is an excellent technique to increase outreach and help raise awareness.

Our local survey was administered to college students at IUPUI, and approximately half of the respondents do not interact with hashtags at all. About 1 in 3 people said they read hashtags but do not interact with them. For the purpose of this survey, interaction was described as either clicking on or following the hashtags. The remaining 12% of respondents stated they do interact with hashtags, and occasionally browse through them. Although college-aged students do not interact with hashtags often, they are still a useful tool to make posts accessible to a wider audience beyond your followers.