Chris Davis is a web developer and UX designer who started his own digital agency, Trickle Digital. He started working on his personal brand, which is when his Instagram really started taking off.

Chris makes carousels on Instagram (also called “gallery” posts). He started making his own in Canva with just a few slides, but switched to Keynote to improve his process. He creates master slides in different colors and tailors his call-to-action page depending on the goal of a post. He uses http://remove.bg to make transparent backgrounds.

To hear more about Chris’ process, check out the rest of the episode!

To get in touch with Chris, you can find him at:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrisdavisworks

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisdavisworks/

Web: https://trickledigital.com/

Sarah Wallace helps coaches and consultants launch their businesses using Instagram. She’s been helping brands on Instagram over the past 5 years in health and wellness industry, but recently pivoted to helping individuals.

Do you get caught up in building your logo, your website domain name, your website design, or all the other millions of things when trying to start your business?

Sarah explains her strategy – rather than focus on all those little things, focus on the content and value you’re going to provide to your customers. Using Instagram intentionally – with purpose – eliminates so many of those barriers. Giving value through meaningful content prepares you to one day be able to offer something your audience would want to buy.

When you start to post, make sure you’re telling your story. Show yourself in a photo or video, explaining your WHY – that will draw your audience into your story and make them want to follow you. Your WHY is the reason you get out of bed in the morning. Your WHY – if conveyed correctly – will draw people to you.

Sarah also explains how to always have something to post. Here’s her 4 step system:

1. Open up a note on your phone or PC (Sarah uses Google Docs)

2. Every time you hear something interesting in a podcast, or in an article, or a conversation…write it down

3. Use those notes in your upcoming posts.

4. Once a month, look at which posts did the best, then re-use those in the coming weeks.

Want to hear more? Check out the rest of the podcast to hear all the insights Sarah provides!

You can find Sarah online on at:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahlynn.co

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thisissarahlynnco/

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/instagramHERs/

Have you not gotten the results you’ve wanted from Instagram? There’s a reason. And you might not be doing anything wrong.

Jenn is the author of Instagram for Business for Dummies plus the Director of Marketing and Communications at an Aerospace company in San Diego. On the side, she’s been speaking about Instagram for the past 6 years.

I learned from Jenn how Instagram traffic is tracked. I didn’t know this.

When someone clicks on a link in your profile, it opens up a new browser window. Therefore it’s not considered traffic referral traffic from Instagram, it’s considered direct traffic – meaning it’s lumped in with all the people who have gone directly to your website, so you don’t know where the traffic is coming from. If you’re looking at Google Analytics as seeing a very low amount of traffic to your website coming from Instagram, this is the reason why. To address this, you can create an individual landing page that your profile points directly to, or use URL shorteners (like bit.ly or tiny.url).

Instagram has the highest engagement rates of any social media platform. Facebook and Twitter both have less than 1% engagement. Instagram has an average engagement rate of 3%. Engagement can be 5% or even higher on small business accounts.

What if you’re not getting the number of likes and followers you want?

First – why do you want that number of likes and followers? How would having that level of followers or likes help you? If you’re a small business, best case scenario is that you have all your clients, and their staff follow you.

Ask yourself – what would the number of likes and followers you want actually do for your business? If you’re not getting the number of likes you want, focus on figuring out what your audience wants to see, then give them more of that.

Jenn also explains hashtag strategies and tons more in the rest of the episode.

Look for Jenn to release “Instagram for Dummies” in the coming months.

You can find Jenn at:

Web: https://jennstrends.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenns_trends

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/jenns_trends

Support Group: https://www.360marketingsquad.com

Alex Branning owns a digital marketing agency and hosts a podcast giving advice about marketing to entrepreneurs.

Alex is very focused on Instagram Ads directly on Stories, and teaches his clients 2 things – first, how to grow their audience and then to monetize that audience.   He teaches his clients that video quality needs to be just “good enough” – just handheld, then adding stickers.  He explains on this episode why (“good enough” videos get better results than the high quality videos).

