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Episode 010: Tyler J. McCall - Finding Your Next Client using Instagram
158 Plays7 years ago
Tyler J. McCall is an Instagram and social media marketer, strategist, and coach for creatives. He teaches his students how to use Instagram with intention to grow their community online, grow their list, and grow their business. Tyler focuses on using Instagram and social media to tell stories, build relationships, and convert followers to fans, drawing from his 10 years of experience in non-profit marketing and management and community organizing. Tyler is based in Chicago, where he lives with his partner Eric and their dog Douglass.
For the show notes, go to https://daveyandkrista.com/btb-tyler-mccall-episode-10/
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Transcript
Introduction to Social Media Strategies
00:00:07
Speaker
So you can't come out of the gates asking your followers what is the worst thing that ever happened to you as a kid. Like you can't come out of the gates saying what is your favorite childhood memory. You can't come out of the gate saying tell me what thing you're struggling with in your business right now because you haven't built that relationship and you haven't established habits in your audience.
00:00:31
Speaker
Social media is all about habits and recognizing the way in which people engage with content and the way in which people use the platform. Welcome to the Brands That Book Show, where we help creative businesses find more clients and build their brands. I'm your host, Davy Jones.
00:00:52
Speaker
Today's guest is Tyler J. McCall. Tyler is an Instagram and social media marketer, strategist, and coach for creatives. He teaches his students how to use Instagram with the intention to grow their community online, grow their list, and grow their business. Today, he's chatting with us about recent trends on Instagram, how to use the platform effectively, and how to use Instagram to find your next client.
Overcoming Instagram Challenges
00:01:17
Speaker
Well, Tyler, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. You're a guy that I've been wanting to talk to for a while, mostly because I have sort of a love-hate relationship with Instagram. So I've been looking forward to this episode because I'm sure you're going to shed light on all sorts of things, what we should be focusing on there. I just feel like I've never been great at Instagram, if that's a thing, if you can be great at Instagram.
00:01:45
Speaker
I'm not particularly fond. I actually really like video, right? So Instagram stories is something that I've been enjoying. I like watching though. I don't like so much being the guy on video. I just feel awkward. It's kind of like a webinar, right? You're talking to no one, but you're talking to someone. So I'm looking forward to chatting with you about all of these things and how we can use Instagram to build our businesses.
00:02:12
Speaker
Yeah, I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, of course.
Tyler's Journey to Entrepreneurship
00:02:16
Speaker
Well, we start off pretty much every interview by just getting a sense of how you started your own business. And I'm really interested not only in how you started your own business, but what it was about Instagram in particular, that drew you to that platform. Yeah, so I have been a full time entrepreneur.
00:02:35
Speaker
for over two years now, which is incredible. I'm so grateful every single day that this is what I get to do, right? I love that. Before I did what I do now, does that make sense? I was in the nonprofit world. Over six years, I worked for the YMCA, one of the largest nonprofits in the world.
00:02:54
Speaker
at the local national and international level, which was an incredible opportunity. And I also did a lot of work around community and political organizing. And I pull a lot of that experience into what I do on Instagram now and what I talk about with my students and my clients and really how we build community on social media. That's why I love Instagram. I think it is probably the best platform for
00:03:19
Speaker
finding a community and then building a relationship with those people. And it's why I spend pretty much all of my time there. That's why I love it. I love it. I think it works really well for that. And I started, as most folks do, I started doing the side hustle thing.
00:03:35
Speaker
All throughout my corporate job at the YMCA, I had multiple side hustles. I had a grocery delivery business that I did on the side. Wait, I need to hear more about the grocery delivery business. Was this through Instacarts or something like that? No, this was pretty all of them. None of those things existed back in 2012 and 2013 when I had my own local grocery delivery business. I had my own website. I had my press releases. That's how I got my client.
00:04:04
Speaker
I had flyers and I would drive around to like neighborhoods and put my flyers up next to their mailboxes. I did everything. That was back in the day. That was back before really like I did anything with Instagram, this marketing or any of that stuff. I had a handmade business for a while and then toward the end of my corporate gig, I started doing social media work for people. I was doing social media my day job and I figured there were a lot of local businesses that could use my help. So just started on the side
00:04:34
Speaker
doing that and in my first year in business I ran a small agency with a friend and we did social media management for our clients and we would do Facebook or we would help them with Twitter. We would talk about blogging and all that fun stuff but we always came back to Instagram
00:04:50
Speaker
as the platform where, first of all, it was the most fun to be on. It was the most fun to create content for. My business partner was a professional photographer, and I love writing, so we could marry those two skills really well. Yeah, there's two great skills to have. Yeah, right. So we were doing that, we were building this business, and over time, I realized that Instagram was where I wanted to be because of that community aspect, and that's just, it's kind of been the thing I've gone all in on,
00:05:20
Speaker
And it's also one of those business lessons that, right, when we get specific, we see more results and we can see more success when we get really clear about the one thing we're gonna focus on. And I've seen that in my business. Yeah, for sure. So for the YMCA, were you managing their, you were managing their social media? So here's the thing about the nonprofit world. You wear a lot of hats. Sure.
00:05:48
Speaker
So in my role at the YMCA, at the height of my career, I was a district member engagement director. So that meant I had three facilities that I oversaw the membership operations for those locations. So I had full-time staff I supervised. We had about 40 part-time membership associates that I've hired and trained and supervised. I also did association-wide customer service and member engagement training. So I wrote those trainings and co-taught those trainings to all of our frontline staff.
