The Social Focus

On today’s episode of Instagram for Business Nat goes solo. And Is speaking about community and the importance behind it. 

Nat recites a statement she heard recently

“We don't need a lot of information. We need a lot of connection, which comes from community. It gives us courage to do the things.”

The absolute best way that you can get people to feel connected to your business, to make them feel heard, to make them feel like they're part of something, is to create a community around it.

Where can you find communities? This is the question that most of you are probably. Where do I find this community? 

We have a community and course. Which is a group of likeminded businesses who cheer each other on. 

They are lifting each other up. They are commenting on each other's posts. They are sharing each other's posts and, you know, within the Facebook group as well, they're cheering each other on when they have what we call a Wednesday win.

Community is a place where it unites us. It makes us feel we are part of something big and it can give us confidence. Confidence comes from so many aspects, like skills we have, what we've learned through our life, what we're good at, or how we've been raised. But it also comes from being in a group of people that think the world of you that think you are pretty incredible as well.

And then we leave that world. And how do we find this community? Well, you might find it through something you're interested in. So whether it be sports or another particular activity, whether it be book club, but it also can happen through business. Networking events can be great.

You may find a club, whether it be, you know, rotary or BNI, that is an opportunity to have a community of business like-minded individuals. 

You've got this road and you're paving your way, but the truth is, is that many people have paved the way for you, whether it be your parents, whether it be your friends, whether it be a boss. And creating a community around referring to one another helps everyone involved. Including the customer. 

They already trust you. They’re already coming to you to hire you for your skills and your services.

Don't take on everything. Don't be a Jack of all trades. Don't do the things that you don't feel comfortable with. Send them to somebody you feel connected to. And that's another way to create a community. So it's sending referrals to other people it's sending more business and obviously more opportunities. And others will do the same for you. That community that you're building are not going to necessarily just be customers. 

If you’re interested in joining our community, we would love to connect.

https://the-social-focus.mykajabi.com/instagram-for-business-salespage

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You can find us @thesocial.focus on Instagram
@angela.s.doyon and @natcaronphoto  

Or send us an email at [email protected]  

We love and use Buzzsprout to host Instagram for Business Podcast and they have made it easy and seamless (plus their customer service is by far one of the best!) 

Today we’re answering one of the questions that was asked inside our membership course and community, Instagram for Business. And the question was, “how and when should you do an Instagram takeover?” 

Do you have a question you'd like us to answer in an upcoming episode? Submit yours to [email protected] and include your Name, Instagram Handle and your Question! 

Check us out on Instagram @thesocial.focus  

@angela.s.doyon and @natcaronphoto  

JOIN INSTAGRAM FOR BUSINESS NOW!  

(the online course and community where you learn to scroll less and sell more!) 

We love and use Buzzsprout to host Instagram for Business Podcast and they have made it easy and seamless (plus their customer service is by far one of the best!) 

This site contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. 

What's the latest news and updates for Instagram? Sit back and relax and enjoy this replay from our recent Instagram LIVE Q&A session.

Some of the updates we chat about are surrounding where to put those hashtags in order to optimize the search feature on Instagram, answering your question, "why is my engagement so low" as well as highlights, reels and more.


Check us out on Instagram @thesocial.focus  for more Instagram for Business tips and education!

@angela.s.doyon and @natcaronphoto  

JOIN INSTAGRAM FOR BUSINESS NOW!  

(the online course and community where you learn to scroll less and sell more!) 

We love and use Buzzsprout to host Instagram for Business Podcast and they have made it easy and seamless (plus their customer service is by far one of the best!) 

This site contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. 

Today we’re answering one of the questions that was asked inside our membership course and community, Instagram for Business. And the question was, “how do you make your of GIF?”

Do you have a question you'd like us to answer in an upcoming episode? Submit yours to [email protected] and include your Name, Instagram Handle and your Question!

Check us out on Instagram @thesocial.focus 

@angela.s.doyon and @natcaronphoto 

JOIN INSTAGRAM FOR BUSINESS NOW! 

(the online course and community where you learn to scroll less and sell more!)

We love and use Buzzsprout to host Instagram for Business Podcast and they have made it easy and seamless (plus their customer service is by far one of the best!)

This site contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.

EP - 109 - Five Ways to Maximize your DM’s on Instagram

Where is the best place to connect with your audience? We get it, Reels are popular and commenting and engaging is important. But one of the best ways to truly connect with your audience is in the DM’s… So here are five ways to make the most out of your direct messages!

To start, the dm’s are a great tool to welcome new audiences. When you have someone follow you, it is a great opportunity to reach out and say thank you! We try to do this for every new follower. Sometimes it is just a quick hello or thank you. Other times we share a freebie with them. In any case, it is a great touch point to have a more 1:1 connection with new followers.

