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Kim: Instagram Tips

Lesson 21 from: Social Media Bootcamp

CC Chapman, Kim Garst, Ariel Hyatt, Amber Naslund

Kim: Instagram Tips

Lesson 21 from: Social Media Bootcamp

CC Chapman, Kim Garst, Ariel Hyatt, Amber Naslund

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Lesson Info

21. Kim: Instagram Tips

Next Lesson: Kim: Pinterest Tips

Lesson Info

Kim: Instagram Tips

what is Instagram and why should I use it to market my business? We talked a lot and I made the point that I think social media is going towards a more visual sharing platform across the board. We're seeing it on so many of the you know, traditional platforms even linked in is getting more and more visual as they build out and change their platforms. So you're seeing a lot more visual aspects, so I think we're gonna see it more and more. Obviously, Instagram is huge. Instagram started out very small. Grew very quickly. Um, Facebook actually purchased them fairly recently. And for an exorbitant amount of money, the initial offer was something like over a $1,000,000,000. Amazing that Ah, little start up company with a great idea Inter. Interesting that I say this because listen to this. Ah little company with a great idea ended up selling themselves for over, you know, right out a $1,000,000,000. So what is Instagram? A lot of people initially say that I've never heard of it or, you know...

, how do I use it? What is it? It is a mobile device. I mean, a mobile app. So you can actually only use it from your phone. Or, you know, whether you have an IPhone or an android smartphone of some sort, you can download it, put it on your phone. Uh, you know, there's a lot of people get a little bit, you know, I rate that you can only use it from your phone. Um, and hopefully, at some point in time, instagram will make it to where you can utilize it from, ah, Web based platform. But right now, it's purely a phone app. So you could take a picture or ah, video and share them on, um, lots of different social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, foursquare, Ah, flicker, tumbler, etcetera. Um, it's a great way to leverage the other platforms against the one piece of content. You know, we're talking about sharing content and how do you, ah, shave the time that you're, you know, spending on social media. This is actually a great way to get visual content in front of your audience and one fell swoop using this little face little phone app. Ah, there's hundreds of millions of active Instagram's users every month at her post in 45 million photos a day on instagram. 45 million photos a day. Really? Is that amazing? Think about those numbers for just a minute. I mean, um, you know, obviously what you let those numbers sink in a little bit. You're probably like, Well, obviously that's a lot of folks. A lot of people sharing visual content on instagram. Now, how can I use it to promote my business, My product or service? Um, and that's really the core of what I want to share with you today. Um, again, just wrapping your head around some of the statistics One new users, one new user on instagram every second. Um, pretty amazing growth rate, wouldn't you say? And every second instagram users perform 575 likes and 81 comments Hazy, right? I mean, it's unreal to think that that much engagement, that much interest is on instagram, but it iss it's It's an amazing little platform. Um, what top brands are doing on instagram pretty much anything and everything, including, but not limited to branding themselves, promoting events, again, educating their audience. It's all visual. So you have to be a little creative when you're trying to put your content together. They're launching products on Instagram. They're selling things. They're showcasing the behind the scenes of their brand. That's very, Ah, very big piece of what you can share and include. It's very big even here today. Some of the behind the scenes stuff would have been amazing. People would have aided up. Just, you know, was next time you guys make sure you share it. Share those photos on Instagram you get in your makeup. Done, for example. Yet great, just But let me I'm just gonna give you some concrete tips that I think the platform itself is very easy. Toe learn. So there's not a lot of intricacies to it, you know, it's not like some of the other platforms where, you know you're just overwhelmed. You don't know how to do it. It's pretty easy, But one of the things that I think is as great is to use your Twitter profile name for your instagram. It will also pull in your bio. You can see here it's pulled in my bio from Twitter, so, you know, just for consistency sake and keeping your brand message the same, Um, just pull in and utilize your your Twitter account. Um, it works and be your brand. I think this is just huge. I mean, Target. This is a picture of target showing Ah, a couple of race car drivers checking the DVD ill in one of their stores. I mean, this is kind of amazing photo. Obviously that somebody called. I don't know if it was them or I would assume it's somebody at the target store. Probably happened to see them and took their photo. But what a great way to showcase the brand itself. And people, actually, you know, in a store or buying a product, it's a great way to, you know, just literally be your brand on instagram. Um, a focus on building out community. So many people get started on instagram and again, it's like every social platform out there. You have to build out a community of connected people. Don't just, um, you know, your tendency is just to follow everybody who follows you kind of similar to what we've talked about in a couple of other platforms. But again, it's about connecting with your ideal client providing value to that ideal client with in the hopes that you can build out that relationship and create a cell for your business. So I think, you know, creating ah building out the advantages of ah, community within instagram is is huge. Just like some of the other platforms you can use the Explorer feature on. Ah, it's actually a part of the instagram app on your phone, and you can try to find and connect with people that have similar interests to you. Now again, when I say similar interest, this doesn't always have to be about your business. This could because you are your business. I mean, you could connect with people who you know around things that you're you care about. Like if you know you're a shoe fanatic like me, you might follow people who are selling the marketing shoes right? Or you might follow people who you know, other competitors or friends. You know, there it doesn't always have to be just specifically business related. It could be things that you are interested in on a personal level, a swell, um and again, this will talk about this in more detail on