‘Pinning Positivity’ On Instagram: Curating Comments and Building Brand Perception

Whilst doing some research into recent social media developments, I was interested to come across the newest feature rolled out by Instagram – pinning comments. This has been launched globally for Instagram users to help combat bullying on the platform. But besides this being a useful way to make social media a more positive place, I couldn’t help but wonder how this could be a good tactic for brands on Instagram from a marketing perspective.

How Does Pinning on Instagram Work?

The concept of pinning comments was announced along with a range of features designed to give users - both individuals and business accounts - more control over their Instagram interactions, including the ability to bulk delete comments, and options to limit who can tag or @mention you in their posts.

‘Pinning’ doesn’t sound like a particularly exciting concept; as we all know, you can do this on other platforms like Facebook and Twitter with posts of your choice. However, it appears that the concept Instagram is closely following is that of how pinning comments on YouTube works. And if YouTube (which has had pinned comments since 2016) is anything to go by, this feature has the potential to add a whole other level of engagement to Instagram posts, helping businesses to save and highlight funny, positive, or important comments at the top of the post.

How Can Comment Pinning Become A Marketing Tactic?

Instagram will allow you to pin up to three comments, so from a brand point of view, your choice of positive comments could be the visible opinions of your brand as provided by your consumers. This will help to build the tone of your account and try to bury any negative comments coming in, as well as letting users provide some testimonial-type marketing for you. It can also be helpful in a situation where a user is getting an abundance of mean or inappropriate comments. It is also true that the comments section is sorted by an algorithm, meaning some comments may get lost in the shuffle – and you don’t want to lose your ideal customer comments amongst other more average, negative or less useful comments.

Imagine being a fashion retailer advertising a new product via a post on your Instagram feed. You may have five hundred comments on your post for example, ranging from negative to glowing reviews. If you choose to pin a positive comment, your audience will see this rave review of one of your products at a glance, as opposed to a complaint or negative view. This should help to generate more interest in the depicted product, or even a better initial connection with your brand based on what customers say about or to you, and how you respond. The ideal types of comments to be pinned can be shown below:

How Do You Pin Comments On Instagram?

First, navigate to one of your Instagram posts, click into the comments and find the comment you would like to pin. When you have found your comment of choice, swipe left on it - you should see four options appear on the side. They are, from left to right: pin, reply, report, and trash. It’s the pin option you want.
You can pin up to three comments. After you pin each one, it’ll be at the top of the comments section, meaning they’ll hopefully influence the conversation or provide context to the image.
It is also worth noting that the person whose comment you pinned will receive a notification letting them know you pinned it.

Should Businesses Pin Comments on Instagram?

As with any marketing decision, whether this social media tactic is right for your business should be based on your goals and unique situation.

One argument that has been raised is that there is a risk that by pinning the most positive comments, you could be seen as trying to bury critical remarks of your business or hiding something. However, if used with caution and sensibility, this shouldn’t cause too much disruption as it is not the same as deleting a comment. You could also mitigate this risk by addressing any negative comments rather than ignoring or removing them.

Pinning comments is a fairly new feature that nobody quite knows the effects of yet. Perhaps people looking to complain or leave a negative comment will see the pinned comments on a companies’ post and re-think firing away, because they'll get less exposure for their remarks by not getting into those top three comment slots. We will have to give this new feature some time to evolve to really know, but the one thing we do believe is that this should be a great way to amplify common questions and answers, helping profile visitors get more context, as well as allowing you to better sculpt the voice of your business and the perceptions of your brand or products at a glance.

Ultimately for brands, ‘Positive Pinning’ is just one more step to curating your Instagram comments to your liking. If you’d like help with this or with anything else regarding your social media marketing, don’t hesitate to contact SilverDisc.