Lessons

Lesson Info

Posting with Purpose

So you need to have the mind set of How am I gonna create great content on Instagram? And with that comes some kind of process and what I dio I do both. I have some that are organized with a process and some that I do spontaneously on the go my account Soupy Zimmerman and the daily the dot daily dot I G are the two that I manage on the go. Every day I post once to the daily I G and twice to my personal account. But all my other featured accounts it's once a day, so you need to decide how many times a day or a week you want your gonna be posting. And it's okay if it's 3 to 5 times a week. If that's all you have time for. What you don't want to do is fall off the Instagram wagon and post once a week because that, you know, staying top of mind on being there is really what gives your followers. You know, the attraction to what the content that you're sharing so you want to be visible and post frequently. So paper for me doesn't literally lead mean paper because I'm paperless Paper means m...

y notes on my phone or my IPad, but for you, it might be journaling and writing things down. And, you know, people process information. They say better when they write it down. I just work more efficiently when I have it in my notes on my phone and on my IPad. So you need to decide how you're going to set up your posting strategy, and it can be built around what your business, what your industry is and what you do throughout the week. On Mondays, you might say, You know, I do a Google hang out on a Monday on Tuesday, I spend time on linked in connecting with people. On Thursday, I meet with my clients on you know, what are those things that you do within your business? If you're a jewelry designer, you know you're designing jewelry probably 45 times a week and figure out within the space of what you're doing, what kind of post you can create. So for me on ah, lot of my posting comes from the activity of what's going on in social media. So if I get interviewed for a podcast, it's often that the person who interviewed me created a graphic image of me doing that podcast. So I'll take that image. I will share it on Google. Plus I'll shared on Facebook. I'll share it on Instagram and Honest. I usually start my post on Instagram, and unfortunately, you can't share over to Google plus on Instagram yet. But whatever. Whenever I'm posting content that I think my Google plus follow us will enjoy, I'll share that image there as well. But typically, I start in Instagram, and another example is when people write testimonials for me, I always do a screenshot of them. Sometimes they're not directly in lengthen. Sometimes they're actually on my instagram feed. As you saw in the presentation yesterday, when I get a good a good testimonial on instagram, I take a screen shot. I cropped that, and I saved that and create an interesting post. So some people have been saying, you know, what kind of content can I use? I don't have a visual strategy thes air some ideas outside of the box that have been working well for me. In addition to the podcast interviews I get, I do Google hang out interviews and often they're creating again a great image to post from the interview. So the content of the interview is actually the visual that leads people to the interview. So there's all kinds of creative ways that you can use outside of what you're traditionally thinking of for my industry. You know, I'm a jewelry maker. I should show my jewelry, and and again it's gonna take time to see what it is that your followers really enjoy seeing so specifically to the audience here, I'd like to ask, Is there are there any posting strategies that you've experienced outside of what comes to mind for you in your industry that where you got a lot of engagement because you did it a certain way? Yes. Um, I'll actually say it came from you and I tried. It was a tip that I think I got on the Facebook group. I'm pretty sure, anyway. And what I like about that is that you can engage in the tip. So on your one account, where you give tips, that's great. But in the group, you can kind of ask questions if maybe you don't. I understand the tip right away. Are you having trouble implementing? So that's what I like about that. And I think this is where I got it. But, um, I, um I took a screenshot to used the end of the analytics. I forget the name of the of the park Honest. Yeah. So I was able to search for my top followers or my top Engage er's sorry, the followers that engage the most. And then I took a screenshot of that and posted the top five, and that definitely got some engagement. I think it got, you know, it definitely got engagement from the top five people I mentioned. Thank you. A great whatever. And then I think maybe it encourages your other followers to engage a little bit more. I don't know because they'll get a shout out, possibly itself. And I love that you're saying this because I've done that in the past. So iconic square used to be static Graham, and they give you graphic Teoh stats that you can tweet or you can take a screenshot of and share