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Social media marketing, advertising, and growth

jesseissorude

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About me:
I've been using Instagram since the first year it came out, but only with a personal account. I didn't want strangers following me, just friends. The app itself was all I ever needed for liking, commenting, and adding my own media.

Now that I'm trying to grow a business profile, I'm having a heck of a time learning this stuff. Especially how to use Stories effectively.

I've been doing a deep-dive all week, so this post is a digested version of all the notes I've taken. Take it all with a grain of salt, I'm still new to this. Hopefully this can serve as a kickstart so you don't have to go down the rabbit hole I did and sort all the wheat from the enormous amounts of chaff.
Who this is for:
  • Business accounts with <10k followers
  • Newbies to IG for business

What we won't cover:
This post is tool-heavy and mostly focused on building your profile and some systems around managing content. Tools will be highlighted in green. We'll skip:
  • growth strategies
    • hashtags
    • how to partner with influencers
  • paying for anything. Once you are at 10k followers, you can buy stuff
  • running IG ads

Ready? Me neither.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Contents:
  1. Optimize your profile
    1. Personal or Business profile?
    2. Bio
    3. Grid
  2. Generating content
    1. Newsfeed posts
    2. Stories
    3. Post creation and workflow . <---- this is the money maker. If you read one section only, read this one
  3. Further reading and topics to research
    1. IG gurus to follow
    2. Helpful TFF threads
--------------------------------------------------------------

1. Optimize your Profile
1. Should I switch to a business profile?
This is something you'll only really worry about when you are under 10k followers. Once you hit 10k, switch over if you haven't already because at 10k you can use in-story links directly to products.
Personally, I'm switching over immediately as many tools require you to have a business account to auto post your content (more on this later).

2. Optimize your Bio
Keep it short and descriptive. This is ta great place to show your mission, value statement, etc. Keep in mind that this will be a new follower's first impression of you. Spoon-feed them what you want them to think about you.

Emojis can be an easy way to make it more readable or separate sections.

MUST: Add a call-to-action link to the action you want them to take.
Need multiple links in your bio? Use Linktree
Do you change your profile's CTA link often? Use Linkin.bio
Optional (this won't make sense for 80% of brands): Use custom fonts on bio if it fits your branding.
Use How to Customize Your Instagram Fonts - Later Blog to find a IG-acceptable fonts that might work.

If you use custom fonts in your actual post captions, use an app like Fonts - for Instagram.
3. Optimize your Grid:
GREAT article on this. Pay attention to the screenshots: https://skedsocial.com/blog/instagram-grid-layout/
(article is from "Sked" which is an IG image editor that I haven't researched)

When someone is on your profile page, they're going to see all your past posts. Make sure your posts have a cohesive branding theme. This is where your follower growth comes from. Clean this up before you think about running ads. Think of it as your "landing page"

You can do this with your Grid Layout's common theme:
  • posts by row
  • 3x3 super image
  • common themes [wood, plants, metal]
  • common colors
  • common filters/editing
Examples:
@recoveryeffects ; common theme of wood. Scroll waaayyy back in their history to see what their account looked like before they started doing this. It's night and day
upload_2019-1-19_14-18-44.png

@Coach ; they jump from 3x3 grids of similar colors. Here's one grid. The next week it was all bright colors and graffiti:
upload_2019-1-19_14-20-19.png

@mickey_tlj ; Checkerboard layout -
instagram-grid-layout-preview-app-9.jpg


You can also do a 3x3 grid that matches up to make a full picture. I like this for product launches and hype.
@the_oa
split-photos-211x300.jpg


Another easy thing you can do if you are just starting with this:
Add a color border around every picture. Just use the same border for all.
2. Generating Content
Goal here should be making it as frictionless as possible.

1. Newsfeed posts
We discussed this briefly in the "optimizing your grid" section above. Posts should have a cohesive theme + branding.

You'll be using the same filters/fonts over and over.

