Explore what social media, but more specifically, Instagram can do to help you as an aspiring writer.
By HANNES HORN
Journalism in the digital age
It is no secret that the world is evolving. Every day people rely more and more on technology and it’s up to everyone to adapt to this lifestyle.
Journalists must learn how to be digitally savvy in this digital world or risk falling into irrelevancy.
Instagram can start or enhance your journalism career
Alice Vincent, an arts and culture writer at The Telegraph, explains how her Instagram account, @noughticulture helped her writing career.
‘Before I had the confidence to start a new column in a patch I wasn’t experienced, or particularly familiar with, Instagram allowed me to test the water. Over the past two years I’ve seen that account grow into a nurturing community.’
Her Insta account is entirely devoted to her passion for gardening.
‘In a way, it feels like the next stage for the hyperlocal blogging craze that grabbed journalism a decade or so ago – delivering content and ideas to a niche audience [of gardeners] who will, in return, be engaged.’
Instagram helped Alice engage with a community, much like journalists now need to grow a readership with their articles.
Tips for using Instagram to help your journalism career
Visual journalism helps show the story and not just tell it. Although it might sound strange to more traditional journalists, many now learn how to fully use visual journalism to their advantage.
Instagram nearly has 1 billion active users every month, which means it has over double the number of users that other social media titans such as Twitter and Pinterest have.
Caroline Scott at journalism.co.uk. writes, ‘There are countless accounts out there with messy profiles, that do absolutely nothing for their brand. Every image should be informative or eye-catching – or both, especially when viewed as a square thumbnail image.’
Most Instagram users don’t only just like informative content, but also good pictures.
Using #Hashtags is a wonderful way for people to find the content that they like. Use hashtags and community hashtags to attract the people who are looking for your type of posts.
Instagram stories are one of the main ways people take in the content of Instagram, considering that over 5 million people browse through the stories every day. They are short videos that only stay around for 24 hours. Which makes them an amazing way to link to new articles or better yet, give your audience a taste of the behind-the-scenes of your work.
You can change your profile into a business one, so people could save your stories, instead of having them disappear after a day.
Read more:
- Talking Business Journalism And Trade Secrets With Rod Oram
- Instagram’s Not ONLY About The Pictures. 3 Writing Tricks To Make Your Insta Posts Pop!
- Want To Write Powerful Social Media Content?
Is Instagram the future of journalism?
Instagram is not the best way to deliver the news, but it can be a great tool to help enhance your actual articles. Whether it be just to experiment and test what works to engage your audience or a way to explore different new methods of delivering information to people who might not want to make the effort to visit homepages anymore. It’s worth experimenting with.
Instagram is not the best way to deliver the news, but it can be a great tool to help enhance your actual articles.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hannes Horn is just your average video game-loving geek and cinephile. With his passion for all things entertainment, he wants to provide everyone with as much news as possible. Or it’s just an excuse for him to gush about nerd things.
