Figure 6.1 Money Saving Mom’s website and social media reach constitute a significant platform.
When you start building your Instagram profile, you’ll have zero followers on day one. That’s an embarrassing place to be for a proud brand manager. Everyone has to go from zero to 10, then 10 to 100, before they can go from 100 to 1,000 and so on. You want to accelerate your growth as quickly as possible so that people see your work on the social network as impressive.
You want to grow as quickly as possible up to a level that most people would consider respectable. That number will be different for different people and brands, but for a small business, having 1,000 fans or more seems like a minimum acceptable standard. You’ll probably wonder how many Instagram followers I have as the writer of this book. There is a number somewhere in the back of your mind that you consider a reasonable number, and when you see how many followers I have, you will think, Okay, this guy is legit, if I meet that expectation. Feel free to look up my profile and see if your expectations are met. My Instagram user name is @mrjasonmiles; or via the website, go to http://www.instagram.com/mrjasonmiles. Our business account is http://www.instagram.com/libertyjaneclothing.
Coca-Cola, of course, will have a different number, as its threshold of legitimacy is much higher. We expect more from Coca-Cola because we know it is one of the world’s biggest brands.
At Liberty Jane Clothing, we always have the same goal when we launch on a new social media platform. We aim to get to 1,000 followers as quickly as possible. For us, that’s the number that indicates credibility. We can only speculate about whether that number meets our customer’s expectations, but that is how we approach the start-up effort. You can look up our business profile and see how we’re doing by going to @libertyjane or by going to the website at http://www.instagram.com/libertyjaneclothing. I would encourage you to establish a similar initial goal to get 1,000 followers as quickly as you can.
Have you ever looked at a company’s social media profile and felt underimpressed by the number of followers it has? You can see this most frequently on YouTube, where even massive companies have a very difficult time getting people to subscribe to their channels. There are several brands and guru-type people that immediately come to mind as I’m writing this, which I could include as examples, but I don’t want to embarrass them publicly. These big underachievers have massive advertising budgets, whole armies of marketers, and ad agencies to back them up, but they can’t get more than a few hundred subscribers on YouTube. But tiny companies, or even more embarrassing, seventh graders in their bedrooms, can get tens of thousands of followers and millions of video views. Like it or not, the number of followers you have is one of the primary methods by which people verify credibility.
The sad truth is paradoxical: people will follow popular people (or brands) more easily than they will unpopular people (or brands). This can create something I call the “failure to socially thrive syndrome.” You launch your profile and it languishes. You have to actively manage your way through this condition by taking deliberate action.
There are specific actions that you can take that serve as catalysts for growth. You want to use all the legitimate catalysts for growth that you can. Novice social media marketers assume that “organic growth” means “unadded growth,” but this is not true.
The truth is, there are things that won’t and don’t happen unless something else happens first. This is the basic concept of a catalyst. Popcorn will never pop unless you heat it up, and your Instagram profile will never aggressively grow unless you use a proper catalyst. Setting up a profile and doing the basic user behaviors, in this case uploading pictures, will not create a flash mob of organic growth. That’s not a realistic amount of effort, no matter how good your pictures are.
Let’s look at five catalysts for organic growth and see if they apply to your situation. Scientists define catalysts in two broad groups: positive catalysts and negative catalysts. Positive catalysts speed things up, while negative catalysts slow things down. Another term for negative catalysts is inhibitors. First, we’ll look at three positive catalysts and then two negative ones.
As we outlined in Chapter 4, one of the primary action steps of a basic marketing plan is inviting your existing fans, followers, and friends to follow you on Instagram. The larger your social reach on other platforms, the faster you’ll be able to catalyze growth on Instagram past your initial goal.
Let’s look at an example. The amazing Money Saving Mom blog, as seen in Figure 6.1, is a website that serves a very large community of home economists.
Figure 6.1 Money Saving Mom’s website and social media reach constitute a significant platform.
At the time of this writing, the site has the following metrics:
Facebook followers. 211,749
Twitter followers. 99,235
YouTube subscribers. 1,606 (583,555 video views)
Pinterest followers. 23,359
Newsletter subscribers. Unknown but probably well over 100,000
Unique monthly website visitors. 750,000
Monthly website page views. Over 4 million
Her new Instagram account will start with zero followers, but imagine how quickly it will grow if she positions it as an exciting new way to see what she’s up to. You can see how she’s doing at http://instagram.com/crystalpaine.