If you use the same filters/editing for each photo, eliminate filters that you don't use, and rearrange the filters so that your top 3 are always listed first.
When choosing filters, scroll all the way to the right, click "Manage" and rearrange your filters and delete "never use" filters.
zKsC3Zy.jpg

Some apps. Experiment with all, then pick a few that match your workflow. Use them over and over. Shake it up once in a while, but you should really only be using 1-2.

Musts:
Snapseed - perfect for editing the raw photo. Free! Lightroom serves this purpose as well, but it's more for professional photographers who need to send the same file from phone to desktop and keep the file data. This app is a must+1.
Canva - edit things with specific platform layouts, IG, Pinterest, business cards, basically the industry standard.

Nice to try:
Adobe Lightroom - power tool for photographers. Lets you reuse filters / common edits you make frequently
Over - more advanced, templates like canva, add unlimited photos
Nebi - popular, gritty, distressed, vintage filters for photos
2. Stories <--- Important! I've heard multiple sources say this is like IG ads lite. This is your multiple-nudge-per-day outreach to your followers.
Make generating this content easy as hell. You can be more loose with branding since this won't show on your profile

Musts:
Unfold - recommended 4x (I stopped counting after that), diff layouts, focused on IG stories. Mix photos and videos together. Premium options for fonts/layouts at $1.99 each

Nice to try:
Hypertype - animated text. (Low priority)
InShot - recommended 2x - edit photos and videos together, video effects, backgrounds for photos
8mm - $1.99 - Video - rec’d 2x, make video/photo look vintage
SNOW - make photos look vintage, add cool effects
Splice - by GoPro, but many use it to edit instastory vids. Music, sound effects, etc
VideoLeap - easy video editor, add effects, background, text, music sound effects
Camcorder - video - title says it all. 90s VHS
VSCO - recommended 2x - has “DSCO” function that does like a slower “boomerang” style effect
3. Post Creation Workflow
This is where we put it all together.

Workflow:

raw content --> photo/video editor app (like Lightroom, Nebi, or SNOW) --> layout app (like Unfold) --> post scheduler* --> Instagram's native editor**

*Schedulers:
Planoly - Far and away the best for IG. Schedules and autoposts for you if you have a business account. Big bonus: it creates 3x3 grids from one photo automatically.
Hootsuite - is great if you want to manage FB page, twitter, pinterest, and IG. Excellent way to manage comments / engagement if you get a shitload of comments across platforms.
Buffer - Also manages twitter and other platforms like Hootsuite does. No clear winner between the two, imho.
Honorable mention: grum.co - I use this because I got a lifetime deal from Appsumo years ago. It only handles one photo at a time, and no stories.

**Instagram's native editor:
I won't go into this too much, but some things you need to be aware of that only get added at this final stage of posting:
Stickers - tag people in a photo with @mentions
Add text - offers 5 different fonts. Use one consistently.
3. Further Reading and Topics to Research
1. Instagram Gurus worth following

Sue B Zimmerman on Youtube.
Lots of clickbait video titles, but holy hell she's an info bomb. If you sign up for her mailing list, she'll do a free 15-min call with you

Josue Pena
His stuff is spread around, but Youtube is a good place to start. Just search his name. There's a good video on getting your first 1k subs.
The videos are a little fluffy, but once they finally get to the point, there are some great tips.

Also, watch random influencers' videos. They usually come up with clever tricks.
Example: One girl suggested getting a stylus and using it to add handwritten text to your IG stories.

2. TFF Threads to follow:


OK, gonna stop here.
A final thought:
I'm new to this and am struggling to learn it all myself. There are a million tools out there, but I didn't mention them unless there were multiple sources recommending them. I SUCK at this stuff, but hopefully I make your research last 2 days (instead of my 3 weeks).
 
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jesseissorude

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updated the parent comment to add more sections under 3., and to clean up some formatting.
I also added Josue Pena as a person to follow.

I've been experimenting with Planoly the past week and I am VERY impressed. I don't like how it handles comments though, so I'm just replying to my users on the instagram.com site instead of through the Planoly dash.