00:06:17
Speaker
I oversaw a budget of about $12 million a year for three facilities. I did corporate membership sales and I did social media marketing strategy. It sounds like the Y is probably missing you. You're managing social media and doing all the things that you just mentioned for the Y and you see this need among small businesses. How did you make that transition from how did you pick up your first client?
Building Client Relationships
00:06:47
Speaker
Yeah, so there was a gift shop in downtown Asheville, North Carolina, where my partner and I lived before Chicago, where we live now. And I was a regular customer. I loved their products. And I was on Instagram myself. At that time, I had a handmade business. I was making room and went in fragrances at my kitchen table, selling them at trunk shows and craft fairs. And I went in there one day and said, hey, I have this product you want to put in the store. They were like, sure, we'll order like 10 bottles.
00:07:17
Speaker
And then a few months later, I went back in and I said, Hey, have you ever thought about working with someone to run your Instagram? You have a really cool opportunity here. You're selling incredible products, but their Instagram was so ugly. It was so bad. And they were like, yeah, sure. Yeah, we, we'd be up for that. And I was like, okay, cool. I'll do it for $200 a month. And they were like, all right, cool. So I did that for like three months.
00:07:42
Speaker
and then signed them again and charged more and signed them again for six months and then another six months and then a year and they were my longest going client. I had them the entirety of social media management but it was literally just going in there and saying like hey here's the opportunity here's where you're not you're not doing what you could be doing and here's the solution that I can provide and let's see how it goes.
00:08:03
Speaker
And it works, it works. Yeah, that's, I mean, it's just incredible hearing about all the different hats that you wore as an entrepreneur, all the different things that you gave a shot to as an entrepreneur. So from that one store, how did you pick up the rest of your clients? Was it the same thing? Basically going in and saying, hey, listen, you know, I see that you have an Instagram or you don't have an Instagram and it doesn't look great. Have you thought about having someone else manage it?
00:08:30
Speaker
Yes, it was a mix of it was kind of a mix of that and just referrals. I think it's I one of the things I say to my students and clients so much is that we're in this world now with social media where we think that social media is the be all and end all for marketing and sales. But we we keep forgetting that.
00:08:49
Speaker
So much of our business comes from referral and word of mouth. It's literally the number one way that people find us. And if we don't nurture those relationships, if we're not working, if we're not going to events, if we're not another entrepreneurs, then if we're not connecting with those other people, then we are missing out on opportunities to get more business.
00:09:11
Speaker
that don't require us to post on social media, or pay for ads, or any of that stuff. So it was just those personal relationships. Really, going to the coffee shop, knowing the coffee shop owner, having conversations with people that you're sitting next to, going to creative meetup events, planning workshops. My experience did a lot of local workshops. It was like 30 bucks to come to this afternoon and learn about Instagram, and get my name out there, and start connecting with more people.
00:09:39
Speaker
And doing the hustle, right? Like doing that. Get your name out there. That's what made it work. Yeah. And I think, I think, uh, I love what you're saying there because I think there's no shortcut for that hustle. You know, there's no shortcut for, I mean, you just have to put in the work at the end of the day. So with these businesses that you're managing their Instagram for, what, what were you trying to show them at the end of the day? Like, Hey, this is, this is the result that I'm getting for you. So like, what was, what was that result that you would primarily focus on? I imagine.
00:10:09
Speaker
On one hand, it's just aesthetics. It's just, hey, nobody could even tell what was in this picture because it was so blurry. But now, look, your feed looks cohesive and there's a consistent aesthetic. But were there any other metrics that you focused on for them? Yeah, the main thing that we focused on, and this is what I still focus on on Instagram to this day, is engagement and the conversations that we're having.
00:10:39
Speaker
Social media means nothing for you and your business if people aren't actively engaging with your content. If they're not responding to what you say and if you don't have an opportunity to open up a conversation with people. So that's what we were looking at. And we had clients who, they were all about the followers, they wanted more followers, and there was always a lot of pushback from my business partner and I, and that is not the accurate metric to measure success on social media.
00:11:07
Speaker
And now for everyone listening and watching that is I still stand by that. It's not the accurate way to measure that what you're doing is effective. So that engagement was really important and how it translated for the business. And here's the other thing about social media.
Enhancing Local Business Presence
00:11:21
Speaker
It doesn't always translate to a direct sale. And I think a lot of people have trouble with that.
00:11:26
Speaker
I think there are a number of conversions we can measure with social media that are different than a sale and that in a lot of ways are more important than a sale because what was the biggest success for us, especially working with local businesses? And we were in Asheville, which is a tourist destination, right? What we really aimed for was creating a presence online for our clients.
00:11:52
Speaker
with content that got people excited about their shop. So when that person had a friend or a colleague or a family member going to Asheville, they were telling them, you have to go check out this place I follow on Instagram. And they had never even been themselves. That was like the metric of success for me, of creating this desire to go there for people who lived half a world away and then told other people about this place when they weren't even a customer themselves. And that's why
00:12:21
Speaker
What I do nowadays is talk about creating fans because fans are more important than anything else in your business. Fans sell for you and what you're doing really becomes
00:12:33
Speaker
just kind of creating a place for them to hang out with each other. I love so much of what you're talking about. One, that it wasn't that you were just sitting on your couch somewhere getting really good at Instagram. You were actually out there hustling, getting people to pay for this service. So I love all of that.
00:12:55
Speaker
And then I really want to dig in more to these metrics and this concept of building fans. But first, I do want to chat with you about how far Instagram has come. Because when we first got into Instagram, it was a very different platform than what it is now.
