How to Use Instagram to Promote Your Business in 2020!

A few years ago I created a video called
how to use Instagram to promote yourbusiness and this was a very well
received video so many people in mycommunity reached out to me and told me
how helpful that video was for helpingthem understand Instagram and how to use
it and specifically how to use it topromote their businesses but so much has
changed with Instagram in the last fewyears we’ve gone through several
algorithm changes and so many newfeatures being added to Instagram that I
think it’s about time to create anupdate to that video so that is what
we’re going to be talking about today soif you are looking for an updated
strategy for using Instagramspecifically to grow your brand or
business onlinestay tuned hello my Charmed Ones and
welcome back to my channel for anothervideo and if this is your first time
with me I would like to say welcome myname is Alexis but I’m also known as
miss trenchcoat all across the InternetI’m an online entrepreneur who designs
themselves productivity tools strategiesand skills to help you manifest success
with less stress so if that soundsinteresting to you I’ll leave some links
down below in the description box whereyou can check out more of my work online
and feel free to download some of mylatest free productivity tools over at
the charm shop comm so today’s video isgoing to be structured a little bit more
like a class where I’m going to beteaching from slides I have my computer
right here in front of me and that’sjust to make it easier for you to follow
along because there is a lot ofinformation in this class that I want to
get through in as quick amount of timeas I can
now like normal I’m not going to begiving out the slides to this class but
what I am going to do instead is giveyou an incredibly valuable free download
and Instagram content planner so thisInstagram content planner is going to
help you take what you learn today andintegrate that into a real 30 day
Instagram marketing plan for your brandand business so grab the link at the top
of the description box it’s going to besoo
valuable for anyone who’s interested inthis topic of growing your Instagram for
business and honestly it’s somethingthat I would normally give to the
students in one of my online businesscourses but I decided to give it away as
an accompaniment to this video because Ireally wanted to make sure that each and
every one of you who is interested ingrowing your Instagram for business and
learning how to use Instagram morestrategically was able to see results
very quickly from using these strategiesoh and can you guys see my new shirt
that I’m wearing today it saysentrepreneurship is the new black yes
like the name of that class I put on afew years ago this is actually from a
new line of merch that I created withteespring
if you’re watching this video throughYouTube you should see if something
below the video that is kind ofpromoting these new merch designs I have
a couple of different designs these aremostly going to be like tops and shirts
but there are a few other accessories aswell to make it a little easier for you
all so make sure to link be new designsin the description box just in case
you’re not seeing that promo below thevideo so definitely check them out if
you want some inspirational officeattire or new office accessories oh and
one more thing before we get startedplease take a moment right now to go
ahead and give this video a thumbs upgive it a like if you like this topic
and you’re interested in this topic andmake sure you’re subscribed to my
channel for more awesome productivityplanning and online business content
because I have lots of great new contentcoming your way and since we’re talking
about Instagram today why don’t you goahead and show your instructor a little
love by following her on instagram atmiss trenchcoat and that way you can let
me know how things are going for you asyou start executing on these strategies
okay so without further ado let’s goahead and jump into today’s content okay
so what you’re going to learn in today’sclass I have structured this information
into three parts part number one is themechanics of Instagram where you’re
going to be learning how to get youraccount set up and optimized for
business use in the next section we’regoing to be talking about posting to
Instagram so we’re going to be talkingabout all of the different hosting
options like I said therea lot of new options at it and we’re
going to talk about what they’re eachused for so that you’re not confusing
the purpose of each and making the bestuse of each of the options and then the
third and final section is going to beten tips for using Instagram for your
business so this is going to be thestrategy to follow for growing your
following and selling on Instagram aswell so part number one the mechanics of
Instagram so what is Instagram for anyof you who are completely fresh and new
to Instagram it is a photo and videosharing social media platform so it’s
just like all of the other social mediaplatforms out there where you sign up
for an account and you’re able toconnect with other people specifically
in a business setting you’re going to behopefully connecting with people who are
going to be your audience your followersand your customers now Instagram is kind
of like the Swiss Army knife ofplatforms right now there’s a lot of
things that Instagram is trying to doand it’s doing it very well actually
so for instance Instagram has killedsnapchat it’s replaced periscope and it
wants to be YouTube and it’s evenbeginning to mimic Pinterest in some
ways in preparation for today’s video Ieven noticed a new video call feature so
I have a feeling that Instagram is goingto be coming for like FaceTime and Skype
as well so kind of watch out for thatbut Instagram gives you the ability to
