To Instagram or not to Instagram?
Today I have Blake, my Instagram assassin,
joining me right here.
We're gonna talk about how to use Instagram
to grow your business.
No, Instagram is not where you just look at people
with like sexy photos and all that stuff.
No, no, it is actually a very legitimate way
to build audience, build your tribe
and promote your business.
I didn't believe in it.
I didn't buy it.
I was wrong.
I always say, as I always say,
never underestimate how wrong you can be.
Well, I was wrong.
It was a mistake.
It's something that I wish I had done earlier.
So today, I wanna give you at least like three ways
that you can do that starting today,
what you can do right now.
Build followers, if you have not watched our previous video
on how to build followers,
I'll put a link somewhere here.
Make sure you go watch that,
and then you can watch this video.
But for now, let's talk about how to us Instagram
to grow your business.
So tip number one is actually branding.
Branding.
And you had a lotta good tips on that, too.
Right, so when it comes to branding,
now, you think about on YouTube
when making videos, you can talk about your product
and services, what you do,
but when it comes to Instagram,
it is a very quick snapshot way of telling your story.
Yeah.
And it's like almost storytelling visually
that you can share your message.
You can share your passion.
You can share your product and services through image,
that when you go to someone's Instagram page,
quickly, you can scroll through
and you will get a good idea what this brand is about,
what this person is about.
And you don't need to hard sell your products and services.
People will get comfortable.
Oh, this is interesting, right?
Yeah.
So branding, branding is nothing more
than your reputation.
You're building an online reputation through Instagram.
So that's way number one.
Way number two?
Way number two is using Instagram stories.
Yes, what are Instagram stories?
You you telling like bedtime stories?
What is that?
(laughing) No, there's no,
it doesn't have to be beginning, middle, end.
There's no, you don't have to tuck anybody in.
Yes.
Instagram stories is a 24 hour post in a portrait format
that you could use photos or you can do videos.
Videos, you know, personally, work a lot better
because then it lets your audience really connect with you.
And they're not long stories.
We're not talking about like an hour story.
How long are they?
15 second chunks.
15 second chunk.
That's how people consume the content, right?
You do a short, 15 second video,
and you will interact, and it doesn't have to be always
like this kind of, like I'm talking to the camera video.
I've done a lot of stories
where I'm just filming something else, right?
Yeah. You know,
it was a great day.
Look at this, right, boom, and that's 15 second.
That's a story right there.
Exactly.
Why is that powerful to promote a business?
Everybody kinda knows, and if you don't know,
Instagram stories actually allow you
to have a swipe up feature, right?
[Dan] Ah, yes.
But that's unlocked after
you get your first 10,000 followers.
Then Instagram goes okay,
this guy or girl is legit.
We're gonna give them the ability
to swipe up for their business.
They're committed to using this as platform, right?
Now, you might be thinking hey,
well, I only have a couple hundred
or I only have 1,000 or 2,000.
What do I do, and how do I use stories?
Right.
It's, so here's the little hack you do
is that you literally just tell them in the story
to go to the link in your bio,
and you can link people from your bio
to whatever product or service.
To your website, to your landing page, to your offer,
to your Shopify account,
to whatever it is that you're promoting, right,
an affiliate link. Exactly.
So if they have less than 10,0000 followers,
hey, click the link, right?
Go to my bio and click on that link.
If you have more than 10,000 followers,
you can click on swipe up.
When they click on swipe up,
automatically, it takes them to the page.
Now, that's very critical because it's one less step
that people have to do.
Less resistance.
Yeah, less resistance, or swipe up.
If you follow me on Instagram,
by the way if you have not followed me on Instagram,
you and I, we got a problem here.
We got a problem, okay?
Follow me on Instagram.
At the very least, you will see how I do what I do
on a day to day basis.
Watch my stories.
Look how I am promoting my personal brand.
From that perspective alone, just from learning,
you will learn a lot.
So use stories.
I remember the first time you asked me to do a stories.
It's like do this.
What is this?
Swipe up.
'Cause when I do it, let's say YouTube video,
I say click the link here, click the link here.
I get that when I'm doing an ad.
Click the link here.
Click the link there.
I get it.
This is really odd, swipe up.
Swipe up.
And now when we make video,
we have to do it like click the link here somewhere
or swipe up.
Do something.
One of these, do something, right?
Number three.
Tip number three is to leverage your highlights section.
Highlights, mm-hm.
This is probably the most underutilized.
These guys.
Section on most people's Instagram profile.
That's right.
Especially as a business.
So what are they?
So highlights is basically when you take a story
that you used, so especially if you've done a promotion
or you've told people to swipe up,
it's an evergreen way of getting people
to be able to access that pitch or that story
or that whatever you did
on the main feed, right?
For phone, yeah.
So when people go to your main feed
and we'll show you what we mean,
but there's like a strip that we have
on our profile for Dan.
Yeah, basically, you can see we have little
like graphics, a little icon, right?
[Blake] Yeah.
And you can create.
We have a number of them.
We have one just with a lot of the success stories
from my students. That's right.
So they can click on that, and they can watch that.
When I saw this, this I know is powerful
because example, let's say you have a story
that works very well that's generating leads
and sales for you,
well, 'cause it disappears in 24 hours.
That's right.
That kinda sucks.
But what if you can put that in a highlight?
Then anytime after that,
it's like you have a proven marketing piece
backed in the direct mail days.
You have a proven marketing message
that you could use it again and again and again
and just put that right into your highlights,
and people can click on it.
You can categorize it,
and it will work for you again and again and again, again.
Anyone who come across your profile, they can see it.
I think another thing that what we have done well
is it tells you very quickly.
Say we have a Bentley we have lifestyle,
we have Lokism,
it tells you very quickly what I am about.
Yeah.
You click, oh, okay, I wanna see a little bit more
about Dan about lifestyle.
You click on it, oh.
It helps the first part about branding.
Branding, storytelling, right?
And this doesn't cost anything.
It doesn't cost anything.
You can do this as you grow more followers.
You can keep driving people to your bio link,
doing more swipe up.
Does Instagram charge us how many stories we do every day?
No.
How many stories can we do every day?
As many as you want.
As many as you're comfortable with.
So that's why it's so critical
to get to that first 10,000 followers
so you can unlock this feature,
so, so, so critical.
If you want to know how to get to
your first 10,000 followers
or your next 10,000 followers,
Blake and I, we're doing a special online training for you.
Click on the link or swipe up.
Join us March 11th.
You don't have to fly to Vancouver.
You can participate.
Join us for this live event from the comfort
of your own home.
So get your ticket, click the link,
and we'll see you in class,
and we're gonna teach you
how to get your next 10,000 Instagram followers.
See ya in class.