Episode #080 How to market on Instagram Bookkeeper edition – hosted by Angie Martin

• Blog post partner to this podcast: on the way
• Listen to Episode 79 on Instagram Bookkeeping marketing and why it works
• See The Savvy Bookkeeper on Instagram
• Podcast 74 about why Social Media for Bookkeepers is needed
• Book a free initial consultation with me (Angie)

Keywords: Social Media, Instagram, Marketing, Market, Bookkeeping Business, Social Engagement, Instagram business profile

A bookkeeping business guide to marketing on Instagram

Angie Martin  0:02 

Good morning everyone. This is Angie from the savvy team coming for another episode in our series and the last episode in our series for social media optimizations and learning more about social media platforms for the bookkeepers voice. I am really excited to do this final podcast I've kind of left not the favourite to the last but I think the most important one, the last that is really important to help you guys and support you guys and understanding whether or not you should be on it and how to make the most of your post when you are on it. And that is on Instagram. So in our last episode, we discussed the importance of Instagram and why bookkeepers certain bookkeepers should be on Instagram and basically making all of the marketing efforts really count on the platform. Today I want to go through and delve in a little bit deeper into Instagram terminology in tips for mastering your Instagram account. I know Instagram is kind of still the unknown platform for a lot of you. So I just want to explain a little bit more about what Instagram is and how you can really make it work for your business. And for yourself as well, because you don't want to be spending every single day on Instagram 24 seven, you have a business to run you have a personal life. And it's not all about marketing your business. And I am a big believer in that. And so I want to teach you guys how you can get as much as you can out of the platform while also still doing everything else that you need to do in your daily life. So, a little bit about Instagram once again is that it has 25 million companies worldwide that are already on Instagram. And that makes up about 200 million users visiting business profiles every day. So once again, the whole thing about Instagram is that being engagement on Instagram is on there is no competition for it. No matter. You're on Pinterest, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter.

The power of engagement on Instagram as a social media platform

The amount of engagement on Instagram is incredible and the power it has and the possibilities it holds for business owners, especially small business owners is really fantastic. And it Facebook and will the Facebook sister business and Instagram are really trying to create Facebook as the friends and family content platform and many Advertising focus while creating Instagram being the new home for brands. So they're putting in a lot of effort to really make it work for businesses, especially small businesses right now as well. It really stands out as a main platform for a lot of people, mainly because you're able to create a business strategy for it while also promoting your services, boost your brand exposure and increase your sales. All from the palm of your hand all through this amazing little thing, which is phone. mobile times and mobile apps is increasing by about 90% over the last few months because of COVID. It has largely impacted the mobile priorities and using apps and using online digital platforms. So because Instagram is so targeted for smartphone phone use, it is such an easy and decluttered way to get social opposed to Facebook or Twitter, which can be still quite content heavy the platform's aren't as simplified as Instagram, which is really nice and most likely why there's also an massive increase of engagement on Instagram. And I did mention last week, which Will actually pointed out with how excited he was about it with the massive amount of increase that the website clicks and the actual conversion rate is on Instagram. So I mentioned last week on how the Instagram click through rate is so much higher Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn and Will ask me if the reason for that and the reason why LinkedIn sorry, not LinkedIn too many brand words in my brain right now. Why Google My Business listing and Instagram have such a higher click through rate and he asked me if that was because there's less actual content to review and people have to go to the websites to see more and learn more about the business. That is partially true. And there's a lot of different reasoning behind a lot of, you know, theories behind why this platform has such a fantastic click through rate for going to websites and driving a website driven selling platform basically.unAnd, you know, there's a couple ones, I think it is a really fantastic platform to be able to Yeah, tell you a little bit about the business. But then there's so many different ways for Instagram to include call to actions in the platforms, whether it's stories posts, the bio, there's so many different ways for people to then go and take the next step further and discover more about your business. They do it in a really successful way. And they have done it because there is so such little content that you actually can see on an ongoing basis with Instagram. As most people know, Instagram is mainly a image based platform. So any time that you can include a call to action, it's always suggested and Instagram has been really smart and creating their platform to include I heapof different ways where you can further your sales process to lead your potential followers, your followers and potential clients through to your website. So it's a really great platform today. On to draw people in, have them go to your website and become real, realistic leads that you can then follow up with. So one thing that I know is desperately needed in the world of bookkeeping is learning a bit more about Instagram terminology. Just like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, there are certain terms that are used widely and easily and I know I've mentioned a few last week's episode and already today, and I want to kind of go through them to help you understand what they are before going any further. So the first bit of the terminology I want to go through is bio. That means at the very front of your very top of your LinkedIn, sorry, Instagram page and account. There's actually a section where has bio in this section it has in bold letters like bold font You're typically it's your name. And then there's an area in there where you talk about your business, you do a description basically, in this description I'm actually going to go through later today to really help you