EP 6: ‘Gram Guide

00:00:02 [Alison]
Hey.
00:00:02 [Alison]
I’m Allison, military spouse and family photographer.

00:00:05 [Melissa]
And I’m Melissa, also a military spouse, lifestyle newborn photographer, and SEO expert for photographers.
00:00:11 [Melissa]
Between the two of us, we have a combined twenty seven years in photography and have lived through nine business relocations.

00:00:16 [Alison]
We’ve coached each other through all these challenges privately on Marco Polo, and now we’re Polo’s public.
00:00:21 [Alison]
On this podcast, we’ll give you actionable steps to help you keep it moving.

00:00:29 [Melissa]
Hey, guys.
00:00:30 [Melissa]
So welcome back to the podcast.
00:00:32 [Melissa]
This week, we are gonna chat about Instagram strategy.
00:00:35 [Melissa]
This is literally we joke around about you guys are hearing our we’re taking our polos public.
00:00:39 [Melissa]
And this was a polo the other week that I sent to Allison because she is the Instagram queen.

00:00:44 [Melissa]
And I was like, alright.
00:00:45 [Melissa]
Here’s the deal.
00:00:46 [Melissa]
I wanna set up a second Instagram account, but I don’t show a lot to Instagram strategy and things like that.
00:00:55 [Melissa]
And so I was like, alright, Allison.
00:00:57 [Melissa]
I’m gonna I’m gonna tag you in this.

00:00:59 [Melissa]
So, Allison, tell us tell us a little bit about your Instagram ness.
00:01:03 [Melissa]
Allison’s all over.
00:01:03 [Melissa]
You guys gotta go check her out.

00:01:05 [Alison]
Thank you.
00:01:05 [Alison]
Thank you.
00:01:06 [Alison]
I appreciate it, but I just like it.
00:01:09 [Alison]
I think I just have fun on it.
00:01:10 [Alison]
And so when it’s fun, you do it more.

00:01:12 [Alison]
Right?
00:01:13 [Alison]
And so I have followed a couple girls, Shanna McKinstry primarily.
00:01:18 [Alison]
I really like her teaching.
00:01:19 [Alison]
I started following her when we moved from Okinawa to Quantico, and she was in Korea.
00:01:24 [Alison]
I worked with her for hashtag vault, and she has blown up in the last few years.

00:01:29 [Alison]
But what I like most about her is her message and strategy has been consistent, pre reels, pre maybe even before highlights.
00:01:38 [Alison]
I don’t even know.
00:01:38 [Alison]
She’s had the same doable, approachable strategy the whole time, and I just really appreciate her level headedness.
00:01:47 [Alison]
When it comes to all that, so a lot of, what I do, I actually got from her and following her account.
00:01:51 [Alison]
So you should we’ll have to tag her.

00:01:53 [Alison]
You can follow her as well.
00:01:55 [Alison]
So big things she talks about is that your Instagram profile is a billboard for your shop, for your store, for whatever products or services that you’re offering.
00:02:04 [Alison]
Right?
00:02:05 [Alison]
That grid is like looking in your store window.
00:02:08 [Alison]
What do you offer?

00:02:08 [Alison]
Who are you?
00:02:09 [Alison]
What is this?
00:02:10 [Alison]
Tell me more about it.
00:02:11 [Alison]
And then the stories, that little circle around your profile picture are your open hours.
00:02:18 [Alison]
If you have that circle, it’s like you’re open.

00:02:21 [Alison]
You’re open for the business.
00:02:22 [Alison]
What’s going on in the shop?
00:02:23 [Alison]
Can I walk in?
00:02:25 [Alison]
If there’s nothing there, it’s like you’re really, like, aren’t ready for business.

00:02:29 [Melissa]
It’s closed a lot.

00:02:32 [Alison]
And then there there’s a time and place for that.
00:02:34 [Alison]
There’s some strategy and some purpose behind closing those stories out.
00:02:38 [Alison]
But when you’re open, people are more likely to walk through and deep dive who you are, what you do, and maybe even reach out.
00:02:44 [Alison]
Right?
00:02:45 [Alison]
So I I’ve really taken that to heart.

00:02:47 [Alison]
I’m constantly on stories.
00:02:48 [Alison]
There of course, there’s also a balance to it and whatnot.
00:02:51 [Alison]
But I at the end of it at the end of the day, social media is there to be social.
00:02:55 [Alison]
Right?
00:02:56 [Alison]
And so if you’re not having fun with it, how can we change that?

00:03:00 [Alison]
That’s my first bit of strategy for everybody is have fun with it.
00:03:03 [Alison]
Don’t overthink it.
00:03:04 [Alison]
Don’t try to be perfect on it because I don’t think it’s worth all that time.
00:03:08 [Alison]
But, I think you want to consider when we’re optimizing our Instagram.
00:03:12 [Alison]
Right?

00:03:13 [Alison]
So, first of all, your name and handle.
00:03:15 [Alison]
Your name and handle are the only searchable fields in Instagram.
00:03:20 [Alison]
Your bio is not searchable at all.
00:03:22 [Alison]
Your links are not searchable.
00:03:23 [Alison]
Your captions for any post reel or video of any sort is not searchable.

00:03:29 [Alison]
So your name and your handle and those tiny those few characters that you have are really important.

