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NOW ONSo the first tactic that I want to talk about is from my new Instagram friend called Darren. I'll put a nice little screenshot of Darren's profile in case you want to check him out. Darren is a voice-over artist and he's also an impressionist, right? And he actually got to the final of Britain's Got Talent a couple of years back. Anyway, Darren messaged me on Instagram and was like, 'Hey, I just want to share this experience I had with you because I think you'll find it interesting.' And Darren was correct. I did find it interesting. So after going on Britain's Got Talent, he took part in a bunch of different Instagram Lives. The viewers of these Instagram Lives ranged from like 500 to like 10,000 views per live session. And he told me that after his first Instagram Live appearance, he went from 1 to 7,500 followers in the space of about an hour off the back of that Instagram Live. I like don't get me wrong. I've always known that Instagram Live could be a really great growth driver for people. One of the main reasons why, and I'm sure you guys have spotted this, but when someone goes on Live with someone else, all of their followers will get a notification saying, 'So and so has gone Live.' Unless that person has turned off the notifications. Most of the time, all of their followers from both accounts are going to get a notification saying that someone's Live, right? Which means that both people taking part in the Live, or sometimes up to four people because with Instagram Live rooms, you can have up to four people now. It means that all people taking part in the Live have this really great opportunity to reach someone else's audience. And not just reach them, but engage with them on a real deep level, like interactive level, because it's Live. If people can ask questions, and make comments, but also with video content, which if you've watched me before, you'll know that I'm a firm believer that video content is one of the best ways to build a really good deep relationship with people. So that's what Instagram Live offers to you. And I'm guessing that that's what happened to Darren, and that's why he managed to gain so many followers from that tactic. Since then, obviously, he continued to do Instagram Live. Like, who wouldn't experience that and then continue to do it? He continued to do Instagram Lives, and now he's on 15,000 followers. Like, what a success story. I literally messaged him back, and I was like, 'I need to talk about you on my videos because that is such a glowing testimony of Instagram Lives.' So that is my first tactic in this video.
The next tactic that I have for you, I like to call my content layering system. It sounds so much more fancy than it is, but, you know, I'm a marketer, so I just give fancy names to things. What my content layering system is, it's basically a really sneaky way to help you produce content which is going to get loads of likes, which is going to get loads of saves, and which is going to get shared. So how do I achieve this? So what we first need to do before I break down the exact method behind it is just quickly reference why we need to aim for content which encourages shares. And the reason why is because saves are going to help you reach more people because Instagram's algorithm sees a save as a really great indication that your content is of high quality. And if Instagram's algorithm thinks your content is of high quality and it's being well received by people, they will push it out to more people and therefore it will be seen by more people and you are potentially going to get a lot more followers. When it comes to shares, I feel like this one's a bit more of an obvious one. But shares are important when it comes to growing and getting more followers because when someone shares your content on their profile, they are sharing it to their audience, it's different to yours. Hopefully they're similar to yours. But their audience is different, which means that you are now going to get your content seen by a whole new audience which will hopefully translate to a whole new load of followers, right? So that's why shares and saves are a core part of this content layering system. The other part that I've not spoken about is likes, which might seem weird because they're a very superficial metric and not a lot of kind of online marketing gurus like to focus on them anymore. And don't get me wrong, I don't really focus on those anymore either. The reason why I'm including likes is because likes are still factored into Instagram's algorithm. Still gonna help you reach more people and therefore, you know, again, get more followers. So let's talk about the actual system and how it works and how we're managing to get all of those different things from just one post. How it works is that you create a carousel, which is broken down into three layers. So the first layer is your attention grabbing layer. So this is the one where I was referring to producing content, what's going to get a lot of likes. Now, you may disagree with this, but I would say out of everyone I've ever worked with, all my clients, everyone I've ever coached, or any consultancy I've ever done, the content which gets the most likes and which stops people from scrolling is content which features a human. I mean, sometimes it's content which features puppies too, but I would say that content which features a human is gonna stop you from someone from scrolling and have a look at that piece of content better. So I want the first post on your carousel to be of you. If you're a brand, then I want it to be of your influencer using your products, and if you're a service brand, then I still want it to be of you because you're, that's probably what you're saying, right? I want it to be of you. I want a person to be the front of your carousel. You can have text in it, doesn't matter. I'll show an example of what I do over here, but I want the main part of your first post on your carousel to be of you because