How The Washington Post Topped 6 Million Instagram Followers

The Washington Post once made headlines with its early adoption of TikTok, but its Instagram strategy—a platform whose growth will ultimately lead to driving subscribers—could soon steal the spotlight. The official Washington Post Instagram account just surpassed 6 million followers—and it gained 1.2 million of those followers in the last 12 months, according to Travis Lyles, the deputy director for social and off-platform curation at The Post. The account makes use of the gallery function to tell a story over multiple posts, relying on images and text on a color background, with more details of the story in the comments so readers have no need to leave Instagram. Posts typically get between 100 and 200 comments and rely on telling the story of a central character. One post that reads "One roommate is 85 the other is 27. Such arrangements are growing" has nearly 800 comments. In early July the publisher also introduced @PostClimate, the first spin-off account from its main feed, as part of a larger, company-wide initiative to invest more deeply in climate coverage. The two milestones come amid a larger push from The Post to bolster its social media presence, a strategy the publisher sees as a critical part of its larger commercial efforts. By reaching people on Instagram who are unfamiliar with the brand, The Post widens its subscription funnel and increases its brand awareness among the younger, more diverse audiences that use social media as a channel for news consumption. “If Instagram is someone’s favorite app and they are logging on every day and interacting with us, then they are making news consumption of our content a habit,” Lyles said. “Long term, that is great for our business—and it will lead to them subscribing.” The Post still trails Instagram heavyweights like The New York Times and CNN, which boast 15.7 million and 17.9 million followers, respectively, but it sees the platform as a critical avenue for reaching new audiences that it can convert into regular readers and subscribers. Although Instagram refers only a modest amount of traffic to The Washington Post website, the platform is vital to its goal of aging down its readership. “The Post has essentially borrowed the model of the meme account,” said Ryan Detert, chief executive of Influential, a social media marketing agency. “They have found ways to visualize their content so that it’s easy to digest––it’s viral storytelling.” How The Washington Post Is Using Data Journalism to Drive Subscriptions Shares as the north star metric The Washington Post Instagram team attributes its growth to three key strategies, Lyles told Adweek. First, rather than fixate on likes, comments or other indicators of engagement, The Post treats shares as its north star metric. When an Instagram user shares a piece of content, that suggests they found it useful––a powerful signal and one that The Post attempts to evoke throughout its reporting, Lyles said. To encourage sharing, the publisher actively considers how to make each post as shareable as possible, a strategy that leans into the ease of discoverability that the platform is known for. The publisher also credits its heightened use of Reels and vertical video as a critical part of its momentum. This year, The Post has produced 240 videos and generated 250 million total views, or roughly 1 million views per Reel, according to the publisher. Instagram has incentivized its users to create Reels by boosting the visibility of the vertical video content, part of its larger push to compete more evenly with TikTok. The Post has seen bumps to its follower count after each Reel, Lyles said. He added that Instagram users gravitate toward the video content because it features Post reporters prominently, giving the Reels a strong human element. So far this year, 95 Post journalists have gone in front of the camera to make vertical videos. The publisher has seen such pronounced engagement from the videos that it has added them to its mobile website and app––and plans to introduce them to desktop in August. Finally, The Post credits one of its first features––adding text to photos and videos––as a key source of its growth. Out of 100 posts, roughly 97 will feature text in some form or fashion, according to Lyles. Text makes images more arresting and encourages scrollers to pause, especially when the text is overlaid on a video, Detert said. “Engagement statistics for vertical video suggest that certain techniques lead to virality––and one is putting text on a video,” Detert said. If properly done, few things are more effective in getting people to stop and watch.” Washington Post Welcomes Cookieless Future But Warns of ‘Third-Party Toll Booths’

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How The Washington Post Topped 6 Million Instagram Followers

The account added 1.2 million followers in the last 12 months

Mark Stenberg

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