post photos and videos to your feedlivestream to your following post
24-hour temporary posts to yourInstagram story and to post longer form
video content to your Instagram TVchannel so like I said really the Swiss
Army knife of platforms integrating thebest of photography and video into one
platform now if you did not knowInstagram was purchased a few years ago
by Facebook and ever since Facebook hasgotten their hands into Instagram there
have been a lot of new changes andupgrades so due to the integration now
with Facebook Instagram can also helpyou to shop through Instagram you can
run ads do group chats through DMand save inspiration to boards this book
has really changed a lot about Instagramand for business owners who have been
using the platform for a while it canfeel like some of these changes are
actually making it more difficult for usto remain relevant but realistically we
have to remember that everything thatfacebook is doing is ultimately to
increase user engagement andprofitability of the platform which
means they want to make sure thatthey’re doing a good job of keeping
users happy with the content thatthey’re getting on the platform so all
this work that we do for our businessesbuilding followings and creating content
isn’t just lost overnight becauseInstagram goes under or Falls to a
competitor so remember that now let’stalk about how to get set up on
Instagram so obviously if you want tocreate an Instagram account you can go
ahead and do that it’s absolutely freeyou sign up via email or Facebook I
don’t know if they’re gonna change thoseoptions in the future but those are the
options I see now and of course thefirst thing that you’re gonna want to do
is to choose your username your handlethat you’re going to be using on the
platform now this is very importantbecause if you’re a business owner your
username should be in line with yourbusiness make sense right your picture
should also be your business logo or ifyou are like me and you’re kind of the
face of your brand it should be aheadshot of you that is used in other
social media as well and this is just todevelop consistency for your audience
when they see that consistent businessname when they see that consistent
business icon photo either your logo oryour headshot they know that the person
they’re following is truly you is trulya representative of your brand and
business now a very popular question Iget for those who actually do run a
business and would like to sharepersonal things on Instagram as well is
should you have more than one Instagramaccount if you want to use one for
business and one for personal and myanswer for that is yes if you are
planning to use Instagram to grow yourbrand of business but you also want to
share a lot of your personal life a lotof things that really aren’t relevant to
your businessgo ahead and just create a second
account it makes it so much easier foryou and really helps to keep your
privacy if you’re someone is reallygoing to be posting a lot of personal
things now you might be wondering aboutme I only have one account well
technically I have two I have one undermy Mis trenchcoat which is the one I
actually use and I have another one thatis the name of my website strange and
charmed but I don’t use that strange andcharmed one I just kind of have it there
as a placeholder so that no one takesthat name but realistically I’m not
someone who shares a lot of the detailsof my day-to-day life or like personal
things everything from my life that Ishare is business-related for me for the
most part so I haven’t felt the need tocreate a second account but that could I
guess change in the future but for nowyou know my name is trenchcoat account
is the one that I’ve used for years andthat’s where I’ve got my following of
like 25,000 subscribers or followers sothat is the main account that I use now
the next step once you create youraccount is to go ahead and create your
bio Instagram gives you an ability toput a bio in there in your profile to
let people know who you are which areabout things like that now it’s really
important to keep in mind that this bioarea if you are a business is not about
youand telling your life story but instead
it’s kind of like a social version ofyour elevator pitch this is the area
where you get to tell people why theywant to follow you and to set the stage
for what they can expect from you interms of content if they do follow you
so I highly recommend that you kind ofleave out personal details if they’re
not things that play to your brand ifthere are things that definitely play to
your brand let’s say that you are ablogger who focuses on motherhood then
absolutely you’re gonna want to mentionthat you’re a mother and that you have
maybe a certain amount of children orwhat their genders are or maybe you can
share their names if you feelcomfortable with that because it’s
relevant but you probably wouldn’t wantto do that if you have you know a
business that is not motherhood relatedright so you just want to make sure that
you keep the details that you share onhere light and fun and really geared
towards your business and who youraudience is as opposed to talking
specifically about you so as you can seehave shown you here my little bio and
I’m gonna go ahead and read it to you soyou guys can get an idea of what this is
aboutso it says productivity and online
business tools of strategies and skillsI’ll teach you how to manifest success
with less stress get my latest freeonline business toolkit with the link
below so that is an example of what I’mtalking about about letting people know
what you’re about what you do and whythey’d want to follow you so you can you
know assume that someone following meknow is that they’re going to learn
