Be a Better MC – Page 2

Instagram has been a big part of my marketing focus over the last couple of years in the three niche areas that I work in.Obviously, running this site and accompanying YouTube channel, also my wife’s Art Business and lastly I’ve just launched a new site and channel helping small business in the area where I live, the fabulous Blue Mountains. We have had a shocking year in an area that relies heavily on tourism, with firstly massive Bush Fires and then Covid putting a huge dent in visitor numbers.What’s been interesting is that I have tried different Instagram tools and techniques with each site, studied with different experts and learnt so much in these three areas. There are some things I learnt that apply to them all. Lesson OneWhen I first started focusing on building clients for my wife’s art business, I fell into the trap that many people do when they set out, believing that Follower Numbers is the key. It’s not!Engagement is the key. A small number of engaged followers is going to be worth far more than a large number of people who are not totally interested. For a working MC or Entertainer, having a couple of hundred targeted potential clients on your list is a gold mine. For instance, we only have 750 or so followers on Lynda’s page, but those engaged followers have generated thousands of dollars of sales. I think it works out at about $12 each. So, don’t worry about your follower numbers, worry about the engagement.Lesson Two Hash Tags still matter. When Facebook bought Instagram, some people said HashTags would be phased out slowly or their significance in the mystical “algorithm” would be lessened. This is not the case. Having an understanding of good HashTags to use is vital for your growth.Lesson Three Now, working with three Instagram channels is a bit of a time trap to say the least!So I’m always looking at different tools that can save me time. Always use tools if they are available to save you time. Two Marketing Tools that are Free Before I give you the tools, a reminder. I NEVER recommend any Product, Service or Tool on ExpertMC that I do not personally use myself. I’ve used one of these tools for over a year now and the other for a couple of months.They are both free to use with no Credit Card or Trial Period needed. They do both have a paid version as well, that you may want to consider at some stage, but for many of you the free version may be all you need! Remember, what I’m suggesting you do is – Build Your Engagement Understand Your Hash TagsMinimise Time Spent Free Marketing Tool Number 1Are you a fan of Gary Vaynerchuk? Gary Vee as he's known.I have a bit of a Love Hate relationship with him, but many of his ideas are absolutely brilliant and I often listen to his podcast and lectures.And most of them revolve around the idea, that you just have to put in the long hours, like he did, to get anywhere.His is a rags to riches story and it's far from over!He has one business growth strategy that became very popular, called the $1.80 concept. He promotes this idea because he knows ANYONE can use it to become well known in any specific niche. You can be in Nigeria, Indonesia, Australia or India and still have just as much chance as anyone on the planet to become well known.His concept is, to get known in any niche market you should leave a positive, helpful or interesting comment on a number of Instagram posts every day.He suggests to follow the Top 10 hashtags in the particular niche, and leave a comment on the top 9 trending posts in each.That's 90 comments.He calls each comment "putting your 2 cents in" so 90 x .02c is $1.80 hence the name.But to do this , consistently, every day to get noticed, does require a lot of work.But there now is a Chrome extension app that does the hard part for you.It's not a "bot," you still have to write and post the actual comment, but it does all the hard searching and sorting for you. So it ticks two of our boxes, saving time and building targeted engagement.I've been using it for a month or so now, so still early days, but have already seen some good results. I've had a boost in new followers and more importantly a boost in engagement. People are replying, leaving comments etc. We are forming a connection. You could target Venues that you would like to work in, Talent Bookers you would like to work with, other service providers that you could team up with etc!You can read all about the tool here.Instagram Tool One But what about the Hash Tags?I’ve used several tools here, but about a year ago settled on this one. I have it installed on my PC and my Smart Phone so I can use it for adding HashTags to a quick Post or Instagram Story directly from my phone or I can explore different combinations of tags at leisure on the PC. Essentially you set up a Group of Tags in one list. Pushing one button then creates a random selection of those tags that you can then use in a post. It then measures the success of those tags with its own algorithm. The more you use this Split Test feature the more it understands and it will highlight by an excellent colour system which tags are doing well for you! You can then decide to either just use the best performing tags or continue split testing. After a month or so make a new list using your Top tags and try them out against different ones. But how do you come up with the Tags you may well ask. Easy, the program has a great search and suggest feature providing a stream of possible, appropriate tags. Plus, it looks at all the tags that users of the software are posting and gives you a daily Top 100 tags. You’ll see tags come and go, but often there are quite surprising and appropriate tags pop up that I have then included in a set. You can read all about the tool here. Instagram Tool Two. So, between them, these two free tools can accomplish quite a lot and will definitely build your business or at least get you some traction to start moving forward.Let me know how you get on via a DM on Instagram.