You post on Instagram daily. You feature artists in your as they tour through. You鈥檝e got a well-refined hashtag strategy and a Get Tickets button featured prominently on your profile.
But are you overlooking one key step in your Instagram strategy?
Geotagging 鈥� assigning a location to Instagram posts of your venue or festival 鈥� makes it easier to reach your specific, local audience.听If you鈥檙e geotagging, your posts have a better chance of being found by your fans doing location-based searches. And being found leads to more engagement 鈥� and more ticket sales.
Here are four essential things promoters need to know about Instagram geotagging.
1. Geotagged posts get nearly 80% more engagement
A post with a specified location will get than a post that鈥檚 not geotagged. And this increase in engagement is from better-qualified customers: local fans interested in local and regional happenings.
By tagging the same named location as much as possible, you鈥檒l build content and buzz at the location while inspiring others to share their content there as well. Adding your location also helps fans find you in the real world since clicking or tapping on the tag leads to a pinpoint on a map.
2. Geotagging adds photos to a photo map
You can geotag your city generally, or get specific to your venue鈥檚 precise address. The advantage of geotagging your exact location is that when fans click or tap on the geotag they鈥檒l see , whether posted by you or by fellow fans. They may be inspired to join in the fun by posting their own images geotagged to your location.
The photo map also makes it easy for you to interact directly with fans who come to your shows. For example, you could make it a weekly practice to review all posts tagged at your venue and like, comment on, or repost the best photos.
Tip: if you鈥檙e adding photos from home or somewhere else, don鈥檛 worry 鈥� you don鈥檛 need to be in the physical location to use a geotag.
3. It鈥檚 easy to set up your venue or festival as a geotag location
If your music venue or festival isn鈥檛 on Instagram鈥檚 list of suggested locations, you can easily create a new location. Setting up a new location is as simple as posting a check-in status on Facebook using your GPS-enabled smartphone. Here鈥檚 how:
- First, on your smartphone, make sure you have location services turned on for the Facebook App. On an iPhone, that option is under Settings>Account Settings>Location.
- Be physically at your venue or festival location. On Facebook, make a check-in post, entering your venue or festival name as the location. At the bottom of the list of search results, tap the option to add a new location.
- Go through the prompts for selecting your type of business (for example, Arts & Entertainment > Performance & Event Venue > Live Music Venue).
- When it asks you for a location, tap 鈥淚鈥檓 currently here.鈥�
- Publish your status. Now your new location will show up on Instagram.
4. In Instagram Stories, you can geotag with location stickers
Instagram Stories are the future of the platform, so they鈥檙e a feature you can鈥檛 ignore. You can geotag your Instagram Stories using location stickers. If the location is your venue or festival name, that鈥檚 a great way to include your brand directly on your story.
For more ideas on marketing to music fans, check out the 2018 Music Marketing Handbook: The Five Essential Elements.