More stuff I'd really like to add (if you have info, I'd love to hear it!):
  • Photo editing (on phone and on desktop)
  • Video editing (again, on phone and on desktop)
  • Workflows to get content between phone / desktop / and a scheduler
 

amp0193

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Thanks for the links to some of the tools. Hadn't heard of some.

I need to up my stories game. Gonna try some of the formatting apps.
 

jesseissorude

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I need to up my stories game. Gonna try some of the formatting apps.

Nice! Glad I could help.

For stories, one part I don't touch on (but would like to add) are the featured stories in your Profile.
Any video you would put on your website, should be considered for inclusion on your profile.
-Product Demos
-Tutorials
-High value free info (with a prompt at the end for the user to take some action)
-Your brand's story(!!!!) <--- treat your IG profile page as if it has a link to an "about us"

Basically, think of your IG profile page as a mini version of your website. If something converts well on your site, consider adding a version of it to your IG profile.

Again, I'm just learning all this stuff myself, but there's a huge emphasis placed on optimizing the profile page for follow conversion... then using your regular stories as if they are your mailing list.
 
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amp0193

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For stories, one part I don't touch on (but would like to add) are the featured stories in your Profile.

These are essential. I'm just starting to roll them out.

People tend to not leave the Instagram platform. The featured stories really makes your page a "mini-website". You are wasting the potential of your Instagram account if you aren't using these.



Basically, think of your IG profile page as a mini version of your website. If something converts well on your site, consider adding a version of it to your IG profile.

Haha, yes, exactly. We're on the same page here.
 

jesseissorude

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People tend to not leave the Instagram platform.
bingo! From what I'm reading, the important thing is flood a user with opportunities to leave the Instagram platform and land on your cart... and the best way to do that is get them to be one of your normal followers and keep putting those choices in front of them over the long term.

EDIT: Made a quick update on the photo editing section. I've been messing with Lightroom and Snapseed, and Snapseed is the clear winner if you aren't a photography professional (so ideal for anyone managing their business page themselves)
 

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bingo! From what I'm reading, the important thing is flood a user with opportunities to leave the Instagram platform and land on your cart...

Right, and I think the best way to do that is with a "swipe up" in stories.
 
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MattR82

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2 important things I've found that I'd like to add.

Be really careful of using any 3rd party apps like grum that aren't officially partnered with fb/insta. Basically anything you give your password/login details to needs to be an official partner. Instagram is cracking down on it for a while now.

Linktree/linkinbio - if you have a website of your own, just create your own linktree lookalike page called insta-resources or something so all the visitors go to your site straight away rather than linktree.
 

MattR82

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Right, and I think the best way to do that is with a "swipe up" in stories.
100% agree. I'm really trying to get them off insta and get their email. Going to start running competitions with kingsumo. Keep it simple where they enter their email for an entry then have the option to share across x y z for extra entries etc.

Oh, and blogs. Particularly for the swipe up. I just managed to get someone over 10k but they have nowhere good on their site to send people lol. Gotta teach them how to blog now. Will be a good chance for me to start playing around learning ahrefs and some basic seo anyway.
 
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artKarolina

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This is a really great starter pack post. The thing I would like to make more efficient is guesstimating hashtags. There's going to be new analytics tools coming out for business accounts, but the release is so slow...there must be a better way to figure out Insta "seo" basically. Some posts I have decent hashtag reach (30% visitors from hashtags), others is a sad 7%. I have a very good engagement rating for a small account, but I have trouble bringing in the new eyes organically.
 
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jesseissorude

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100% agree. I'm really trying to get them off insta and get their email. Going to start running competitions with kingsumo.

I actually have extremely intimate knowledge of Kingsumo. I don't want to say too much more when I'm not on an Inside thread, but I'll shoot you a DM.

