Instagram takeover examples can inspire your next takeover.
Even more, they’ll teach you how to do successful Instagram takeovers.
In this guide, I’ll show you 9 Instagram takeover examples and how they improve each brand’s marketing.
You’ll also see tips to guide your next Instagram takeover.
Let’s dive in.
Instagram takeover examples
1. Aurifil Thread
Aurifil Thread sells Egyptian cotton threads.
Its Instagram takeover features Janine Heschl, a wildlife embroidery artist. In the takeover, she explains how she uses the threads to express emotions and create realism.
With this takeover, Aurifil Thread allows a customer to display use cases of its products.
2. Beatport
Beatport is an online DJ store for electronic music.
Its Instagram takeover features Nala, who shares her underground music on the 10-year anniversary of the Shabang Live Music & Art Festival.
This content promotes Beatport and shows DJs the type of results they can achieve by buying from the store.
3. California Fibers
California Fibers promotes Southern California fiber artists.
Aneesh, a fiber artist, took over California Fibers’ account to show her studio and work.
This helps the company achieve one of its core objectives: promoting artists.
4. The Cottage Journal
The Cottage Journal is a magazine for cottage living, interiors, and gardens.
The magazine features takeovers from people interested in these topics.
For example, this takeover features Ashley, who provides DIY home design and decor tips on Instagram.
She shares her home designs for the holidays.
This is user-generated content (UGC) and an opportunity to educate the audience.
5. Verto Education
Verto Education is an education company that helps students complete their courses in their first year while traveling abroad.
The company regularly features students in Instagram takeovers.
In this takeover, Marissa shares her experience studying in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
This takeover is a source of UGC and provides social proof to students looking for this service.
6. Shift Gallery
Shift Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in Seattle.
Its Instagram takeover features Holly Hazelton, an artist who takes the audience behind the scenes of her art show.
This takeover creates awareness for the art show and engages Shift Gallery’s audience.
The post appears in both Holly’s and Shift Gallery’s accounts, which means more exposure.
7. Iota Sweethearts, Inc. (ISI)
Iota Sweethearts, Inc. is a non-profit organization.
This Instagram takeover features Brielle Stewart, its national communications director, for the organization’s 10th anniversary.
In the takeover, she shares behind-the-scenes content during the anniversary.
This takeover will help ISI achieve employee advocacy. The employee explains how the organization helps people and her experience working there.
8. Women of Americana
Women of Americana shares roots, folk, and alt-country music by women artists.
The brand also regularly organizes Instagram takeovers to promote artists and their albums.
In this Instagram Stories takeover, Bailey Bigger shares details about her latest full-length album, Ressurection Fern.
These takeovers engage Women of Americana’s audience, who want to find new albums and learn more about artists’ creative processes.
9. Tor Nightfire
Tor Nightfire is a book publisher.
In this Instagram Stories takeover, CJ Leede, a horror author, shares a day in her life.
This provides a behind-the-scenes of one of the publisher’s authors. It’s a way to engage readers who are curious about the authors of their favorite books.
Instagram takeover tips
Set a goal for your Instagram takeover
While Instagram takeovers are fun, they should be achieving a goal for your business.
And you have to define this goal before you hand over your Instagram account to an outsider.
Having a goal guides other aspects of your Instagram takeover.
What are common goals you can achieve with Instagram takeovers?
- Attracting new followers
- Driving engagement
- Brand awareness
- Product promotion
- Employee advocacy
- Collecting UGC
Once you decide on the goal you want, define the metrics to track the goal.
For example, what does engagement or brand awareness mean to you? This can be 20,000 impressions, 1,000 likes, and 20 comments.
Whatever the metric, define it to specify your goal.
Decide on the best takeover host
Once you define your goal, pick a takeover host who can help you achieve those goals.
Here are 3 common categories of an Instagram takeover host:
- Influencers: If you need to reach a big audience similar to yours, invite an influencer to take over your account. Collaborating with influencers will help you leverage the influencer’s following.
- Customers: You can invite customers to create posts about how they use your products or approach relevant tasks.
- Employees: If you want to give your brand the human touch, invite employees to share their working experience on your account.
For example, only your customers can be your takeover host if your goal is to collect UGC.
Whatever host category fits your goal, create a shortlist of hosts.
This can be people you already know. Otherwise, research to come up with a list.
Then, visit their Instagram pages to view their posts.
To make your job easier later, ensure the host already creates the type of content that aligns with your brand voice. With this, they won’t have problems adapting to your voice.
After this, reach out to the best candidate on your list. Discuss the details of your campaign with them.
With the right takeover host, it becomes easier to achieve your goals.
Share your social media guidelines
Once the takeover host agrees, share more information with them.
First, share your social media guidelines. This provides basic rules about the content you publish.
However, you can’t be too strict with your guidelines as you bring in an external party.
Another thing to share is the content type for the takeover. This includes Instagram feed posts, reels, stories, and live.
Then, discuss the theme of the takeover to provide a direction.
That said, this shouldn’t just be about throwing instructions to the takeover host.
Ask for the host’s ideas, too. Let them have their stamp on the content since they’ll create it.
Sharing your social media guidelines and ideas ensures you’re on the same page with your takeover host.
Promote Instagram takeover
To give your Instagram takeover the best reach possible, you have to build anticipation.
This means promoting your takeover before D-day.
Many brands create Instagram posts to notify their audience of the takeover.
This post will provide details such as:
- The name of the takeover host
- A brief explanation of what they do
- The duration of the takeover
- The type of content they’ll create (stories, posts, live, etc.)
But beyond Instagram posts, you can promote your takeover on other social media platforms and to email subscribers.
Then, encourage the takeover host to announce the takeover to their audience.
Effective promotion will prepare your audience to engage with the takeover content.
Give takeover host access to your account
Before the Instagram takeover day, you need to hand over the keys to your account.
Now, doing this can make marketers worry due to the sensitive information in their accounts.
Luckily, there are multiple ways to provide access during a takeover without exposing sensitive information to outsiders.
- Instagram collaborative posts: The Instagram takeover host can create the post and invite you as a collaborator. Once you accept the invite, the post will appear on the host’s and your accounts. This way, the content will get even more reach and engagement.
- Collect content: This involves collecting the content from the takeover host and publishing on their behalf. If you use a social media management tool, you can schedule the posts for that day or add the takeover host as a team member.
- Provide your login details: For a content type like Instagram Live, the takeover host has to be logged in to your account. In this case, you can change your password before the takeover and reverse the change after.
So, if you panic about giving up access to your account, explore the first 2 options.
After all, your audience can’t tell whether the host is publishing content or you’re doing it on their behalf.
Analyze results after takeover
After your takeover, analyze your results to determine how successful the campaign has been.
Analyzing these results can also deliver insights to improve your future Instagram takeovers.
Here, use the metrics you defined earlier to judge the success of your takeover.
You can get metrics from various platforms, including:
- Social media management tools
- Landing page tool
- Google Analytics
The analytics tool you need depends on the metric you want to track.
Once you finish the analysis, start planning for your next Instagram takeover.
Conclusion
So, use these Instagram takeover examples and tips to inspire your next takeover.
Then, analyze your results to improve subsequent takeovers.
Disclosure: When you buy something through one of the links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. We only recommend products we use and/or believe will deliver value to you.
Samuel writes long-form guides to help businesses and entrepreneurs achieve better results from their marketing activities. He also writes for marketing and SaaS companies that want more leads and customers. Get in touch with him to discuss your content needs.