“Collabs” On Social Media: What They Are, How To Do Them, And When They Are Good To Use

Most popular on Instagram, a “Collab” (short for “Collaboration”) is when a post is posted to your account, but collaborates with another account, so it also shows up on their page as if they posted the post themselves, and it gets pushed out to their followers as well as yours. You can also do this on Facebook for some posts. As a note, at the time of this writing if you’re posting through Meta Business Suite, you can collaborate with another Facebook page but can not collaborate with another Instagram user. You would have to go in and edit the post on Instagram to add a collaboration, but some Instagram accounts have a glitch that don’t let you make that edit, so if you want to collab you should post natively directly to Facebook and Instagram separately so as to not risk not being able to add the collab after it is posted.

Ok, that said, how does collabing work?

When you’re posting the post on Instagram, you select the tag option, and then go to “add collaborators” and find the person you want to collaborate with and add them. They will get a notification that you invited them, and they can accept or decline the invite.

It usually is best to only collaborate with people who know that you’re going to be collaborating with them, and who are expecting it and will most likely accept it. Sometimes the notifications get lost and you have to reach out to them to have them accept (this happens to us a lot even when other people collaborate with us and we don’t see the notification).

When is this a good idea?

Pretty much any time you can collaborate with someone (who will for sure accept it), it is a good idea. Adding a collaborator to your posts can help check those magic algorithm boxes, and help you reach a wider audience. It can be beneficial for the account you’re collaborating with as well, as it can help them reach a wider audience.

Collabs are also a great way to share a post at the same time, together, and not fight having the same content showing in feeds in a way that is repetitious.

How can you use a collab as a marketing tool?

When reaching out to big accounts, you can ask them to collab on content with you, which shares your account not just the post, and can have more reach than if they just tag you in it. Some influencers will charge people a premium for a collab and less for just talking about your business or brand without fully collaborating on the post. It just depends on the person and the agreement.

You can collaborate with people who you are already actually collaborating with (team members, friends, partnered brands), or you can reach out to people who might be down to collaborate on a post and help you reach more people and for them to reach more people through you (or be paid by you or just to help you out!).

Remember when reaching out, follow good networking practices, offer as much (or more) than you’re asking, keep in mind you’re talking to another person and they usually don’t owe you anything and don’t have to say yes. Have a good conversation and be excited about the topic you’re asking them to collab on, beyond just them helping you.

You can reach out to people directly and ask them to collab, you can find ways to create brand partnerships (maybe you serve a certain brand of coffee at your restaurant and you collab on a post about it, or a band is performing at an event you’re putting on and you collab on a post about that, or you’re launching a new product for women’s wellness and you partner with a doctor who endorses the work you’re doing - like everything, the possibilities are endless!).