Lessons
Class Introduction
13:31 2Establish your Launch Goal
06:20 3Identify the Logistics
08:55 4Prep your Visuals
05:16 5Research Hashtags
15:29 6Adjust your Bio
05:40 7Document you Starting Stats
07:22 8Tease your Launch
21:32Define the Beginning of your Launch
11:14 10Consider the Algorithm
17:24 11Define Aesthetics for your Feed
33:41 12Brand your Descriptions
07:16 13Share your Content Consistently
03:56 14Optimize your Process
15:35 15Think about Instagram Stories Differently
22:37 16Brainstorm Story Content
11:23 17Create your Stories
11:44 18Leverage Engagement Opportunities
24:27 19Plan a Livestream Schedule
07:03 20Entertain your Live Audience
13:28Lesson Info
Adjust your Bio
Your Instagram bio is really like the window of your business, if people are standing there looking in, what are they gonna see? You want them to open the door and come in, and here's what you need to include in your bio. You need to make sure that you have a mission statement or a tag line or something really explains what you do. You wanna have a description that represents your company's culture and your brand, and it can be short. You have 150 characters that you can use in your bio. You don't have to use all of them. You can use emojis if that's your thing, if emojis represent what you're doing and this is where you can put that branded hashtag because guess what? Thank you Instagram, like two weeks ago, you can now click into hashtags and you can click into @ mentions in your bio, and then you want to have a trackable link. Where are you driving traffic? And with that, you want to have a clear call-to-action that is related to your campaign so you need to be very crafty with that...
call-to-action. I'm gonna show you a couple in a minute. How do you drive traffic to your bio? And you might think about what are those call-to-actions, not just click the link in my bio 'cause that is just like what everyone's saying so how can you stand out and say something different? You want to say things like tickets are on sale now or limited availability, sign up today or new arrivals coming in March 27th. Literally put the date that you're gonna be doing that launch and that thing, whether its your new course, let people know when they can expect it to arrive, and then maybe it's the biggest sale of the year or there's only 30 seats left. Make people want to click that link in your bio, and then, if you're a videographer, watch my documentary. Theses are just different ideas that you can start with to drive traffic to your bio. Here are the two examples I"m gonna point out. One is mine here for the Instagram Expert, and like I said earlier, I'm a part of this pre-launch with Creative Live so I wanted to really help promote and get people in the room, fill seats and have people watch all over the world so I said, "Join me live on @CreativeLive," using their hashtag. Remember the @ mention is live, so anyone that doesn't know or didn't know what Creative Live was, they could click that and go right over to Creative Live's account, and then when you click into their hashtag, you can see what content is showing up in that hashtag, and then I have a unique URL that is spelled out so you know exactly what it is if you click it. For those of you that are healthy eaters and vegan, my daughter's account, Blissful Gatherings, she has a business here in San Diego, she has tickets that she sells to physically come to her event in person. Once a month, they have a five-course vegan meal, her and her partner do, and my husband and I had the pleasure of eating there last month and it was unbelievable what they serve. I would have paid $100 at a restaurant for all the food, it was so delicious, but what I love that they do so well is they always have the next event in their bio to reserve the tickets and once they sell out, they either say tickets are sold out, sign up for the next event, so once you sell out of something, you can have a wait list. If you're a photographer and you just can only take a certain amount of fittings, you can have a wait list and people can sign up for that wait list. So clear call-to-actions, Lila uses emojis, the avocado, rightfully so, with a little star, and I use Sue Bee 'cause that's the emoji that I use frequently. So that gives you guys some ideas. All right, it is not someone's job to figure out what you do. It is your job to tell people exactly what you do. You have to make it so clear that a 10 year old can understand. What is the action that you want them to do? And you need to make it really clear. So let's go over the four-step checklist right now. Number one, is your avatar professional? 'Cause if it isn't, you need to change that. A lot of times I see people's bios and their logo is there and I can't even read it 'cause it doesn't fit in the circle or their photo is cropped from a wedding and it's blurry. So if you're in business, invest in a good photo shoot and make sure your avatar is unique and it stands out and it represents your business. Number two, does your bio speak to who you are and what you want to attract? And if you're not sure, just do a focus group and ask people, "Does this make sense? "Can you understand exactly what I'm trying to do?" And does your call-to-action help drive the traffic to your main campaign goal? You want to make sure that you are really clear with what you want people to do there. And is that bio link trackable? Are you tracking who's clicking it and looking at your stats and your data to see are you having success with that campaign? So that's the checklist for the bio. Let's go over the recap for this step. You want to use a trackable bio link, you want to make sure that your bio's concise and clear and there should be no guess work for anyone and you want to bring attention to your launch.
Ratings and Reviews
Cat in the Moon Photo
Can I just say, "I LOVE Sue"! I took her three day course on CreativeLive back in January when I had finally decided that I didn't want to be the only photographer NOT on Instagram. I took that class knowing absolutely NOTHING about the platform and by the end of it, I was up and running. When I heard that she was doing a new class, I knew I had to see it. By the end of the day my head was exploding with information. There are so many new things on IG that I am already WAY behind the times and have so much work to do. Sue delivered the course in true Sue form - highly entertaining and energized. The examples of successful businesses that she uses are so inspirational and make you feel like, "Yes! It IS possible!!" I am sooooo glad I own the course, because there is no way I could get the full benefit from just watching it once. I will be going back to this class MANY times as I develop as an Instagrammer!
a Creativelive Student
I love Sue's energy and her passion for her work is contagious. She is animated and articulate, making learning about Instagram not only fun, but inspiring. I found her tips to be very intuitive and easy to implement if you have the desire and drive to take your Instagram to the next level. I'm at a point where I've grown my Instagram to a respectable amount (13K), but I want to take it to the next level, so I'm doing a one-on-one consultation with her. I really appreciate all the work she's done into creating a program to uplevel your Instagram game.
Nick Davis
Amazing class, super helpful for understanding how to make your Instagram work for your business. And Sue B is engaging and fun to listen to. But make sure you have a pen and paper ready, because there's so much important information you're going to want to write it down! I'm about to start again from the beginning and this time take notes!