that's what's going to stop people from scrolling and be like, 'Oh, that's a cute pic.' And then the next layer needs to be the shareable and savable content. So there's loads of different types of shareable and savable content. The most common ones are things like quotes and things like carousels, which provide step-by-steps on how to do something. That's real shareable and savable content. Now, you might be watching this and thinking, 'Not I don't have the kind of account on niche where I can be sharing a step-by-step or something, but I would go so far to say that most accounts in most niches can be sharing quotes. There are quotes which relate to everything. So most accounts could be sharing that. So that's what I want your second layer of your carousel to be. And then I want your third layer to be your call to action. So us marketers like to call it CTAs because who doesn't love a good acronym? So your call to action is going to be your post what says, 'I have one that says, like, did they find this useful? Then if you did, then like, save, share, you know, all that good stuff. Or sometimes I use one looks like, did you find this useful? If so, head to my YouTube channel. I've got more information there. You need to find a call to action which is relevant to you. If you don't know what your call to action is, just think, what do I want people to do at the end of this post? Do I want them to save it? Do I want them to share it? Do I want them to go to my website? Like, what do I want them to do? And create that as part of your carousel. A lot of people will tell you calls to actions are for your captions and they are, but they're also for your post as well. If you're using the carousel, you can dedicate a whole post just asking someone to do something. So by using this method, you are going to capture someone's attention when they're scrolling through their feed because your first post is of you and it's attention grabbing. You're then going to get them to swipe and you're providing value, which means they're going to share it or they're going to save it. And then if they haven't done that stuff already, your last post is going to explicitly ask them to take an action to do something with what they've just seen. And a lot of people think if I ask someone to do something, they're not going to do it. That's not true. Like, if you ask people to do stuff, they're probably more likely to do it. You know, you don't ask, you don't receive. That's what my mom always told me.
My next tactic is to get featured on other pages. So there's a bunch of different ways that this can happen. I'll focus on theme pages for now, but you can also be featured on like a brand's page and stuff like that. But let's focus on theme pages because theme pages are applicable to everyone. Theme pages are Instagram pages which create content all related to one theme. So, for example, puppies or interior design. You would have seen them before. You just may not realize that that's what they're called, right? So why do you want to get featured on a theme page? Theme pages boast a really engaged audience. Every single person who is following a theme page is following it because they really love that theme of content. So, for example, if you are in the fashion niche and you just got reposted by a fashion theme page, the reason why this is so valuable is because all of the people who follow that fashion theme page will have a huge interest and love for fashion. So, you have just been placed in front of your ideal target market. You have just been placed in front of thousands of people who already love fashion. Like, it is such a relevant audience for you to be put in front of. Now, the trick here and where the real tactic comes in is when you get reposted by a theme page, you don't just leave that post and think, 'Oh, yeah, great, now I'm going to get loads of followers.' You might, but there are other things you can do which will really increase your chances of getting those followers as a result of that repost. The main thing that you can do to really make that repost work harder is to engage with everyone who has engaged with that repost. So, again, let's imagine that your post has been published on a theme page's Instagram channel. So, your post is up. You leave it at least a day, if not a few days, just to really let those comments and likes marinate, you know? So, leave it a few days. Head back to that post. You might have 20 likes. You might have a thousand likes. You might have five comments. You might have a thousand comments. It doesn't really matter how many you have. The strategy and the tactic remains the same. All of those people who have liked or commented on that repost are warm leads. Okay? So, not only are they targeted people who already like your content because it's a theme page, so you can already rest assured that they're interested in your niche, but they're also people who now have signified to you that they also like your content. They like your niche and they like your post. If that's not a warm... that's a hot lead. That's not even a warm lead. Like, they are giving you signals all over the place that they are someone who should be following you. So, what you need to do to convert those people is to go through all of the people who liked that photo, go in all the comments, respond to those comments, go on their page, authentically engage with their content, make sure that you are doing something which is authentic and genuine, but what's going to give them a notification when they go onto Instagram and they're going to see your name pop up? And what that's going to do is they're going to think, 'Oh, that's that person I just liked their photo the other day.' What I just saw on my feed, 'I'm going to check out their profile.' They're going to check out your profile. And because your content is just so cold damn amazing, they're going to be like, 'Oh yeah, I love this person. I'm going to follow them.' And that's how you get them to convert. You're welcome.