as gendered. And I've done that in the past two, especially to the the the top five people who are engaging on your account. They give a shout out on and you can take that. That is an awesome idea that anyone can use because tagging all of them give them a shout out and it makes them feel special that they're getting knowledge and they're going to get more people over to their account. And like you said, people might start more engaging more because they want to become a top five follower. So that's a really great idea. Good. Anybody else? Yes. So I read that if you use like, um dipped IQ or mold, I've and you do how you break up the u Conn. Clorox Look. Multiple clause. Yeah, I heard that those were typically people enjoyed those more. And then I also read that people like to see process. I think you've talked about that, like behind the scenes stuff like that. So I started putting those together and doing like, taking photos as I'm painting. And then I would you like a collage and show the whole creative process. And those posts are always the most popular. So I am talking about dipped IQ is one of my favorite APS, and I use it frequently. I love it because to your point you can tell a story within the post. So it kind of takes me back to my scrapbooking days when I was teaching how to scrapbook. It is literally just that the story unfold within the post because you have multiple images and you can really capture so much more visual content if you have a little story there. And for an artist, especially showing the process of the art and how it was designed, everyone loves to know how you created the end piece. It means so much more to have the story, the visual stories, So that's great. I teach these classes locally at the local apple retailer for for small or medium businesses how to be a social business. And one of the examples I gave last year was of a picture of a chocolate double chocolate cookie at the local bakery and one of the men in the class That's, you know, a businessman, he said. Why in the world would you be posting pictures of cookies? And one of the other students said, I'll tell you why, because that's my favorite cookie and I want to know where in town. I could buy that cookie that I know. It's a good quality. So when you do that plus your hash tagging these types of things, you actually can I just have This happened last week where I got people following me from around the world that I don't even know a guy in Wales. Somebody in the UK that just came in because I hashtagged it etiquette. And I don't normally use that hashtag But it pulled in people who are interested in manners and etiquette. It was bizarre. I got so much action on that, it was, like kind of out of the ordinary for me. So it was using a different hashtag. Yeah, just I used a couple different hashtags that I don't normally use. And then I got interested people who spotted it. That's amazing. Yeah, I loved it. Yeah, I was actually thinking in my mind. I do know someone in the etiquette space in London and I'm wondering, fit with him. We'll have to compare. Think about yeah, but they use the name is one of things that I've noticed has created a lot of interest is if there's an action photo and if It's an action photo. For example, when Tracy's birthday happened, we not only did something free giveaway something free on her birthday, but there's a picture of her jumping for joy like it's a very happy It's, um it's a great picture, and the engagement on that was really great. They're not only the in comments, but also a ton of likes on it. Yeah, I'm smiling and laughing because if you look at my personal feed and when you see the pictures of me, they're usually in some high energy content because I say, Wait, visit Rocket when it jumped, take a picture or and with my hashtag signs, I feel like when when you use them and you have energy and instead of just holding them, you feel the energy you're pulled in. You want to be a part of it. You can feel the fun. The emotion comes through. Definitely I am. I am all about that. So I like that that you got that. What I do is I usually if I come across somebody that I find interesting and they have ah, unique story to tell, I'll do a screenshot or find a picture of them on the Web and post that, um, with a little blurb about them. And my whole thing is, tell your own story. Tell your story because somebody else might not get it right. So that is kind of my strategy and working with other people. When you do video, tell your own story because somebody else might not do it justice. So you're saying you basically find someone who could potentially be your ideal client and celebrate them in your feet? Actually, is usually somebody that I admire. It might be another entrepreneur. It might be, um, a CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation just thought leaders differently. So you're giving a shout out to them? Yes, and a lot of people might look at him say, Well, what does that have to do with video? Well, my thing is, they're telling their own story because I'm usually pulling it from interviews