From the jump, the goal of the Patriot Act Instagram was to strike a balance between promoting the show and connecting with fans through original content created with a distinct voice. The set and graphics of the show are beautiful, polished, and purposeful. To balance this, we keep the tone of our Instagram more "real" and organic in style to provide for some more absurd comic relief. Instagram also provides us an opportunity to connect with Hasan's Indian-American and Asian-American fans by expanding on his personal background and traditions.
Stay Informative
Patriot Act is firstly a news driven show, so it's important that we properly inform our audience about the topics Hasan discusses from week to week. The Patriot Act channel posts clips, graphics, and other images depicting research from each episode. These primarily serve to drive our audience to watch the full-length episode of the show, but they also provide snippets of information to help fans better understand topics.
Have A Voice
In order to stand out in the crowded space of political/entertainment television, we have prioritized maintaining a distinct voice that resonates with our fans. We're not just repurposing elements from the show like many other Instagram accounts for show, we're creating fresh and original content that compliments Patriot Act and builds an additional world for us to play in comedically. We also capitalize on the fact that Hasan and his fans are a younger demographic than other talk show hosts, and we interact with the fans in a way that is natural to the platform, not like a brand forcing itself into the space.
Break a facade
Be personal. As the voice of the show, Hasan serves a factual role. For each episode he communicates a thoughtful, well researched message. Our Instagram account counteracts this by showing a playful side of him. By using old, embarrassing pictures, outtakes, and expanding on jokes from the show, we aim to entertain our followers outside of being informative.
Play Along
One of our goals has always been to build an inviting and fun presence on Instagram. We never want to just be publishing photos and videos into the void without ever interacting with our fans. We have built an engaging presence by responding to comments, extending jokes with fans, using Instagram story tools to do polls and ask questions. Ultimately we feel it is very important for our fans to feel like they are part of something bigger than just following another account on Instagram.
Patriot Act launched on Instagram on August 9th with the name announcement of the show. At launch, our account had zero followers, yet when the show started on October 28th, 2018, we had hit 16 thousand followers. Since its launch, Patriot Act has had a rather substantial footprint on Instagram with 65 thousand followers in just a few months. Our most viewed video has over 80 thousand views, and our most liked picture has almost 15 thousand likes. We also have almost all positive comments, and we enjoy being a part of the discussion happening.