To address the larger point: That's dead on. If these people are my IG followers, then I will always have to go through Facebook to access them. We saw what can happen with that when FB started to tighten down reach on their newsfeed.
I view it the same as "don't build your business on someone else's platform. If I only sold through eBay, and that platform suddenly shut down my account one day then I'm out of a job. Similarly, if Instagram messes with the cost to run ads and my margins don't make sense anymore, I have nothing to fall back on.
Email is king. Your list is YOUR personal audience.

I'm super passionate about this. My most recent job was for a company that is based around growing your list.

The thing I would like to make more efficient is guesstimating hashtags.

Me too! This guide was meant to be more about the logistics (how to get content, how to automate posting, first steps, etc). But of the sales I've made through IG in the past month, most of them came through hashtags that I added to my posts.

Hashtags are probably the best/easiest way to increase your reach and grow your IG account. I'm a novice at this, but that should probably be the next thing I add to the guide
 

MattR82

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I actually have extremely intimate knowledge of Kingsumo. I don't want to say too much more when I'm not on an Inside thread, but I'll shoot you a DM.

To address the larger point: That's dead on. If these people are my IG followers, then I will always have to go through Facebook to access them. We saw what can happen with that when FB started to tighten down reach on their newsfeed.
I view it the same as "don't build your business on someone else's platform. If I only sold through eBay, and that platform suddenly shut down my account one day then I'm out of a job. Similarly, if Instagram messes with the cost to run ads and my margins don't make sense anymore, I have nothing to fall back on.
Email is king. Your list is YOUR personal audience.

I'm super passionate about this. My most recent job was for a company that is based around growing your list.



Me too! This guide was meant to be more about the logistics (how to get content, how to automate posting, first steps, etc). But of the sales I've made through IG in the past month, most of them came through hashtags that I added to my posts.

Hashtags are probably the best/easiest way to increase your reach and grow your IG account. I'm a novice at this, but that should probably be the next thing I add to the guide
That would be great! I've seen quite a few different things for running comps on, but I quite like kingsumo actually.

As for hashtags, I've had pretty good success with them lately, quite a few of my posts getting 65 to 85% reached that aren't followers. Usually seems around 78% this last month. I bought Alex Tooby's course a while back and found it really helpful, especially around hashtags. It's pretty simple strategy - start dominating smaller tags from 5k to 50k/500k then move up as you grow. After a few months I was sitting in top 3/6/9 for sometimes a few days in tags that have volume of around a million. Good results, but still lower than what I expected.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around it, but I would follow @Ziad thread about using a network of influencers. Basically he has some kind of pod on steroids although it's of course more in depth than that. It really seems to me like the best way to grow is collaborating with good influencers and using them to get onto explore. As well as having good content of course which is a given.

After all the hard work I put in to optimising posts, hashtags, engaging in hashtags etc etc etc, we gained 750 followers in 12 hours a few days ago after an influencer that was only looking at working with us, mentioned us in one of their many stories. That's all. Real accounts and people that we got enquiries out of already.
 

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That would be great! I've seen quite a few different things for running comps on, but I quite like kingsumo actually.

As for hashtags, I've had pretty good success with them lately, quite a few of my posts getting 65 to 85% reached that aren't followers. Usually seems around 78% this last month. I bought Alex Tooby's course a while back and found it really helpful, especially around hashtags. It's pretty simple strategy - start dominating smaller tags from 5k to 50k/500k then move up as you grow. After a few months I was sitting in top 3/6/9 for sometimes a few days in tags that have volume of around a million. Good results, but still lower than what I expected.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around it, but I would follow @Ziad thread about using a network of influencers. Basically he has some kind of pod on steroids although it's of course more in depth than that. It really seems to me like the best way to grow is collaborating with good influencers and using them to get onto explore. As well as having good content of course which is a given.

After all the hard work I put in to optimising posts, hashtags, engaging in hashtags etc etc etc, we gained 750 followers in 12 hours a few days ago after an influencer that was only looking at working with us, mentioned us in one of their many stories. That's all. Real accounts and people that we got enquiries out of already.

If you don't mind, how many followers did that influencer have and how much did you pay for that mention in their stories?
 
