(inspiring music)
- The second platform recommended consistent was Instagram.
It is still a very quickly-growing platform,
and it's really targeting a younger set.
But why would you want to be on Instagram?
Most of the designers that were having success
there were actually using it as a mobile
portfolio, something that they could very quickly
bring out, scroll, show an example of their work
on the fly or at a customer meeting.
The designers also found it very valuable
to differentiate themself, to say, "See,
"I can prove to you that I'm gonna be of value.
"I can decorate beyond maybe what you can do today.
"And I'll show you examples of what
"your room may look like."
The best practices on this site are to be pretty.
People like pretty photographs.
Engage.
Any time you can get people to respond, to like,
to pretty much do anything with any
of your posts, that's the way to go.
Do not be business-y at all.
People aren't interested, it's not really
a business platform.
They wanna go for the beautiful pictures that inspire.
Always drive to a call to action.
Again, one of the biggest missed opportunities
with Instagram is they left people on Instagram.
The point of Instagram is not to leave them there.
Whether it's through quick stories
that are driving to your website, through product
tags that you're driving to your website,
through shopping basket tags, whatever you can do
to get people off of Instagram and over to your
website is the way to go.
Again, social media is not the goal.
It's the starting place, it's the influence,
it's the top of the funnel.
You always wanna drive them to your website.
Another best practice is really gotta follow people.
This is the less glamorous part of this platform.
Many sites suggested follow 10 people a day,
follow 30 people a day, kinda just set aside
your 20 minutes where you're gonna go
to the platform and just follow.
But the good news is you don't have to post that often.
Some of the most successful companies were really
targeting twice a week at preferred times,
really more Wednesday, Thursday,
the mid-afternoon lull or carpool hour,
after bedtime, things of that nature where many
people were seeing the most success.
You also wanna get on the follow trains.
This has been a trend that's been coming up
in the last little bit where you can really
begin to expand your reach on the platform.
Another one of the hot trends are the Insta-stories.
The value of an Insta-story is to showcase your personality.
It also can be when you're out on the fly,
just like a Facebook Live, and you can show
the tile you're looking at.
You can show your design process.
You can show what you're working on.
You can give quick glimpses of reveals.
It's very easy, it doesn't take a lot
of digital editing of any photographs
or carefully crafting your words.
It only lasts for 24 hours, but it really
shows the relational side of you.
Want to get some of those key metrics
as quickly as you can, 1,000, 10,000,
maybe the ultimate goal being 100,000 to really
get the attention of brands that want to sponsor you.
But I really say, put this thing in a box.
If it's not driving revenue for you,
if it's not driving people to either purchase
a transaction or to go to your website
and engage in a service, you really wanna
evaluate how much time you're investing in Instagram.
All of this, now Facebook and Instagram,
let's continue to look at the other platforms
that now switch to a business-minded approach.