(upbeat music)
- So we're going to dive right into hashtags now.
It's a great way to kind of put you on the map.
Helpful for anyone who is, you know, trying to get attention
from a specific brand, anyone who's trying
to grow their following because it's definitely a way
that people can explore and just discover you and your work.
So for an individual freelancer who's trying
to get attention from specific brands, obviously a good way
for you to integrate that is to integrate
the include the brand's hashtag say I'm posting a pair
of Nikes, here are a pair of Nikes that I was wearing
and I just looked down and I liked
the lighting and just thought it would be a good image.
So I wanted to include hashtag Nike, hashtag Air Max
hashtag Air Max 95, meaning anyone who hashtags
or looks at the hashtag Air Max 95 is going to be able
to see this image.
I would say a nice sweet spot
would be maybe five to six hashtags.
That's just my own personal opinion.
Some people don't like to use any hashtags at all.
That's my own personal standard.
But again, even with the hashtags
you can also tag the brands in the actual image.
And one thing to also keep in mind with hashtags
is that if you don't, if you as a user don't put it
in your image, it's not going to be on the hashtag map.
So if someone else comes in
and writes hashtag Nike for you, that doesn't mean
that your image will then be on the hashtag map.
So okay, we're going to write the caption now.
It's your typical footwear photo.
I have Tims here.
I, my friend has Adidas Yeezys on.
Is there a storytelling aspect that I want to tell the world?
Well, the Tims that I have are awesome.
I bought them from the store named Procell
and they're actually dead stock pink Tims
from like the eighties.
And I luckily was able to get the last pair.
And so that's kind of a fun story to tell.
Or you can just even make like a sneaker reference
if you wanted, or you can just, it's up to you.
I mean, captions are pretty easy
for the most part but it's also integrating
the brands involved and seeing how we can add that.
So I'm just going to write Pink Dead Stock Timberland's
courtesy of at Procell.
So I'm going to do hashtag.
So the difference between me writing hashtag Timberlands
versus at Timberland's is because I wanted the image
to just be on the map rather than leading directly
to the actual brand account page.
And then I wrote courtesy of at Procell because I want
the viewer to I want to encourage them to click Procell
to learn more about the store.
So it's also understanding where your account following
is and what is the call to action.
A lot of times, because that's what a hashtag
and a handle does, whether you're tagging a brand
or tagging a friend, it's an opportunity
for people to discover your friend or the brand.
And so I wrote my caption, I wrote my hashtags.
So a lot of times, like
for example with Nike they have like 50 different accounts.
So Nike, were at Nike Lab, Nike, running blah blah.
So I definitely try my best to tag all
the ones that are relevant because why not?
That doesn't hurt.
I don't really think, it's always good,
I feel like it's always good to just add the tags
Timberland and Procell, okay, cool.
So we have it here.
And then the fun way is you can also play
with where you want it to be as well.
I'm just doing the angle thing
'cause I think it's fun and sometimes you want to refer
to specific items or spec specific brands
within the photo that's doable as well.
Cool, so I also, I'm going to tweet it as well
and boom we're going to let it live
and see what the world thinks about it, right?
And let's see how it looks on my grid.
Looks good.
Looks like we have a really good
like diagonal angle thing going on here.
Ooh, I love when this happens.
So notice that I have a light background.
This is medium background, light, background, light
light, so we have this cool X thing
that's going on with a light background
dark background, light background, dark background.
And so maybe this is an ongoing theme
that I can keep up with.
When we're using hashtags
it's just a matter of finding the right,
keeping in mind what market you want to reach
out to and where you want to be discovered.
I just really just think
about brands and I think about just general references
in pop culture and music culture.
I'm sure I'm sure you'll find your own niche market as well.
(upbeat music)
- Locations on Instagram are another great way
to get your content discovered
but also find potential clients or customers.
Post on Instagram that have a location tag actually
perform 79% better than post without a location.
So whenever you're uploading your content
make sure you're tagging a location on Instagram.
When picking locations
on Instagram as a business I want you to think
about picking a location that's a little more broad.
So if you're at a coffee shop in your city
you may not want to tag that specific coffee shop
because there may not be nearly as many people looking
at content at that shop itself.
Instead, you could tag your neighborhood or the city itself
and you have the chance of getting in front of more people
and connecting with them through that location.
Then a super specific location, like a coffee shop.
While Instagram tells you how many posts are in a hashtag
it doesn't actually tell you how many posts are
in a location.
So this is a little bit more of an art than a science.
But my biggest tip for you
is to look into that location on Instagram and check
out the quality of the content that's being posted there.
Is it content you want to be associated with and
is it content your ideal audience would find interesting?
If so, then use that location, but
if not you can steer clear of it.
The last place you can find people to engage
with on Instagram are people who are following others
on the platform.
Think of this as a big community that you can connect
with on Instagram itself.