about productivity and online businessand I’ll talk about tools strategies and
skills that they’ll need for thosetopics and of course I’ve got my little
branded by line that says manifestsuccess with less stress because that
gives more information to people aboutwhat I’m about from about manifestation
about doing things easily andstress-free so that all rolls into my
brand but you see that there’s reallynothing about my personal life
anything about things that I personallylike or am interested in it’s all about
my business and all about what I can dofor my audience so keep that in mind
when you’re creating your bio now thenext thing you’re going to do with your
bio is to choose your bio link so thereis one link and I say that one link that
you get for Instagram in quotationsbecause there’s some ways around this
your bio link is the one link that youget to direct people elsewhere outside
of Instagram so you really want to getstrategic about how you’re going to use
it a lot of people use that link treething where they can create a link tree
account that gives them the ability toactually give their users a few
different options for how they canfollow them or where to go after
Instagram some people like me give afree opt-in something that is like a
gift or something that really introducestheir audience to their brand their
business their product etc other peoplemight direct their audience to another
platform to their shop or to their blogif that’s where they want to send people
really this is where you need to askyourself if I could let new followers
see one thing if I can send them oneplace outside of Instagram where would I
send them so really you want to thankabout what your priority is for
Instagram and for your businessso a little activity that you can do to
help you kind of narrow down what youmight want to use as the link is to
finish this sentence I’m using Instagramto blank so fill in the blank is it to
grow my community is it to make sales isit to show off my work maybe it’s to
grow my listthe person who clicks that link is what
we would consider a warm lead ok so theyknow a little bit about you and they
like you enough to go ahead and clickand they want to see more of what you’re
doing so where should they be going nextif they are warming up to you and you
want to make them a hot lead a hotfollower who might become someone who is
a customer in the future and the finalthing that you want to do in setting up
your account is to add integrations soyou can link your Instagram account to
your Facebook business page and get abusiness account or what I’m using right
now is currently a creator account nowthese are free integrations that
basically give you access to upgradedfeatures the biggest feature that you
get that I would say is the mostvaluable from doing this is the ability
to use the soy up feature to add a linkinto your Instagram stories if you have
a following on Instagram that’s likeover 10,000 although there are other
ways to get around that actually as wellso it’s not 100% necessary but when you
do have that integration with Facebookto your Instagram you are given access
to be able to have increased analyticsrun ads and really to do some of those
like shoppable Instagram options thatyou may have seen on Instagram if you’ve
been poking around so that’s the finalthing that you’ll want to do is add any
integrations that fit for you and areapplicable to the type of business
you’re running so next let’s go aheadand talk about posting to Instagram so
like I said there are a couple ofdifferent options you have for posting
to Instagram the first the classic isthe Instagram feed and as you can see in
this picture I have just kind of zoomedin to show you the area of your profile
that is your Instagram feed now hereyou’re going to want to focus on using
the 1 to 1 square wherefor your images yes you can use images
that have slightly different ratios butone-to-one square ratio is what is
optimized for the platform now things toknow about the feed is that this is a
more permanent place to post contentthis is where you’re going to want to
tell the story of your brand businessand focus heavily on your messaging and
your aesthetic this is really going tobe like the meat of your profile on your
Instagram feed images and descriptionsthat you use here and even videos as
well should be very polished highquality well-written because quality is
really what matters here because it’s amore long form and more permanent option
for sharing content with your audiencethe next option you get is your
Instagram story and as you can see hereand zoomed in on my headshot my logo for
my account and you can see it’s got thered ring around it which means that
there is a Instagram story if peopleclick on that so that’s where you can go
and see people’s Instagram stories andhere this is optimized for the 9 to 16
ratio which is you know basically justthe screen size of most smartphone
devices now your Instagram story is atemporary posting option it only lasts
24 hours when you post something into anInstagram story so here is a really
great place where you can share previewsof content products you can share
content from other platforms if you havethat swipe up feature you can literally
say hey I posted a new video or hey Ihave a new you know item in my shop
swipe up to go check it out right so ifyou have that swipe up feature that’s
very helpful but it doesn’t have to beas polished because this is a more
temporary place to post things can be alittle bit more off-the-cuff you could
be using you know more graphic sort ofpictures and photography here because it
is less permanent but of course qualitydoes always count so if you can be
creating the best quality graphics hereand photography here and video as well
it’s also it’s always going to helpbolster your brand now I personally