optimise that area and that character use, but you have your description, and then you have your website link. And then you have the different call to actions that people can do. So following you, getting directions to where you are going to your website, contacting you all those kinds of things. So that is that the very top section of your account, and that's called bio. The next one I want to go through is direct messages. So just like Instagram, you're able just like Facebook, you're able to directly contact your followers in Instagram and just like Facebook at home As the different ways of contacting them, you can contact someone that you're not following. And it goes in to a different section where then if you allow them, it will go into your main messages feed, and you're able to contact people back and forth. This is a really great practice when you're trying to network with people. So I actually do a bit of a sneaky, and anyone who follows both off the hook bookkeeping, and the savvy bookkeeper, would have noticed that when they followed, they actually get a DM from the platform right away. And what that does is I just send a little thank you for following and I usually do a little image that is really cute and still, you know, works with the platform with the business type. I do that to instantly start that communication base through private messaging, which is the call to direct messaging DM to start that company. And make people feel more comfortable for them to then come back to me and then start a conversation. This works really well for bookkeeping, especially to help make people know that you are a person that there is someone you know, who's appreciative of them following you. And it really helps just break the ice. Because most people on Instagram who are following you, you don't know. That's the difference with LinkedIn and with Facebook is on Instagram, you typically do not know them. So it's a really great way of just sending a welcome. Hello, thank you for following hope you're having a great day to start the open communication base. And so that's really a fantastic way of using dmws filters. So filters and Instagram are exactly what they sound like. They're preset filters that you can use to enhance your photos in overall look and colours. So this is is changing your filters to have a certain colour theme or just to increase overall contrast anything like that. So whenever you hear people talking about Instagram filters, that means that there are certain Instagram filters that people use consistently to have an ongoing look to their Instagram page. And you don't have to do it. I don't use them for the savvy bookkeeper or for off the hook. But that's also because I plan out the photos that we use beforehand anyway, so they don't need filters. But you can more than welcome to use filters a lot of people do, and they can just be really great at just making your photos look even better than they already are. Follow. Now I've said this a lot over the last two episodes follow means someone who just let's talk about it in the words of you know, Facebook If someone likes your page, then they are following your updates so that they can see your update, see what's going on.

How should I use Instagram posts for marketing my bookkeeping services?

So just like on Instagram, if someone likes or follows your page, they are going to be getting your updates in your posts in their newsfeed. So it's a very It's same thing it's liking and then following. It's the same same kind of concept there. Followers are the ones who are following you. So in your section where it has the bio right above it, it has number of posts that you post the number of followers that you have, and then number of people that you were following. Follow followers are the ones who are following you. They have gone and clicked follow because they want to see more from you. These are the people that are your target audience on Instagram. They're the ones that you're creating the content for and they are the ones that you are wanting to engage with. And ideally, they're the ones that are making up your ideal client base. So they're the ones that you're creating everything for in Instagram, hashtags, I think I need to do a whole episode, separate episode on hashtags one day, but hashtags similar to how they're used on Instagram or on Twitter. They are ways of tagging your posts and indexing your posts within certain key words and phrases for other people to follow. So, in Instagram, you are able to use let's say hashtag bookkeeping. That way, anyone who is looking at the hashtag hashtag bookkeeping, they are able to see your posts. So what people do and Instagram and I do this all the time, just personally, I follow hashtags I'm interested in so For someone, let's do the trade industry because it's probably one of the most easiest industries to do. Let's say your ideal client is a tradie who does, let's say roof renovations, so they will be following. In its let's say it's a female. So there'll be following hashtags that include possibly hashtag tradie lady, or hashtag tradie life or tradie renovations, things like that. So you can use those hashtags in your posts so that they will come up in the discovery section in Instagram for those people to find or if they're following the hashtags, they will find them in their actual news feeds. So unlike Facebook, if you follow a hashtag it'll actually come up in your newsfeed which I personally love because the hashtags I find, I save, I want to see those hashtags. I use them for different businesses, I use them all the time. So if let's say if someone is looking for Melbourne based bookkeeper, they will be following the hashtag, Melbourne bookkeeping or Melbourne bookkeeper, what you can do is because they will be following that hashtag, you can use that hashtag and you will come up in their newsfeed. It sounds really complex, but once you break it down, it's super easy to do.  And what I typically suggest for businesses is to actually create a hashtag catalogue so that you can have a catalogue there for you every time you're creating your posts. That way you don't have to consistently sit there and think about it. You sit down, discover your hashtags that you want to do once and spend that time once and then you have Have an ongoing catalogue that you can have at your disposal. It makes the creation time so much faster and it makes it that your hashtags are on track basically with your strategy that you're doing for your Instagram marketing. They're super easy to use I promise I will do a either a masterclass webinar or a podcast about this to help teach you guys and get more comfortable using has to takes The next term I want to go over his highlights. Now I can't talk about highlights until I talk about Instagram stories.