I like to think of a few different types
of accounts where I can find potential followers.
The first will be competitors,
than complimentary brands,
then client or customer favorites.
Competitors are those people who offer a service
or a product that's directly similar to you.
Complimentary brands are those accounts
on Instagram who offer some type of product
or service that is in the same wheelhouse as you.
The best example would be a wedding photographer
who could connect with followers of complimentary brands
like wedding planners, venues and dress designers.
Someone who's shopping
for a wedding photographer would probably be shopping
for those other things as well.
And the last will be customer or client favorites.
These can be big accounts like bloggers
or brands or they can be a local coffee shop
or a community center, whatever it may be.
You can connect with people who are following
and engaging with those accounts that they really love.
Now when you're thinking about connecting
with people in these types of accounts, I don't want you
to just go to the people who are following these accounts
and go through and like all their content.
Instead, engage with the engaged users from these accounts.
The best place to go is to one of these accounts
at Lavis Post and head to the comment section
find the people who are commenting and follow them back
to their account to start building engagement.
So now you know why all
of these pieces are important for engagement on Instagram.
So how do you put it all together
and take some actionable steps for starting
to engage and building your audience on the platform?
So some of my best tips for engaging on Instagram
and growing your account, start with my 10 for one rule.
I want you to engage with 10 new people
for every one post you put up on Instagram.
And this is why having a concrete strategy
for what you're doing is so important, when
you understand what you're posting, why you're posting it
and when you're posting it,
that frees up your time so you can spend more time having
conversations on Instagram.
Another rule I have for Instagram is commenting is key.
That means I want to spend time actively engaging
with other people through comments.
Likes are great
but comments are where the real magic happens.
It's also important that you respond
to comments from your followers.
My next rule for engaging on Instagram is keep it natural.
You don't want to force it and comment
on things you actually wouldn't like or engage with.
So whenever you're commenting
on something, leave a genuine comment
have a real conversation with someone.
Don't just comment for
the sake of checking it off your to-do list.
(upbeat music)
- Most of my posts are
about inspiring people or making people laugh.
That's my platform.
So let's say you don't know
if your audience like more inspirational stuff
or funny content, you have to play around with your post
to figure out which ones are getting better hits
and getting you more follows.
Let's take a look at me trying to figure out my audience.
You know, everybody thinks you have
to be an Instagram model and you think, oh,
if I'm like half naked or I had this really iconic shot
I'm going to have a ton of follows.
Well, if I'm looking at my data
from this post I really only got 27 follows.
So even though I garnered a ton of likes,
it really didn't increase my following.
Now if we compare that to the video next to it,
it's just me just talking about Easter and church.
It did really well.
I got almost a half a million views
from this post and I had 681 follows.
What I learned from those two posts
is the fact that videos will increase my engagement
and my platform and audience is definitely geared more
towards that than an actual iconic, beautiful shot.
I've noticed from my audience
that my prime days are Monday through Thursday.
So on the weekends either I don't post
or I play around with the material a little bit
because I already know I'm going to have low engagement.
For me, an okay post is 15 to 20,000 likes.
A good post is 30,000 likes.
This one I posted on Saturday night.
I knew that a lot
of my followers were not going to be online, I wristed
I just played around with it, still got 11 follows from it.
But it was just I wasn't necessarily freaking out
that this post like if I would've posted this, my primetime
this post essentially is a bomb for me.
But because it was on the weekend, there was no harm
no foul by posting it.
And it gave me a chance to kind of play around with the
with the material and see, okay, like it's a casual photo
of me going to increase my engagement.
This is actually not my video.
I found this video
from another track person that had a smaller platform
than me and pretty much I used
the repost app to take this video and post it.
Well, they got I think 5,000 views.
This is one of my highest views
of the year almost at 1.5 million.
It reached me a ton
of followers by getting me 417 new follows.
And so I think the thing I learned
from this is if you don't have any content to post,
don't be afraid to get content from elsewhere.
Just make sure
that you're tagging the original content provider.
No harm, no foul, your account grows
and then the person that I took this content
from their account is growing.
It's okay to do that.
If you don't have anything
to post and you're stressed out like, oh
I didn't have time to create this amazing photo.
I didn't have time to think
of something to talk about on my Instagram.
Go ahead, just save some of these.
You can bookmark them.
So when I saw this video, I bookmarked it right here.
And then a few days later when I realized
that I had not posted in a while, I posted it
on Friday and for a Friday post it did very well.
This is when I really started
to learn that my audience likes videos
over pictures and that I get more engagement
and I have more new follows from videos than pictures.
So play around with that, figure out your platform
and find out which one helps increase your engagement more
because engagement helps boost your photos
and videos to the top, which therefore more people see it
which increases your followers
and that's what helps grow your account.
(upbeat music)
- Thanks for watching.
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