actually have templates that I usebefore
different content that I share on mystory this makes it easier for me to
share and gets a audience familiar withthe templates so that they kind of
understand and pay attention when theysee something that they usually like so
here’s a few examples of some templatesthat I have ready to go I’ve got a
template that I have that she’s where Ilike to share my videos by putting like
my video image in the computer screen Ialso have some just like desk shots
where I can you know create lists orgive people information I will often
create templates that promote thingslike in this example the online business
toolkit free class and a PDF guide it’sa promotion thing that would have a
swipe up in there and then the finalimage is a screen of my iPhone where
again I could replace that screen andput something in there maybe a call to
action content another image somethingthat gets people a little bit more
engaged so I found that having sort oftemplate images or graphics goes a long
way for helping me to really be able tokeep my story filled and promote other
aspects of my brand of business onlinethrough Instagram now the next option
you have with your Instagram story isInstagram story highlights and I have
kind of zeroed in here on my iPhonescreen where you can see that I’ve got
little circles of topics that say hivibe office inspo I think the next one
is maybe freebies and you can see that alittle graphic and and if you click on
one of those what it does is it bringsyou to a selected feed of different
instagrams stories I’ve posted in ahighlight now I think when it comes to
your Instagram highlights it’s reallyimportant to think strategically about
which highlight categories you want youraudience to see and which Instagram
story posts that you save to thesecategories because it’s easy for these
highlights to get very long and reallyjust like muddled up with content so
just save a handful of posts into eachcategory so that people don’t get
annoyed having to watch or click throughlots of different content in addition I
recommend choosing your highlight coverimage wisely as well I know a lot of
people are doing these graphic iconcovers for their highlights but honestly
because Instagram is an image basedplatform I think it’s important to use a
very pretty like eye catching image forthese and I think that that probably
does better than a generic icon alsokeep in mind that when it comes to your
highlight cover images you aren’tlimited to using images that are in that
highlight you can actually upload othercovers so I recommend doing that use the
nicest pic that you have thatillustrates the category for your cover
so that people want to click on it wantto learn more and then get to see a very
streamlined collection of highlightsthat you’ve chosen to really
indoctrinate them into that categorythat probably speaks to some area of
your business like I said productscontent things like that for my
categories I like to keep collectionsbefore products and different areas that
speak to my business like officesupplies or free downloads that I have
or you know productivity and planningtopics so think about the topics that
you would want to show people on yourhighlights and again just streamline
what those images are going to be thatyou’re going to have there and hopefully
you’ll be able to better direct youraudience through your content and help
them to quickly and easily identifyother content or products or even
services that you offer that may helpthem develop a stronger bond with your
business specifically now the nextposting option is Instagram live and
again this is another 9 by 16 ratio justthe size of a smartphone screen now in
order to access your lives you will alsosee them in that same circle that your
story is in so actually if someone has alive and a story you click their their
icon and you’ll actually get an optionfor which one you want to view now the
Instagram lives are an option that youwill actually find when you go to take
an image for your Instagram story orpost to your Instagram story it’s just
one of the scroll wheel options at thebottom that says live now again the
lives are a temporary option for postingto your account and it’s really a great
way to talk directly to your audiencethis is good for creating a live event
feeling for a promotion or interactingone-on-one with your customers getting
feedback sharing more of thebehind-the-scenes of your life doing you
know ask me anything sort ofquestion-and-answer sessions there’s a
lot of different ways that you can usethe live feature but remember it’s
temporary it only lasts 24 hours it’sreally more for spur the moment type of
you know interactions and authenticinteractions with your audience or
customers now for higher turnout ratesthough I would definitely suggest that
you schedule and announce any lives thatyou’re doing so that you’re following
gets a chance to like know that you’regonna go live instead of just randomly
going live whenever yes you have theability to do that and Instagram will
share with your followers that you havegone Lize but I think it’s always better
to be able to schedule something likethis and let people know or create like
an ongoing schedule like hey guys Ialways go live for a Q&A session about
my products on Tuesdays at 1:00 p. m. Eastern something like that right if you
keep it consistent or at least announcewhen you’re going to do it it gives you
better chance that people are going toshow up live and when they show up live
they have the ability to interact withyou and again that’s just more authentic
interaction and bonding between you andyour brand and your audience and the
final Instagram posting option is IG TVand again this is optimized for the 9 by
16 ratio or 16 by 9 ratio which is thestandard sort of high-def video
