How to engage citizens on Instagram

Connect with the shutterbug community on the photo-sharing app.

Use #hashtags
Popular ones such as #food, #love or #tbt (for Throwback Thursday) will add your photo to a pool of similarly tagged photos. Or coin a catchy hashtag that reflects your brand and values to improve recall – think, for example, of #booksthatmovedme by the National Library Board’s @publiclibrarysg.

Collaborate with citizens
Raise public participation for your agency or campaign by crowdsourcing shots from the public. The Singapore Tourism Board (@visit_singapore), for example, regrams (re-posts) photos tagged by other users with #YourSingapore to showcase different parts of our city.

Honour your workers
Post photos of your employees at work, so citizens can see the people who serve them. Take a leaf from the Singapore Civil Defence Force (@myscdf), which recently had a campaign to crowdsource photos of its officers.

Conduct contests
Prizes are sure to attract. Offer rewards for submitting relevant photos or coming up with quirky captions for your posts.

Highlight what’s fun and unique
Don’t forget to have fun! The National Parks Board (@nparksbuzz) features interesting plants or animals, for example, by posting a “selfie”of a praying mantis.

More: bit.ly/govgoesgram, bit.ly/insta-hashtags