Okay, you got a business, you've got an Instagram, let's marry the two and create
some amazing results. Welcome back to the Six Figure Mastermind, we're going to be
discussing that today.
Instagram is a great tool for promoting your business, a lot of people do it but
you got to understand that if your business isn't photographable, it
probably won't do it very well on Instagram but here's the good news,
everything can be photographed, even if you don't have a physical product to
give to somebody or to sell to somebody, you can photograph whatever it is that
you actually do so if you're a public speaker,
you can take photographs of you on stage. If you're a a service provider of let's
say, a plumber, you can take before-and-afters of what you do,
everything that we do can be photographed. If you don't have any of
that, you can always post memes and ideas and concepts and you know what,
if you're a business owner, guess what else you have?
You've got you. So Instagram is all about photography so have these these
videos and photos and things that you can do to post online, it's a very very
visual network and when you're posting online, you've got to have your business
speak to that community so if your business is on Instagram, you've got to
have some high-quality photos that you're using and high quality videos now
when you're using videos, Instagram will only give you 30 seconds so make sure
it's a good solid 30 seconds of content or a good solid 30 seconds of you in
your in your element doing your thing and here's how this step-by-step
leverage Instagram to build your business. There's a lot of ways but
you're going to want to first and foremost treat Instagram as if it was a magazine
and when I say that, here's what I mean, the magazine has all of these different
ads and it has different articles and it has different pieces of content and
guests come in and be submitting authors and guest photographers come in a
magazine is a conglomeration all woven together under a cohesive banner so I
give you an example. I take a Good Housekeeping magazine in my house and I
threw that whole magazine, there's the front cover which is going
to tell me all the information and you know this such-and-such on page six or
how to make this dish on page 32 or whatever it is and that the cover
matches the cover photo and once I open up the magazine, I've got this
spread before me. I've got pictures and I've got text and
I've got articles. Visually, you want your Instagram to be constructed as appealing
as a magazine so you're going to want to mix in there, some talk boxes
meaning like a meme or something that is just text over a picture on Instagram. If
you go to my Instagram, that's what you're going to see, you're going to have a lot
of memes but you're not going to have it you know just all lumped in one and say
okay, I did all my memes, they're all at the bottom of my Instagram feed.
Instagram is funny that way, the way Instagram works, it's got this
three block system where you've got three pictures in a row. You know if you
pull up Instagram on your phone and you follow along with me, you're going to see
what I'm talking about. Every time you post, those pictures are going to move over
and a new picture is going to come in and it's going to move over and they're just
going to slide all the way down so if you're treating Instagram like a
magazine, you probably should have a layout software on your phone that will
help you place your products and your posts and everything you're putting out
there on Instagram. Instagram isn't a desktop-based platform which means if
you're trying to post with Instagram from a computer, no way no, it's not going to
work so it's all on your mobile, it's all on your phone, it's best on your phone, it
may work on tablets, it depends on the tablet that you have so you're going to
want to download an app that will allow you to design the layout. Keep this in
mind though, if you're using an app to design your layout, many apps have a
built in posting feature that will post using the app on your behalf according
to whatever schedule you set it up on, that may sound convenient but Instagram
is a lot like Facebook, it prefers organic posts so you've got your posts
and you've put it out on your spreadsheet, maybe use the same software
I do it's called UNUM or UNUM. It's a software that I use, it's an
app that I use on my phone, I use it to lay out the blocks on my Instagram. Don't
use it to post to Instagram because there's some funky thing when Instagram
sees that it didn't come from my camera roll but that it came from another app,
it will not get as much traction. Instagram is picky that way, they like
things all to themselves so be organic in your
Instagram posts and when you're posting a great piece or a great series, you can
use that app to lay it out but don't use it to post. Though another reason that I
love UNUM and many other software or apps will do this, is that you can take a
photo and blow it up to a nine grid set so you'll post the same photo but it will
split up into nine squares and it makes a really nice magazine and I've been
having a full page spread in a magazine, that's essentially what this concept
does. You can do it at a strip of three, a strip of six or a block of nine, whatever
you want to do but mix it up, add some variety but stay cohesive within your
brand so that nothing sticks out like a sore thumb.