How do you use Instagram stories to market your bookkeeping business?

So let's do Instagram Stories first. Instagram Stories are the reason why there are Facebook stories just off the bat just to let everyone know, Instagram Stories are amazing. They are the application that comes up when you're on Instagram and it shows Everyone's profiles with the little circle around them. And when you push on it, you can see the different videos that they have uploaded. Those videos are called Instagram stories. And they are videos that are typically they can be any length, the max length is basically, I think it's a minute. And the stories only last 24 hours. Once the 24 hours is up, they disappear. So they aren't static content. They disappear after a while. So it makes it so much so much more interesting to engage with, and so much more interesting to watch as well. These are great tools to be able to use for any business to give a bit of a background into what you're all about what you're working on and also giving value added fast back tips kind of thing. They're a really great platform. We haven't started to use them. On Instagram for on Instagram for the savvy bookkeeper are off the hook yet, but we are going to be doing them really, really shortly. So they are amazing. And because Instagram Stories only last 24 hours, if you have a story that is really fantastic and you want to save it, that is when you create highlights, so highlights or Instagram highlights that you can actually create to save your stories so that they show up in your description area underneath everything. And that's where the little circles come through. You can create little stories and for most businesses, I usually suggest the different highlight categories to be behind the scenes, clients, tips and tricks, that kind of thing. And it makes them really engaging and it helps you organise your content that you're posting To the stories, which is great. And by doing it and saving every single story that you have to your highlights, you are able then to keep that content there for longer than 24 hours won't stay in your stories ongoing feed but it will stay on your profile which will allow a lot of potential clients to do a little bit more digging into finding out if you are the right bookkeeper for them. It's really successful and I really can't wait to start doing it too, off the hook bookkeeping to show you guys how fast it will create increased amount of engagement. Now, another thing that I want to kind of go through is your Instagram handle because this has caused a lot of confusion over people creating their Instagram page. your Instagram handle is basically How you can take yourself so it's basically your username. So for I actually don't know what the savvy bookkeepers Instagram handle is, let me just quickly check this out. It's doesn't have to be complex doesn't have to be, you know, really integrated or anything. So for the savvy bookkeeper, ours is just at symbol. The savvy bookkeeper, super easy, super simple. It doesn't have to be something crazy and unknown for you. It can be something that's just what your account is. So if your bookkeeping business is called bookkeeping and your bookkeepers are us, your Instagram handle would be at the little symbol bookkeepers, r us with no spaces or anything. It's a very simple concept, but I know it's created a lot of confusion with a lot of people for creating their pages. So there you go, there's answers to that one another in the last term that I want to go through is tagging, what tagging means. So in tagging, just like in Facebook, if you click on a picture and you click it and then you want to take someone to it, you then take them you add their handle to the page or to the posts that you're doing to take them in. Instagram, you can do this a couple different ways. Okay, so an Instagram, you can take someone in actual photo that you're posting, or you can take them in the post that you are writing. And you can do the same for stories as well. So, in stories, it's called mentions, but it's Taking. So if you want to take someone let's say you want to take the savvy bookkeeper and a write up that you are doing, all you would have to do is write our Instagram handle. So it is the at, then the savvy bookkeeper. Once you do that in your write up on Instagram, it will instantly notify the savvy bookkeeper that you have been that we have been mentioned and tagged. And that way we could share the post to all of our members as well. It's a great way of networking and celebrating, let's say a win with a client or a client persona, a client story, anything like that. It's a great way of really connecting and engaging with other people on Instagram. Now, now that you know a bit more about the terminology, I want to go through and talk about some tips. I have For optimising your Instagram platform for your business. So first things first, when you're creating your Instagram page, all you have to do, it's very simple. All you have to do is create your account, I always suggest to create your account with your business email, create your account. And then once you create the account, there's a section in the settings which has you, you have the option to have just a normal profile, a creators profile, which is like a influencers profile. And then it allows you to also have a business profile, you want to click on the business profile.

What is the different between an Instagram profile and an Instagram business profile?

