Depending on your niche and the nature of your business, Instagram might be your most important lead-generation channel.
For many smaller nature and wildlife travel businesses and organizations, what and how they post on social media will make or break business success.
Liveaboards, dive shops, eco-lodges, guided birding tours; a lot of bookings are made off the strength of their Instagram profile.
Whether that profile functions as a highly effective lead generating machine boils down to a couple of things:
- How well you understand and can create what your target audience wants to see.
- How well you understand the constantly-changing Instagram search algorithm and how to create content that it likes.
- How well you have optimized your posts and profile for maximum conversions.
What we do at NNT Productions is take our graphic design and video editing skills and combine them with our understanding of Instagram.
The overarching objective is to turn your business’ Instagram page into a high-converting lead-generating machine.
The Instagram services we provide
NNT Productions Digital Media provides two social media management/marketing services:
- Social media content creation and editing.
- Profile management and optimization.
It’s a one-two punch. We take your existing content (or film original content for you, on location) and then use it to create compelling reels.
It could be from YouTube videos, videos and images you have shot yourself over the years that are sitting on a hard drive, SD card or cloud storage somewhere, an eBird, Flickr or iNaturalist profile, and remix them into compelling, reach-boosting content.
We use our creativity, design and editing skills to create, repurpose, and remix, ensuring your account and posts are optimized to attract eyes and direct traffic to your business.
Settle on a goal and budget with our clients.
Different clients will have different goals, and we work with every new client to find where their objectives and budget overlap. The most common Instagram management objectives in the nature and wildlife travel industry are:
- Increase reach
- Increase followers
- Establish Instagram as a sales funnel
Objective 1: Increase reach
Reach refers to the number of people that your content appears in front of.
More eyes means more opportunities to sell your services and products, complete bookings, divert traffic to your website, and convert people into followers, and it is the main goal of most individuals and companies in the industry.
How many people you reach is a multi-factor equation that involves things like the initial reaction from your followers to your content, SEO-optimized descriptions and image text, correct formatting, brand consistency, and spotting and capitalizing on trends in audio, hashtags and topics.
The more of your target market you reach, the more lead-generating opportunities.
Take a look at the below infographic for nomad nature travel.
We wanted an Instagram blitz in the lead-up to the release of a video production we were working on for a client.The goal was to create and post content in a way that supercharged the number of people nomad nature travel content was appearing in front of.
See how that little circle graph in the middle shows that the vast majority of the people reached between April and May of 2023 were non-followers? That’s exactly what you want. You want your businesses and services in front of as many new people as possible on a regular basis. To achieve that, we developed a regular reel-posting schedule of great content that told the Instagram algorithm, “this account is worth showing to new people.”
Objective 2: Increase followers
Some clients’ primary objective is to increase their follower count. While follower count, by itself, is not the most important metric to track on Instagram, it is part of the equation when it comes to appealing to the Instagram algorithm.
Followers are also, of course, a community you build around your brand and potential repeat guests/word of mouth brand ambassadors. Take a look at the below cosy/nature and wildlife travel profile:
The results:
A note about followers
In the era of old Instagram, follower count was generally considered the be-all and end-all. You amassed a large pool of followers you could monetize and market to.
That is still the case for a lot of content creators (especially in industries that heavily rely on consistent repeat business), but the concept of followers and how they factor into overall Instagram success is a lot more nuanced than just the number itself.
Your posts are only shown to followers who engage with your content on a regular basis. You might have 10,000 people following you, but if you’re not posting things that are compelling enough to engage with (like, share, save, comment) on a regular basis, the Instagram algorithm will stop showing that content to the people following you.
Of those 10,000 people, maybe only 250 of them are actually seeing what you post, and perhaps 30 percent of them will actually engage with the post.
That’s 75 people, which means you are only engaging with 0.0075 per cent of your followers. Instagram will interpret this as “this new post is not worth putting in front of new people.”
The lesson being: growing a follower-base is important, but reach should be your primary objective.
Objective 3: Establish Instagram as a sales funnel
Some new and less experienced nature and wildlife travel businesses intuitively understand that marketing their business is almost an entirely visual affair and correctly choose Instagram as their primary social media marketing channel, but are unsure of how to go about establishing a high-functioning Instagram sales funnel.
This process involves:
- Finding a cohesive profile layout and post design.
- A linking strategy that effectively funnels traffic to a website or contact number through your post descriptions, bio and well-thought-out highlights.
- In some cases, designing a brand identity.
Using both footage filmed on location by NNT Productions and existing content compiled by the owner and staff over the years, we developed a regular content posting schedule and strategy that had a huge impact on both reach and engagement.
Also, notice the difference in profile layout and design.
The coherence (especially the attention to palette and colour scheme) across both highlights and posts, has a big impact on perceived professionalism and quality of visitor experience.
Our social media efforts are helping Sunka fund their expansion.
More reels, more reach
To really scale results, you need more reels.
Social media, whether it’s YouTube Shorts, Facebook Stories, or Instagram Reels, is all about short, compelling video content.
That’s what the algorithm rewards, and that’s how you need to play the game if you want to get your business in front of as many people as possible.
So long as you’re following a professional strategy and keeping in mind your ideal viewer, you can leverage reals and the reach they generate to send people to your profile, and your website, and get them booking.
This requires:
- Graphic design skills
- Video and audio editing skills
- Understanding the Instagram algorithm
Get in touch with NNT Productions today by emailing info@nomadnaturetravel.com and schedule a free consultation call.