00:13:12
Speaker
And I was sitting down with Krista just on Monday and she was telling me, she was like, you know, I don't even spend all that much time scrolling anymore through Instagram. I spend almost all of my time watching stories. And even myself, I mean, I probably spend, I still spend a good amount of time scrolling. But again, I think I'm more drawn to stories than I am, you know, just the regular feed posts.
00:13:37
Speaker
So what are some trends that you've noticed lately? You know, for somebody getting on Instagram in 2018, what should they be doing? Yes. So here's the great news. If you are just now getting on Instagram or just kind of dipping your toes into Instagram as a platform, you are in a much better place than people who have been on the platform for the past three to five years.
00:14:00
Speaker
because you don't have any bad habits that need to be broken. All these bad habits you're about to talk about are probably going to be me. So if I'm looking down, it's just because I'm taking notes. So a lot of what I see people doing now is trying to
00:14:17
Speaker
use the same strategies on Instagram that they used 18 to 24 months ago, before the algorithm was in place, before Instagram stories existed, when literally all you had to do was post a pretty picture with the right hashtags and you would get a ton of engagement and you would get more followers. But here's what's happened on Instagram. The first thing is hashtags aren't nearly as important now as they were before. Still use them, but they're not, your content isn't getting discovered through hashtags as much as it used to.
00:14:46
Speaker
The other thing is that the party has moved to Instagram stories. It has like the party's gone from the feed. So you keep people keep showing up to the feed and they're like standing there with the birthday cake in their little balloon. But the room is empty. But no one's there for the party. They're all over on Instagram stories now. So we're hashtag still worth using at all. Like if it's not hashtags, how are people primarily finding you or discovering you on Instagram now? So here's the thing. Instagram.
00:15:15
Speaker
building a following on Instagram is not as much about just creating the content and saying like here's my content if you're interested. It's about being completely proactive and owning the marketing and promotions of your business. So you can't just post on Instagram and log off. You have to stick around and have a conversation. So what we teach our students and in our community and what I work with my clients on and literally like
00:15:42
Speaker
What I say on Instagram all the freaking time is stop drive by posting, stop posting and running off of Instagram because that's not how you're going to build a following and it's not how you're going to build a community. And here's the really cool thing about the Instagram algorithm. It's actually your best friend as a content creator. So it's time to shift your mindset. If you are a business owner on Instagram, you are not an Instagram user, you are a content creator.
00:16:10
Speaker
And the algorithm is your best friend because your content lasts longer than ever before. So gone are the days of having to post two or three times a day in your feed. Gone are the days of you having to post once a day in your Instagram feed because your content will last days when it used to last minutes or hours. So that means all that time that you were putting into taking more photos, writing more captions, designing more graphics is all time that can go into having real conversations
00:16:39
Speaker
with real people to introduce yourself and your content to them. Yeah. OK. So I feel like there's so much we have to unpack here. I was having a conversation with one of my friends, Tyler Harrington, and we were talking about the algorithm. And I'm kind of I'm with you that I don't think people actually hate the algorithm. I don't think the algorithms, you know, the problem necessarily. And I'm sure and I'm so glad to hear you say that as well.
00:17:07
Speaker
So going back to posting and having this algorithm that makes content last longer than it used to in a chronological feed where things would get buried almost instantly, right? How often should somebody post? I have a client right now who posts twice a week and engages every other day.
Adapting to Instagram's Evolution
00:17:29
Speaker
And she has more followers than ever before. She's averaging over a thousand profile views a week and her engagement is over 40%. She's posting two times a week. So does, does, do things like time timing even matter anymore? Like, does it matter if I post it two in the morning or, um, yeah, that that's an interesting question, especially at the time of us recording this podcast, because Instagram just made some changes last week. So.
00:17:57
Speaker
They're trying, they're, they're, they're fiddling with the algorithm, um, to, to, to try and make people happier with timing. Um, I think, I think timing is still important because Instagram is, is much like Facebook and that, that initial engagement is what determines the, the, the vitality of your content. So you do want to post at a time when people are on.
00:18:22
Speaker
because that initial burst of likes and comments is what's telling the system that this is worthwhile content, so it shows it to more people.
00:18:30
Speaker
And so for that, I know that Instagram pods at one point were a popular thing. Does that kind of thing still help? It does, yeah. For anybody listening who doesn't know what an Instagram pod is, and correct me if I'm explaining this incorrectly, but basically a group of people who get together and devote themselves to liking and commenting on each other's posts almost immediately after they post. Yeah, and so strategies like that are still helpful, and I think
00:19:01
Speaker
A lot of people have gotten away from them because they were using them in the wrong way. So it's not about just getting a bunch of likes and comments. It's about getting really targeted engagement. So what I encourage my students to think about is if you are this service provider, you provide this service as a wedding planner or graphic designer, whatever it may be.
00:19:22
Speaker
What rounds out the experience for your clients. So what are the other things that they need to plan their wedding or execute a launch for their business. OK. Then you as the person in that role need to make sure that you are aligning yourself with other people who serve the same person in the same way. That way you are building up
00:19:44
Speaker
It's just like in person, right? It's just like local business. If I were a local attorney, then it would be really valuable for me to be connected with local restaurateurs, with local accountants, with local business owners, for me to go to things like rotary or go to networking events. Same thing on Instagram. How can you align yourself with other professionals who serve the same type of client with the same needs and desires?
00:20:09
Speaker
That's how you create a really successful Instagram pod. That's how you create really great engagement and growth strategies is by staying in your circle and staying in your niche instead of just trying to get likes and comments from wherever, because it ain't going to help you in the long run. It's not valuable. It's not valuable.