By clicking on the business profile, you are able to utilise more integrations and more applications within the platform to allow people to then like you go directly to your website contact you find directions to get to you all those extra call to action buttons that go at the top near your bio. This is definitely what you want to do. Once you have that done, you can then link your Instagram page to your Facebook page just by adding a touch of a button. It's super easy. By linking your pages you're able to post and actually Fun fact, you can do the same for Instagram, Tumblr, so many other platforms out there as well. So once you link your Facebook page, you can actually link other pages as well to your Instagram page. So as soon as you post an image or do a post to your Instagram, you can send out the exact same post to other platforms, which is amazing and saving you time. It is fantastic. I love it. I love having this option. And what I really love the most of this linking is for your stories. When you create your story, you're able to link it to your Facebook account. So then you Facebook has the exact same stories, so that you're getting that same engaging, fun content base on both of your platforms, which is amazing. It's genius, so smart, saves time and allows you to connect with your followers on both platforms really, really well. So that's just the first thing. Set up your business platform, on your on Instagram, in LinkedIn to your Facebook page. First thing you do for your business account. Okay, guys, the next thing I want you to really think about creating your business brand. So this all comes in to Step after creating your brand message, and I am in the midst of creating a masterclass for this for you guys to really understand what kind of brand you want to have an overall look for. So, this is your visual brand aesthetic that I'm talking about here. So, Instagram because it is so heavily visually based, you can make your Instagram page look whichever way you like. That includes showcasing certain filters that you always want to have. So you have a certain colour look a certain you know overall shade look or something like that, to consistently know that this is your page. You can also decide on what colours to focus on and any patterns that you want to do now with businesses, especially with service based businesses, love doing patterns. for Instagram, you don't need to though it's not necessary. I mainly like doing patterns because it really helps in creating content. It's a bit of a wave of cheat. So there's a couple different ways that you can do content looking patterns on Instagram. What I would suggest to do is to go on off the hook bookkeeping, their Instagram page, because that is the one the layout that I suggest the most for bookkeepers. You'll notice that on Amy's account, we have a whole heap of images that we do, or have me those are the posts that we talked about the business. And then we have a whole heap of images that alternate from a written pink background to a logo. This is helping in providing value added content for our clients. So this is where we Talk about blogs that we posting for them. And then we also talk about the different services that we either can integrate with, or help and support them on. That way they know instantly if they're on these platforms, we're able to support them right off the bat, just looking at our page. The next section is more kind of lifestyle based. So this is where we help them understand that we are more than just bookkeepers we like to help support you we like our coffees, we like to read that kind of thing, kind of, you know, pulling the curtain back from, you know, letting them in a bit a little bit on the platform. And then after that, then we do our service space posts where we tell them about how we can help support them. Now, you don't have to do that amount of intense layout, but it's an option. There's a few different options. So if you do want to go through and kind of chat through a little bit more about that with me, feel free to book in that free 15 minute sessions and we can kind of go through and I can give you some examples of different layouts that you can use. It's a bit fun, if you're a bit creative, it's a bit of a way that to allow yourself to be creative, while also supporting your actual business. So it all depends on whether or not you want to do it, you can definitely not have any pattern and your Instagram page will be still super successful. You don't need a pattern to be successful on Instagram. It's just kind of nice if you like doing those kind of things, which I'll do. The next thing I want to talk about is creating a winning profile. Number one, your profile picture. Every single time I talked about profile pictures for your business, your profile picture should be your logo bookkeepers, some times kill me with this. Do not use images of your face, do not use images saying that you are my up certified anything like that your profile picture should be your logo. That way you are creating a brand representation on all the platforms that you were on, so that instantly people can recognise you and have brand rapport. This is so important. Please, please on all of your social media platforms, please use your business logo in your profile picture. When it's your personal, your actual personal accounts, do whatever you want. But when it's on your actual Instagram or your social media profiles, please use your logos. By doing this, it just helps people enter to find your brand. It's just so much easier. Next, I want to talk about your bio. So in your bio, you're only allowed 150 characters which When you look at it isn't a lot of characters to actually write down everything. So what you need to make sure that you were including is your name. It talks about your name your new username in your website. So what I really want to go through is making sure that you go through and echo your brand voice, include hashtags that are really important for your brand or that you have made specifically for your brand. And include spaces and line breaks to make it look a bit more interesting into people draw people's eyes in. So what I always suggest for Instagram for our clients is once you've created your business plan, actually create your bio for Instagram off of your values because that's one of your shortest little tidbits of who you are and how you help your clients that you can