that they've already done. That's great. I like it and call. That's good. Yeah, thank you all. That was very nice to hear. So those are some examples. Another one that comes to my mind. I do webinars frequently, and sometimes I have guests on and sometimes I don't. But if I have a guest, I'm coming up with an image t announce that webinar I share that on Instagram and recently we started from our Blawg post on my website. We have blog's. I had my graphic team create images specifically for Instagram cause on the blawg. They're a different dimension there too long. So I now have square images that match up to the exact image that you see when you go over to the Blawg. So there's that brand consistency. So on Instagram, I'll announce that there's a new blawg post up, and then I'll tell them where to go to see that. So if you do write blog's and spend time writing them and you're not seeing traffic coming to your website or to the block that you hope that you get them to come Teoh on and you might want to say in the description, If you come over and read my blawg, please leave a comment because that's what you want to have happen on your blawg. So these are all ideas that that that basically are in the space of what are you doing? What is it that you're doing in your business? And how can you turn that into a visual image toe? Let people know. And if you can't literally come up with the image you're in for a treat cause the next guest is going to tell you how you can do that with words wag and come up with things quickly and those of you that are falling me on my Super Zimmerman account we'll see that I have used Wards Wag and announced to people what's going on because I couldn't come up with an image right right away. But you can always do something creative with text and have that call to action. Um, you know, I just wanted to that point I started using words swag after social media marketing world because I met you and you talked about it, and I love it in everybody that I have ever introduced it to. And it's at least six people since then. Oh my gosh, that's so cool, right? Even if they don't have a business that might help introduce band when he comes, they just love to use it for personal. But the thing that I was going to say on this subject is I do social media for ah, couple of hotels that I work with, and the engagement for them is the highest. When I use works work now, sometimes I put photos that you know it's not just some generic background. It's a photo that pertains to the hotel or traveling event. But I just find that when I put thoughts or quotes anything like that. I mean, the engagement triples quadruples. That's a huge difference. Good. Good for everyone to hear. Really nice. Yeah. So for those of you that are wondering how I stay top of game and are able to manage all these accounts, I get you schedule Graham, which is something I've recently started using. Prior to that, I was using a different interface. And a So far as I know, this is the Onley one online that you can use and they have the right arrangement with Instagram. They are abiding by all of the rules that Instagram has, and it's really a great interface. You can go in there and schedule what you're posting. So if you are someone that really likes to plan your week and sit down on Sunday and come up with that visual content and just bang out your instagrams for the week. You can do that. And what I really love about Schedule Graham is that you can put your hashtag strategy in the secondary comments, which is huge and not haven't being the descriptions where they get, you know, moved down and you can't go back and edit those and schedule Graham is one of the bonuses that you get the giving up 15% off coupon, which is awesome. So I have been using it for about three weeks now and loving it. So that is what's keeping all of my other four accounts active. And no glitches. Really great, Yes, APP or a website That is a website they are on instagram. You can follow them there they are on Twitter. You can tweet them and say, Scooby doo Zimmerman just mentioned you. I'm gonna sign up. They would actually love that. And, yeah, you can check them out online, and I think they have a trial period a week. Well, you can check it out for free for a little bit, and then it's not that expensive. Especially if Instagram is the place where you're gonna be spending time curating content, so I definitely endorse it. All right, so your content obviously should align with your messaging that your messages, that is on all of your other platforms. The best thing is is that when people see they don't even look at you, use the name and they know it's you because they feel that it's you. And for me, that's all about my nautical look and feel. Not only do I have it on my website, it's on all my quotes. I always have an anchor somewhere. It's part of my Sue Be doo brand. It's part of my soupy jewels brand. It's like that. It's across all my platform. So it has a little spin on on being memorable and people knowing that it's my branding. So you need to figure out what is that