00:20:25
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense. So what are some other what are some other strategies that people can use to get engagement on their photos? And I think it's probably pretty discouraging for people, especially if they're just getting started, where, you know, you create your account, you have just a handful of people following you and you post and it feels like nobody's engaging or commenting or liking your your post. So especially if you were just starting from scratch, like, what would be what would you tell people?
00:20:53
Speaker
Yeah. So I think one of the biggest mistakes people make is, well, well, there's a lot of mistakes. I'm like, one of the biggest mistakes, I'll say one of the biggest mistakes. Um, I think there's getting engagement on your content. There's kind of two things, two mistakes that people make. The first thing is they look at people who have been doing it for a while and they try to just rip off what they're doing. So they'll come to like my account, right?
00:21:19
Speaker
And they'll say, oh, well, he's doing that. He's asking these questions. I'm just going to ask the same questions or same types of questions. And then it's crickets for them. And that's happening for two main reasons. The first thing is your audience isn't my audience. We have a vastly different audiences. And also your audience doesn't know you like my audience knows me.
00:21:38
Speaker
So what we're looking to do is build these communities of people who are who are really passionate about what you do and why you do it. So that's the first mistake is coming along and saying oh well you know so-and-so gets so many comments when they ask this question I'm gonna do the same and it won't work. The other thing and this is the really really important thing is you have to build habits in your audience. So you can't come out of the gates asking your followers
00:22:06
Speaker
What is the worst thing that ever happened to you as a kid? Like you come out of the gate saying, what is your favorite childhood memory? You can't come out of the gate saying, tell me what thing you're struggling with in your business right now because you haven't built that relationship and you haven't established habits in your audience. Social media is all about habits and recognizing the way in which people engage with content and the way in which people use the platform. So to get someone to
00:22:36
Speaker
talk to you to respond to your question. Before they even do that, they need to like what you've shared. Before they even do that, they need to maybe watch and engage with an Instagram story through something like a poll. And once you build these habits, you layer these engagements on top of one another. That's how you get your followers to a place where they are willing to not only answer your question about your favorite childhood memory, but to give you their email address through a direct message or to book you for your service
00:23:05
Speaker
or to buy your product through a direct message without ever even seeing it. This is how you get people who send you DMs that say I don't know how much it costs to work with you but I have to work with you. I want to give you my money. You have to layer those habits. You have to build those habits.
00:23:23
Speaker
puts in your audience and build that relationship. And y'all, that takes time. It takes time. It's not an overnight thing. It's not going to happen immediately, but it just takes you showing up consistently and connecting with real people day in and day out. That's how you build those relationships.
00:23:41
Speaker
Yeah, I think what you're saying about where you are in a relationship with somebody is such great advice. We talk about something similar even on your website or whatever channel it is. And I think that's a great insight that we do have a tendency to look to others in the industry, look at where they're at with their audience and think that we can get there right away.
00:24:08
Speaker
So I think that should be just encouraging to people that these kind of things take time, but it's so worth it when you do these things correctly and you take the time to build an audience that engages with you like that. So for somebody just starting out, would you talk about, do you tell them, is there any focus on followers at all? Maybe as a byproduct of engagement, you would just say, followers will come.
00:24:37
Speaker
But like what are you are you focused on likes or comments or both. What would you tell them to focus on just that engagement in general. So when you're starting out building your account the very first thing you have to be completely clear on is who you are trying to attract. So this is like.
00:24:55
Speaker
This is not just for Instagram, this is for your business, right? So getting crystal clear on who the person is that you need to get attention from, that you need to get in front of. So getting really clear on who that person is, then deciding what is the objective you have for your Instagram account and starting small.
00:25:13
Speaker
For a lot of our students starting out, when we talk about measuring objectives or determining a conversion for you on Instagram, the conversion that they're measuring is getting their followers to like their content. That's it. We just want to convert a follower to a liker. And then we want to convert a liker to a commenter, then a commenter to someone who sends direct messages.
00:25:32
Speaker
We want to do everything natively and organically on the app before we even try and sell them anything or get them to go to our blog or anything like that. So those are the things that we're looking at initially. Then we get really clear on the content we're going to create because we're speaking to one person and one person alone. No one else matters. The opinion of no one else matters. It's all about creating content for that one person. Then we can start doing the work of growing our following. So a lot of people come on Instagram guns blazing.
00:26:01
Speaker
ready to grow a following, but they don't know who they're talking to. They haven't decided how they're gonna show up and their content isn't where it needs to be. And if we're gonna grow our Instagram by engaging outside of our account, by going out, finding people and connecting with people, then we better have some good content to bring them back to. So when they come back to our account, they're like, oh yeah, I'm interested in this. Oh yeah, I like what they said. Oh yeah, this really resonates with me. That's when they're more willing to follow and to engage with your content.
00:26:31
Speaker
Yeah, I like how you created sort of a value ladder there within Instagram, you know, where you take somebody from not following you to following you from following you just following along to liking and then moving them to comment. And again, I think it goes back to that relationship and building, you know, that's kind of how you're measuring your relationship with them on or Instagram.
00:26:49
Speaker
So moving moving back a little bit back to trends that you're seeing on Instagram Mm-hmm.