dimension so as you can see in my imageyour Instagram TV feed is also down
where your highlights are and itactually is marked IG TV now these
videos are really supposed to be morepermanent high quality video content
that you’re going to put here unlikeyour Instagram story these do not expire
you choose when you delete them and sothis is really an opportunity for you to
create content that is a little bit morehigh qualities and another benefit of
using the Instagram TV feature is thatyou have the ability no matter who you
are to add a link into the descriptionso this is a great option
for sharing videos that might be contentpreviews you know creating additional
content for your Instagram promotingprop promoting products and even your
opt-ins you can do a lot of differentthings here create sort of almost like
content commercials I would say for yourbrand and your products services etc now
I do want to stress here that it is veryimportant though that this content has
some sort of value you don’t want tojust make everything a commercial but it
does give you the opportunity toshowcase your brand and your business
products etc at a higher quality leveland it’s more permanent right you’re
gonna want to invest time and energyinto creating the best video as possible
because it’s going to be able to sitthere and I believe you’re actually able
to post videos that are up to an hourlong using the IG TV function now I
think you only get maybe like 15 minutesif you are posting directly from your
phone but Instagram now has like aweb-based video uploader so you could
like upload a full hour long video toInstagram from your computer so
definitely put time and effort intothinking about what sort of videos you
might want to share herewhat sort of links or things you might
want to add into your description sothat you’re sending your audience to
places specifically that work for yourbrand and your goals now we get into the
third and final section of this classand the 10 tips for using Instagram for
your business this is going to be heavyInstagram strategy here so tip number
one is to take photos and videos withthe best camera that you have access to
so use a DSLR camera if you can so thatis what I use to take my pictures for
Instagram most of the time and videos aswell even those template images that you
saw for Instagram were created with aDSLR camera because quality does matter
it goes a long way for speaking to yourbrand and your brand’s quality as well
I’d also like to recommend here that youedit your photos before you post them
right so even if you’re taking photos onyour smartphone device
there are lots of different editing appsthat you could be using on your smart
phone on your computer etc to make thephoto look a little bit better a little
bit more high quality even if it wasn’ttaken with a DSLR some examples of apps
that I use and love on a regular basisare after light facetune pic frame over
Union and Rona design so definitelycheck those out
they are iPhone apps I’m not sure ifthey are available on Android or Google
or anything like that but those are theones that I use and rely on tip number
two is to use great lighting now if youare new to photography and do not know
natural lighting is the best possiblelighting that you can use it gives your
pictures the best possible quality nowif you are in a situation where you do
not have a lot of great natural light itis fine to use studio lighting if you
have sort of studio lamps or things thatyou can set up to take your pictures
anyway that you can add light to a photois great now another option you have is
to use bright daylight bulbs in lamps orfor example here in my office the
lighting that you’re seeing is partlycoming in through a double window that I
have in my office but also I have brightwhite daylight bulbs in my ceiling
fixtures and that helps to create a moreeven toned look for my pictures and my
videos so consider something like thatyou can always put these sorts of light
bulbs into a lamp and kind of createyour own at-home studio lighting if you
don’t have that option and finally usethings like reflectors to enhance light
you can use things like white boards orany other sort of balance boards there’s
plenty of different photography optionsand I’ll maybe link some down below for
you guys to check out just some reallygreat tools that you can add to your
photography you know bundle forInstagram but these are going to also go
a long way to help you create you know amore light filled image so those images
are higher-quality and go a longer wayto speaking to and you know catching the
eye of your audience tip number three isto stick to your brand color scheme in
your Instagram photos so what I meanhere
to use the colors and patterns and evensorts of filters that are all the same
that speak to your specific brandingthis will help to visually distinguish
your brand from others even those inyour niche so if you can see here in
this picture I’m showing you just like alittle snippet of some pictures that are
on my Instagram feed and what you’regoing to see here is a lot of black and
white a lot of high contrast and liketurquoise right because that turquoise
color is my signature color so blackwhite turquoise those are my branding
colors and you will see that I use a lotof high contrast on my pictures that’s
kind of what I mean by filters you justwant to make sure that your images kind
of all look the same that people knowthat all of these photos belong to your
brand and you can do that by stickingwithin your brand color scheme and
sticking to sort of treatment of imagesthat are in post-production in your
editing process that are all the sametip number four is to use consistent
backgrounds for any photos that might besort of like styled desk shots or things