include in that document. So this is one that I typically change quite often for any ones that I manage, because I like to have it as perfect as possible. You basically want to make sure that you are reviewing who you are, what you're all about how you help support your clients who your clients are. And then that's good. That's what you want to be able to encompass in all of that content. And if you can definitely do it, most of it's through your values statement in your business plan, because it's much shorter and it's more concise. Another thing that I really want to let everyone know is that the only section that is actually like searchable in Instagram in the bio section is the bolded the dark bolded name section. So let's say again, bookkeeping are us is your business name. You have that in that section. Because of your bookkeeper, you want to make sure that you have bookkeeping in your name, because you want to make sure if anyone ever searches, bookkeeping, in Instagram, you are going to come up. That is how you can get searched. It's not by anything else in your bio. It's just by that one section. So I really want to make sure I know some of you have business names that don't have the actual word bookkeeping in it. Make sure in the Instagram name, you still put bookkeeping in there so that you can be searched as a bookkeeper. It's very important. The next bit I want to kind of chat about is the added features that are included for businesses and why you need to transfer your just normal account into the business. account. So like I said before, with the business account, you were able to increase your contact information call to action sections right underneath your bio. So, in that section, you're able to include your phone number, your physical address, and your email. So people can contact you in multiple different ways. It's a really great tool for creating those call to action buttons. Another thing it also lets you do when you change your profile to a business profile is it lets you put in a category, which is great, it's exactly what you need. So your guy's category would be, I don't remember exactly what it is. I think it's under accounting or finances or something like that. So you definitely want to make sure that you are swapping over to that business section because it just further helps create more ways people can find you and more ways people can take that next step in actually doing a call to action in court. contacting you. Now, the whole point of Instagram is to engage with your community. The whole point of this platform is to follow and engage. That is why there are so many different ways of engaging in this platform. It's amazing. It helps you connect so much more with your actual community and with your clients in this is a really big thing that is super important and why certain businesses on Instagram No matter if their product base or service base, it doesn't matter why they become really successful. You start this by monitoring the hashtags that are used in your industry, and used in your clients, your ideal clients industries as well. You make sure that you comment on posts that you'd like posts that you follow your clients that you mentioned your client If you see something that might be relevant to them, take them in it, show them that you're thinking about them. It's great. And again, make sure your direct messaging as well to create that open communication base. Let people know that you're there on the platform and that you're interested in connecting with them on a different level. It's a fantastic way of creating that community and creating that involvement for them to then engage on your platform, because the more people engage on your Instagram account, the more people are going to be able to discover you. It goes hand in hand. So what I also want to go through is, again, stories. Instagram Stories are amazing right now, especially since COVID. So more than 400 million people use Instagram Stories a day and 39% of those people have said that they are more interested Did in stories than they are in actual posts. So there's actually businesses Now that might only post once a week or once a month, but they have really strong story strategies that they use. So they are constantly putting out more and more strategies for posts for sorry stories, and they are for posts. That means that they might be doing instead of one post a day, they might be doing five, five stories a day, to keep you consistently engaged and consistently wanting to look at their stories. Now, once again, I am definitely guilty of this. I have fallen for this stat. I have certain people that I follow certain businesses that I followed that. I love checking in on their stories and even let's say I'm on Instagram for 20 minutes. I open the platform and Instantly watched their stories that are there. And right before I leave the app, I noticed that they have posted a new story since I have been online. I will still watch that story before I leave because I like being updated. And I like seeing what's going on. It is a fantastic channel to continually get people really interested and engaged and to get feedback from people who are following you as well. So stories you're able to do actual videos, you're allowed to post videos that are been pre recorded or done live and that means Instagram Live just like Facebook Live folks, you might be seeing a continuation everyone has Facebook Live and LinkedIn live and Instagram Live because the video content works. Sir let's do the video content. You're allowed to post images As well, you're allowed to share your actual posts to Instagram stories as well, to add that extra bit of communication to promote your actual posts. You're allowed to do boomerangs, which boomerangs are specifically done for Instagram, they were created for Instagram, and now anyone can use them for any platform. But boomerangs are basically those images that are done and it's this specific app. So let's say it's a boomerang of me going over and over again. That is a boomerang. People aren't just going well, they could but they're not they're using a boomerang. Now, if you're using any of those apps, that's amazing. But you can go a step further in the Instagram stories, you can do polls, you can do questions, you can do quizzes, you can do have the asked Anything there's an Ask me anything section in stories that allow you to have people ask you questions