The Rise of Authentic Instagram Stories
00:26:57
Speaker
I I just assumed that it's the stories is going to become more prominent. Do you think that's the case? I Think it's already I think it's already there. It's already anything. Yeah, it's already the thing and and I think a lot of what folks are seeing now is they are
00:27:14
Speaker
They're trying to still do the old Instagram thing on Instastories, and it's still not working for them. So they're trying to do a curated Instagram story. It ain't gonna work. They're trying to design the perfect graphics. And this just happened with the highlights. Instastory highlights came out. How cool is this? And everyone's trying to design these really perfect, cute graphics and curate their Instagram stories. It's not gonna work. It's not gonna work because what the platform is telling us
00:27:44
Speaker
through engagement is that people want raw and real.
00:27:49
Speaker
They don't want the curation. They are done with feeling like they are less than or that they are not enough because your life looks so perfect. I feel like you Instagram is just as really led us on because it was all about curation. We learned that it was all about curation for for years and now they're telling us they want raw and real. You know, just when I got comfortable with curated now I have to show up and I have to be raw and real on Instagram.
00:28:15
Speaker
So for a business, and that's interesting what you said about highlights too, and I'm interested in hearing your thoughts about highlights in general. We do not a very good job of putting together our highlights, but we occasionally add things to our highlights. And I don't know if I've ever gone into anybody's highlights and gone through them. And I don't know if there's a way to measure. I don't even know if you can see how many people have gone through your highlights. But what are you seeing with that aspect of Instagram?
00:28:44
Speaker
Yeah. So, so I think Instagram story highlights are really valuable for that initial contact with a new or potential follower. So think about the questions that you have. When someone, say someone goes through and likes five or 10 of your post and leaves a few comments, you're probably going to go check out who they are, right? You may like go see who's this person. Are they a robot? And then what are the questions you're asking yourself? So it's really initially,
00:29:12
Speaker
Who is this person? What do they do? How are they connected to me or why are they interested in me and what I do? You can answer all of those questions in Instagram story highlights. So doing an introduction story, doing a process story where if you create or make something or you deliver a service detailing your process for people so they understand what it is that you do.
00:29:34
Speaker
And then I don't know, let's get crazy and add some freaking personality to it. So they know you're a real person. So for example, we do midday dance breaks around here. That's an Instagram story highlight for me of us dancing around the house and lip-syncing to various pop divas of our era. That's a part of what we do that has personality. I have an entire Instagram story highlight about target tips, how to save money at target. Cause I love target.
00:29:59
Speaker
And I want people, you should not be paying full price at Target. I haven't paid full price there in a decade and you shouldn't either. So those are the kinds of things that I'm sharing on my Instagram story in addition to Instagram tips and an introduction story and things like that. So when someone comes to my profile, they see, Oh, he talks about Instagram. My, my little, my little line, you know, talks about how I love nachos and my partner and target. Um, and a little bit more about me, it can go to my highlights and see, Oh, this is him.
00:30:28
Speaker
This is something fun about him. Here's an Instagram tip I can take away. Here's some free stuff he's created for me that I can get from his profile. All of that before they even decide to follow me. And the idea here is that if they are getting that much value and that much personality and that much connection, just from a few videos on my Instagram stories, think about how much they're gonna get if they actually follow me and stick around for what I'm doing.
00:30:52
Speaker
So I'm gonna have to revisit Instagram highlights now. All right, so I have to add that to my list. Now, going back to Instastories, for somebody who's, what should people be doing there? I mean, we're all unreal in personality, but is there, do you have a formula for people that, hey, you need to do this many business posts and kind of mix in your personality here, or do you tell people to avoid graphics altogether? What are some of the tips you're giving people for Instastories?
00:31:21
Speaker
Yeah, so my biggest, there's no, here's the thing about all of social media is nothing is prescriptive. And if anyone is telling you that you have to do it this exact way for it to work, they're lying to you because there's no exact right way to do this. I just had a call with a client this morning and I said, I can teach you strategies and tactics all day long. I can teach you the best practices
00:31:48
Speaker
but something about what I'm going to teach you is not going to be right for your industry or your product or your audience. There's going to be, there's going to be something that you have to do differently. And at the end of the day, you are that missing piece that has to put it all together. So for Instagram stories, really the simplest thing that is the, the thing that guarantees you get some kind of success from Instagram stories is having a plan for what you're going to do in the story. And I take this back to elementary school.
00:32:15
Speaker
Learning the basic arc of a story where stories have beginnings middles and ends So if you're gonna do an Instagram story and you're gonna do it Well with an intention and a purpose behind it you better introduce that story You better take me through an experience and you better wrap that thing up at the end So I have a conclusion because our brains can't handle a cliffhanger and if your followers are
00:32:42
Speaker
are consistently seeing you start a story but never finishing it, they're going to stop watching. If your followers are consistently experiencing you doing an Instagram story that's halfway through a process with no context for what happened before this, they're not going to watch because it's frustrating to be a part of that experience.
00:32:59
Speaker
But if you continually show up on your stories, you let me know what's going to happen. You give me an out from the beginning. We should always give people an out from the very beginning of our relationship with them or connection with them online. You give me an out from the beginning. So if I'm not into it, I can swipe away. Then you take me through an entire process, an entire experience. You tell me an entire story and then you wrap it up at the end and maybe you give me a call to action or you point me to some more content.
00:33:26
Speaker
I'm gonna stick around because that's pretty damn valuable. And I really value what you've done for me in that timeframe. And that's how you create really meaningful Instagram stories. Little snips of your day aren't gonna do it. Little clips here and there aren't gonna do it. If you wanna show me your whole day, take me through your whole day. Don't just show me bits and pieces. But it's the idea of having that comprehensive story with a purpose and an intention behind it. That's what makes stories work really well.
00:33:51
Speaker
All right. Adding Insta highlights, Insta stories to my list of things to revisit. All of that makes a lot of sense. With Insta stories, how important is it to always have a story up?
