Tagging & Collaborating
Each of these tactics can do wonders for your business’s social media strategy, especially if your goal is to grow your account and get in front of as many eyes as possible. Most of all, tagging and collaborating gives your organization social proof, credibility, and increased exposure. Social media is much more than a space where we share our offers and post news. These platforms are designed to build communities!
The key to getting the most of these platforms is this:
“Be social on social media. ”
If you’re not on these platforms often, the nuances of these tools can be unclear. Read on to see how to generate trust and buzz around your business with minimal effort using tags and collaborations.
Tagging and collaborating on Instagram are both various ways for one account to create content about another account. Simply put, tagging is more casual, and collaborating requires more, well, collaboration.
Tagging is a casual way for someone to mention a business. Tagged posts can be shared on your story (which expires in 24 hours unless you create a stories highlight).
Collaborations can reference a Live, where two accounts go Live together, or posts and reels. Either way, collaborations stay on the two accounts’ profiles long-term. Since collab posts are more permanent, it makes sense that they would be a little more planned out, right?
Imagine a collaborator post as you putting your flier on another business’s front door. You wouldn’t just walk up to a business you’ve never visited, and put up a flier that doesn’t benefit their customers or that clashes with their aesthetic.
Tagging is a nice boost, especially from a large account, but collaborative posts stick around and have the opportunity to be seen by new and old followers alike, which is why it’s important to put some thought into these types of posts.
Here’s how you can approach each of these tools.
If you meet your friends for coffee and post about it, go ahead and tag the coffee shop.
(If you had a negative experience, I wouldn’t make a complainer post and tag the business unless a grave injustice had been committed, and maybe not even then. If I had a real problem, I’d probably just call them.)
However, for a collaboration to make sense, the post or reel should be on-brand for both accounts and in line with both accounts’ goals. The benefit of the collaboration is that each of the accounts gains access to each other’s followers. For this reason, it makes sense to pick collaborators who have a similar target audience, whose offers complement each other, and who’s accounts are similar in size. If I have 1,000 followers, I’m not going to pitch to collaborate with an account with 100,000 followers. It wouldn’t benefit them as much as it would me.
Examples:
For example, I might collaborate with a copywriter. We could plan a reel talking about effective hooks and calls to action. See how this post would benefit an audience following a social media coach and an audience following a copywriter?
Or a realtor could go live with an inspector or mortgage broker and talk about current market conditions and what buyers can do to get ready to buy a home. Again, both professionals are essentially talking to the same audience.
Or a salon owner could do a collaboration with a salon in another region.
What to do when you find an account to collaborate with.
If you find an account that might be a good match for collaboration, don’t just message them out of the blue. There’s so much spam out there. We have to build up a relationship before we go for the big ask. Follow the account for a while, watch and interact with their stories, comment regularly, THEN (after a few weeks) start a conversation in their messages to learn how you could help each other.
Alternatively, you could look through the accounts that already follow you and pick a collaborator from there.
How to make the post when both collaborators say “GO”.
Pick a topic and agree on the concept and copy in advance. Maybe even storyboard your idea.
Decide who will create the actual post or reel. One of you has to create it, write the caption, then add the other as a collaborator. Let’s say account A will create the post and add account B as the collaborator. Account B can record video and send it to account A to use in the reel.
Before it’s posted, account A can share a preview with account B so all visuals and copy are approved before it’s seen by the public. (Do this via a screen recording, or make the reel in a 3rd party editor and send it over to account B.) Once it’s approved, account A can finish the post as usual.
On the last page of the posting process, there’s a screen that allows you to tag your location, add topics and much more. There is an option to “Tag People.” From there you can choose to simply tag the account or “Invite Collaborator.” Type in account B. Do one final check before posting.
If when typing in the collaborator, Account B’s account appears greyed out, it usually means their account is not open to collaboration. If that’s the case, instead of posting, save the reel as a draft and notify account B. Account B will go into their IG settings and indicate they are open to collaborations. After they do that, Account A can add them as a collaborator.
After account A adds account B as a collaborator, account B will get a message in their DM’s that says, “Account A invited you to be a collaborator.” There will be an option to review the post and then approve. Once it’s approved, it will be on account B’s profile as well.
Both tagging and collaborating are valuable in terms of building credibility through social proof. If growing your account’s followers is a priority, collaborations have immense power to grow both accounts.
This has tremendous implications in launching new products and offerings, opening a new store location, and other special events where the primary focus is to inform as many people as possible.
If you want to start using collaborations to grow your account and connect with your followers but this guide felt overwhelming, let’s work together. I offer custom coaching packages built around your specific goals in as little as four sessions. All the sessions are done via Zoom with notes and recordings stored in your client portal so you can rewatch as often as you need.
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