Redesigned templates for The Star's flagship Instagram account, ultimately growing the account by over 12,000 followers in under 2 years of creative and content direction
When I was first hired by my hometown paper, The Kansas City Star, in the summer of 2022, I took on the task of updating our Instagram branding. I learned when worthwhile, timely content is paired with beautiful visuals and easy-to-read designs, it pays off for our audiences — particularly the young audiences we find on Instagram.
I gradually created templates for The Star's audience team to utilize, lining up grids, standardizing the size of typefaces, creating a color palette and systemizing processes to easily replicate formats and establish a recognizable style. All templates were created in Canva, to comply with McClatchy guidelines and shareability purposes.
When I joined The Star in 2022, the flagship Instagram account had around 48,000 followers. As of August 2024, I've helped grow the account to more than 62,000 followers. Additionally, I've implemented an Instagram Story strategy to increase direct clicks to Star stories and our website, since we know Instagram is a hard driver for direct link clicks. By posting around 3-5 stories each day and consistently updating our highlights, we've garnered over 60,000 clicks from our Instagram stories throughout seven months, eliciting tens of thousands of pageviews from January through July 2024.
Through Instagram, a platform where the majority of our audience is between 18 and 35, I've helped effectively spread the reach of our content to an audience that's younger and more localized than our website's. From posting on immediate breaking news to taking on Taylor Swift coverage as the pop star's relationship to Travis Kelce continues, it's a place to meet audiences where they're at.
The templates I've created are utilized by multiple producers, and are easily replicable and malleable, but stagnant enough that they're recognizable in a user's feed. I wanted our page to feel dynamic and photo-focused, showcasing the work of our talented visual journalists and balancing the scale of information with the depth of content. Most of all, I wanted to emphasize the power of simplicity in information design.