like that you can use a whiteboard or aphotography backdrop for something like
this it’s very common for people to usethose like foam board is a really good
way to kind of get that whiteboardeffect you can also use different sorts
of cardboards wrapping papers you knowsheets blankets marble as you can see in
my image here and even sorts of tilesorts of patterns and things like that
as a background so the thing here isthat you just want to kind of choose
what your backgrounds are gonna be andbe consistent with it and make sure that
the backgrounds that you use speak toyour brand obviously if you’re someone
whose brand is a little bit more likecountry or rustic you might want to use
like wood or like the wood paneling as abackground for your images because it
might speak more to that sort offarmhouse country rustic feel so just do
what feels right for your brand justmake sure you keep things consistent a
lot of my backgrounds end up being likeblack or white or like marble like this
so this is just an example of just likea generic image background that I would
have tip number five is to define yoursubject matter so ask yourself what
subjects speak to your brand andbusiness
four things that you could be takingpictures of and sharing on your
Instagram feed as you can see here onthis collection and images that I put
together from my feed there’s a lot ofoffice and desk and coffee sort of
inspiration here some of my productstech gadgets just things that sort of
evoke the idea of working for yourselfworking from home being an entrepreneur
etc and of course I threw a picture ofmyself in there a selfie because even
though I do focus on my content topics alot I do like to make sure that people
remember what I look like and shareselfies of myself as well but my brand
because it’s you know because I’m not amodel and I’m not someone who’s very
like focused on me I do tend to sharemore often than not photos that are the
situations that anyone could literallysee themselves walking into like a desk
a computer etc really help people toconnect with the image and feel like
this is their life this is the lightthey could have if they work with Alexis
and her brand and her products etcanother point I want to make on the
consistent subject matter is also theuse of sort of consistent props so if
you can see in some of these imagesthere’s a lot of things in these
pictures that are the same right so myglasses planner even some like desk
accessories that you might see when youkeep all of these sorts of things
consistent people are going to begin torecognize your pictures in the feed
without even having to see your name nowI personally like to keep all of these
items very realistic I don’t ever justthrow things into my pictures just for
people to see I really make sure thatall of the things that I’m taking
pictures of are really things from mywork to give a very authentic feel to my
photography tip number six is to stickto the big five content kings when it
comes to the content and thedescriptions you’re writing for your
feed I know a lot of people havequestions about what they should be
writing as the descriptions of theirpictures and even to some extent the
subject matter as well for the photosthat they should be sharing on their
feed and they all come down to thesefive content categories number one is
to educate so teach your audiencesomething that has to do with your brand
in business through your picture andthrough your description
number two is entertained so show themsomething funny or relatable something
that’s going to help build like aconnection of trust between you and your
audiencethe next is inspire so give them a
message that is going to uplift them andreally inspire them into action or to
really just help lift up their vibe buttheir their energy their mood because if
you are someone who can affect theirmood you’re absolutely someone that
they’re connecting with number four isinform so show them something like the
behind the scenes of what goes into yourbrand and business so often we have
these perfectly curated feeds and peopleare dying to know what’s behind those so
feel free to inform your audience ofwhat goes into the work that you do and
what goes into your brand your businessand again that just develops more trust
with your audience and you and finallybe sure to interact so engage with your
audience ask them questions do communitybuilding or even sell to them through
your pictures and descriptions rememberyour Instagram account is not just about
you talking to them but really trying tobuild a conversation with your community
so posts that help your audience tointeract with you or to interact with
your business are very important tipnumber seven is to use relevant hashtags
so if you didn’t know hashtags are likethe search engine of Instagram so what
you’re going to do here is make sure youhave a collection of relevant hashtags
at the bottom of the description foryour post now the way you can do this is
actually go ahead to your discover tabof your Instagram and search for tags
and what might be relevant keywords thatyou might use to describe a picture it’s
important here that you’re choosingrelevant tags that really do speak to
what people are seeing or getting fromthe content that you’re sharing keep in
mind there are like millions ofdifferent hashtags out there so it’s
really important that you stick to onesthat are as irrelevant as possible and
avoid a lot of the big spammy tagsI personally find that using just a
handful of very relevant targeted tagsis a better way to get new followers and
new likes than it is to really load yourdescription box up with like every
popular tag there is and the reason forthis is that a lot of the more popular
tags end up getting marked as spam byInstagram and their algorithm and if you