Secondly, using stories to get into other accounts dm’s are also a great strategy. When you are viewing stories and respond to them, you automatically end up in that account’s dm’s. This is wonderful when trying to connect with your current audience but also an entirely new audience. Of course, always keeping your ideal avatar in mind when connecting with a new audience. 

Our next suggestion is crafting contents that encourages your audience to start a conversation in the dm’s with you. How do you do this? Utilizing Instagram Stories and the question box! Ask a question, do a survey, ask for feedback… once your audience participates it opens up a dm conversation that you can take further!

Looking to save time or do you find you’re getting asked the same questions over and over again? It’s time for you to take advantage of Saved Replies. You can create multiple save replies and simply drop them in whenever you are asked those frequently asked questions. For example, if you are being asked your hours of operation or your location; create a saved reply that you can simply add in your keyword and drop it in to the response. Not sure how to create a saved reply? Send us a DM and we’ll show you!

And finally, a strong call to action to encourage your audience to meet up with you in the dm’s! In fact, if you look back to that last paragraph, we snuck it in there! You can include that in your static posts, or on your reels as well as in stories. For example, “looking for more details? Send me a dm!”

OK, so that wraps up our five ways to maximize the dm’s… BUT wait! There’s more. Here are two bonus ways to maximize your dm practice!

1. Voice Notes! For one thing, they are super convenient to send a quick voice note BUT they are also WAY more personal! We do this all the time and 9 times out of 10, our audience tells us how much they appreciated the voice note. 
2. Currently, when someone comments on your post, you can respond via a comment replay but now, you can also respond directly with a dm! 

Check us out on Instagram @thesocial.focus 

@angela.s.doyon and @natcaronphoto 

JOIN INSTAGRAM FOR BUSINESS NOW! 

(the online course and community where you learn to scroll less and sell more!)

We love and use Buzzsprout to host Instagram for Business Podcast and they have made it easy and seamless (plus their customer service is by far one of the best!)

This site contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.

Today we’re answering one of your questions! Thank you @leopardlilydecor for submitting this question: “Should you mix personal with business accounts or keep them separate?”

Do you have a question you'd like us to answer in an upcoming episode? Submit yours to [email protected] and include your Name, Instagram Handle and your Question!

Check us out on Instagram @thesocial.focus 

@angela.s.doyon and @natcaronphoto 

JOIN INSTAGRAM FOR BUSINESS NOW! 

(the online course and community where you learn to scroll less and sell more!)

We love and use Buzzsprout to host Instagram for Business Podcast and they have made it easy and seamless (plus their customer service is by far one of the best!)

This site contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.

Today is about finding your joy again using Instagram. And letting go of anything that doesn’t bring you joy. Out with the old, and in with the new. If you haven’t watched Marie Kondo on Netflix, or read her book, this might be kind of an odd topic. But the premise of it is that Marie rummages through strangers closets who having a hard time parting with objects. 

You might be at a place in your Instagram journey where you want to change the look of your IG feed. Or you might be wondering if one of the Instagram tools is even necessary for you anymore. So let’s Marie Kondo your Instagram account!

To start this off, take a few minutes and look at your Instagram account. Your bio, your highlights, the posts you’ve been sharing, even your followers or accounts you’re following. Other than getting a lot of engagement, what brings you joy? And what immediately feels like “ugh, I don’t love that anymore”?

#1. We recently decided to let go of our Highlights. This is something that could be very beneficial for many businesses, but for us, it’s just yet another thing to update and keep on top of. It also doesn’t bring us any new engagement. 

#2. Your bio may need to be Marie Kondo’d. We talk about this often. Your bio should be looked at and changed or updated at least a couple of times a year. 

#3. What are you currently posting? Are you in a rut? Don’t know what’s working or not working anymore? If so, then it’s time to Marie Kondo the crap out of your feed! Take a look at what has worked in the past six months inside your insights and jot down a few notes, and then look at what posts you loved, and filled you with joy. 

#4. It’s time to Marie Kondo who you’re following AND your audience. Tap over to your current followers, swipe through, and look for ghost accounts or bots. Removing these, yes, will lower your follower count that you’ve worked so hard to increase

Now, regarding the accounts you’re following, it’s the same thing. It hurts those accounts if you are never going to engage with their content. Don’t feel bad unfollowing them. By unfollowing those accounts that you just don’t get anything from anymore, you help them out, and it means you can now see more of the content you really connect with, and content that actually brings you joy!

If you’re not feeling right about unfollowing someone, it’s okay to press Mute on their posts and stories. This will notify Instagram that you don’t want to see their content currently. 

