Indie Pop Duo 2 Story Cabin Instagram Campaign [Case Study]
In this piece, we go behind the scenes and follow the Brooklyn-based indie pop duo 2 Story Cabin through their promotional Instagram campaign, as conducted by Cyber PR.
Guest post from Cyber PR
About 2 Story Cabin
2 Story Cabin is a couple from Brooklyn turned indie-pop duo comprised of Italian-Vietnamese singer-songwriter Eugenia Tempesta, and Italian producer/guitarist mmmatic. Their music is filled with dazzling vocals and enchanting ambience. The chemistry between the two shines through both their recorded music and live performances. They came on board with Cyber PR to prep for their second EP release, which included a music video for the focus single “Always Better.”
2 Story Cabin before they came to Cyber PR for an Instagram Campaign
Before coming to Cyber PR, the duo had a good presence on social media – but struggled to engage and understand what their audience liked to see from them. They mostly posted some daily life content as well as press hits and music bits. They had not fully fleshed out exactly their brand yet and needed help in doing so.
The process we guided 2 Story Cabin through
Foundations
This in-depth document helps us better understand the artist(s) we’re working with. This is also where we collect the login information for the account we’ll be working on, as well as ask many questions i.e. – one sentence that describes you, what are your hobbies, who have you collaborated with, who are your inspirations, etc. These are all very important aspects to a musician’s brand and tell us who you really are, which help us to pick your 5 themes of content to focus on.
Initial Call – 5 Themes
After receiving 2 Story Cabin’s Foundations, their Social Media Manager was able to analyze their information and form an idea for 3-5 themes of content to start sharing. These 3-5 themes are pillars for your brand. On the initial call, we talk about any expectations or goals that the client wants to hit. We are very realistic about this and make sure that the client knows this will not be an overnight growth kind of campaign. This is a real, organic growth campaign that takes a lot of time and a lot of love. The SMM will suggest 3-5 themes to the client that they feel resonate. Not every client needs all 5 themes, sometimes we focus on just 3 or 4. 2 Story Cabin’s themes are music (this is always the first theme for every artist) – which consists of new releases, covers, snippets, PR hits, etc., fashion – Eugenia and mmmatic are very fashionable people who wear high-end designer pieces that are perfect for tagging in posts to boost engagement, gender equality – this is mostly shown in stories through quote tiles and sharing other people’s content, and food/cooking – which is also mostly shown through Instagram stories.
Content Calendaring + Scheduling
Next we put together a calendar of content for the next few weeks or so. This includes individual posts and captions, as well as hashtag clouds for each post. It is likely your social media manager will have some questions for you in the Notes tab, i.e. – where was this taken, who took the photo, what brands are you wearing, etc. This is so that we can tag as many relevant people as possible for maximum exposure. Once you answer the questions, there is a tab for approving posts. The client will type in “Y” if they approve, and “N” if they don’t, with some comments on why they don’t approve. Once everything gets approved, we then schedule all of the posts out. You can expect your social media manager to put new content up on the calendar every week or so.
Engagement
At Cyber PR, we are very strong believers in organic engagement. It is the only way to truly grow fans and an audience. If you are using bots, we will likely know right away and ask that you stop using them. If you don’t, we will not participate in the engagement portion of your campaigns – because it will be rendered completely useless.
In your foundations document, we ask for people you’ve collaborated and are inspired by, as well as some artists in your genre that are about 1-2 years ahead of you. This is so that we can target people who follow those accounts by engaging with them to grow your account. We also use hashtag engagement strategies using a mix of the tool Flick.Tech and individual hashtag research to target people who follow any personal accounts that you may already have.
Within the first week of 2 Story Cabin’s campaign, we doubled their highest engagement on a post in their Instagram history.
Instagram Stories
During an Instagram campaign, we highly encourage our artists to post as many stories as possible – at least 4-5 per day, and utilize the Location and Hashtag stickers to gain maximum exposure. Unfortunately, other than a few stories here and there, this isn’t something that we can or should really do for you. Stories are a very personal part of this platform and is where most Instagram users are consuming their content.
2 Story Cabin do an amazing job of taking advantage of this feature. They post a lot of stories, often, and it is something that keeps their following coming back for more. This includes sharing stories other people have tagged them in, re-sharing their feed posts, sharing their music, sharing them going about their day, cooking, etc.
2 Story Cabin’s successes:
- They’re highest engagement doubled in the first week of their campaign
- They gained 70+ followers in the first week of their campaign
- We identified a filter than keeps their theme looking consistent and branded
- They gained pre-saves from putting the link in their bio
- Their story engagement increased significantly
Overall, they have pinned down their brand and stayed consistent with it, while growing their audience, fans, and engagement.
Before & After – 1 Week in to 2 Story Cabin’s Instagram Campaign
We asked Eugenia & Mattia a few questions about their Instagram Campaign with us and how it impacted them. Here’s what they said:
What is the most important thing you’ve learned during your campaign so far?
That analyzing the results after each post helps us understand what to post next.
What is your favorite brand element from the 4 themes we created?
Definitely fashion!!
How did you make the decision on which photo filter would best fit your brand?
We like the fresh vibe that it has!
How has this campaign affected your upcoming release?
We had 23% of clicks to service on the pre-link, which seems a pretty good result!
