Guide to Instagram Takeovers

We offer VisitWiltshire partners* the opportunity to take over our Instagram channel as a way of sharing their product, upcoming events, special offers, and more. Reaching over 17k+ followers, this is a great profile-raising activity and gives partners, full access to directly engage with our audience. In this guide, we will detail all you need to know about our Instagram Takeovers, from content ideas and post styles, to benefits.

What are Instagram Takeovers?

Instagram Takeovers occur when a user has temporary access to another account and will share their own content as a way of raising awareness towards their business. We offer this as a free feature within our partnership, giving you the opportunity to takeover our account for up to 3 days, throughout the year.

Our takeovers achieve an average of 10-15k reach and is continuing to grow in popularity. If you are interested in doing a takeover, we recommend booking 1-2 months ahead of your preferred date.

What Can I Post

We are very flexible with what you can post when taking over our Instagram channel. However, we find that there are specific content styles that our audience like best.

Feed

We allow no more than 6 posts on our feed per day, but you are more than welcome to make the most of carousels, which allow you to include several images in one post. The first of your posts should include an introduction to who you are, your interest in Wiltshire and that you’ll be taking over the account. In each post, you should include the hashtag #timeforwiltshire, along with any others you feel relevant.

All feed posts should showcase Wiltshire but don’t have to be taken during the takeover itself! Popular content on our feed tends to focus on destinations, landmarks, and nature. It would be great if you could factor these into your content if possible. Feed posts should also include high-quality imagery and avoid having any text on them.

Reels

We recommend including Reels into your takeover as we find these to be growing in popularity with our audience. Please make sure that you stick to the correct dimensions when posting reels. Further details can be found below.

Stories

We welcome you to post as much as you like when it comes to Stories. We find that this is a great way to gain additional engagement from our followers, especially when using Instagram’s stickers to share polls, quizzes, links, etc.

Content Ideas for Instagram Takeovers

Our partners range from attractions and activities to accommodation and towns. Because of this, it may be quite difficult to know what posts work best for your product. Here are a few ideas you can follow that we have found to be successful on previous takeovers:

Attraction Partners

Whether you are a museum, stately home, animal park or famous landmark, every attraction has history. Sharing your story to our audience will help to create more engagement, whether its 10 years or 1,000! You can do this through reels or using the quiz sticker in Stories for a little more interaction from our followers.

Most attraction partners will use our Instagram takeovers as a way of highlighting any current or upcoming exhibitions. This is a great way to help target a specific audience, whether your event is family focused, centred around a seasonal holiday, or would interest a more particular demographic.

Activity Partners

We have found that takeovers from our activity partners have been most successful when sharing live content to our audience. This doesn’t necessarily mean in real time, but more of a ‘typical day on site’ approach. This allows you to showcase exactly what you offer, giving our audience direct insight into a general experience when they visit. You can use this to introduce the team, do a tour of the site or highlight the visitor favourites.

Accommodation Partners

If you are an accommodation partner, you will want to use our Instagram takeovers as a way of creating a journey for our audience. Not only will this highlight your product and the facilities within your property, but you can also mention any nearby landmarks, attractions or eateries that would be of interest. Perhaps you are walking distance from Stonehenge, or you are located in the town centre, close to plenty shops. This helps to encourage people to visit the area, whilst still showcasing your product.

Food and Drink Partners

We have found that when our food and drink partners do takeovers, most popular content is focusing on the main event, the dishes. This could be a behind the scenes Reel of plating up the food, or a carousel of your customers’ top choices.

If you have a seasonal menu or special offer, this is always worth highlighting within your content, particularly in Stories. Here, you can link to your website to generate further engagement from our followers who want to know what’s included.

Destination Partners

If you are a town, village, or city in Wiltshire, there is a range of content that our audience will be interested in. You can use this to showcase some high-quality images of the surrounding landscape, post a throwback of the high street 100 years ago, or highlight any upcoming events taking place.

Introducing small or independent businesses within your takeover is always a favourite to our local audience. This allows you to showcase what the community is like whilst also providing a platform for the shops, cafes, attractions in your town.

If you are inspired and would like to takeover our Instagram this year, please get in touch with Katie.

*Gold Partners are entitled to 4 takeovers per year and Silver Partners are entitled to 1, but additional takeovers are available at a small cost. Contact Katie for further information.