Success ‘@agenziastanca’: the power of online communities

No, we are not crazy, and apparently we are not the only ones who experience situations like this. That’s why we immediately fell in love with “@agenziastanca“, theInstagram account that chronicles the hard life of creative agencies, which, as the project’s creator told us, was born out of a simple question: “But how is it possible that no one has ever thought of a page that collects all our expressions? Thanks to smart working, a series of new idioms typical of the agency world came up and, after some initial scouting, the Agenzia Stancaaccount was born’.

The profile, opened at the end of March, has achieved in just a month results that many brands struggle to achieve even after years of activity on social media:

• More than 15k followers (an average of +200 per day).
• An average of 64 comments under each post.
• An average of 1,500 likes per post.
• Engagement rate almost 10%.
• Ad budget: €50 and only for the first week.

The project founder went on to tell us that: “The community responded well from day one and continues to do so. To launch the page, a carousel with the first five cards was also sponsored the first week, but the real breakthrough came from the organic shares. There was a real word of mouth that spread like wildfire.” Reaching this level of popularity organically and without investing advertising budgets to reach large audiences is often a difficult feat even for the best known brands. How did @agenziastanca manage to achieve this success in such a short time, starting from scratch?

How did @agenziastanca manage to build an effective community on Instagram?

We tried to analyse the success behind the profile and identified the six pillars on which every Instagram community should stand.

1) Speak the language of the target audience

This is a page created by someone who works daily in the world of social media and speaks to a niche of users who work daily with social or are part of the world of digital communication. For this reason, it knows very well what the typical expressions of those who deal with customers and/or colleagues are, it appropriates them and plays with them through theuse of clichés and stereotypes, but making fun of them with sincerity. The audience instantly recognises itself and feels heard and understood, part of a larger group of users with which it can smile and compare itself.

2) He chose the right platform

Instagram, right after Facebook, is the channel of choice for Millennials and lends itself well to the virality of its content. This is why it is the right channel for the strategy adopted: short sentences in a recognisable visual, so that they can be shared in Instagram stories or commented on at speed.

3) Consistent and characterising visuals

A content marketing strategy only works when text and images dialogue harmoniously and support each other. So the content of @agenziastanca works because:

• there is a colour palette and a single typeface has been chosen for all graphics;
• the visual remains, thus, consistent in every post and in the Instagram stories;
• the background colour purple is the main colour of the ‘brand’, is used as the background and makes the page easily recognisable and memorable;
• scalability of content: the posts do not require any major graphic interventions, the layout remains unchanged so that only the text in the centre has to be replaced.

4) Gives users a voice

…and is not self-referential! Publications are daily, both through posts and through Instagram stories with question boxes and stickers, to encourage interaction. Communication is never one-way: @agenziastanca responds to all comments with interest, in the stories it gives voice to the community and makes extensive use of gifs (adored by millennials to communicate their emotions), tagging brands that can potentially expand their user base.

5) It has a netiquette!

“Establishing behavioural guidelines allows you to protect visitors to your page and to provide administrators with shelter from uncomfortable situations should offence, spam or anything else occur.” In one of our articles we told you about theimportance of netiquette and @agenziastanca, as a professional of the trade, has drafted his own: do not mention brand names, do not mention the names and surnames of colleagues, zero room for profanity!

6) Perfect timing!

After a year of working from home, this page has replaced the ‘office vent‘ moments, in a space shared no longer only with colleagues, but with a much wider pool of users. The user who reads @agenziastanca’s posts immediately feels part of the joys and misfortunes of the agency life of others, because in them he recognises himself, thus feeling part of a ‘movement’, less alone and a little less crazy.

The community beyond Instagram: possible future scenarios

Although born for fun, the page’s growth continues apace, and there are many activities that could arise from such an involved community. Some examples are the @poivorrei community, an Instagram account set up in March 2020 to give voice to people’s simplest dreams and desires during the pandemic and which, after six months and very rapid growth, has not only created many gadgets sold on their site, but has also produced a book with the community’s best posts, published by DeAgostini(we talked about it here). @fm_visualdesigner, in turn, has managed to involve numerous users around the story of the world of freelance graphic designers and creatives, managing to engage them in a totally irreverent way and achieving considerable popularity thanks to his personal work and numerous partnerships with brands and influencers. @disegnettidepressetti, on the other hand, is the Instagram community par excellence, with very high engagement and a real business developed around the sale of digital and physical products, Amazon affiliations and donations from the fanbase collected on Patreon.

Similarly, we can expect similar developments for @agenziastanca. The most common actions that popular accounts born on Instagram can take vary according to the goals they want to achieve:

1) If the goal isawareness, the actions to be taken could be:

• collaboration with other brands/influencers;
• participation in events;
• opening other channels: podcast, website, blog, etc.

2) If the objective is economic, the actions to be taken may be:

• monetise through the sale of digital products (such as online courses) or physical products (such as gadgets, books, prints, etc.);
• creator accounts on Patreon to get monthly support from the community;
• Amazon affiliations.

The case of @agenziastanca tells us how it is possible to reach a niche of users if precise strategies are adopted, going beyond the sterile concept of ‘followers’. Even brands can create valuable interactions if they choose to be on an equal footing with their users, ready to listen to them and give voice to their needs, because having a real and interested community does not mean ‘having many followers’, it means having a group of people who trust you or your brand and share their ideas, values and interests and are ready to be their spokesperson.