about you that's going to make people memorable? Maybe it's just a color like LeAnn used green. That's her color. And I love that, you know, when I think of her, every time I see green now, so somebody that I met at a travel conference uses a scarf, asshole, a little signature, and it's actually part of her logo scarf that you wear around your neck. It's on every little thing she does, which is cool, so it can just be something iconic or color or just in the hashtags that you're using. But, you know, really think about what makes you stand out what makes you different. And every time you see something that reminds you of your brand, take a picture. The picture of me where I showed yesterday, where there was a rock with her bank with an anchor on it, and no one was around me that I knew I had a like flag down some visitor and you can take my picture. I have to have this anchor, you know, whatever you remember, I told the story where he turned around and took a picture of the van because I just had wanted to have that even though I wasn't necessarily going to post it right away. But if there's great content eye candy out there that you're looking at, someone might be upset that you're taking the picture or, um, you know, Wait, you know I don't have time to be in a picture with you. Make it happen. If It's something that you need and just put it in your library in your folder for another time if you don't want to post it right away. And so we talked about this yesterday for a little bit, and linen mentioned it earlier is that there are certain hashtags and this is one on Instagram that people religiously dio called throwback Thursday TBT Hey, as an example of one of my throwback Thursday is one of my favorite pictures of my twins, and you know you can take advantage of of engaging with your audience with throwback Thursday on my personal account. This is the type of content I would post and all my business I would let people see maybe that first instagram posts I did when it was orange nail polish. And that's all it waas, you know, and let people know how far you've gotten. People like to see progress and like to celebrate it with you, and it's fun. And honestly, I get more engagement on my kids. I think that I do on anything else I dio you know, it's like people like to see, you know, get a little piece of you and understand who you are and you know it elicits conversations, conversations with other people. I got a lot of people yesterday saying that they had twins and they were business. And how did you do it when they were little? And, um, it was crazy. And I think part of the reason I could be so good at multitasking is because I've raised my twins and you need a certain personality to do that. So this is just an example of one of the hashtags you know people use. Thank God it's Friday and I don't go there. I don't celebrate Friday because it's the end of the week. I say follow Friday like I want to celebrate everyone that I connected to during that week, and this is a really great strategy on instagram. All your new followers do a follow Friday and give shoutouts to all your new followers for the week, and you can grab there. You can, you know, take a screenshot of their account. Maybe if you want it, Teoh actually celebrate their account or just take a picture and do a graphic overlay like Grace and mentioned she's used in Ward swag and do a follow Friday and say Thanks for becoming a new follower this week. And that's what people often do it on Twitter and give shoutouts I you know, do it on instagram. Are there any other hashtags that you all are using that you do consistently? Nicole's laughing. Is there? Um, I do instead of throwback Thursday because everybody does throwback Thursday. I do flashback Friday. I like it. I use motivational Monday, Transformational Tuesday and Wellness Wednesday and Wisdom Wednesday. Oh, those are all great for Yeah. Yeah, well, I'm a marketer, So use marketing Monday. Yeah, I love that. And them? Yeah, you guys are the elaborations is really It really works well, so I'm just curious. Do people come back? Do you feel like you're engagements higher on the days that you're using? Ah, consistent hashtag strategy. People are waiting to see that. And your motivational ones. Lynn, how about you? Do they come back for that motivation? I think so. I mean, sometimes it's hard to, you know, pinpoint it exactly. But I think so again, I think that it creates more community and pulls in people with common interests and people who want to learn more about that subject. So it's, you know, it's a place to attract, um and be top of mind. Yeah, And I also think especially on Instagram, if you know something that you can do every week on the INSTAGRAM expert account two times a month, we dio instead bio Friday, where I actually give away a bio that I usually charge $300 to do on my website for free. So it's a huge value, and I get a lot of people wanting Teoh win that, and they come back hoping to win each week. And part of what they have to do is tag three friends so that accounts grown because of the insta bio