Effective Instagram Storytelling Techniques
00:34:03
Speaker
And I guess also as a follow-up question to what you're just talking about in stories, is it okay to have a story that lasts sort of all day? So if you're teaching something about Instagram or should you kind of wrap that tip up
00:34:18
Speaker
shortly after you start it. Does that make sense? It does. Yeah. So I think that's definitely a personal preference and kind of what you want to create for your audience. Kind of that, that expectation for me, I do a lot of stories and chunks. So I will get on, I will talk about a topic and then I will wrap it up. Yeah. And I'll be finished. And do you do you feel like you should always have a story kind of available for people to watch? I don't, I don't think you have to. But if you can, if you can,
00:34:47
Speaker
if you are sitting right if you're sitting here right now with Instagram and maybe you've been doing the Instagram thing and you're kind of juggling and trying to figure out what you should do if you can do insta stories every day do instagram stories every single day I mean that's what's going to that's what's going to keep you top of mind that's what's going to keep people engaging with you and what you'll see next time you're on instagram I want you to check this out if you
00:35:11
Speaker
watch someone's Instagram story and maybe engage with a poll that they've shared or even direct message them, you will almost instantaneously see that person's content show up in your feed. Or if you watch someone's Instagram live, you will almost instantly see the next few posts in your feed are going to be from them because Instagram is valuing that content so much. So staying top of mind, staying on Instagram stories, using polls, getting engagement,
00:35:37
Speaker
is going to make sure your other content shows up for your followers. That's great. So, and it's not just polls, right? I mean, there's other ways that people can click, you know, whether it's maybe a swipe up or, you know, for those of you, Krista has this, I don't, I'm not Insta famous enough, but any action they take on your Insta story, even a DM, would that also cause you to show up? Yeah. Okay. So that's really good to know.
00:36:05
Speaker
Yeah, so Instagram, the metrics that they're measuring are likes, comments, saves. A lot of people aren't thinking about creating Instafeed content that is savable. So what can you say in your post that is either inspirational or challenging for your audience that's going to get them to save it for later? I do a ton of inspirational storytelling nowadays.
00:36:28
Speaker
and get hundreds of saves on my content because people want to refer to it later.
00:36:39
Speaker
Yeah, so this is individual post insights when you are using a business account. Okay, individual posting insights. For for stories, there's also a couple metrics like forward taps and backtaps. Yeah, is there, you know, looking at that, is there a place that you should sit when you know, when it comes to those metrics? So the the main measure of success for Insta stories for me and for our students is retention. So how many did you start with?
00:37:04
Speaker
And this is when you're doing intentional storytelling. Don't try and measure intention or retention when you're just like posted to snap here and snap there because it's not going to work. But how many people watched the first part of your story and how many of them stuck around to the end? What percentage of those people did you retain? And I think this is definitely one of those places where you can work on beating yourself to get more retention and try to create content that retains your audience.
00:37:32
Speaker
For example, on average, I'll retain about 80 to 90% of my Instagram story viewers. I gotta imagine that's extremely high. Yeah, yeah, because it's creating really intentional content. A lot of people are gonna be, if you were to look at it right now, you're probably gonna sit at the 40 to 50% area. So then this is homework for you, right? Like, okay, let's get better. Let's create more intentional stories so people stick around through the whole experience and they
00:37:58
Speaker
they look forward to my stories instead of being like, oh, here they are with another Instagram story. And the last question I'll ask about stories here, I'm not making that promise, but at least the last question I have in top five right now is the amount of stories that you do per day. And I got to admit, even the people that I really enjoy following, if I click into their Instagram story and it's like a bajillion
00:38:21
Speaker
Yeah, I almost get I feel like I'm more likely to swipe away or go on to the next and I'm not sure why it's not like I'm you know, it's just I guess the overwhelming amount of stories that I would have to sit through. Is there a magic number there per day?
00:38:37
Speaker
So we joke in the follower to fan society that on Instagram stories, you should never let your dashes turn into dots on Instagram stories. I like that. When across the top, it's a bunch of dots, you've gone too far. You've done too much. I think around 12 to 15 in a 24 hour period is that's enough. I mean, you're looking at a good four minutes at that point of content. If you're doing videos, full videos,
00:39:07
Speaker
That's a lot to ask of your audience to sit there. I mean, that's like a YouTube video. I will tell you one thing that's going to really help your retention is if you add captions or descriptions to your Instagram story.
00:39:22
Speaker
And you've just recently started doing this and I've seen that. And one thing, and I really like that, especially being a more verbal person anyways, I think. I mean, even on Facebook, I'm more likely to watch a video if I can just read the captions instead of turning on the sound there.
00:39:40
Speaker
You know if you're just like sitting in bed in the morning, and I don't want to wake up Krista like I'll stop and just read the captions You know so I really like that you're doing that we provide captions for each of the podcast episodes as well because I also think it's important just for the people out there who Might have some sort of hearing impairment. You know that they have access that kind of stuff so really enjoy I really like the fact that you do that is are those kind of the reasons why you do that and
00:40:06
Speaker
Yeah so it started out definitely as an accessibility concern because we had people in our community who are sharing like they either you know they are hard of hearing or they're deaf or they have friends or colleagues who are or who may have some kind of some issues with like processing language dyslexia things like that and
00:40:26
Speaker
Um, or hearing things. So we, we, I just decided, Hey, I want to be a lot more accessible in my content, make it more accessible for my followers. And I've played around in the past with, um, with adding some captions or adding, just adding phrases to my Insta stories, just to see what I did with retention. And I always saw better results when there was something on the screen. Um, and lately I've just been doing it completely. Like whatever I say in my, in my video.