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MattR82

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If you don't mind, how many followers did that influencer have and how much did you pay for that mention in their stories?
They have a little over 400k followers (adventure travel couple). However they are growing pretty fast lately and have legitimate followers. The story mention didn't cost anything. The account is for a destination wedding planner in sth east asia, they came to visit to discuss a wedding. They are getting a bit of a discount obviously if it all goes ahead though.

It's really hard to find/figure out how much to pay people for this kind of stuff. It's relatively easy to find out if their followers and engagement is legit though. But pricing this stuff has me a little stumped as well.
 

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We'll skip:
  • growth strategies
    • hashtags
    • how to partner with influencers
  • paying for anything. Once you are at 10k followers, you can buy stuff
  • running IG ads
I wouldn’t mind a post detailing these things...:)
 

jesseissorude

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I wouldn’t mind a post detailing these things...:)

H'okay! Again, I'm not an expert yet, buuuut

Hashtags:

These have been super important for increasing my reach and getting new followers/engagement.
Use a tool like Display Purposes | Photo Hashtags for the Modern Trollop to find good hashtags based on a seed phrase you give it.

Have 20-ish hashtags in your back pocket that you use regularly, but mix them up every once in a while. I've heard horror stories of people recycling the same hashtags over and over and over again and then getting dinged by "The Algorithm". Make sure the hashtags are relevant, you don't want just spam likes, you want to reach your actual customers. Hashtags with 300k-400k pics seem to get good traction. Don't bother with any tag that has a dozen pics, obviously no one will see your post and you just wasted a spot that a better hashtag could use. Tags with 3million pics will get you a quick burst of likes, but your pic will be drowned out in that feed almost instantly. 300-400k seems to have a good "sticking" factor that gets you likes and follows for a couple days after the post.

Partnering with other accounts:

I don't have much advice for you here as I've only scratched the surface on this. But one thing I did was to take a picture of another company's product, and share it on my feed. I put my product next to theirs and said they go well together... boom, the other company (with many more followers) shares the picture and gives me a shoutout. All of a sudden, I've reached a completely different (but relevant) audience.

There are certainly many more useful strategies here that I don't know yet
 
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PizzaOnTheRoof

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H'okay! Again, I'm not an expert yet, buuuut

Hashtags:

These have been super important for increasing my reach and getting new followers/engagement.
Use a tool like Display Purposes | Photo Hashtags for the Modern Trollop to find good hashtags based on a seed phrase you give it.

Have 20-ish hashtags in your back pocket that you use regularly, but mix them up every once in a while. I've heard horror stories of people recycling the same hashtags over and over and over again and then getting dinged by "The Algorithm". Make sure the hashtags are relevant, you don't want just spam likes, you want to reach your actual customers. Hashtags with 300k-400k pics seem to get good traction. Don't bother with any tag that has a dozen pics, obviously no one will see your post and you just wasted a spot that a better hashtag could use. Tags with 3million pics will get you a quick burst of likes, but your pic will be drowned out in that feed almost instantly. 300-400k seems to have a good "sticking" factor that gets you likes and follows for a couple days after the post.

Partnering with other accounts:

I don't have much advice for you here as I've only scratched the surface on this. But one thing I did was to take a picture of another company's product, and share it on my feed. I put my product next to theirs and said they go well together... boom, the other company (with many more followers) shares the picture and gives me a shoutout. All of a sudden, I've reached a completely different (but relevant) audience.

There are certainly many more useful strategies here that I don't know yet
Great stuff. Thank you!
 

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I have been trying to grow instagram a bit. I found out a nice little hack for having links appear in your story without having the 10k followers needed.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsEkUhDHto0


I have just implemented this today for a class i have up, what a great little hack!

Also added it to my highlights and page so that it can be viewable to anyone who comes across my page at any point in time.
 
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picture.JPG

Would love to know how to insert a background like this into my existing photos by editing, trying to crop photos on my phone to insert into a background is like pulling teeth, it doesn't do a good job because my fat fingers crop out some of the picture of myself.