Friday, and I'm not literally mailing anything out. It's just me taking the time to do a really spectacular bio, and and I have fun doing them, and it's a really great way Teoh to use a custom hash tag and to grow a community there. So, yeah, we have on Fridays we have a designer spotlight on our website where we every Friday, um, the design designers submit in, and we have a designer from anywhere in the world, and we feature their work, so it's great for them. But we also have a hashtag that's hashtag designer spotlight and are using that on Instagram. We are okay. And have you seen engagement? We have because it's nice, because it we also, you know, identify them. And, um and it gets the word out in your Ted that you're tagging them and it's great. Yeah, that's a really good strategy for you, especially with your community. Yeah, great. I have, ah, kind of a random question. What? What's your feeling on posting something that's really inspirational but may have cuss words or things that just curious. I you know it. Hey, if that's the authentic you, I say rocket out there if you're okay with that. I've seen a lot of things that make me laugh, and I see it every day, and I am a part of that a little bit. If you go through my feed, you might see one or two things there. I'm not going to say anything out loud, but, um, I think if it's all in a playful way and it so it's OK making somebody laugh and you're OK with it and you know it's like that's what you have to do. Like, not care about what other people think attract the people that are attracted to you because you're being authentic. Okay, great. Okay. So stocking up on new photos so that, you know, this goes back to what we're saying. Like, how do I you know, I ran out of ideas. I don't know what to post for me on the daily I g. It's all I need from somebody is a quote that I can turn into an awesome ward Swag quote. And that could be the photo. And that is the photo. So, um, stocking up it can be videos. It could be your photos. It just know that if you're gonna commit to the platform instagram that you really need to commit to the images and they really need to align with your brand. You literally can take up to 100 photos in two minutes, you know, with the new smartphones. So there's, in my opinion, there's no excuse. They're not having photos. It's just a matter of what kind of photos And how frequently are you showing those photos? And you know I want Oh, this is the best user generated content. You know, ask your followers for visual content of what you're giving them for me and my store. Soupy Do I Do not let a customer leave until we take a picture. It's part of the game in my store. I mean, my stores really small. It's 10 by 12. It's really tiny. It's I merchandise all around the outside. People come in when they shop. It's sue be doo. It's a whole experience. Sometimes they're getting their hair tinted. Sometimes they're getting their nails done. The kids air on the floor, playing with shells, the moms air shopping and it's fun. Then you know it's an experience. It's entertaining. And I always say, Are you on instagram? And when they say Yes, I'm like, Get over here, we're taking picture and I'm gonna tag you. Tag me. It's, you know, the young teenagers that come and really love doing this with me. I obviously if the little kids they're in there, I get permission from the parents. But so much of the of the photos that I create for Sue be doo are my customers wearing or what they bought and checking out with that and that's kind of the fun aspects of it. I do show a lot of product shots as well, but the ones of the customers celebrating the content on when they say I'll take a picture when I go home and I'll post it that's even better, like when they'll own it and do it. And then they post in tag May. And as we said yesterday, Dunkin Donuts does that. Oh so well, that user generated content and not on this is it on that company on their Styrofoam cups. It all has the hashtag my Duncan and I just love it. They're not even saying telling you to do anything. It's just there. So how can you wouldn't like How can you ignore a hashtag these days? I mean, it's just like with the hashtag I've gotta read it. Yes, I was walking the streets, and I think I posted this last night in, um, south of Market and on the, um, the window out front, out in front of American Eagle, the American Eagle Store and Nordstrom. They had the icons, all the social icons, and Instagram was in there. That's so I took a picture and I'm like, man is a social business specialist. I love seeing this. It makes my heart so happy to see that. And by the way, my friend Jan Gordon, she was up in, um, Cape Cod a couple weeks ago on a little trip, and I thought of you and I thought of your story like, Oh, you got to go. And then I looked it up. It was like, OK, she's not open till July, so yeah, Jan, she's from karate and she lives in New York. So she'll come and see you. Yeah, well, I opened Memorial Day and then I opened the end of June. Yeah, it's very seasonal there. I'm I'm one of these lucky retailers. It's open 