Each business is different, but everyone has some social reach, even if a person is just starting out. In Chapter 5, we outlined why tapping into this existing base of users is a wise idea. In order to fully leverage this strategy, you need to answer one question for your existing customers: Why should I follow you on Instagram if I already follow you on Twitter (or Facebook or Pinterest)? The answer to that question is what you might call your “Instagram value proposition.”
You want to position your Instagram account as a new service for your existing customers. Here is how we are doing this at Liberty Jane Clothing as it’s related to our other social assets:
Facebook. General news and conversations
Pinterest. Our collection of “things we love”
YouTube. Contests and how-to videos
Newsletter. A weekly recap of our new product offerings
Instagram. Behind-the-scenes images of our work and life
Maybe you’ll use Instagram for something else, but for us, this is the most logical use and what informs our value proposition. This value proposition guides us as we share images. We are also repeating this message to our fans, followers, and friends via our existing platforms. In Part 5 of this book, we’ll explain in greater detail how to integrate Instagram with your other social assets.
As we outlined in Chapter 5, using the basic social behaviors on Instagram will help build up your number of followers. These behaviors are not complicated, but they do take a lot of time. They are the basic social actions. These include:
Liking other users’ images within your niche
Following other users within your niche
Commenting on other users’ images within your niche
Responding to comments that people have made on your images
There is one factor that directly affects your ability to use these actions to grow your number of followers, and that is simply the amount of time you spend on Instagram conducting social actions. There might be shortcuts, but this is a tried-and-true method.
It’s important to distinguish between uploading pictures and the other social actions we outlined in Chapter 5 and engaging in the more relational social actions at this point. As we’ve discussed previously, it is better to upload fewer high-quality images than many poorer-quality images.
Let’s assume that hypothetically it takes five minutes of Instagram work to get one new follower. You can spend that time liking images, making comments, or following new people. Whatever you do, it needs to be strategic engagement, not random activity. It stands to reason that if you increase your time on the site by a factor of 10 (50 minutes a day on the site), then the number of followers will increase by a factor of 10 (10 followers a day). At that rate, it would take you 100 days, or just over 3 months of working 50 minutes a day, to reach your goal of 1,000 followers. How can you improve that result? Here are a few suggestions:
Follow people in your niche who have roughly the same number of followers as people they are following. In other words, avoid people who have a very large following but who don’t follow very many people. They simply won’t follow you back, nor will they notice that you started following them.
After you start following people, start liking their images regularly so they see you in their News Feed tab. That will improve the odds that they will notice you and follow you back.
Like recent images. When an image is uploaded to Instagram, the first few likers get their user names displayed underneath the image. But beyond 10 likers, it simply says “11 likes,” and the names are concealed. So liking an image immediately after it is uploaded allows your user name to be displayed on the image until more than 10 people like it.
Follow the people who liked your product images. These are people who have endorsed your product—you really ought to like them!
Leave comments frequently on many people’s images. It seems that likes are so common on Instagram that they don’t necessarily help you stand out as much as a comment does. So provide nice comments.
Mastering Catalyst #2 will get you noticed, but if you want someone to start following you, your profile presentation and your images need to be good. The topic of picture quality should probably get an entire chapter, but there are many books and resources online that can help you improve your photography. Plus I’m a marketer, not a photographer, so I’ll share what I know and recommend that you seek further help as needed. Let’s review a few of the basic concepts briefly:
Composition. The composition or layout of the image can radically change how people perceive it. The same scene can result in an amazing picture or a boring one, depending on how the photographer arranges the visual elements.
Lighting. Your lighting will be different for product photography versus other types of photography. Mastering lighting is one of the keys to effective photography. Most commonly, natural light produces a nicer result than indoor lighting.
Subject matter. Having an interesting subject is the most important part of any photo. The biggest challenge most photographers face is trying to identify interesting subject matter.
Simplicity. Many times, photographs are made more interesting by what is left out, rather than what is included. Cropping out irrelevant elements and allowing the viewer to focus on just one aspect of the scene will improve most images.