Have you tried ads on Facebook or Instagram before, but didn’t get the success you were wanted?  In Alex’s experience, most campaigns have not been given enough time or budget to get leads from ads (on both Instagram and Facebook).

One major recent addition to Instagram ads is Conditional Lead Ad forms, which shows a form to someone who clicks on the ad and provides the potential client qualifying questions, to ensure that each lead is an exact match for the required specific criteria you want.

Want to get up to speed on Facebook and Instagram ads quickly? Alex recommends the Facebook Blueprint, if you’re already familiar with advertising. If you’re not, Alex does free webinars to help provide all the background info you need.

Want to automate your Instagram posts? Alex has an app he’s worked to bring to market to help you called IG-EZ.

Check out the rest of the episode for a lot more great info.

You can find Alex at:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexbranning

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alexbranningpage

Website: http://branninggroup.com/

IG-EZ: https://www.ig-ez.com

If you want to sell a product or service on Instagram, you can’t just start by posting pictures of your product or service. You need to give value, because Instagram does not exist just so you have a platform to sell your product or service on.

Mats David Awesome Goldberg is the owner of The Instagram Agency.  Mats explains the most important thing is to give value in every single post. The value could be educational, or it could be entertaining, or it could be inspiring. Whatever time and effort you put into giving value will come back to you eventually – it could be in the form of relationships, or some other method, but you can’t sell to people unless you build trust by providing free value. Whatever you communicate, it needs to be in a manner that’s open, honest, and authentic. Showing the struggle and where you’ve failed helps people to understand who you are and what you’re dealing with, giving evidence that you are a real person trying your best.

Mats also breaks down his strategy for posting and how he creates such epic posts in the rest of this episode.

You can find Mats at:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tigagency

Facebook: The Instagram Agency Facebook Group

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matsgoldberg/

Did you ever think of niching as a marketing tool? Being incredibly specific is the best way, because it lets you weed out the potential clients who are not a good fit, and gets your ideal customer excited.

Megan Van Groll gained her experience in social media by volunteering at a local non-profit, joined the executive team, and using that opportunity to build her skills.

Megan recommends different approaches and strategies for Instagram based on whether or not a company is service-based or product-based. The principles are the same, regardless of company size. She recommends making sure the Instagram presence is visually curated and looks thoughtfully planned out. It’s important to be proactive by engaging with other people on the platform – interacting with them, liking their content, leaving meaningful comments, and being social.

Megan’s tips on hashtags:

1. Using hashtags with millions of posts is not going to help you get found.

2. Make sure your hashtags are actually relevant

3. Ensure the hashtags will pull in your idea customer, which are probably more related to their industry rather than yours. Figure out what hashtags they’re using and searching for content on.

Megan teaches her clients to develop a customer personas – a description of the ideal customer, what they’re thinking about, and what their world looks like.

She’s a huge fan of Stories, and frequently references the quote that stories will outpace posts in the feed within the next year or two. She works with clients to focus on their Stories rather than the feed. Stories are where you get to let your hair down, show the behind the scenes, and to get new people in front of your content.

If you’re not a graphic designer, you can create images for your Instagram profile using Canva. Canva is a web-based graphic design software that’s easy to use if you have no graphic design skills. It has templates to create amazing graphics and the ability to resize as needed for Instagram feed posts vs. Instagram Story posts. There’s a free version which allows you to do tons of different things. Megan uses the paid version of Canva for $15/month, that allows you to import your brand’s fonts and colors to create a sophisticated on-brand look.

Authenticity is an overused word that has become meaningless, but it’s still an important concept. If you hear that word in a sentence and don’t understand what it means, replace that word with transparent, sincere, unfiltered, or raw. It’s about letting your guard down to build trust. Being unafraid to be vulnerable and showing your human side builds trust with your followers, because they see you as a real person. By showing pictures of your staff and customers along with a story in the captions instead of just focusing your product or service, you will attract more customers.