00:40:53
Speaker
get summarized in a block of text on my feed and my retention is just staying up there. It's crazy how much more people are sticking around. Yeah. And there was an app that you used to create this transcript for you, right? What was that? Yeah, so there's an app called Clips. It's a free app for iPhone and it actually does live
00:41:15
Speaker
Captioning so you can speak into it. You can do a video and it does the live captions, which is really cool So I played around with that and playing around some different ways to see how it works and an important thing to know which I love that you mentioned Facebook is you know Facebook says that Over 80% of Facebook viewers watch video without the sound on so it's so important there Instagram says only about 30% of Instagram users watch video with the sound turned off
00:41:39
Speaker
But I feel like that stat's not, I feel like it's not true. I feel like it's not right. I don't, I mean, a lot of times we'll just look at whatever block of text goes with somebody talking. Yeah, I mean, that's certainly true for me. It doesn't mean it's not, you know, it's true for others, but I would agree. And I can definitely see that on Facebook for sure.
00:42:01
Speaker
So transitioning, and this is sort of a random question to ask at this point in the conversation, but because I gotta imagine there's somebody out there that's probably wondering it themselves, business versus personal Instagrams. If you're a business, should you definitely go business Instagram? I do feel like there are probably some tools, maybe even some access to metrics that you don't get on the personal side that might make it worth it, but what do you think?
Benefits of a Business Instagram Account
00:42:28
Speaker
So if you are a business and you're using social media as a part of your business, you cannot, this is my belief of course, you cannot in good conscience use social media without the metrics and the insights to measure what you're doing. Because you are, first of all, you're flying blind. You can't measure
00:42:54
Speaker
what's working and what's not working. You can't tell what you need to change or what you need to do differently. And the other thing that's really important here is you cannot prove any of the return on your investment. You can't say whether or not this is really working because all you're seeing is just a like or a comment or maybe a new follower. And the most important metric that you do not have access to if you are a personal account is understanding your reach on Instagram.
00:43:23
Speaker
And this is a big one because this is where the entire issue of shadow banning and reduced engagement in the algorithm all came from. And that is the fact that people were seeing less engagement and they immediately blame the platform. But what happened is time and time again, I dug into people's analytics and saw that their reach had stayed the same the entire time.
00:43:46
Speaker
They were reaching the same amount of people. Instagram wasn't showing their content to less people. Less people were choosing to engage with their content. So what we come to now is the fact that it's not an algorithm issue. It's the fact that first of all, what you used to do ain't going to work anymore. Instagram's different. Stop trying to do the same thing. And the other thing is people want stories. They want that Instagram story content. That's where you're really going to get engagement. And if you're not using a business account, you have no idea how many people your content is reaching.
00:44:14
Speaker
You can't tell whether or not your hashtags are getting you in front of more people. You can't tell how people are finding you and how many people are saving your content for later. So it's one of those things that, I mean, I think you have to have it. You have to have it. And I get the fear of decreasing engagement. I get the concern Facebook, what Facebook did to pages, they're going to do to Instagram. It may happen. It may happen.
00:44:40
Speaker
Here's the thing, there's literally nothing we can do about it. So why are we worrying about that now? We should just focus on building our audiences, building our community.
00:44:48
Speaker
Spoiler alert, the best way to use Instagram to sell is to get people off of Instagram. I do think that Facebook pages versus the Facebook regular accounts, I think it's a qualitatively different thing than what Instagram business accounts are versus regular user accounts. I just think the blend of content is presented so different than it ever was in Facebook.
00:45:16
Speaker
And so you're of course right, it totally could go that direction on Instagram. I'd be kind of surprised though if it went in that direction to the same extent it has on Facebook. And I don't think it will because the big thing that differentiates Facebook from the other platforms is, and this is why hashtags never worked well on Facebook, why business growth strategies are tougher on Facebook is because Facebook is an inherently private place.
00:45:44
Speaker
So we have our personal profiles and to even see my content, you have to request to be my friend and see my content. Whereas on Instagram, it starts out and it's public. Same on Twitter. It starts out and it's public for everyone to see.
00:46:00
Speaker
That's why as a content creator, as a marketer, it's really great for us because we can go out and find our ideal person on Instagram. And I don't think we'll ever see that happen on something like Instagram, like what we did on Facebook, because it's just a completely different platform, completely different.
The Power of Community on Instagram
00:46:16
Speaker
So talking about metrics, somebody who runs a creative service-based business, what are the things that they should be focusing on in their business? Is it mostly a top-of-funnel tool where you're just kind of generating awareness and maybe trying to drive a couple leads from, like basically driving people to your website? Or can it be more than that? But what should people be focusing on in actually acquiring more customers via Instagram?
00:46:46
Speaker
Yeah so I definitely the awareness piece is important and and it's not just it's not just you awareness it's not just solution awareness but how can you as the service provider in your industry create product awareness or excuse me problem awareness on Instagram how can you showcase the problem in a really unique and different way how can you position you in your business as the authority on that how can you lead a
00:47:14
Speaker
Excuse me, how can you lead thought on that topic on Instagram? You can do all of these things on Instagram through Instagram stories, through Instagram lives, through educational posts. You can have all of these conversations to really set yourself apart and differentiate you and your business. And then how can you build awareness? And then how can you build a community? That's what I really want people to take away from this conversation and think about how they can use Instagram in a way
00:47:43
Speaker
to not just connect with people, but to get those people wildly passionate about them and what they do. And Instagram does it. You see it on a daily basis of people who are building successful businesses, brands, and presence online using Instagram as really their sole platform because people care about them and what they do. And that's how you build your list through direct message. That's how you sell through direct message. Listen,
00:48:12
Speaker
I'm sitting at this point in my career in my business and I and I don't shoot me and I hate this. I don't have a website. You know I noticed that I noticed that you didn't have a website and I was you are all in on Instagram and that makes sense totally for you. You know in your and your platform for sure. I mean just yeah what you're all about. But at the same time I'm still building my list. I'm adding hundreds of people to my mailing list every single week.