Pinterest. I think this is ah, a huge piece of building out your community because that is you are a part of your business. You can't help it and then choose engaging. Hashtags is another. We keep hearing the word hashtag. You know, we use them on Twitter. We used the money. We use them everywhere. Now that Facebook has some essentially linked in is the only holdout. Ah, and I think ultimately we'll see what happens with them if they implement them. But ah, it has been shown that the use of hashtags increases engagement on instagram. Take advantage of them. But don't use to many. You don't want to look, Spammy. The interesting part about Instagram versus some of the other platforms is that you can actually use way more, um, hashtags on instagram, and it's totally acceptable to do so. Then you could on Twitter or Facebook. I see a lot of people who literally have on I wouldn't recommend this many, but, you know, I see some people who are using, you know, 50 60 hashtags in a post. Um, I think that's over kill, But I would you know, I would say you don't have to stick with just two. That's my point. Find a happy medium and leverage the Hashtags because they definitely get Mawr engagement. And it's also a great way for people to find you and connect with you. You know, we talked about the Explorer option, but you know, if people are looking for specific Hashtags and you are sharing a specific hash tag with a photo, that's great. Then they're gonna follow and connect with you as well. So and go behind the scenes of your business. I mean, we talked about this just briefly earlier, but again, people love this. They love to know what's going on in your business, and this is a visual point that you could pretty easily create. I mean, it's not that big of a deal, you know, it's just taking the time and be a cognizant of it and thinking about it because you get so busy and you get wrapped up in what's going on in your business and you forget and you're like, Wow, man, I wish I had taken a picture of that. Even if it's having lunch with the team or you know anything, that is a visual point of reference for what's going on in your business. I think again people love it. They'll engage with it all day long. This is Ah. When we were setting up our office, you know, the chairs were coming in and, you know, we were showcasing of us building healthy office. It was fun, as you can see. Like I said, I have said this several times. So we have fun at boom social. Can you tell what the colors of our walls are? They're right there. They're read their purple, their grain, the colors of our logo. We have a lot of fun, and nobody so far has got a headache in there. We were really worried about that. But so far, we're good. Um, and promoting special events is also a great way again. If you're hosting a webinar or if you're holding this specific event or you're going to be at a specific event, you know, like for example, being here today, you could definitely And in fact, we've sort of done that. Hopefully all of you took a picture, have shared it. And, um, you know, put the at mentioned creative life and, you know, down some hash tags, maybe social social boot camp etcetera s so that you can give more exposure to the event, Uh, again, from from your business perspective, leverage it against what you're doing, what's going on in your business or what you're doing personally. And it will professionally to share the special events that's going on and then post regularly often. But, you know, we talked. We talked about this on every platform. How often do you posed? How often to you share things? Ah, post regularly, but not too often. It's kind of I guess I would probably like, innit? Mawr Teoh Facebook in the sense that again it's a static platform it's not doesn't move as quickly as Twitter. In fact, Twitter is probably the only platform that you compose or 30 times in a day, and nobody even blinks. And I, um, the other platforms probably not quite as much on. And this is probably one of those treated, probably similarly to what you would treat how you retreat Facebook, you know, at least a few times a day. But probably four, probably no more than six times a day. Um, would be my probably my recommendation. Um, you know, again, it's posting those quality images. Um, you know, making sure that you know, whatever you're sharing, um, you know, has some of the other concept content concepts that we've talked about, whether it's humor, whether it's an inspirational quote, whether it's a behind the scenes, you know, mix it up and share different things with your audience. Um, and then make your instagram followers spill. Feel special. Some of the brands do a really great job of this. This is a Canadian yoga, yoga inspired apparel company showing a couple of their customers in their yoga pants. You know, again, you can ask your audience to share photos and, you know, encourage that Maybe it's a contest. You know, different types of things that you can leverage to get your audience to engage. And, you know, if you are a product based in particular, it's always great to showcase other people using your product than you sharing. Oh, you gotta have this product and it's just a static product doing nothing right versus you, showcasing somebody else using, uh, and we're wearing here product. If you have a product that can be worn, so it's a great way to showcase on Connect, Plus, if you know it's also honestly, it's a great way to sell things. If people are seeing your product on somebody else and it looks great like, check this out when you want to go buy those yoga pants. That's kind of the concept of of all of this is, you know, showcasing your product or your service in a way that ultimately will create an opportunity for a sale and, um, interact. So many people forget this part on both Pinterest and Instagram. You know, lots of times, people won't even pay attention to who's following them. For example, they're more concerned about who they're following. But take a look at people who follow you. And, you know if there somebody you want to be connected to follow them back. Um, you know people are commenting or liking your photos. Let's pay attention to who those people are. Um, you can cut it, particularly the comments of people are commenting on your photos, which a lot of people do on Instagram. And if and if there's there's a response required, respond. Don't just, you know, take say OK. Well, great. Thanks for the comment. Um, you know, you definitely want to engage and and ah and interact with people on your INSTAGRAM account again. It's It's like also, it's a social media site. You know, don't ignore your audience because I think this is probably one of the biggest things I see. Um, business owners doing had. Sometimes it's like a time, and, uh, and sometimes it's just lack of knowledge. They don't know