[JUDGING] Dogs Trust Ireland
Section: Instagram NGO
Organisation Name: Dogs Trust Ireland
Instagram Questions
Name Of Brandclient
Dogs Trust Ireland
Personpeople Who Leads This Account
Kim Murphy & Melanie Kevelighan
Link To The Web Version Of Your Instagram Account
https://www.instagram.com/dogstrust_ire
Do You Use Alt Text In Your Images And Caption Your Videos
We use the auto-generated Alt text on Instagram and caption our videos if there is a voiceover.
Outline Your Instastrategy - Why Is Instagram For You
Our strategy focuses on 4 key objectives: raising brand awareness, helping dogs find homes, empowering owners with practical advice, and turning engaged followers into supporters. Instagram allows us to build trust and to turn the emotional connection people have with dogs into action, encouraging them to follow, share content, and donate. Our content focuses on three areas: dogs looking for homes and their success stories; useful advice; and behind-the-scenes content. We have moved away from polished content in favour of more organic, real-life content. Short-form video is central to our strategy. Reels allow us to showcase dogs’ personalities and tell their stories, while creating fun, relatable content and putting our Dogs Trust spin on trends. We’ve also created trends of our own, including our viral Santa Paws Day videos. Instagram Stories allow us to behave like a content creator, giving followers a “peek behind the curtain” at life at Dogs Trust. This builds trust and makes followers feel part of the dogs’ journeys. We also use Stories to drive website traffic, promote campaigns and adoptable dogs. In 2026, we introduced a paid Meta budget alongside our organic strategy. Each month, we identify top-performing content, boosting it to broader audiences. We also promote dogs who have been struggling to find homes to ensure they are being seen by more than just our followers
How Can You Measure Impact To The Bizorg
We use in-platform analytics to measure reach, impressions, engagement and follower growth each month. Since the beginning of the year, our following has grown by 7.4% (an average of +1,000 followers per month), while organic reach averages 330,000 and organic impressions 483,000 per month. These measures show that we are successfully growing our brand awareness.
Over the past 90 days, our paid and organic content has generated over 20 million views and almost 90,000 engagements. 80% of these views came from non-followers, demonstrating that Instagram is helping us reach new audiences beyond our existing community.
Google Analytics shows we drive an average of 4,000 people to our website each month directly from Instagram. This demonstrates that our content is moving people from engagement to action.
Most importantly, we can attribute over 200 adoption applications to Instagram activity so far this year. Of these, many were for our Underdogs – dogs who typically receive less interest and need additional promotion. Paid Instagram ads have contributed towards the rehoming of four Underdogs so far this year.
For us, the ultimate measure of Instagram’s impact is not simply reach or engagement, but whether it helps more dogs find homes and more people to support our work.
Link To An Example Of A Great Update Include The Stats Business Accounts Have Metrics For This Update Tell Us The Purpose Of This Update
https://www.instagram.com/p/DSRwjW1DBsS/
Our annual Santa Paws Day video has become a much-loved Dogs Trust tradition, and its purpose is to showcase the personalities of the dogs in our care while giving supporters a joyful behind-the-scenes look at life at Dogs Trust.
The video shows dogs choosing their own Christmas presents from a line-up of toys. It received over 90K views on Instagram alone (59% from non-followers), reached 65K people, generated 5.5K engagements and gained 58 new followers. It also received almost 200 comments, many from people calling it their favourite Christmas video.
Beyond the strong Instagram performance, the content helps potential adopters see dogs behaving naturally around people they know, while showcasing the care we give them during their time with us. It also gives us an opportunity to showcase dogs of different ages, sizes and personalities.
The video was shared widely beyond our own channels. It generated coverage in four national newspapers, eight online news sites and two radio stations, while 10 Instagram accounts shared it with their own audiences, generating thousands of additional views. It was even shared by Spanish and Argentinian news pages.
The tradition has also inspired other animal welfare organisations around the world to create their own versions, helping spread the joy of Santa Paws beyond Dogs Trust.
Link To A 2nd Example Of A Great Update Include The Stats Business Accounts Have Metrics For This Update Tell Us The Purpose Of This Update
https://www.instagram.com/p/Db3BjT5oQfN/
As part of our evolving Instagram strategy, we are trialling working more closely with influencers and content creators to introduce Dogs Trust to new audiences without additional paid media spend.
For this trial, we invited Irish content creator Ryan Carrick to Dogs Trust for a tour and to recreate one of his viral videos with a dog in our care. The purpose was to create entertaining, authentic content that would introduce our work to Ryan’s existing audience, while reaching demographics we find harder to engage through our traditional content.
The video was viewed over 105K times, reached more than 70K people and generated over 6.2K engagements. It also drove significant follower growth: we saw a spike of 109 new followers on the day Ryan shared it, with a further 59 followers gained after we collaborated on the post.
The audience was predominantly aged 25 - 44 (79%), closely aligning with our target Instagram audience. Most notably, 64% of viewers were male. This is particularly valuable as our existing Instagram audience is 77% female, meaning the collaboration successfully helped us reach a demographic we typically find harder to engage.
This update demonstrated the potential of creator partnerships to expand both our reach and the diversity of our Instagram audience.
Link To A 3rd Example Of A Great Update Include The Stats Business Accounts Have Metrics For This Update Tell Us The Purpose Of This Update
https://www.instagram.com/p/DaheUsDNKmH/
In July, we relaunched Ireland’s Dog Census for its third year. The purpose of this update was to drive awareness and participation in one of our biggest campaigns, while showing why understanding the challenges facing dogs and their owners matters.
As part of the campaign promotion, we shared the story of three puppies who had been abandoned. We posted a Reel with trending audio, text on screen and a caption explaining their story and linking it to the Census. We wanted to create an emotional connection first, then show how taking part in the Census can help us better understand and address dog welfare issues in Ireland.
It became our top-performing post on Instagram in 2026 so far. The Reel was viewed 76.7K times, reached 51.6K people and generated almost 5K engagements. It achieved an organic engagement rate of almost 10%, with 66% of views coming from non-followers, helping us reach new audiences. It also drove almost 300 profile visits, 65 Census link clicks and 100 new followers.
We extended the content through IG Stories, where it received almost 1,900 views and drove a further 22 people to click the Census link.
For us, this was a great example of using storytelling and platform trends to turn awareness into meaningful action.