HYDERABAD: Be yourself. Your authentic self, both online and offline. Social networking app Instagram spelt out its message loud and clear at the #BornOnInstagram, the second of its series of 15 events across the cities in the country in Hyderabad on Wednesday.
The event, attended by over 300 creators (Instagrammers who use the platform creatively and have garnered an impressive following), was about giving creators the knowledge to best leverage the app and hone their storytelling capabilities, all while being themselves without having to put up a facade.
Manish Chopra, Head of Partnerships, Facebook India, in a fireside chat with creator and influencer Mahathalli aka Jahnavi Dasetty, a prominent creator with 648k followers, asked her why she uses the platform. “My mom follows my Insta stories and she is fully clued into what I am doing and where I am and she doesn’t have to call me anymore,” she quipped.
The Insta celeb also said it is where all her passions, which include fashion, travel and entertainment come together. She also talked about how she handled body shaming and hurtful comments about her weight by speaking about it instead of flinching when her followers broached it. “I felt relieved after I used the same platform to clear the air, my take on my weight issues and why it is hurtful to make such comments about anyone.”
“Instagram used to be a platform to share photographs 10 years ago. Today, it is a platform to show your entire personality. It’s an ecosystem. Using the often-used Insta jargon, the team also briefed Hyderabad users on how to ‘crush and kill the internet’ with their creativity. Anybody can be famous and with the power of a phone, they said.
Manish also said that the ‘Born on Instagram’ provides a bouquet of benefits over the rest of the year including one on- one partner management, sessions on best practices of the platform, video storytelling techniques, mentorship by celebrated creators, create-together opportunities and other useful resources.
What’s coming up
A new tool to schedule your posts, for as far as six months Content creation to livelihood creation. In other words, creators will be able to turn their passion into a business/livelihood
How to get more followers
Be original
Post consistently, a few times a week
Use all tools - geo-tagging, person tagging and hashtag to let people know about your posts
Click more videos than photos and click in 9:16 mode
Collaborate with creators of other verticals to get more followers
Share and recognise comments and posts by fans
Five sections that every user must leverage
Instagram feed:
It sums up your personality. Let this be evergreen and well-curated content. This gets you featured in the Discover/Explore section
Insta Stories: Keep this simple, real and for the behind-the-scenes fun content and to reveal your goofy side
Insta Live: Immersive, best to interact and engage with followers real-time
IGTV: Long-form video which are value additions to followers
Highlights: They are like your CV and fetch you followers