00:48:39
Speaker
I am still growing an online membership community. I'm hosting webinars. I'm getting picked up for podcasts and other promotional opportunities. I'm sharing content with other people. I'm doing that without a website, without a blog, without a podcast, without a YouTube channel, any of those things, because I built a community on Instagram and my folks on Instagram trust me.
00:49:00
Speaker
So when I say, hey, I'd love to share this thing with you, send me your direct, your email address via direct message, they do it. Or when I say, hey, I have this new product or this new service, if you want to learn more, send me a direct message. I can have a conversation with people and I can close the deal through a direct message on Instagram because I've built those relationships. And how many years have you been on Instagram, at least in this capacity as the Tyler McCall that we know today?
00:49:26
Speaker
So I've been doing this, this work since the beginning of 2000. Oh, 17. Okay. So, so, I mean, so 2016 2016 is when I started full-time entrepreneur. I really, I started doing Instagram more strategically by the middle of 2016. Um, I've been my own personal brand since the beginning of 2017. So.
00:49:51
Speaker
It's really been, it's only been about 18 months. I mean, I say all the time. Which is, yeah, that's a significant amount of time, especially, I mean, especially in social media world where, you know, I mean, you were talking about how much or the algorithm being introduced, what, 18 to 24 months ago?
00:50:10
Speaker
Right. And to me it feels like forever. You know, it feels like five years. All right. So I mean, and that is it's not it's I think what I think what it is is encouraging because it's not like it's taking you a lifetime to get to where you are. Right. It's but it has taken dedicated.
00:50:26
Speaker
intense hustle as well. You didn't do this unintentionally, right? So I think that there's encouragement in that for people. It's like, hey, you can do this in 18 months, but realize that this happens and it takes some time to do this and to get to that spot with your, or to build a community on Instagram and to get to a spot where people are engaging with them the same way that they engage, or a similar way that they engage with you.
00:50:54
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, and I'm gonna say the number one thing that I've had to learn, and it is a painful lesson in this process, I think you and Kristin know this, that the magic of building a business, the success happens when your head is down and your blinders are on. You literally cannot worry about anyone else. You can't look at what she's doing or the success that he's having because all it does is hold you back.
00:51:22
Speaker
And success in business happens between your ears. That's where it happens. And if all you're doing, and this is where people get messed up on Instagram because it becomes a place where you can just compare all day long, but you have to ignore everyone and just focus on your people, focus on your people and what you're saying to them and just keep doing that. And here's the thing. If you do that for 18 months,
00:51:47
Speaker
you're going to reach a point of success in which people are going to say, Oh my gosh, you just came out of nowhere. You just had, I can see you everywhere now. You just had this overnight success and you're going to sit there and be like, are you freaking kidding me? I've been doing this. I've had my head down. I've been in my pajamas in my office for a year and a half trying to make this work and it worked.
00:52:07
Speaker
you can't pay attention to other people while you're trying to do it. So I feel like we've probably even in 1550 minutes here and this is the funny thing about I think podcasting is I try I'm like you know I'm trying to get it into like the 40 to 45 minute range but you know I have great guests like you that come on and you just share so much wisdom and I feel like we haven't even and we just scratched the surface today right like we I feel like there's so much more
00:52:31
Speaker
that we could unpack based on everything that you said. So where can people learn more? If this is music to their ears, and I'm sure it is, it's got me jazzed up about revisiting Instagram and maybe a little bit more motivated and encouraged even to revisit all the things that we talked about from our feed to InstaHighlights to InstaStories, where can they go to learn more? Well, it may be a surprise to you, but you can find me on Instagram.
00:52:59
Speaker
I hope so. At Tyler J. McCall, that's where you'll find talks, inspiration about business, about entrepreneurship, about life, about running a business and dealing with mental health issues and family issues, and about how to use Instagram to market yourself and what you're doing. So you can find me there at Tyler J. McCall and online at tylerjmccall.com. That's where you'll find some free resources
00:53:25
Speaker
And if you want to learn more about the follower to fan society, that's our online membership community with education and resources, all about marketing, your creative business, you can go to followertofansociety.com.
00:53:36
Speaker
Yeah, so if you're sitting at home and you're thinking like, hey, I need somebody to really walk me through this, this is something that you should definitely look into. And just as somebody who's followed Tyler for a while, any time Instagram rolls out something new, you have information about it right away. And that has been, I know that's been helpful for me.
00:53:57
Speaker
So, I encourage you to go check out Tyler at Instagram, not at his website because he doesn't have one. I have a landing page now. I have a landing page. But it will direct you. The magic is all at Instagram, so be sure to go check out that. Tyler, thank you so much for joining us today. I know it was super helpful for me. I'm sure it's going to be really helpful for others as well. Yeah, thanks for having me. All right, cool.
00:54:26
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Brains That Book Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to the podcast on iTunes and leaving a review so that others are more likely to find it. For show notes and other resources, visit davianchrista.com.