Instagram’s Head of Content: Tips For Creators & Storyhunter Freelancers

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Video Strategist

3 min readNov 26, 2019

On the fourth episode of Season 3 of The Rough Cut, Storyhunter co-founder Alex Ragir went to Instagram’s New York offices in Manhattan for part 2 of this two-part series featuring Jeffrey Wisenbaugh, their head of content who runs the @instagram account on Instagram, the most popular social media account in the world with over 318 million followers. They discuss tips for creators on Instagram, how Storyhunter freelancers can optimize their profiles to get hired by Instagram, how to use the platform’s “three surfaces” in the most effective way.

On the go? Listen to the interview on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and anywhere else you listen to your shows!

Below are edited highlights of the conversation:

Use Instagram’s “Three Surfaces” For Your Content

“It’s about using all three surfaces of Instagram. We use that ‘movie’ approach where ‘Feed’ is an amazing place where that movie poster can go, ‘Stories’ is a place for that behind-the-scenes type of content and IGTV is for that feature presentation. It’s a place where you can talk to an audience for more than 60 seconds.”

Content Should Align With Your Brand

“Be confident and comfortable in your brand and what it stands for. Understand what your mission is and find individuals that align with your mission and your brand. That’s something that’s extremely important to Instagram.”

Aspiring Creators Need to Hone Their Craft

“It’s important for [people who want to create content for Instagram] to understand the basics of video and visual storytelling. That’s the most important thing: being able to create beautiful content, and having that documentary storytelling style is very important as well as having some brand company experience. We also want people who understand the platform that they’re creating for (Stories, IGTV and Feed).”

Previous episodes of The Rough Cut:

Season Three:

Jeffrey Wisenbaugh, Head of Content, Instagram (Part 1)

Kate Whitney, Director of Digital, Pernod Ricard

Charlie Chappell, Head of Integrated Media, The Hershey Company

Season Two:

David Weinstock, Chief Creative Officer, RF|Binder

Bonin Bough, Founder & CEO, Bonin Ventures

Mary Kate McGrath, Chief Content Officer, Gallery Media Group

Barri Rafferty, President & CEO, Ketchum

Stacy Minero, Global Head of Content Creation, Twitter

Ari Halper, Chief Creative Officer, FCB New York