and then you can answer. And this is a really great thing. I think for bookkeepers. Once you get enough engagement base, you can start asking people questions around what are your questions with bass? What is your questions about payroll, this is a great way of providing value added content that helps teach people things. And it's a really great way to make the most out of the platform. So those are some of the Instagram inclusions that are really great for creating engagement and connecting with your community. Now, as I'm saying all of this, I'm doing it from your point of view. There are people on Instagram that you should be following and you can do the same to them. So they'll be posting their own Instagram stories. You can engage with them which will then make them want To engage with you, it's a two way street. Just like I mentioned, Instagram is a two way platform. So it's all about the engagement you're giving out to get the engagement to come back to you. And it continues to go back and forth in the circle. So the more that you engage, the more you will get the engagement. It goes back and forth. It's amazing. It's kind of like karma. So, now, again, I want to talk about hashtags. Because it's such a big topic, and I really want to help people kind of understand hashtags a little bit more. Now, captions. The reason why we use hashtags in Instagram is because the captions in Instagram are not searchable. You aren't able to search anything until you have included a take of someone or a hashtag for someone to look through. You want to make sure that you might possibly want to to brand your own hashtags. So that is really easy. So for off the hook bookkeeping, we can just make our hashtag stew, hashtag off the hook bookkeeping, just like we could do hashtag you know Amy Hooke, or hashtag anything, you can create your own hashtags, and then just using them so that anytime someone might discover you, they can click on that hashtag, and then see all of your content all in one place. It's a great way of helping people discover you a bit more. Now, once again, hashtags are important to help people find you in your content on Instagram. So you want to make sure that you were posting and using them when they are relevant. You might see people who are doing about a paragraph worth of content based information. That's all hashtags. That is not what you want to do. You want to use the minimal amount amount of hashtags as possible, so you don't look spammy. The people who are doing  hundreds of hashtags in one post are not as successful as you think they are. You want to make sure that you are using hashtags that are only relevant to the posts that you were using, which is why it is so important to create a hashtag catalogue for your business, for the industry you're in and for the industry that you help support and for your clients that you help support. You don't want to be using just random hashtags that are going to serve you know, purpose. So such as there is hashtags that are the hashtag no filter. Yeah, you can use this hashtag. It's a popular hashtag the chance of someone discovering you by using this hashtag, it's gonna be very low because so many people use it. Just keep that in mind but If you are going to use this hash tag, that means that you should be posting an image that is gorgeous and that people would think might have a filter, don't just post on any image. It doesn't work that way. You can use one that is quite good for bookkeepers would be Throwback Thursday, or TBT, which is Throwback Thursday in shorter form. That would work quite well, especially if you have content that you want to share. Back when, let's say restrictions weren't happening, and it's people out and about. That way you can still post them and still celebrate and share that part of your business or that part of yourself personally by just saying that. This is a throwback picture. It's not relevant for right now, but I wanted to share this with you. Those work quite well but you want to make sure that you use a minimum of hash tags Instagram lets you use 30 hashtags in a post or in a column comment at a time. That is a massive amount of hashtags. Do not use that match hashtags. It is it makes your posts irrelevant. And it looks makes your post look spammy. So what you want to do is use fewer hashtags to get a more quality response. This is really important. It's the same as I think I did an analogy a couple episodes ago, where you are throwing pens at a pen holder, and you're just throwing them hoping one gets in. No, do it one at a time do them properly in in, you know, accurately I try and max out the amount of hashtags that we use for any of my clients to about five hashtags. If I go over it's typically because it's for, you know, there's actual brand name, it's in there that way Want to make sure or I'm taking people or something like that trying only stick with five hashtags. And with Instagram, what you can do is actually put your hashtags in the comments, not in the actual posts, so it makes you look much less spammy. One thing with hashtags, I'm sorry, one thing with Instagram, if you look spammy, you're going to lose interest with people. So you want to make sure that you're looking like you're actually just trying to engage with people. So really try not to get blocked. If you look too spammy for certain keywords and for hashtags, talking about keywords. hashtags are basically keywords. I know a lot of you are trying to focus on SEO right now. And you are already able to understand a little bit about what keywords are mainly because Amy is so amazing at keywords and she's done a couple podcasts about it. keywords basically in the terms of Instagram can be changed into your hashtags. So the keywords that you were trying to trend on on Google for your website, you can then use as hashtags, if that helps a little bit. Again, if you want to learn more information about that booking one of my free consultations and we can kind of go through that in a little bit more in depth. Next tip I want to go through is writing interesting captions. Now this is relevant for all platforms. I know on every single platform I've gone through, it has all had different ways of having interesting engagements. But it's really important although Instagram is a visually based platform, that doesn't mean you can just neglect your captions. for Instagram for businesses, especially for service based