It’s like a restaurant with an open kitchen. You see how the food is prepared, and you see how clean it is, therefore you enjoy the experience more. Stories are your opportunity to show the open kitchen environment of your business. However, there is a line between being transparent, and airing your dirty laundry – so use common sense to figure out what your customer will want to see.

Check out the rest of the episode to hear all of Megan’s insights.

 

You can find Megan at:

https://www.instagram.com/hey.mvg

https://www.askmvg.com

https://twitter.com/heymvg

https://www.facebook.com/heymvg

Malvika is the founder and digital content creator behind the platform “Style by Malvika”, focused on creating content in the luxury fashion world.

According to Malvika, the key to Instagram is finding the balance between aspirational and relatable. Those can be contradictory, so it’s important to meet somewhere in the middle.

Small business owners can do that by asking themselves : “in what way does my small business give value to consumers? How through pictures can I capture the value my customers are looking for?”

Start off by posting captivating images. This can be done by flagging, saving, and pinning images Tumblr, Pinterest, and Instagram, where you like just one part of the image, then make your own version.

Building a community is also key. If someone has taken the time to write a comment or send you a message, it’s to your detriment to not respond. Whoever comments, make sure they feel valued and part of the conversation.

Think about the future, because one day it will be a new platform instead of Instagram, and you’re going to have to ask your followers to migrate you over there. And if you’re a small business owner on Instagram, focus on this key question – “what’s the value and how can I convey it?”

You can find Malvika at:

https://www.instagram.com/stylebymalvika

https://www.stylebymalvika.com

https://twitter.com/stylebymalvika

https://www.facebook.com/stylebymalvika

Aaron Render hosts a podcast called “Uncontained” where he interviews people in the entertainment industry – actors, musicians, comedians – about their roots, what advice they’d give, how they promote themselves, and what’s kept them going when others tell them they won’t succeed.

In this episode, we talk about how Aaron can use Instagram to promote his podcast, including Going Live, Engagement pods, dealing with fluxation in the number of followers, and more.

You can find Aaron and the Uncontained Podcast at: Web: http://wwww.uncontainedpod.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uncontainedpod/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/uncontainedpod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uncontainedpod/

Josh Klemons is a digital storyteller and strategist. He helps brands find, hone, and tell their stories online.

Josh works with brands on Instagram Stories, and shares the reasons businesses should be using Stories, which are pieces of content that are only visible for 24 hours. He calls them “ethereal” – which means “characterized by lightness and insubstantiality; intangible”. Instagram Stories are unique because they show you exactly who watched your Stories – you can tap on their name, see their profiles, or start conversations with them. YouTube doesn’t offer that same level of visibility into who watched your videos.

* If you’re new to Stories, focus on creating content your audience likes. Good content is what your audience is into. What gets looked at? That’s what your audience is into.

* Instagram works on the principle of love – if you show the app love by spending time posting, Instagram shows you love by showing your content to other people.

* If someone watches all of your Stories right through to the end – THOSE are your people.

Josh gets deep into some hacks for Stories that I didn’t know. Did you know you can repost Stories that you’re tagged in? Listen to the whole episode to hear everything.

Website: http://www.joshklemons.com

Facebook: Facebook.com/ReverbalCommunications

Facebook Live Checklist:https://www.joshklemons.com/facebook-live-checklist

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jlemonsk

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Reverbalc

Michael Sherman has a digital marketing firm called “The Interactive Imprint,” a full service South Florida interactive marketing consulting company focused on social media and influencer marketing.

He recommends companies focus their social media efforts on being original and showing what’s behind-the-scenes from a human perspective. It’s not a sales tool like other platforms are – it’s a brand awareness tool. Showing testimonials, employee spotlights, happy customers – these are all great ways to show why someone would want to do business with your company.

Michael tells clients to think of social media like a billboard – the more times people see it, the more impactful it becomes. Since people don’t listen to ads on the radio as often or watch TV on commercials, Instagram is the place where you can get people’s attention.

Listen to the podcast, then check out Michael at the links below:

http://theinteractiveimprint.com

https://www.facebook.com/TheInteractiveImprint

https://www.twitter.com/sherm29