that they need to be doing this. They don't know they need to be engaging with people and responding back to them, or in some cases, they don't even know where to where to find it. Um, but it's, you know, again, if you this was a few weeks ago, when I put this up. But as you'll see, um, there's a couple of different things here. Food. There's a big connection point. My husband still says, I don't get this. How do you share food and get sales from it? But it absolutely works. Um, the, um the actual cupcakes. I was at an event in Las Vegas and I shared ah, cupcake thing. People loved it. Um, obviously, that's a picture of me at an event. Uh, I think that was social, social media marketing world, and this was another event. I don't even remember. This is me with Ted Rubin. So again, just things. Ah, in showcasing. I mean, you can still see that my business. You can still see that I'm in the social media business. More than likely. Um, you know, I highlighted an event that I went Teoh. You know, it's just a great way to showcase who and what you are and what your business does. If you pull in your Twitter profile, then in your brandy in your profile there is great. Then you will have, you know, a lot of your messaging already in place. So that's one thing we didn't talk about on Twitter. So let me touch on it right quick, cause it's applicable, right? Right here. And right now, because we're pulling in that Twitter profile. Um, on your Twitter profile on proper. If you're on Twitter proper and you're building out that profile on, you know, what is that you say? And what do you want people to see when they first land on your Twitter profile? It should be keyword driven to you know how we talked about that on linked in, um, you want people to be able to find you under the keywords that are in your Twitter profile, also in your instagram profile, because that's how people search and how they find you. So make sure that your Twitter profile does have some got great keywords in it, and it tells people immediately who you are. In other words, don't just say you're a mom and you're you've got five kids. Doesn't mean that's not important. I'm just saying, Make sure they know what your business is and what you dio and why they need to be tuned into you out the gate. You can always include a little of the personal to um, but you just want to make sure your messaging solid out out the gates of people know that they definitely want to be connected to you. The interesting part I think about Instagram in particular, is how many people are connecting on a variety of different things. I mean, it's not just, you know, obviously the food and the personal stuffs great inspirational quotes, but there are massive brands who are doing amazing jobs at actually selling their businesses and building out their brand on instagram, some of the ones that come to mind. You know, Nikes doing great. Starbucks is doing an amazing job on. In fact, these are great ones to take a look at, just so you could emulate some of their ideas and some of the things that they're doing sometimes sometimes some of the big brands that are doing things very well will give you a small slice of what you could do in your business. Um, so take a look and see that some of the things that they're doing, a lot of the contests are pretty big on Instagram. One of the things, though, that I've run across a lot is And I wanted to just I'm just gonna take out my phone and show share with you. Ah, couple of aps that I have that allow you to create your own visual content meetings. Let's say, for example, you want Teoh, you know, create an inspirational quote. Take a quote, make it pretty posted on instagram right here on your phone, on the go and too hot minutes. Would anybody be interested in knowing how to do that? Okay, let's do it. All right. Um, I have a couple of them and I'm just gonna share with you with the ones that are probably my favorite. I've looked at probably, ah, 100 different APs that do things like this and I come up with a few that I love. Um, insta word is one of them. And if you go to your APP store, you know itunes or you know, whatever. You can literally just type in insta word, and you should be able to download it. All of the EPS that I'm sharing with you have a free version as well as a paid version. The paid versions are ridiculously cheap. I mean, most APS, as you know, are very inexpensive. You know, for less than 10 bucks, you could have all the professional versions, and I'm getting rages share with you and have some amazing resource is literally at your fingertips to create your own content. You can even take a photo of, you know, we're talking about behind the scenes. You could take a photo and put a caption on it right from your phone and then share it on instagram using some of these maps. So insta word is an amazing little app. Insta quote is another one and interest. Interestingly enough, even though these have, they have the connotation to instagram. You know, it's like, OK, this is for Instagram. You can actually create these photos and share them anywhere. You know, you can share them on Facebook. You can share them on Instagram on. You know, Pinterest wherever you want to share them. Ah, it's not just an instagram app. In other words, so those pen quotes is quotes that are already generated. You can just they've got him. You can download them to your phone. You can share them directly from your phone. Um, photo lab is a great little app. It does some, you know, interesting things that can put you on the cover of Ah, you know, Entrepreneur magazine. You know, it does some fun stuff that you know, would make some unique photos that you could share. So that's another one that I think is really cool. Um, instinct. I think I said insta quote already. Did I not or did I? If I didn't insta quote. Okay, um and there's ah, a couple of collage ones that I think are really neat. And let me put pull those up photo, collage or insta Kal Aaj. Both of those are are great. One of the very first ones that I was ever privy to checking out was an app called Ah Fong Toa ph o N t o. And, um, it was It's probably one of the very first apse of this kind. It's still very functional. It's not got quite a Zeman e features to it of some of the others, but it's totally free. I would highly recommend that you check it out. Um, And then there's another app called over. That's another good little app. So I think those air probably the Big East, that I think would again give you some immediate, um, tools at your fingertips to create your own visual content. And if you're selling products and services, you know, share those to, you know, make sure that you're showcasing that, and from the video a standpoint, you could be taken photos of the process, you know, And sharing that process on Instagram and Pinterest to Instagram is