Make sure your colors are all in the same color family, make sure it's
appealing to the eye, your chat boxes should be properly placed and when you
have that design software, it's super super simple to figure out where things
should go and you can even pre type in your captions and your hashtags so when
it comes time to post, remember, don't just take it and put it over there
direct in the app copy and paste it so it's or an organic post in your
Instagram feed. So if you've treating your Instagram like a magazine, it's going to
be very very appealing, you're going to get more followers and it'll be easier when
the time comes to make those call-to-action to either visit your site
in your bio or to you know make a comment on the post, it's going to be
super simple for people to do that and they're already be in front of you
because they love your feed. So another thing to keep in mind is those call to
action. When you're linked in your bio isn't up to date, your call to actions
fall flat on their face and when they fall flat on their face, it doesn't
create a good customer engagement. People won't come back if your links aren't
working so let's say that you post a picture on your feet of some socks that
you sell, maybe you sell the most comfortable pair of socks in the entire
world, everyone should own a pair, it's Father's Day coming up maybe and you've
got those socks and the ready to go out the door, maybe you've got a lifestyle
shot of those socks of some dude wearing them at a cabin and near the fireplace.
You've got a great image, we're just going to make that safe
assumption, okay. You've got a great image on Instagram, you've got a great caption,
you've done all your hashtag, your link works but how do you get them to
actually click on the link? We call this a call to action. Call to action
says click on the link below to order. Any call to action is basically anything
that gets the customer to do something so you want to incentivize them,
incentivize them with a sale and incentivize them with a limited time offer,
incentivize them with a limited quantity or a special buy-one-get-one,
some kind of a sale to and businesses do this all the time. Anything that will get
your customer to click on your link in your Instagram. Now Instagram is cool
because of two things. One, it will only allow one hyperlink in all of Instagram
land, the only place that you can do a clickable link is in that bio which I
think is pretty cool, it keeps people directed in the right place. The other
cool thing about that is to get people to click on your links in any other
platform, it usually requires an advertisement. Now you can do Instagram
ads a lot of people do when they do it very successfully however, every time
anyone clicks on your link, it does cost you money and that's okay, I'm not
against that but there's a free way to do it if you simply construct a very
nice strong call-to-action within the comments of your posts and they'll go to
your link organically and you won't have to pay out of pocket for that. Usually
when you're paying for for those subscriptions are not subscriptions, when
you're paying for those sponsored ads or sponsored links, it's a few cents per
click so again, totally worth it but if you can do it for free, go for it.
The thing to remember with Instagram and with any social media for that matter is
it's all about interaction, it's all about how you're reaching out to your
clients and it's all about how you're answering them when they reach out to
you so stay on top of it. If you've gotten an Instagram going, you want to be
checking on that thing on a regular basis so people hear responses from you
quickly so if they send you a message, you're messaging them not a day later,
not 12 hours later but within the hour if possible.
Gosh, you're in business for yourselves and some of you may complain and say, oh,
that's a lot of time to be wasting on Instagram or I don't want to be bothered
with any notifications. This is a good problem to have. If you're being bothered
by notifications, that is a good thing. Once you grow out of that then you have
permission to start automating and doing those ads but you are on social media,
guys. This is your place to find and be social with people. Respond with full
comments and full sentences, full text, not just these one-word
answers. Even if someone follows, you you don't go back and just say, hey, thanks
for the follow. You go back and look through their profile and give them
really cool feedback and critique on their imagery and comment on their
comments and respond, that's how not only people learn to
trust you but it's actually really good for your analytics on Instagram because
the more attention your post gets, the more it's going to be seen by the Instagram
headquarters and the more it's going to get shared. Sharing on Instagram,
that's King. Commenting on Instagram, that's Queen and if there's a jack on
Instagram, it's hitting the like button. So the more you do, the better Instagram
will treat you and the better will be for your business. Okay, you can't really
cheat the system on this but if your business is high quality, you're
delivering high quality products and extreme value, you're going to have no
problems promoting your business on Instagram. Keep an eye on those good
photos, watch for a video on how to take great Instagram photos and I'll see you
tomorrow.