Don't Talk to an Empty Room

OK.  I've finally caved.  Instagram it is.  Now that I teach only middle school and many of my students are only allowed on Instagram but not Facebook or Twitter, I finally set one up for our classes.  In only a few months of having social media for our bands, the Instagram account has twice the followers of either of the others.

If social media is an important part of connecting with families, then we have to keep up with what is being used most frequently now, which with my students meant jumping into Instagram. This is not to say that other platforms are obsolete, but each one provides another opportunity to make different connections and reach our audiences where they are.

In all honesty, one of my biggest reasons for not creating Instagram account was because I didn't want to maintain three separate accounts.  Enter If This Then That! IFTTT is an amazing resource that I use to connect all three accounts. In the hands of more experienced users, this site can be used to automate things I hadn't even thought of.  For me though, this means that with one post, three separate accounts are updated. The posts are also better visually than when doing things like linking Twitter and Facebook. The Facebook posts actually show up as their own post rather than a Twitter link and the Twitter posts show the picture you shared instead of just the Instagram link and caption.  

IFTTT uses "recipes" to link your accounts.  Just search for what you want to set up.  For example: "If Instagram then Facebook page." There will be plenty of ready made recipes that you can borrow. It takes a little bit of work on the front end setting up and linking your accounts, but that time is well worth it.  You can even tweak existing recipes to fit your needs.  I wanted my Instagram photos to post on Facebook, but didn't really need them to go into an album.  I just clicked on the recipe and left the spot for an album name in the recipe blank.  

We have to adapt and move ahead with our audience.   Sharing info in places nobody is looking is like talking to an empty room.  If we want to share our story, then we need to tell it in places people will keep hearing it.