Instagram callout best practices

1. How To Engage Your Community Visually
With Instagram Callouts
Emily Bogle, Assistant Producer on the NPR Visuals Team

2. Why Instagram?
● Currently, there are over 200 million active
users on Instagram
● It’s not just a place for cat photos!
● Another outlet to share current stories
● Resurface older stories and images
● Share your station’s personality and voice

3. @KEXP: Live music coverage

4. @WLRN: Behind the scenes

5. @KQEDnews: Archive dig

6. What is a callout?

7. ● Ask our audience to share something with us
● Instagram callouts: asking for photos or
videos on a specific topic
● Have an Instagram account before starting a
callout

8. Recent example: #menpr
● Part of All Things
Considered series, Men
In America
● Asked for photos of an
object that makes you
feel manly

9. When to do an
Instagram callout

10. ● Working on a longer series
● Looking for stories from your audience
● There is lead time to plan and promote
● Recent example #menpr
Timing

11. Keyword: Visual
● The idea is visual,
meaning you can actually
take a photo of
something.
● That way you can
anticipate what kind of
photos you will get

12. Anatomy of a callout

13. ● Idea
● Plan
● Prelaunch
● Launch
● Stories
● Wrap up

14. #PSCommute
● Monthly photo assignment with
KPCC called Public Square
● All Things Considered had a
series focused on commuting
● We decided to combine these
two series for #PSCommute

15. #PSCommute
● Monitor photos as they come in
● Use a submitted photo as
another example
● Compile the best photos and/or
stories into a blog post

16. #PSCommute
● Read the comments
● Ask the submitters for more
information
● Follow up with a radio story if
there is more to tell

17. Starting your callout

18. ● Plan your roadmap
● Plan how you will use the photos
● How will you collect the photos?
● Think of a hashtag and make sure it hasn’t
been used already
● Be specific: #NashvilleWPLN is better than
#Nashville
Planning is your friend

19. Prelaunch

20. Prep work
● Make a couple examples/seed images
● Nail down a caption format
● Plan out the language and copy edit it
● Let submitters know how the photos will be
used

21. Cook Your Cupboard
● Series that ran on
Morning Edition
● We asked audience to
submit photos of food
they have on hand

22. Provide photo tips
● We did a post on how to
make good photos with
your phone
● We received better quality
images
● Audience knew what we
were looking for

23. Launch

24. The big day
● Post an example on your Instagram account
● Share it widely and across channels
● Be persistent

25. Public Square with NPR and KPCC
● Introduction to the series
● Not just pretty photos
● Emphasis on storytelling
● Explanation of the
assignment
● Guidelines and deadline
clearly defined

26. Tools

27. Webstagram
● Search hashtags
● Download images
● Boards allow you to
compile as photos come
in and share internally

28. IFTTT
● IFTTT creates recipes with
different apps
● You can make a recipe so
when you post to
instagram it will tweet a
photo
● Photo with hashtag can
auto post to your tumblr

29. Collage Apps
● PicStitch (iPhone/Free)
● Diptic (iPhone/$0.99)
● Photo Grid (Android/Free)

30. Instagram Embed
● Embed code
allows you to
use an image
without
downloading it
● Easy to add to
most Content
Management
Systems

31. How it looks on a page
● Includes subtle Instagram
branding
● Big downside: does not
include caption (as of
now)
● It works better with only a
few images

32. NPR’s rules around copyright
● In general, we need permission to use any
image on Instagram
● Embedding is an alternative
● A specific hashtag gives implicit permission
to use the photos

33. Wrap up

34. ● Plan a meeting to discuss what worked and
what could be improved
● Adapt and make changes for the next callout
● Maintain consistency between other callouts
● Despite preplanning, some callouts fail, and
that’s OK!

35. #FutureMemories Fail
● Callout: share photos of
things you would want to
remember
● We got lots of sentimental
wedding and baby photos
● We decided it was too
complicated and ditched it

36. #FakeMemory Success!
● We asked for photos of an
event you only remember
because there is a photo
● We got some great stories
like this one: a family that
hangs babies from a hook
(for just a second!)

37. Other callouts

38. Weekend Hashtag Project

39. Bon Appetite: Cook The Cover

40. 99 Percent Invisible

41. @WNYCradio: Favorite NYC ‘Grams

42. #WhyIStay from WFAE and other member stations

43. Any questions?

44. Thank you for joining!
Emily Bogle, Assistant Producer on the NPR Visuals Team
Email: ebogle@npr.org Instagram: @emilybogle