This chick kills it.
 

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About me:
I've been using Instagram since the first year it came out, but only with a personal account. I didn't want strangers following me, just friends. The app itself was all I ever needed for liking, commenting, and adding my own media.
Now that I'm trying to grow a business profile, I'm having a heck of a time learning this stuff. Especially how to use Stories effectively.
I've been doing a deep-dive all week, so this post is a digested version of all the notes I've taken. Take it all with a grain of salt, I'm still new to this. Hopefully this can serve as a kickstart so you don't have to go down the rabbit hole I did and sort all the wheat from the enormous amounts of chaff.
Who this is for:
  • Business accounts with <10k followers
  • Newbies to IG for business

What we won't cover:
This post is tool-heavy and mostly focused on building your profile and some systems around managing content. Tools will be highlighted in green. We'll skip:
  • growth strategies
    • hashtags
    • how to partner with influencers
  • paying for anything. Once you are at 10k followers, you can buy stuff
  • running IG ads

Ready? Me neither.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Contents:
  1. Optimize your profile
    1. Personal or Business profile?
    2. Bio
    3. Grid
  2. Generating content
    1. Newsfeed posts
    2. Stories
    3. Post creation and workflow . <---- this is the money maker. If you read one section only, read this one
  3. Further reading and topics to research
    1. IG gurus to follow
    2. Helpful TFF threads
--------------------------------------------------------------

1. Optimize your Profile
1. Should I switch to a business profile?
This is something you'll only really worry about when you are under 10k followers. Once you hit 10k, switch over if you haven't already because at 10k you can use in-story links directly to products.
Personally, I'm switching over immediately as many tools require you to have a business account to auto post your content (more on this later).

2. Optimize your Bio
Keep it short and descriptive. This is ta great place to show your mission, value statement, etc. Keep in mind that this will be a new follower's first impression of you. Spoon-feed them what you want them to think about you.​
Emojis can be an easy way to make it more readable or separate sections.​
MUST: Add a call-to-action link to the action you want them to take.​
Need multiple links in your bio? Use Linktree
Do you change your profile's CTA link often? Use Linkin.bio

Optional (this won't make sense for 80% of brands): Use custom fonts on bio if it fits your branding.​
Use How to Customize Your Instagram Fonts - Later Blog to find a IG-acceptable fonts that might work.​
If you use custom fonts in your actual post captions, use an app like Fonts - for Instagram.​


3. Optimize your Grid:
GREAT article on this. Pay attention to the screenshots: https://skedsocial.com/blog/instagram-grid-layout/
(article is from "Sked" which is an IG image editor that I haven't researched)
When someone is on your profile page, they're going to see all your past posts. Make sure your posts have a cohesive branding theme. This is where your follower growth comes from. Clean this up before you think about running ads. Think of it as your "landing page"​
You can do this with your Grid Layout's common theme:​
  • posts by row
  • 3x3 super image
  • common themes [wood, plants, metal]
  • common colors
  • common filters/editing
Examples:
@recoveryeffects ; common theme of wood. Scroll waaayyy back in their history to see what their account looked like before they started doing this. It's night and day​
@Coach ; they jump from 3x3 grids of similar colors. Here's one grid. The next week it was all bright colors and graffiti:​
@mickey_tlj ; Checkerboard layout -​
instagram-grid-layout-preview-app-9.jpg
You can also do a 3x3 grid that matches up to make a full picture. I like this for product launches and hype.​
@the_oa​
split-photos-211x300.jpg
Another easy thing you can do if you are just starting with this:​
Add a color border around every picture. Just use the same border for all.​

2. Generating Content
Goal here should be making it as frictionless as possible.​
1. Newsfeed posts
We discussed this briefly in the "optimizing your grid" section above. Posts should have a cohesive theme + branding.​
You'll be using the same filters/fonts over and over.​
If you use the same filters/editing for each photo, eliminate filters that you don't use, and rearrange the filters so that your top 3 are always listed first.​
When choosing filters, scroll all the way to the right, click "Manage" and rearrange your filters and delete "never use" filters.​
zKsC3Zy.jpg

