How the FT is using Instragram to drive traffic and subscriptions

Lucinda Southern of Digiday writes about how The Financial Times is using Instagram to drive traffic to its site.

Southern writes, “The FT posts between two and four Instagram Stories a week as a self-contained narrative based on a published piece. Previously, the FT told Digiday that Stories on dense topics like bitcoin and discussions on interest rates that were a dozen clips long typically got a completion rate of 50 percent. But getting the production to a standard the FT is happy with has taken time to perfect.

“‘Instagram’s status as a visual-heavy platform means it takes a great deal of creation and production to do well. It’s not like doing a Facebook post or tweet, where something can do well without a significant time investment,’ said Jake Grovum, acting head of social media. ‘The nature of what works on Instagram means that it is a time-intensive platform to work on.’

“Before Instagram Stories, the platform was limited to driving traffic back to publisher sites. Increasingly, media companies like the BBC and National Geographic are using links in their Instagram Stories to funnel audiences to their properties, mostly newsletter sign-ups, where they have a more direct connection and can monetize audiences more effectively.

“Outside of Stories, the FT’s posts on Instagram are distinctive because they don’t often relate to published stories.”

Read more here.