Fertility IQ Basecamp – Community through Instagram

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I went to San Francisco for Fertility IQ basecamp. However, at the time I didn’t share about all the logistics of the Fertility IQ trip, but promised it was coming. Well today is the day. I have teamed up with the other bloggers who also attended the basecamp to recap and share all the important information we learned. Each of us is taking a topic and covering it and my topic is the power of community, specific to instagram.

Our time at instagram with fertility iq was wonderful. I was sick the night before so had to rally, but it was worth it. I hated having to forego the tempting (free) food court. Although we didn’t do too much walking around, what we saw was impressive. In addition to the amazing food court, instagram had their own bike shop, tennis courts, coffee shop, rock climbing wall, just to name a few perks. I have no doubt that their whole campus is glorious.

We met with the VP of community. Why did our group, that was there to learn about all things fertility-related, spend time at Instagram? Well, most of us actually met via social media whether it was instagram, our blogs, etc. If you don’t already know this, there is a powerful community across all social media outlets, instagram being one of them. So we wanted to meet with the VP to discuss what we could do for our fertility community. Here were some ideas she gave:

Use your profile to announce special days or things going on
Encourage dialogue on your feed by prompting with questions
Engage with your followers. Respond to all their comments
Figure out what time is best to post, based on when your followers respond
Create a special day or a hashtag correlated for your community {Fertility community, we have already come up with something, so be on stand by}

A few other things: Despite that most bloggers will disagree, the VP said the algorithm feed changes that have been made have been received very well. She also said that 7 was the magic number of hashtags to use. However, I will put a disclaimer that I have had several friends who have tried this and said that this was not the case for them, so I will let you decide. Instagram does support breastfeeding, but does not allow nudity. They are well aware that a lot of their audience is younger and they make sure they cater to them by protecting what is shared.

So how can you use instagram for your community? If you are also on a fertility journey, check out hashtags like #ttccommunity #infertility #ttcsisters. If you are in another community, I bet there is something for you. Soccer. Knitting. Faith. Running. Movies. Reading. Travel. If you can’t find anything related to your interests, then why not start building a community?

My story, along with the ladies below, are a testimony of a friendship that can come from the instagram community. And, it’s not just instagram, but twitter, facebook, pinterest and most obviously, the blog world. There are so many places to find community, which is a powerful thing about technology.

So what else did we learn? Well, these girls are recapping, so make sure to head to their blogs next.

Chelsea – Trials Bring Joy – Recapping the weekend