Serving your followers will always make it feel like a place filled with joy. Don’t ever forget the joy.

Check us out on Instagram @thesocial.focus 

@angela.s.doyon and @natcaronphoto 

JOIN INSTAGRAM FOR BUSINESS NOW! 

(the online course and community where you learn to scroll less and sell more!)

We love and use Buzzsprout to host Instagram for Business Podcast and they have made it easy and seamless (plus their customer service is by far one of the best!)

This site contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.

Today we're taking you inside our private membership course and community, Instagram for Business! It's a sneak peak as to how we run our Q&A sessions and in this episode we're chatting all about crafting better sales post for Instagram.

Do you have a question you'd like us to answer in an upcoming episode? Submit yours to [email protected] and include your Name, Instagram Handle and your Question!

Check us out on Instagram @thesocial.focus 

@angela.s.doyon and @natcaronphoto 

JOIN INSTAGRAM FOR BUSINESS NOW! 

(the online course and community where you learn to scroll less and sell more!)

We love and use Buzzsprout to host Instagram for Business Podcast and they have made it easy and seamless (plus their customer service is by far one of the best!)

This site contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.

We are diving into one of Instagram’s easiest tools, and how we get tons more engagement - Instagram Stories!

But let’s backtrack for a minute. We have tested this out, and have proven results. In fact, both of us have had moments where we haven’t created any new content, no new posts, not even a reel for a week (even weeks), and have still seen growth. Why? Because we continue to use stories on an almost daily basis. 

Okay, so here’s the thing, yes, you will grow faster if you post throughout the week. But let’s say someone lands on your profile because they found you through a niche hashtag, from a post a few weeks ago. Most people will decide not to follow if they don’t see any new content. However, if they see you have some stories, they might dive into that for a couple of minutes and then make up their mind if you’re their jam. They’ll see that you shared an old post to stories. Or went on to talk about what’s going on in your business today, or shared someone else’s post and gave them a little love. They’ll think “yes, this is my person” or “nah, not for me”. But from this place alone, they can get a little sneak peek into who you are. And that alone can get you a follow. 

Once the oh so wonderful algorithm sees engagement, it begins to move your stories up further so it’s one of the first stories your followers will view.

Well heck, then let’s get them engaging right??

So let’s start first with a regular ol’ story. Without adding any gifs, what can we do to get them to engage? Well, ask them a question with your words. And please do not forget to turn on your Captions sticker. This way if someone has their sound off, they can still read what you’re saying. Once you’ve done this, yes, a little gif to add some personality would be wonderful. The movement attracts the eye faster, and keeps them on a bit longer. We have talked a few times about using gifs that are on brand for you. Don’t using something cheesy. Try to find a Story artist that works well with your brand. If you’re new to this, well, we have a couple posts that talk about this. Head over to our IG page, tap Guides, and click on Learn with Us.

Alrighty, let’s get into those wonderful Stickers. Ladies and gentlemen, this is one of the best and easiest ways to get engagement. Who doesn’t love giving their opinions right? We all do! This or That’s are a fun way to find out who your people are. Ask me a question with a question box. Get them to play a game to guess the right answer by using multiple choice. Or get them to cheer you on by using the slider. Goodness, there is at least 500 ways to use these stickers.

Let’s rewind for a sec. So what’s the ultimate goal here? It’s to get engagement right? Well then how about putting out what you hope to get back? When you’re in stories, connect with who YOU follow in their stories. Send some messages. Get into their DMs. Form some connections by being the person that answers their questions. Stories is not one sided. It’s about give and take. And truly, we have been able to create incredible connections by starting a conversation here and into their DMs. In fact, we have now been able to turn some of those conversations into more then just followers. And that’s your goal and intention right?

Check us out on Instagram @thesocial.focus 

@angela.s.doyon and @natcaronphoto 

JOIN INSTAGRAM FOR BUSINESS NOW! 

(the online course and community where you learn to scroll less and sell more!)

We love and use Buzzsprout to host Instagram for Business Podcast and they have m

Today we're taking you inside our private membership course and community, Instagram for Business! It's a sneak peak as to how we run our Q&A sessions and in this episode we're chatting all about collaborating on a giveaway on Instagram.

Do you have a question you'd like us to answer in an upcoming episode? Submit yours to [email protected] and include your Name, Instagram Handle and your Question!

Check us out on Instagram @thesocial.focus 

@angela.s.doyon and @natcaronphoto 

JOIN INSTAGRAM FOR BUSINESS NOW! 

(the online course and community where you learn to scroll less and sell more!)

We love and use Buzzsprout to host Instagram for Business Podcast and they have made it easy and seamless (plus their customer service is by far one of the best!)

This site contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.