How to Run A Successful Booster Club Instagram Account

Introduction

With more than 100 million active users, Instagram has been the fastest growing social media platform. As a founder or manager of a booster club, it is a key to have a booster club Instagram account to help you increase the visibility and support of your club! Not only does Instagram give you access to a large number of people, it allows you to connect with a younger audience. Furthermore it gives you a platform to showcase the day to day triumphs of the students your booster club supports! We have put together the best way for your booster club to get started using Instagram effectively.

Create An Instagram Account for Your Booster Club

The first step to interacting on Instagram is creating your Booster Club Instagram account. When you name your profile (as part of the set up process) you want to use the name of the booster club itself or something that is as close as possible. Once you have a profile name, then you need to add a profile picture that represents the booster club (most booster clubs use the school mascot). Finally you will need to fill in a “bio” description that basically gives a quick description of your booster club organization. If you want to link to your website or another social media account, you should also add that to your bio as that is the only place to put a clickable link on Instagram.

Now that you have set up your Instagram profile, the next step is to start building up followers!

Invite Friends, Club Volunteers & Students to Follow the Booster Club Instagram Account

With your booster club Instagram account up and running you can now let people know that it exists! We suggest starting with inviting local friends that may be interested in the booster club. After you have reached out to your friends, reach out to the booster club volunteers, board and management team to follow the account. Any volunteer, board member or manager of the booster club should also reach out to their friends as well to help the account grow a bit faster.

Now that we have the booster operations team and their friends following the new booster club Instagram account, we can now look to having students, teachers and other school administrators follow the account. This should help expand your following from a couple to a hundred or more followers pretty quickly. Now that you have a good base of followers, you want to make sure that you include the Instagram handle and link on all booster club related materials so that any other supporters can interact with your booster club Instagram profile!

Grow Your Booster Club Instagram Account Follower Base

With all of your friends, club volunteers, students and their friends following the booster club Instagram account, you will need to use additional techniques to grow your account further. Some of the more effective ways you can use are:

1. Add your Instagram profile link to your booster club email Signature. This is an easy way for anyone you email about the booster club to easily check out your profile.
2. Share your Instagram account on other booster club related social media outlets.
3. If your booster club has an email list, make sure you send out an email letting everyone on the list know they can now follow the club on Instagram.
4. Any event or fundraiser that the booster club is involved with, supporting, or running should prominently promote all of the club social media profiles – Instagram included!
5. Consider using local marketing strategies like printed flyers and banners that you distribute throughout the community and local events.
   

Leverage relationships with your school and other local businesses to help spread the word about your booster club Instagram account. 
There are countless ways you can promote and grow your audience. Get creative and don’t limit yourself to these six. The end goal is to make sure that your followers are supporters of your organization and it’s mission.

Develop a Posting Strategy for Your Booster Club Instagram Account

What you post on your Instagram account is just as important as how often you post. We recommend trying to post once per day to maintain a regular connection with your followers. However if you only have a limited amount of high quality content to post on your account, then you should limit posting to a few times per week. Posting low quality content just to maintain a daily post schedule can actually have a negative impact on your account.
With that said, what do we mean when we say quality content? In our terms, quality content would be images, videos and stories that:

1. Relate directly to your booster club’s focus
2. Are well shot / edited (people like seeing pretty looking photos and videos)
3. Are personal in nature
   

Given that your booster club is most likely supporting a student activity you should have plenty of content from students practicing, to events they are participating in, awards, school support, and general promotion for upcoming booster club related activities. One suggestion to keep in mind, limit your more promotion oriented text heavy posts. Instagram is a photo sharing site at heart and your photos and videos will always perform better than word filled promotions.

Communicate With Your Booster Club Instagram Account Followers

Many people think that social media is all about posting a photo, video or update and that’s it. The other component that helps you successfully grow your social media profile reach (Instagram included) is how much you interact on the platform. This is a two way street. You need to be aware and respond to comments and direct messages on Instagram to show your audience and Instagram that you are engaged with your account.

Furthermore, to help your posts show up in more people’s feeds, you also need to engage on other people’s feeds and photos that you follow.
When you are developing your booster club Instagram profile posting strategy (noted above), you should also plan extra time for interactions. You probably will not get too many interactions on your posts or direct messages initially, but over time you will see your supporters, students, volunteers and community engaging with your posts. As you see this occurring make sure you are reciprocating and engaging with them as well.

A successful Instagram strategy can help increase the visibility of your booster club. It is important that you correctly set up your account and manage it effectively. While it does take some effort and a bit of time to develop and grow your Instagram account, there should be a positive payoff through increased booster club visibility and an increase in funds raised.