an instant thing, literally. So it's not. Pinterest is a board kind of bored driven, um, category even categorize content there, so it's a little bit different, but on Instagram. You could be sharing a lot of great content, you know, and spreading it out. Engaging with your ideal client images by Sarah. She wants to know with Instagram Professional site, business site or personal like, but you'd use it for just a company. I think it depends on how you branded yourself. Um, I think you need Teoh. If you've branded your business, then you probably need to stick with that. If you've branded yourself personally, which I'm a big advocate of, um, then you know, I would stick with your personal name now how a lot of people will have said to me I have a tip on my that I share on my Twitter account quite frequently. And ah, it's basically that you should have your INSTAGRAM account set to public instead of private. And I've got a little bit of feedback on that of the negative variety. Well, why why would you do that? Because maybe I have some personal photos that I don't want people to see. Um, Newsflash. Anything that you put out there is really is it's out there. You can't really pull it back now, does it With that said, if you're in business. And I've said this a couple of times. If you're in business and you are on a social platform Ah, and you want to connect to people, having a private account is not very conducive to engaging in connecting with new people because they're not going to see you. They're not gonna find you right. So if you're in business in your intent is to attract And, um, you know, try to connect with your ideal client, then I think you should have a public profile if, ah, and it should be whether again goes back to whether you brand it personally or from a business standpoint, that's your your choice. But if you have things that you want to share their private that maybe you have a separate account that you only share with your family or with specific people. But I think if you're going to be in business and you're going to use it for business, it needs to be public. Maybe, maybe another question that is coming in from a couple of different people. Snappy gourmet and photo girl you go and C L bill, Is there a way on instagram for people to re share your photos on Instagram Kind of like a retweet, or is there anything equivalent to that where you can continue to share what people are sharing? Unfortunately, no. There's not a retweet or a share button. People can like it. They can come in on it. But it's It's not something that shows up in feeds or, you know, it's It's basically just a rolling stream of your followers, and you really can't pay attention. I mean, you don't know what other people have liked, and you know that. It's it's It's very different in some ways than some of the other platforms, and it's almost amazing in some ways. Then how do things go viral on Instagram when there's not that capability right where people are sharing it? But I think that most people that you know, they see it in their feeds or it shows up on the Explorer page because and incidentally, this is actually a great tie in. How do you get on that explore page as a popular post? You know, um, it comes from and there's an algorithm like every other platform out there, they have a measuring stick to see who gets on that popular, popular and or explore pages what Instagram calls it. But it's driven by engagement, you know, people liking you, people commenting on it. So how do you get more people to comment on your instagram photos? Ask him. Ask him. Ask him. We talked. We learned about that earlier. How much mawr that called action. You know, when you're actually asking people to do something specific, then they are more likely to do it. So ask them, Teoh, you know, engage and comment whether it's a like, whether it's ah, comment, whatever it is you want from them, um, you know, if you have something that's, you know, you think's gonna get a lot of traction, is gonna get a lot of visibility that could ultimately land you on that explore page, because trust me, you get on the Explorer page, you're gonna get a lot more likes, which is going to meet. That means you're gonna What does that mean? Let's just talk about that. What does that mean? When somebody likes you? It means that you're going to show up in their fade. That's basically and there's no screen on it. In other words. They're not there. That's deciding. Who gets to see your content. Your content is going to show up in their feet like, you know, Facebook, for example, is, you know, got some screens on it. They're saying, Okay, this person is not going to see this piece of your content, but that's not That's not the case on Instagram. Somebody is like you and is following you. Then that that's going to show specifically if they were following you, your content, things that you share there is going to show up in their feet. What do we get? An instagram? Rather than posting the pictures on Facebook or Twitter, why do it on Instagram? Well, I think that's actually a good question. And I think this is true for any different platform, whether it's instagram or Twitter, wherever you know, you're like, Well, what would what's different there than what's different on Facebook? Or where it's different on Instagram. That's what's different on Pinterest. Um, and I think the answer to that honestly is people you know and where people are engaging the most, Um, and where your ideal client specifically is engaging the most, you know, honestly, Pinterest while Pinterest and Instagram may not be where your ideal client is, so you have to determine that that's your first measuring stick. You have to determine if you're ideal Client is actually on Instagram. But there are a lot of young people in particular millennials and I don't know if you guys know this, but millennials are gonna be probably about 50% of the market share in just a few years. So I don't know why in the world any business owner would not want to be engaging with millennials. Um, so I think that's a big piece of it. 50% of the market could possibly be on Instagram most younger general. Most of the younger generation I'll just classified is the younger generation Millennials. Whatever you wanna call it are very visual, very quick. Very. They're looking for the the quick and easy information to process that information very quickly and very easily, So I think it's important again to meet them where they are. But, you know, your ideal client might not be there may be your ideal client is you know, uh, somebody a woman that's 55 to 65 chances of her being on Instagram might be a little less than somebody who's, you know, 2025 years old. So it depends. I think there's value. There's only value if your ideal clients there.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