businesses, you should be making the most Have your captions, you should be making sure that you are possibly doing a link in there that you are making it meaningful for what the image is. And really connecting and communicating your marketing message with every post. You want to be writing compelling content in those posts to make your brand voice clear, and to also keep things consistent. Now, one thing I really do want to make a point about is grammar with Instagram, if you make a mistake, and then go back and edit it, that will make Instagrams algorithm automatically think that you have drastically changed even if it was just one. One character that you changed. It will make you think that you have drastically changed the content piece and it will push you down further on the algorithms. So your posts won't be seen as much. So when you're writing your content, you want to make sure that you are checking the grammar and spelling. And if you accidentally post something with a bad like, you know, one letter is wrong or something, I would actually suggest you to leave it at least for like a week or two so that you can maximise your reach with the post, and then change it later. Because that actually does hinder you to change it right after you post it. So make sure that you're checking your grammar and spelling before you post and then if you accidentally do do a mistake, wait a little bit afterwards, so at least your posts can still get some traction before you fix the Edit. little tip there for you guys. Next thing I want to go on is the fact that you can advertise on LinkedIn on Instagram. Now I actually prefer advertising On Instagram for businesses opposed to Facebook because I typically work with a lot of startup businesses and small small businesses who are trying to increase the reach. So I find it works really, really well to do so on Instagram because the engagement levels is so much higher on the platform. So in Instagram, you're able to do photo ads, video ads, or carousel ads, just like Facebook. And you're also able to do ads on your posts, which are boosts or ads on your stories, which are also boosts. So there's a few different ways that you can create ads and because Instagram is such a engagement focus platform, I always find I will not always find I typically find that the results for specific kinds of ad campaigns can be more successful on Instagram than they are on any other platform, and it doesn't cost as much as well, which I really enjoy for my clients. But there's so many different ways of advertising on Instagram. And because it's a sister platform of Facebook, the amount of algorithm targeting and analytics that go into an ad can be so specified, it's amazing. It's a fantastic way of reaching exact people who you want to be reaching at the time you want to be reaching them. And it really just helps make the most out of your promotions and with your promotions, you can do a few different things. You can have people go to your website, you can have people go directly to your profile, there's a whole heap of different options that you can do, just like in Facebook advertising, so it's a really versatile platform that you can use for your advertising. If you choose to do advertising on social media. The last big tip that I want to kind of go over is making sure that once again, you analyse your success and build on it. Again, Instagram has an amazing and really easy to use and understand analytics tool. The insights section in your Instagram is fantastic. And it's super easy to understand. There's a lot of different options that you can look at. for Instagram, I highly suggest you to always go through and look at when your followers are on Instagram or on the platform. Now analytics and Instagram don't kick in until you have 100 followers. So until you have 100 followers, you don't have as much traction and understanding of what's happening with your platform. But once you have 100 followers, you don't have any issues. So in the section that I'm talking about, it talks about it shows you what day your followers are on the most. And then it breaks it down to what time they are on the most. And the one the reason why this is so important is because it tells you when you should be posting. That means that if you have a lot of followers on every single week, on a Wednesday at 9am, you should be posting just before 9am so that your followers can see your content. That's how that kind of works. It also breaks it down to tell you what were your most popular posts, what were your most popular stories, and it keeps a data log of ongoing for all of your posts to see which ones possibly you should be boosting to help make the most out of your marketing. It's there's so many options for you. Just like I said in Facebook, even if you just pick one. Pick one thing to keep track of that will be a start. It's you don't have to keep track of everything I get quite obsessed with tracking things and analytics. But if you just pick one, just pick one to review and consistently work on, it will make your time on Instagram so much more worthwhile. Now, between posts, ads and stories, there's no shortage of potential. With this platform, you're able to build your profile on an understanding of the common you know, what commonality you have with the clients, you're able to provide tips and tricks and more value added in engagement, rich content to really connect with your clients. There's so many different ways that Instagram can just really further your business. It's just I could go on forever. But to finish off this episode, I want to go through and just talk about a few more fast tips that are really important when you're trying to think about whether or not Instagram is right for you. Tip number one, links don't work in hashtag captions. So if you do include a link and hashtag captions, they won't be clickable people will have to copy it and paste them. So if you want to include links, possibly think about using things like hashtag Lincoln bio, or the actual later application that is created, that is called Lincoln bio. But if you want you can just include links in your actual posts and they still work, people can still copy and paste them into their own browsers. And to make sure your posts relate to your brand. Don't just post random posts, guys. This goes for every single platform that you are posting on. You want to make sure that anything you post about you