The next tip I'm going to give you is a bit of an article one, but it's still a good one. And it is, let's just call it strategic shoutouts. So you may have seen in the past some of your favorite bloggers doing this thing where they screenshot someone else's feed and post it on their stories and they're like, 'Love this girl's content.' Right? You probably see it all the time. And you might be thinking, 'What a lovely person just to shout someone out.' I hate to break it to you, but that person has not posted that shout out out of the goodness of their heart. I mean, I don't know them. Maybe they did. But most of the time, I don't think they have. Whilst it's true that they do like that person's content, what they're actually doing is being really strategic and they're reposting someone's account in the hopes that that person is going to do the same thing to them. I mean, there's people watching this who are going to be like, 'No, I just do it because I'm a really lovely person.' So I'm sorry if I've just offended you, but in my opinion, that is the main reason why people do that. And there's nothing wrong with that as long as it's authentic and you actually do like the person's content who you're shouting out. Then if they do respond and they shout out your page, what's the problem? No harm, no foul, right? And similar theory to what I was talking about before, when that other account spots that you've shouted them out and then they repost you and they shout you out, you are getting exposure to their entire audience. And if they're a big person and they've got a lot of followers, you know, that's going to be really valuable to you. And it's going to really help supercharge your growth.
The next one I'm going to talk about is one which I really don't feel like people mention enough. And it's probably quite obvious, but I just don't feel like people are as upfront about it as they should be. My next growth tactic is to leverage channels. So when I say other channels, I mean any other channel that you have at your disposal which is not Instagram. So whether that's another social media channel like Twitter or your TikTok or YouTube or whether that's something like an email list that you have, maybe you have a website, you know, what even things down to your signature on your email. These are all places that you can be promoting your Instagram page, which is going to lead you to getting more followers. The reason why I said I don't feel like people talk about this one enough is because in my opinion, one of the biggest drivers for Instagram growth is having a YouTube channel. Like having a YouTube channel massively helps you grow your Instagram page. And don't get me wrong, it's not like if you have a YouTube channel, you're guaranteed to have millions of followers. Like I only have, I thought like 4,000 followers on my ResideHustle account. I've got like 8,000 on Orange Collective. I never claimed to be someone who's like a macro influencer with a thousand followers. And I'm not saying it's a guarantee. I'm just saying that it really helps. And maybe not everyone likes to talk about that as much because maybe they feel like it devalues a lot of their Instagram tips and advice and expertise. Which I really don't think it does. It's not cheating using another channel to grow your Instagram account. Doesn't mean that people are following you aren't real people and aren't real followers. So it's still very much in my opinion a legitimate tactic that a lot of people need to look into and a lot of people aren't leveraging. Okay, so this tactic, what do I call it? Because I don't want to use the word 'reels' in it. Because this whole video is like tactics that no one talks to you about. And I'm pretty sure someone has said to you before that you need to use 'reels'. What this one is, isn't just me being like 'use 'reels', use 'reels'. Well, this one is to use new Instagram features. That's what it is. When Instagram releases a new feature, they will purposely push out any content which is using this feature. The reason why they're doing this is because their objective is to get as many people using this feature as possible. So if they find great content using this feature, for example, 'reels', then they're going to push it because it's going to encourage other people to use it, which is going to help improve the success of this new feature that they've just released. So I had to throw that one in there. At the minute, the buzzword is 'reels'. Instagram has actually come out and specifically said, 'You know, we are pushing reels over any other feature right now.'
Q: How can Instagram Live be utilized for growth?
A: Instagram Live can be utilized for growth by engaging with viewers in real-time, reaching a wider audience, and building a deep relationship through interactive video content.
Q: What is the Content Layering System and how does it contribute to Instagram success?
A: The Content Layering System involves creating a carousel with attention-grabbing, shareable, and call-to-action layers to increase likes, saves, shares, and follower growth.
Q: How can other channels be leveraged for Instagram growth?
A: Other channels like YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, emails, websites, and signatures can be used to promote an Instagram page, driving more followers and growth.
Q: What is the importance of strategic shoutouts for Instagram success?
A: Strategic shoutouts involve reposting and promoting other accounts in hopes of receiving a shoutout in return, leading to increased exposure and potential follower growth.