Some apps. Experiment with all, then pick a few that match your workflow. Use them over and over. Shake it up once in a while, but you should really only be using 1-2.​
Musts:​
Snapseed - perfect for editing the raw photo. Free! Lightroom serves this purpose as well, but it's more for professional photographers who need to send the same file from phone to desktop and keep the file data. This app is a must+1.​
Canva - edit things with specific platform layouts, IG, Pinterest, business cards, basically the industry standard.​
Nice to try:​
Adobe Lightroom - power tool for photographers. Lets you reuse filters / common edits you make frequently​
Over - more advanced, templates like canva, add unlimited photos​
Nebi - popular, gritty, distressed, vintage filters for photos​

2. Stories <--- Important! I've heard multiple sources say this is like IG ads lite. This is your multiple-nudge-per-day outreach to your followers.​
Make generating this content easy as hell. You can be more loose with branding since this won't show on your profile​
Musts:​
Unfold - recommended 4x (I stopped counting after that), diff layouts, focused on IG stories. Mix photos and videos together. Premium options for fonts/layouts at $1.99 each​
Nice to try:​
Hypertype - animated text. (Low priority)​
InShot - recommended 2x - edit photos and videos together, video effects, backgrounds for photos​
8mm - $1.99 - Video - rec’d 2x, make video/photo look vintage​
SNOW - make photos look vintage, add cool effects​
Splice - by GoPro, but many use it to edit instastory vids. Music, sound effects, etc​
VideoLeap - easy video editor, add effects, background, text, music sound effects​
Camcorder - video - title says it all. 90s VHS​
VSCO - recommended 2x - has “DSCO” function that does like a slower “boomerang” style effect​

3. Post Creation Workflow
This is where we put it all together.​
Workflow:
raw content --> photo/video editor app (like Lightroom, Nebi, or SNOW) --> layout app (like Unfold) --> post scheduler* --> Instagram's native editor**​
*Schedulers:​
Planoly - Far and away the best for IG. Schedules and autoposts for you if you have a business account. Big bonus: it creates 3x3 grids from one photo automatically.​
Hootsuite - is great if you want to manage FB page, twitter, pinterest, and IG. Excellent way to manage comments / engagement if you get a shitload of comments across platforms.​
Buffer - Also manages twitter and other platforms like Hootsuite does. No clear winner between the two, imho.​
Honorable mention: grum.co - I use this because I got a lifetime deal from Appsumo years ago. It only handles one photo at a time, and no stories.​
**Instagram's native editor:​
I won't go into this too much, but some things you need to be aware of that only get added at this final stage of posting:​
Stickers - tag people in a photo with @mentions​
Add text - offers 5 different fonts. Use one consistently.​


3. Further Reading and Topics to Research
1. Instagram Gurus worth following
Lots of clickbait video titles, but holy hell she's an info bomb. If you sign up for her mailing list, she'll do a free 15-min call with you
Josue Pena​
His stuff is spread around, but Youtube is a good place to start. Just search his name. There's a good video on getting your first 1k subs.​
The videos are a little fluffy, but once they finally get to the point, there are some great tips.​
Also, watch random influencers' videos. They usually come up with clever tricks.​
Example: One girl suggested getting a stylus and using it to add handwritten text to your IG stories.​
2. TFF Threads to follow:
Growing & Monetizing Instagram in a crowded niche
Adventures of an Instagram newbie
1,000,000 Followers On Social Media: How I Am Doing It & How You Can Too
Growing your Instagram account, strategy and discussion
"Influencer" Marketing


OK, gonna stop here.
A final thought:
I'm new to this and am struggling to learn it all myself. There are a million tools out there, but I didn't mention them unless there were multiple sources recommending them. I SUCK at this stuff, but hopefully I make your research last 2 days (instead of my 3 weeks).
Far and away the best IG starter lesson ever.
This question will sound like completely miss the point of IG but it is critical. I can't change this situation at the moment.
I have one business but two distinct, only slightly overlapping customer categories. The values and WHY of my two product lines are clearly different.
So long story short, do I create two separate IG worlds, maybe using my first name for one and initials and half of last name for the other?
Does anyone here have two different IG campaigns?
 
