Have you ever received a spammy message on Instagram like this one or this one,
or even that one, where it's completely not personalized,
they don't even use your real name,
and they're literally copying and pasting the name field of your profile?
I'm pretty sure we all collectively hate those kinds of messages.
So it begs the question: How do we,
as business owners use Instagram as the powerful networking tool that it is
without being spammy or sleazy?
If you've ever worried about coming across as spammy or sleazy as a business
person on Instagram, you're in the right place because in today's training,
I'm walking you through how to network on Instagram so that you don't come
across as either of those things,
and you actually get replies and leads to your business.
Stay tuned until the end where I'm going to take you behind the scenes of my
business and share with you a cold email that me and my team received,
but it actually got our attention and it turned into a collaboration.
I'm Elise Darma, and I've helped thousands of entrepreneurs, freelancers,
and creators like yourself
use Instagram to actually bring the cha-ching into their business.
And in today's video,
I'm walking you through how to network on Instagram to actually get replies.
Right off the top,
there are two things you need to network successfully on Instagram. One,
the right people, and two, the right message.
Let's cover how you find the right people to network with on Instagram.
Now let's say you're a service provider and you're looking for new potential
clients. Where do you go on Instagram to find these new potential clients?
Here are a few places I would look. Number one is hashtags.
What are the hashtags that your target client is following using or
searching? Do some sleuthing. And yes,
you need to put yourself in their shoes to understand their frame of mind,
but first check out what the hashtags can show you.
The next thing I would do is find influential accounts in your industry and look
at who is following them. Yes,
you can see the followers of an account.
So go ahead and find an account that's like a community hub for your
target ideal clients,
and then look at their followers and see if people are starting to appear that
look like good people to reach out to.
The next place I would look is the Explore page.
The Explore page is curated to you based on your own actions within the
app.
So if you are looking at a lot of people's accounts and captions that are
relevant and related to the client you want to find,
Instagram's Explore page is slowly going to find and curate more content
that's aligned with those profiles. Once you find a handful of accounts, well,
maybe you want to find more than five. I would definitely look for 20 or 25.
Once you find a big group of accounts that look like great people to network
with,
the next thing you need to do is make sure your ask is relevant to them.
The fastest way to turn someone off is to ask them to do something where they
are lost and confused as to why they should care or what's in it for them.
Here's an example.
I got a DM from someone who has a company that works with athletes.
First of all,
not my world that I specialize in and they've launched an apparel line. Also,
not the world that I specialize in.
He then went and asked me to look at his website and review it for him.
I'm left wondering a few things like, why are you asking me this?
I don't specialize in the sports industry. I don't specialize in e-commerce.
What exactly are you asking for help on?
Do you want marketing help or is this actually a veiled pitch?
Are you reaching out to me asking for help,
and you actually just want me to go buy your product? So bottom line,
it wasn't clear how it was relevant to me.
That kind of message is the fastest way for someone to delete your message and
move on with their day. So let's talk about how you create the right message.
Now that you've found your people that you want to reach out to,
what's the message that you're going to share with them?
The first thing that I want you to think is,
how can I add value to this person's life? They don't know me,
and I'm not going to just come out and ask them to jump on a call with me.
So how can I first help them? I swear,
this frame of mind is going to put you leaps and bounds ahead of people who just
copy and paste messages to people all day long and get nowhere with it.
For example, if you just want to connect with them,
go ahead and follow them and then find a reason why you want to shout them out
to your Stories.
That way you can tag them in your Story and they're going to get notified that
you've shared them with your audience. So for example,
if you found someone's profile today, you can share that in your Stories. Hey,
everyone, check out this profile I just found today. I love it because XYZ,
go ahead and check them out. Simple.
If you're not ready to shout out a profile of who you just met,
that's totally fine. Engage with them in a natural way.
Check out the posts in their feed. Go ahead and like,
comment and save some of their posts.
The key here is to act naturally as a new follower would.
Now let's say you're reaching out to them because you do have an ask or you do
have something to offer. Now, if that's the case,
I would send them a direct message or an email or both.
Some people don't check their direct messages because they drown in them.
And some people have a team who monitor their email account like me and my team.
So the fastest way to get your ask in front of us is through email.
So you want to suss it out and see what's best for them. Generally,
if they're a big busy business,
chances are their email is the best way to contact them.
If they're a solopreneur or a personal brand,
chances are they're going to be checking their DMs. With that said,
if you DM and email them, don't be annoying about it.
Sometimes I get emails and then people will comment or DM me saying,
"Check your email. I just emailed you." That's not adding value to my life.
So make sure that the message is either the same in both or of them has a
little bit of context like, "Hey Elise, I just sent you an email.
I wanted to connect here on Instagram as well." Few more tips about your
message: People are busy.
People are inundated with notifications all day long.
I'm leaning in because this is an important point.
I think about my own phone and my own inbox, my own social media accounts.
There are so many notifications and I have, most of them turned off.
So keep in mind that people are busy.
You want to keep your message short and to the point.
Also don't make your message all about what they can do for you.
That's a really quick way to get your message deleted.
Here's an example where someone sent me a DM saying, Hey,
can you share this post? This is a post about weight loss,
completely irrelevant to my market and my expertise around Instagram
marketing. So you could tell it was just a spam message sent my way.
And of course I didn't share the post.
My next tip here is don't copy and paste the exact same message to a bunch of
people. I've been on the receiving end of these kinds of messages,
and believe me, we can tell.
Take five minutes per message and customize it to the person you're
messaging.
Remember if you're a service-based business and you only need a handful of
clients,
it's worth your time to make a quality connection because that one client could
be worth a thousand or $2,000 to your business.
So take the extra time to personalize it, use their name,
talk about something in their business or in their feed.
I promise you this effort will go a long way.
The last thing to keep in mind is to be patient and also accept the fact that
you're kind of playing a numbers game and not everyone is going to accept your
message, read your message, or even respond.
An example of someone who reached out to me and was patient about the whole
process is Jerry. Check out the email that he sent my team and I.
One, he personalized the message to show that it's not copy and pasted.
He actually did his homework about me and my business. Two,
he provided clear value with clear links for social proof,
and three, this email turned into a successful collaboration.
Jerry is one of the artists who has provided music for our YouTube videos,
and we use his music every now and then.
So it's worked out for him because he gets a little exposure from my videos and
it works out for me and my team because we're not searching the internet,
looking for songs to play, to jazz up our videos. Now in today's training,
I scratched the surface on how you can get visibility and engagement with your
Instagram outreach efforts.
If you want an entire menu of ideas, all around visibility,
engagement, lead generation and sales, I have something for you.
It's called Story Vault.
Story Vault is 800 ideas all categorized by the season of
business that you're in right now, whether that is visibility, engagement,
leads, or sales. You get 800 ideas in total.
They're divided by B2B and B2C.
It's literally got everything for you so that you're never at a loss of what to
share in your Stories.
So head to StoryVault.co or head to the link right below this video,
and be sure to grab Story Vault today. To ease and revenue,
I'll see you in the next video.
Thanks for watching today's training on how to network on Instagram.
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