happen to have a spam tag on your photoit’s actually gonna end up blocking that
photo from showing up in any search forany hashtags so keep that in mind it’s
better to check out the hashtag makesure it’s legit make sure it’s not spam
and use them strategically because ifyou don’t you could run the risk of
actually getting your photos seen by noone because you’re accidentally using
something spammy and here in the photo Ijust want to point out you can see that
I’ve shown you guys you know someexamples of some hashtags that I might
use on my photos and again they willchange from image to image but as you
can see if you read through this a lotof it is planner productivity personal
development and like self managementrelated all having to do with my brand
all having to do with the topic that wasshared in that description now tip
number eight is to network and interactremember Instagram is a social platform
so don’t just post photos and wait forlikes you need to go out and find
followers and interact with them as welland don’t just follow people to have
them follow follow you back and thendrop them as soon as they follow you
back be genuine about who you’refollowing who you’re networking with who
you’re interacting with as you can seein this picture that I’ve shared with
you you know I make sure that whenpeople leave me thoughtful comments to
leave them a response and that’s reallyhow you’re going to grow trust and
authenticity for your brand and businesswith your followers and convert
followers into potential customers tipnumber nine is to have a plan you need a
plan for your social media feed so thatyou remain consistent growing and
interacting with the community you’rebuilding and this is exactly why I’ve
given you that free Instagram contentplanner so that you can sit down and
think about August andthat’s been shared in today’s class and
really put these strategies into actionby mapping out the content that you’re
going to post on a monthly basis nowwhen it comes to mapping out and
planning your content there are someadditional things you can do to help
develop routine and consistency withyour audience for example there are some
shops that will share their new releaseson specific days of the week so that
helps to develop consistency with theiraudience because their audience always
knows that for example maybe onWednesday the new releases are out so
they begin to anticipate and get excitedfor Wednesday and know on Wednesday I
can see what’s new in my favorite shopalso think about running promotions in
line with your Instagram even if you’rerunning promotions outside of Instagram
on your shop through email on anotherplatform think about integrating
Instagram into these promotion plans ifyou have a coupon code share it on
Instagram as well perhaps in yourInstagram story as opposed to your feed
because it might be a temporarypromotion but just make sure you’re
putting thought into using Instagram inline with the rest of your business
efforts so that you have that followingthat you have built on Instagram being
included in whatever offers andpromotions and things that you might be
doing elsewhere and finally tip number10 is to follow the 8020 rule for
selling this means that 80% of yourposts should be sharing relevant content
and 20% of your posts can be promotingyour products so if you think about this
out of 5 posts 4 can be content and thenone has a sales call to action for
example now the reason we follow the80/20 rule is because you do not want to
be constantly bombarding your audiencewith calls to action or sales or
promotions or showing them o buy thisbuy that do this do that you want to
give them incentive for sticking aroundand being part of your community and
those things need to be reallyhigh-quality valuable content that again
speak to the subject matter that you areposting in your account and those big
five content kings that we talked aboutearlier now I have a few other tips that
I don’t want you to forget about when itcomes to Instagram number one that it’s
never been aboutnumbers on Instagram it’s always been
about community as with most platformsyour Instagram Fowler account is really
only a vanity thing as a business ownerif you don’t make more money because you
have a larger following and thanks toalgorithm changes your whole following
is likely not seeing your posts anywayonly the people who are constantly
engaging with you are the ones who arereally going to see everything you post
so now it’s more important than ever totreat Instagram as a place where you
share more intimately and authenticallywith your core community to give them
incentive to be checking up on youregularly so that they’re the ones who
see your posts number two is that thepoint of Instagram is still to socialize
at its core Instagram is a social mediaplatform and even though you and I might
use it for business the point is toactually socialize with our followers
this means actively engaging with themin our content and actively responding
to their questions and comments weshould also be actively engaging with
the content of those that we follow aswell the platform isn’t just about you
and you definitely have people that youare connected to that you’re following
and you should absolutely pay them thefavor of making sure you engage and
interact with their content as wellnumber three is a big one you guys and
that is the pain for followers and likesis still against the Terms of Service
and if you’re thinking wait you can payfor followers and likes on Instagram you
can but like I said it’s against therules so it’s clear that for some
misguided people Instagram followers andthe lake numbers are a reflection of the
value of their brand so they purchasefollowers and likes in order to make
themselves look better but this behavioris against the Terms of Service for
