Deja vu. That sums up my initial reaction to participating in an Instagram takeover on the PRSA‘s Counselors Academy feed designed to give a sense of what it is like to work in PR. Hmmm. Why does that sound familiar?

In 2013, with the help of my Clairemont team, I launched PR Baton “to show the world what a day in PR looks like, one photo at a time.” We called it a social media experiment, and we created and synced Tumblr and Instagram accounts utilizing signup forms and calendaring apps. We also wrote rules and recruited “runners” to carry the baton. It produced 469 posts from varied PR professionals in the United States and Canada before the management of it started to become a full-time job. And then we returned to our full-time jobs of taking care of our clients’ PR and social media campaigns.

Was I ahead of my time? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, it was a fun exercise that allowed us to learn even more about digital communications and led to several interesting conversations with clients and prospects about social media possibilities. Now back to my Counselors Academy Instagram takeover…

I love that members of Counselors Academy are now participating in this way to share our work, new ideas, best practices and just the everyday stuff of working in public relations. Clairemont has also utilized Instagram takeovers for our clients to collaborate with like-minded organizations to gain additional exposure.

Have you participated in an Instagram takeover or secured one for your company or client? We’d love to feature your best examples in an upcoming post. Hit us up on Facebook with your faves.