How To Run An Effective Instagram AR Filter Campaign?
One of the most powerful viral marketing tools of the last few years has got to be AR filters. As such it’s no surprise that we have seen such an explosion of Instagram AR filters since moving out of their beta programme. Well like with all things new, it can be difficult to find information on them and how they function or how to even go about distributing them. This is largely because not many digital marketers have had the chance to work on an Instagram AR filter campaign. Naturally it can be a challenge figuring out how to effectively launch and measure an Instagram AR campaign.
So in order to make life easier I just went ahead and put this helpful guide together, so that you can better understand how your Instagram AR filter is found and shared by your audience, and how you can go about measuring the audience engagement that your branded AR experience receives.
How Does My Audience Find My Instagram AR Filter?
When you publish your Instagram AR filter it is linked directly to your profile. One published it will stay there unless you decide to take it down. Once your filter is live it can also be easily accessed through the designated filter tab that is just below your highlight reel. The other way for you to share it is to post it in your story with somebody using it. You’re able to add a “Try” it button which means anyone who views your story can use the filter by simply pressing it.
Once you have recorded a video of your AR filter (They’re actually called “Instagram Camera Effects” FYI) tap the link button top of your screen. This should open a new screen with a button that says “Swipe Up + Camera Effect” that should let you embed a link to your AR filter directly into your story. All your audience have to do is tap the link to give it a go themselves.
If you are running a branded Instagram AR filter you are now able to tag a partner, e.g. Influencers or Brand Ambassadors, with a little label saying, “Paid Partnership With” and the name of the partner. This partner is also able to view the metrics of your story. You’ll also be able to let your partner promote the Instagram AR filter story. It will give them the ability to turn your tagged story into an ad. The one thing to keep in mind however is that once you turn your story into an ad, you will have much less options to edit it and you can’t turn off this setting either. Any ad is publicly listed in the Ad Library.
Another way that you can direct users to your AR filter is through the tappable link. This can be shared on any social media platform or website or anything at all really.
What Analytics Do Instagram Give You?
Unfortunately for you data heads the analytics are pretty basic, but it’s better than nothing and they are enough to give you an idea as to whether or not you’ve launched a decent filter. Once everything is live you’ll be able to view metrics on Impressions, which refers to how many times an AR effect was displayed on a screen, the Captures, which is the number of times it has been captured as a photo or video through the Instagram camera and lastly the Shares which is how many times someone took a photo or a video using your AR filter and shared it on Instagram, usually as a story. You are able to find and compare the insights from all of your filters over at the Spark AR hub.
How Do I Increase The Engagement On My Instagram AR Filter?
This is probably the most important aspect to consider at the end of the day. How will your audience actually find your Instagram AR filter? A number of digital marketers may post it once, on one channel, this one time and the expect it to blow up and go viral, but like all social media marketing campaigns you need to look at a multi-channel strategy if you want to really increase the metrics of your Instagram AR filter campaign.
You can also use the same influencer marketing tactics that you would use for just normal story based or static branded content, to amplify your Instagram AR filter campaign. The best thing to do is to get your brand ambassadors to post the AR filter in their stories or feed multiple times over the space of a few weeks. Or else create a competition around the campaign that uses the Instagram AR filter as the entry mechanism. The AR game filters are particularly useful for this and it is most certainly reflected in their higher metrics.
Instagram AR filters shift your audience from being merely passive observers into active brand participants and provide your audience with a tool to help spread your message for you. The growth of these AR filters has only just gotten started. It remains to be seen what limits can be reached with social media AR. The next stage is developing AR concepts that are more than just a single use experience. Creating Instagram AR filters that are more than just novel experience, ones that people will want to actually use again and again.