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jesseissorude

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I have one business but two distinct, only slightly overlapping customer categories. The values and WHY of my two product lines are clearly different.
So long story short, do I create two separate IG worlds, maybe using my first name for one and initials and half of last name for the other?

Hmm, good question. I am in a similar situation. I have 2 distinct customers as well: end-users, and stores that buy in wholesale.

For my situation, one instagram works. Wholesalers just want to see that I'm maintaining a brand image and that end customers are engaging with it. If they know that, then they can guess my products won't be stuck on their shelves forever.

What are the two types of customers you are reaching out to? More info might help.

I found out a nice little hack for having links appear in your story without having the 10k followers needed.
...
I have just implemented this today for a class i have up, what a great little hack!

Wow, thanks for sharing! I'm going to try that this weekend.
Have you been seeing good results from that?
 

Timmy C

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Wow, thanks for sharing! I'm going to try that this weekend.
Have you been seeing good results from that?

Not really but my reach on instagram has never been good in my niche since i started, it is fairly broad.

I am using instagram at the moment just to learn the little tricks on how to market there, for when i have a big boy business my instagram game will be strong.

My current little personal brand thing i have going on, is not going to live and die by having instagram followers that's for sure.

Just experimenting :D
 

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View attachment 27189

Would love to know how to insert a background like this into my existing photos by editing, trying to crop photos on my phone to insert into a background is like pulling teeth, it doesn't do a good job because my fat fingers crop out some of the picture of myself.


This chick kills it.

I doubt she does it on her phone, I don’t know anyone who would do this type of editing on their phone. Is there a reason you need to do this on your phone vs a real editing program?
 
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Timmy C

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I doubt she does it on her phone, I don’t know anyone who would do this type of editing on their phone. Is there a reason you need to do this on your phone vs a real editing program?


I have tried both, if you could recommend a good photo editing software to use for free i would give it a whirl.

Had a few that claim to be free but then limit functionality and don't enable you to save edits etc.

Then the sign up pop up appears and i exit.

Pain in the a$$.
 

1step

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I have tried both, if you could recommend a good photo editing software to use for free i would give it a whirl.

I don't use a free program. I use photoshop but I have heard good things about gimp which I think is free. Also someone on fiverr could probably do a handful of images for $5. This is a very simple skill for anyone remotely skilled with photoshop
 

jesseissorude

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I have tried both, if you could recommend a good photo editing software to use for free i would give it a whirl.

GIMP
It's pretty much an open-source Photoshop and extremely widely used, so there are a lot of forums / tutorials to find. If you are already good at Photoshop, it just takes a little poking around to figure out how to do the same things in GIMP.

I just tried to remove the background from something the other day and used this tutorial:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SB2exKj9LI

Not the greatest video, but he does teach you how to do it pretty easily.

But, if you are just trying to do this for one thing and get a background for your instagram, I'd use Fiverr and be done with it.
 
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What you do to develop more subscribers for your account!? More people for auditory, a flow that doesn't stop. I’m using this amazing feature as how to buy instagram likes like booster for all my content I add on my Instagram page. Very happy with the experience I have with them, never thought such success will appear for a short time. Want to share also who wants more subscribers on their profile, because why not? Just to click and watch feed? Why not to be on the other side? In front of everyone? Worked for me, and no secret or hidden things are required.
 
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jesseissorude

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I’m using this amazing feature as how to buy instagram likes like booster for all my content I add on my Instagram page.

That's gonna be a hard PASS from me. Paying for vanity metrics like likes/follows is a waste. Why not run targeted ads to your desired audience and redirect them to your IG profile?

Likes don't pay the bills. Actual fans do.
 

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