Instagram and can get you banned it’salso fraudulent for brands or
influencers to do this in hopes ofgaining more opportunities or even free
PR packages because you are defraudingthe other company now you might think
there’s no way that someone can tellthat you’re doing this
but alas there is smart businesses knowthat a quick scroll through your user
follower feed can quickly show aprevalence of unusual accounts and
spammy accounts usually they’ll have alot
foreign sorts of accounts that don’tmake sense for the brand and just
accounts that just look like they’respamming right like free followers
follow for follow things like that butjust look wrong
also sites like social blade actuallytrack and publicly make available stats
for Instagram users and publish thatdata on their site so so I can easily go
back through your data and see if you’vehad large spikes of followers in a short
period of time and then a significantloss of followers as well this is always
a dead giveaway that an account haspurchased followers because Instagram is
constantly purging spam accounts so youbuy some and you lose some when they
aren’t true followers and if you are abusiness owner who wants to work with
other influencers online I want you toremember this because you should check
socialblade historical data for anyoneyou’re sending free samples to we’re
partnering with for a promotion becausemore people than you think actually do
this and like I said they can pay forlikes too it’s not uncommon for a
fraudulent brand to pay for light to asponsored post to make it look like they
held up their end of the deal but trustme you won’t be seeing a return on your
investment from working with them sothis is very important for those of you
who want to start business accounts orwant to use Instagram to work with other
influencers as well keep this in mindnumber four is that Instagram is still
disposable content driven because it’s asocial media platform the lifespan of a
post at is max is maybe one day meaningthat you can expect activity to sharply
decrease on a post after that amount oftime the Instagram algorithm favors more
frequent posting so I see many brandedaccounts posting like two or more times
a day which is a lot of content when youthink about it now I want you to know
that just post as often as you can on aconsistent basis and for at least once a
day but if you can only do once a weekthat’s a better that you do it
consistently then to be inconsistentwith your posting because all of this
data goes into the algorithm and reallygoes a long way for deciding how your
audience is going to see your contentand number five don’t forget that
Instagram should not be your onlyplatform although you can do a lot of
things on Instagram it shouldn’t be theonly place that you focus on growing a
following you need to have your ownplatform like a self-hosted website or
an email list because you don’t controlthe platform and it can go away at any
time or you could lose your accountit does happen more often than you think
and unless you are a very famous personInstagram isn’t going to help you get
your account back so it’s always a goodidea to make sure you have following
elsewhere not just on a social mediaplatform like Instagram also I want to
remind you to prioritize your accountsecurity with two-factor authentication
for good measure you would be surprisedat the amount of accounts that are
hijacked because of poor passwords andpoor security practices so don’t forget
to do that because you do not want tolose all your hard work for something
silly like a hijacker now that you haveall this information I want you to go
forth and kill it on Instagram because Iknow that you now are well-prepared with
strategy and a content planner to makesure that you are putting your brand’s
best foot forward on the platform now ifthis class just blew your mind and
you’re interested in seriously upleveling your digital marketing for
Instagram and beyond I have to perfectof resources for you to consider right
now if you need help with onlinemarketing strategy to uplevel your
business or if you need help withcreating group images for your Instagram
or other social platforms to uplevelyour business marketing I would highly
recommend my program empire buildingthis is a self-paced online business and
marketing course delivered through sixvideo modules with digital workbooks and
activities it’s everything you need tocreate your brand grow your following
and earn an income on line for those whoare getting started and if you want to
uplevel your photography the digitalstyling lightroom also known as charm
DSLR for short is the choice for youthis is a digital styled stock
photography class delivered through asix video modules digital worksheets and
guided tutorials everything you need tocreate perfectly branded photography for
your own online platforms to attract andgrow your
audience so if you want to learn moreI’m going to leave some links in the
description box where you can check outmore about empire building and the
digital styling Lightroom today’s classis it a sales pitch I just wanted to
make sure that anyone who does want moreinformation and wants to work with me
knows the options that are available tothem and so moving forward from today’s
class what are the next steps I meanyou’ve just learned a lot about using
Instagram for your business so pleasegive this video a like if you forgot to
do that already and leave me a commentand let me know what you learned from
the class if you have any questions onanything specifically let me know you
can leave me a comment down below orshoot me a DM on Instagram at Mitch
trench boat thank you guys so much forwatching today’s class make sure you’re
subscribed for more awesome content byme and until next time bye bye