Focal point. Having a single focal point is part of striving for simplicity. The question for every image is, What will people be drawn toward within the image, and how can I prominently position that part?
Perspective. You have the opportunity to tell a story with your images. Your perspective is unique, and the way you take the photo reflects that uniqueness. For example, when you’re standing in an orchard, you can focus on the strict order of the tree planting, the leaves or bark on the tree, or a bird on a branch. Each is a different perspective on the same orchard.
Point of view. The angle at which you take a picture can affect the final result dramatically. Many times, simply raising the camera up higher or kneeling down can change the point of view enough to move an image from boring to interesting.
Filters. Instagram was designed to allow iPhone photographers to edit and share their images. The filters included in the app allow you to substantially alter your photos. How you do that can either make them look brilliant and inviting or cause them to look “off” and “wrong.” Over time, you’ll come to use different filters for different situations.
Black and white versus color. One of the simplest ways to increase the interest in a photo is by making it black and white instead of color. Instagram has several filters that allow you to do different versions of black and white.
Unedited or filtered. There is a “purist” tribe of users within Instagram that has a real disdain for filters. They would much rather see images that are high quality and unedited than lower quality and edited heavily. You’ll have to choose which perspective you want to take on.
Sharpness. Most mobile phones allow you to focus on several areas on the screen before you take the picture, and by doing so you can alter the sharpness of the focal point or make things intentionally less sharp.
Depth of field. A common technique in portrait and product photography is the concept of a shallow depth of field—having the focal point in your image be closer to the camera and in focus and having the background be intentionally unfocused. While smartphone cameras cannot create this effect out of the box, as you might guess, there’s an app for that! Try SynthCam for the iPhone.
Color saturation. A common issue with images is that they are not as vibrant as they could be. The Photoshop Express app helps you resolve this issue and many other common issues mentioned in this section.
Having a profile that frightens people is a bad move. Social media is filled with creepers—bots, spammers, and whackos—and you don’t want people to wonder if you fall into one of those categories. There are specific things to avoid to ensure you don’t fall into any of those categories, including:
Using an odd profile name that doesn’t make it clear who you are and what you’re about. This can be a challenge if your business name is long. If you’re an expert or public figure operating in your niche under your user name, it’s sometimes a challenge to clarify the connection with your brand or company. But you should strive to have a clear and easy-to-understand name.
Not distinguishing between your profile name and your name. It is also important to note that your profile name is one piece of information, and Instagram allows you to have a name that can be different. I realize it’s confusing, but your profile name and your name are two different things, which you can use to clarify who you are. Your profile name forms your Instagram account user information, @mrjasonmiles, and the basis for your website URL, http://www.instagram.com/mrjasonmiles. Your name shows up in the Instagram app immediately under your profile name, and on the website form it shows up immediately before your biography. So if you are wise about using both together, you can clarify who you are using a combination of both.
Leaving weird comments. Your comments should be kind and friendly, but not weird. There are a million ways to make a weird comment, but it would certainly include messages that don’t make sense or are too personal.
Liking personal images. Although not directly related to profile presentation, another negative catalyst is liking people’s personal images. If people share 50 images of lakes, sunsets, and flowers, along with four of themselves with their friends, like the flowers, not the friends. Liking personal images makes you seem like a creeper. Liking people’s good nonpersonal images suggests that you like their photography skills, which is not creepy.
As we talked about in Chapter 4, your image strategy is a critical part of your success on Instagram. There are lots of ways to damage your user experience and follower growth by choosing images poorly. Let’s review a few commonsense ideas:
Choose images that will resonate with your target market. If you are trying to cultivate fans and followers to help promote your brand or product, then your images should be enjoyable to your followers. This requires a bit of customer research and thoughtful analysis.
Choose images that are high quality. This is a no-brainer. Your images need to be really good. Sometimes the quality of an image is in the eye of the beholder, but many times the image quality is a direct reflection of the primary photography skills involved. It is better to leave out mediocre photos and have fewer overall images than to include them.
Choose images that will not offend anyone. Most corporate marketers have the discipline, or fear of being fired, that prevents them from including questionable images. But sadly, many bloggers and online marketers have not considered how damaging inappropriate content can be to their brand.