2.5 months and pays rent 2.5 months. So it's a little gem of, ah, store that I really enjoy having. So hopefully she'll come see me. Um, so you know, this just sets you up to be so incredibly efficient on instagram. And that's what you want to be. You don't want to be haphazard. I can handle being spontaneous and posting. I've been doing this for two years. Okay? And when I was first doing it. It wasn't that way. I just know now what my followers want. I know what they want to see. I know what they want to learn from me. I know that I could teach them. Um you just need to have your smartphone in your hand. You are armed with what you need. You don't have to go home and figure out what you're gonna do. It's right there, and you can be really efficient and effective with your smartphone. One of the things that we dio is like ours are specific. Go to tool for being efficient on the four featured accounts is using Dropbox. Does everyone in the live audience know what drop boxes and yes, so where you can store your photos and access it from any device at any time. So within Dropbox, we have folders and they're all very organized. I have a team that keeps me really organized, that without them I wouldn't want to keep it all straight. And so we have folders. And we also know that if we've used a photo, we put it in the folder that it's been used so we don't go back and use that same photo. You know, I have a graphic team overseas. It's creating some of my graphic images and we dump them all into a folder, and then we take them out as we're using them. So you have to set up what's gonna work for you. Now, would you recommend for people that just have hard drive space or they're creating file structure inside of their their non cloud storage? Is that gonna work for them as well? Yeah, it depends how much space you have. I run out of space all the time. So I need Teoh. Put it in Dropbox or a cloud storage you could do with Amazon. There's other places where you can store, but yes. So it's more space issue for me. And I'm not one of those people that clears out all my photos When I think him over to my laptop. I need the security of having all my photos on my phone. So I'm very selective with what I'll delete or take off my phone. That's why I keep upgrading my phone. Could you get more? Storage is the bones can have created But Nikolay Yes. Ah, utilize Dropbox but also if people are looking for someone somewhere else, the Google drive you just a little drive vehicle drive because you can access it from your phone. Get very easily as well. That's a good point. This is the structure of how we work within my team. What is not posted? We have old photos. We have a folder for photo shoots. Often, when I'm doing videos, I will take my when I hate May Make up and my hairs could I will take the pressure, the intro to the video and the out take of the video. And then what I'm teaching is usually on the computer, So I'll have my team member take pictures of both of that as well as a video. So I have an image again to say on Instagram. Come over to YouTube to watch the video where I teach you how to do at how I teach you how to delete a comment on Instagram. So I'm always taking pictures, even if I'm doing videos that I can have a still, you can go into videos and take screenshots of them as well. That's like a work around. If you hadn't brought the photo. We talked about different social media events already again. My favorite are doing the Google hangouts doing the podcast, doing a webinar, anything that you're doing on social media, where you can literally go in and use that image to bring people to that event or place that you're trying to take them to, Um, and then once it's done, those are Those are the ones that aren't posted, and once that's done, we have the folder that says posted. So the point here is just to stay organized. Organization is your best friend, and when you dio your systems and efficiencies air all there and you know, I think it takes 21 days, 29 days to break a bad habit. So if you do this for 21 days, you'll your mind will get conditioned to do it this way, and you'll see that you're really efficient with your time. You know we didn't we? The mistake that we made that we've learned as a team is toe have that folder that says we've posted these because we started posting some quotes that we had already posted, and that's okay because we get new followers and they didn't see the old post. But still, you need to have the system there in place. So again, you know, those of you might not have a team. I'm lucky that I do that. Keep me organized and you know, just on task here. But if you don't have a team, you know, just process this figure out a process that will work for you. And before I had a team, it was really me just keeping folders on my desktop in dropping pictures in them and then dragging them to Dropbox. You know that the the best tip I can give you is get them in Dropbox because you can access it from anywhere or into cloud storage, especially if one of your devices, all of a sudden, is not there. And you need something