As an actor, I’ve done my fair share of Instagram takeovers. If you check out my portfolio, you’ll see I’ve also created plenty of content to be shared across social media. So when the directors at my latest acting contract bemoaned the lack of followers and posts on their account, I was up to task!
The Grange, and it’s parent company Artistree, are both small organizations with staff that “does it all” - and as someone who helped run a small (low-budget) theater company, I totally understand being overstretched and something like instagram falling by the wayside. Additionally, Artistree has a separate instagram account because it posts much more than just the plays and musicals.
When I took over The Grange’s instagram 10 days into my performance contract, it had just 273 followers. The posts were mostly actor headshots and few fun videos re-shared from Artistree. 20 days later when I packed up and drove home, the following had grown to 990 (and this trickled up to 1,002 in the following days, without any new posts since those that I made).
How did I do this? To begin, posting more content overall definitely helped. I created interesting and engaging reels and posts for our show.
I also tried to keep up with current trends. While I was there, it was World Theatre Day, and we saw a popularity in the “doll box / you as an action figure” trend (although my version of this was photoshopped, and AI free!)
I didn’t just want an increase in numbers - I focused on increasing the local following, in the hopes that this would translate to ticket sales. South Pomfret is a small town of only 900 people, but I did my best to reach out to neighboring communities and businesses.
The Grange was pleased with my efforts, as were its patrons!
In future contracts with them (as an Actor and show-based Social Media Consultant), I’ll have more time to plan out even more content, and I hope we can continue growing :)