CreativeLive 7 Steps Handout.pdf
Social Media Pyramid Paragraphs.jpg
Social Media Pyramid.jpg
All Star LinkedIn Profile In 7 Easy Steps.pdf
Facebook Content Tracking.pdf
Graphic Content Ideas.pdf
Image Cheat Sheet.pdf
Pinterest Book For Bizzy Babes.pdf
Post Analysis Worksheet.pdf
Social Media Goals Worksheet1.pdf
Twitter Dictionary.pdf
Twitter Speak.pdf
Amber PDF Keynote.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

Starts With Me
 

Well, looks like i'm 2 years late but this is a great and helpful course. ps. there are a few spelling mistakes on the slides that the presenters are showing. Seems funny!

Victor Osaka
 

How very timely for me. Kim Garst is totally awesome. The PDFs are soooo good. Yeah CreativeLive!!!!

Angela Hardy
 

So, I don't want to give this a thumbs up, but I don't want to give a thumbs down. It has a lot of good content for people that are just dipping their foot in the pool of social media for marketing and branding, BUT it is 4 years old, and I had to go online and find the relevant numbers and content to some of the things stated her. Also, I felt as though some of the content was redundant and even contradictory. I would say that the most value in this course are the parts on Thought Leadership and all of the pdfs to use. All of the presenters were great, but I think that this course needs to be refilmed.

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