Don’t Be Our Stranger: A Guide to We’re Not Really Strangers’ Instagram
We’re Not Really Strangers (WNRS) is a card game intended to create purposeful connections between one another. The card game poses various questions that allow for an open and engaging conversation in hopes of creating stronger bonds between individuals and create insight. The game first came out in 2018, and since then has received a lot of positive feedback from audiences as they notice the brand has focused on creating awareness on mental health. We’re Not Really Strangers has worked to build and create a brand that not only focuses on promoting the game, but highlights therapeutic questions. The brand has now over 3.4 million Instagram followers and 228K Twitter followers. The brand mainly promotes itself through Instagram as that is where most of the audience engages. Read along our social media guide to Instagram to learn how we’ve built a brand that many have been loving.
Best Practices:
1. Post one image a day:
We’re Not Really Strangers posts at least 1 photo a day on their feed, usually an inspirational quote that’ll resonate with our followers and make them feel connected. We want to demonstrate that we understand our followers and connect with them emotionally, rather than trying to attract them visually. We try to keep our feed looking very minimalistic, sticking to our red themed photographs. Though most of our images do have the color red, we also don’t want to overwhelm our audience, especially if we have newcomers that tend to click on our profile, rather than just seeing our posts individually pop up on their personal feeds like followers that have been following us for a very long time.
2. Post polls daily:
We like to be more engaging with our followers through our Instagram stories by posting polls everyday to check in with our followers. Because our brand is all about focusing on mental health, checking in with our followers is important to stay connected with our audience. We suggest posting an average of 5–7 poll questions a day. Remember, individuals will not want to keep answering our poll questions if there are way too many. We usually like to revolve our daily questions around a central theme or topic. For example, this series of instagram polls below focuses on one’s individual interpretation of love. We start off with a main question, and continue posting follow up questions that pertain to that first question initially asked.
3. Be consistent when responding to followers:
Though our main source of engagement is done through Instagram story polls, it is also important to engage with followers via comments. Due to the fact that Instagram followers feel like they resonate a lot with our posts, they often like to comment what they feel when they see our quotes. As a brand, it is important for us to engage with them and make them feel like they’re talking to a friend rather than a company. In the next section, we will briefly brush upon the voice and tone we want to use when responding to comments and directly interacting with our followers
Voice and Tone:
We’re Not Really Strangers intends to have a voice that is compassionate yet empowering. Followers really get to connect and engage with us when we provide an uplifting voice. We also want our followers to feel like they’re speaking to a friend when they comment on our posts. Rather than using a professional tone, we like to stray away from that and provide a friendly, trustworthy voice, making our followers feel like they can count on us to express their emotions. This is more of having a conversation with a close friend rather than a company. We highly encourage the use of emojis and text slang. Below are some examples of responses we’ve provided to our followers.
Don’ts:
- Don’t always promote our game.
Though our core component of the company is our card game, we don’t always want to promote the card game directly. Oftentimes, our audience may see this as an ad, which can lead them to not want to see our content on their feed. If our content always seems sponsored, the likelihood of our audience even wanting to purchase our game will be less likely. No one wants to be pushed to do anything, so our approach is bringing them in emotionally.
2. Don’t use excessive hashtags.
The more hashtags used in our captions, the more sponsored our posts will begin look. Like previously mentioned, we want to come across as if we are friends simply posting inspirational quotes rather than a company trying to spam. When using excessive quotes, we lose our credibility in our reliable and caring tone.
3. Don’t use too many characters.
Try limiting yourself with the amount of characters you use. One thing we want to avoid is having to use the “more” feature, because it means followers will have to go out of their way to click and read the remaining of the caption, and this might not appeal to followers.
Do’s:
- Stay simplistic.
Keep captions simplistic to one or two lines. We want the post to speak for itself and not let the caption overpower the quote. Having too many characters can overwhelm our followers.
2. Make items easily accessible
Aside from our card game, we are very big in merchandise. This includes, hoodies, t-shirts, and extension packs. Making these items available directly on our Instagram page is helpful for keeping our brand reputation yet also promote our products in subtle manner.
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