can bring back to your clients in your business. This is a business page and everything should have a reason for posting everything should have a reason for what you're doing on this. And that's why you create a strategy. So make sure it goes in line with your strategy. Next tip, respond to comments respond to people. If people comment on your posts respond to them, it makes more people see your content and makes the algorithm on Instagram super happy. When you engage engagement that has been done on your page. If people comment on your posts reply back to them, even if it's just saying thank you for commenting, comment and do something. Say it's a way of saying thank you. Also, if someone dm you, which again guys is direct messaging, you reply back to them. This is a way of communicating with potential clients. Don't ignore them, make sure that you comment and you reply back to people. Same goes if you commented on someone else's post posts and they comment to you comment back to them, communicate with them network with them. That's the whole point of this platform. Next tip, share posts directly to your stories. Now, I kind of touched on this tip for you earlier, but you're able to share your posts to your stories to add increased engagement to your posts, it really helps the algorithm in Instagram and further gets your strategy and your content out there. Next, use polls and other features in your stories. I went through the different actual inclusions that are allowed and stories use them. Instagram loves it when you use them. I don't know if I should scream this or what but if you choose to use stories, which some businesses choose not to use stories, and that's fine if you choose to use stories and have that extra bit of content creation happening. Make sure you're using stories to the optimum level. There's so many things that Instagram has included, specifically to help you get found easier. So they have a heap of different polls, and options in different fun games even that you can do on stories to help the engagement of your account. Make use of them. The last thing now this is only for people who are doing massive marketing strategies with bookkeeping, and also possibly bookkeepers who are wanting to help train business owners to do their own bookkeeping and understand their accounts more. It's Instagram TV, so Instagram TV came out a little while ago, kind of as a rival of YouTube so on Instagram TV, you can post videos that are longer than a minute and it is a great way of providing more value Added content and a way right now, especially with COVID, where you can provide more information for your followers about what's happening in relation to bookkeeping, and changing of regulations and changing of job keeper and everything. This is a fantastic platform to have a look in. It is only suitable for people who are doing really marketing focused campaigns, because it does take a wee bit of work to actually create the content mainly for it. But it can be very lucrative and very handy for businesses. So it's worth checking out and it's also just worth checking out to actually use it and be on it and watch other people's videos. It's great. Now to finish things off, I just wanted to say something and actually pre read it because I wanted to make sure I actually said it to you guys in today's episode. Instagram is one of the most popular social media performs, and every small business should consider using it. From gathering insights to selling products or services, Instagram keeps rolling out more tools to help business owners succeed in a photo sharing two way platform that is a social media King. So I really want you guys to go through look at your clients that you already have. If they have a presence on Instagram, you should be getting a presence on Instagram as well. The same content can be pushed out to Instagram, Facebook, it doesn't have to be stupidly planned out like I suggested earlier if you want to you can. But it's a fantastic platform to have a think about and consider using. It can really help your business and help connect with your clients on a whole different level and really helped create those healthy relationships that all bookkeepers strive to have. with their clients, it's kind of the missing piece of the puzzle for you. I hope you guys have learned a lot with this series. This is once again the last series in our social media kind of analysis. And I hope you guys have been able to understand a bit more about why social media is important for bookkeepers and have gotten a few tips and tricks along the way to how to make the most of them while creating your content and creating your strategy. Now for every single one of these series, I have created a follow up blog for you to review. So if you do listen to the podcast and I start talking too fast, or you miss something, or you want to learn a bit more about something I'm discussing, it's typically all written up in the blogs that I we have created to correspond with these podcasts. So make sure if you do want to go through just check out our quick links in our blog podcasts. And you can go through and read those blogs there as well. Well, I do have extra links as well throughout the blog podcast to help you learn more about other things I have mentioned about such as like later, or even scheduling platforms or anything like that, that you can use for social media posting. I hope you guys enjoyed this. And since this has been a whole new section of the bookkeepers voice, we would love to know if you would like us to continue to do these series based podcasts every once in a while to help you really get an in depth analysis on two other things. So I'm kind of opening it up to you guys. I would love to hear your feedback about it. Please feel free to email us at the savvy bookkeeper. It's just savvy at the savvy bookkeeper calm to au. We'd love to hear your response to this and also feel free to give us a rating on Apple you know, on Apple, iTunes, and everything. Like that we would love to hear from you guys. You guys directly do drive what we talked about and are on our content. So since this has been such a different series for you, we would love to know what you thought of it and if you found it helpful if you want us to continue doing the same thing for other topics as well. hope you guys have enjoyed today's session and, as always, stay safe, sane and savvy. Thanks so much, guys. Bye