00:03:35 [Melissa]
So for me good for SEO like you And

00:03:37 [Alison]
they’re Yes.
00:03:38 [Alison]
Exactly.
00:03:39 [Alison]
So my One, first of all, your name should say your name.
00:03:43 [Alison]
That drives me nuts when I can’t I know somebody’s name, but they don’t have their name in their name field.
00:03:50 [Alison]
And so when I try to message them or find them, they don’t auto populate because they’ve got some other service tag location, and I don’t know what it is, and I can’t figure it out.

00:04:00 [Alison]
That drives me nuts.
00:04:01 [Alison]
So please put your name in your name section.
00:04:03 [Alison]
For me, it’s Allison, a Wahoo family photographer.
00:04:06 [Alison]
So I have both.
00:04:07 [Alison]
You can do that.

00:04:07 [Alison]
That’s totally acceptable.
00:04:09 [Alison]
Yeah.

00:04:09 [Melissa]
I have mine with my name and then my my of what I am.
00:04:12 [Melissa]
And I will say too when I was saying it’s good for SEO, it’s not it’s not search engine optimization that it’s good for, but it’s like search optimization.
00:04:19 [Melissa]
So if somebody I actually had a client once who was like, oh, I looked for this, and it was my Instagram.
00:04:25 [Melissa]
Like, what was in that handle?
00:04:26 [Melissa]
And they were and I came up and stuff.

00:04:28 [Melissa]
So putting your email in and having that come up, that’s important.

00:04:32 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:04:32 [Alison]
And so that’s why people forego putting their name in there, but it’s a usability issue of people who know you want to find you.
00:04:38 [Alison]
Right?
00:04:39 [Alison]
So put your stuff in there.
00:04:40 [Alison]
Also, your handle should have something like my handle has my nelson bell photog.

00:04:45 [Alison]
So you get an idea of what I do anyway, even if I didn’t have it in my name.
00:04:49 [Alison]
So that’s really important.
00:04:50 [Alison]
They’re searchable.
00:04:50 [Alison]
So make sure you’re putting searchable content or keywords in there.
00:04:54 [Alison]
And then the bio should tell you who you serve and what you do, but it also should have some personality to it.

00:04:59 [Alison]
So mine gosh.
00:05:00 [Alison]
I just changed this recently.
00:05:02 [Alison]
So I think it says something to the effect of fast fun done.
00:05:06 [Alison]
Photo session photo family photos even dad would do again because that’s what I do.
00:05:10 [Alison]
And then I think I got some go ahead.

00:05:12 [Melissa]
I was gonna say mine is natural joyful moments over crazy props.
00:05:15 [Melissa]
That’s my shtick of I’m not gonna I’m not doing all the crazy props and poses, and I put that in that bio so that people if they’re looking for that, then they will keep moving along and not stick with me.
00:05:24 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:05:24 [Melissa]
Yeah.

00:05:24 [Alison]
Absolutely.
00:05:25 [Alison]
And then mine also has some personality like boy mom and I think 2,000 tip-off.
00:05:31 [Alison]
Just that’s that’s what I’m really into, Ja Rule for life.
00:05:34 [Alison]
Okay.
00:05:34 [Alison]
So, yeah, underneath the bio then is the link or your location.

00:05:39 [Alison]
So if you have not set your location of where you’re at, you should do that.
00:05:42 [Alison]
And if you have set it and you’re moving, you should change it for sure.
00:05:46 [Alison]
And then really important, so you get one link in Instagram and that’s why things like Link Tree and Milkshake have become so popular because it’s one link that leads to a whole bunch of other links.
00:05:56 [Alison]
Right?
00:05:57 [Alison]
I think Melissa is really going to help us out here.

00:06:01 [Alison]
Why should we not use Link Tree or Milkshake?
00:06:04 [Alison]
We should have that link be a page on our website because why?

00:06:08 [Melissa]
Because it brings traffic to your website.
00:06:10 [Melissa]
So the more times you get people clicking on your website and hanging out, and especially if they click on that link, and then they click on another link that’s within it, and now on your website.
00:06:18 [Melissa]
And so that’s good for Google.
00:06:20 [Melissa]
And Google sees that you’ve got traffic and you’ve got interest in your website.

00:06:24 [Alison]
That’s awesome.
00:06:25 [Alison]
Also, it’s free analytics.
00:06:28 [Alison]
You don’t have to have the upgraded or paid versions of of Linktree in order to see how many clicks you got, where they went after that, where they came from, all that stuff.
00:06:37 [Alison]
So that’s really important.
00:06:38 [Alison]
And if you wanna see all that, please make sure that you index that page.

00:06:42 [Alison]
I just recently, three days ago, realized I’ve been using that link on my page, for about a year and it was no index.
00:06:49 [Alison]
I was not happy with myself.
00:06:51 [Alison]
I know why I did it, but I was I’d forgotten to turn it back on.
00:06:54 [Alison]
So that’s what you wanna think about when it comes to all that stuff.
00:06:56 [Alison]
Then we’ve got underneath the link, we have the highlights.

00:07:00 [Alison]
What the heck do we do with our highlights, Melissa?

00:07:03 [Melissa]
Oh, yeah.
00:07:04 [Melissa]
So I know for mine, when I was first starting out, I thought about what categories do I want people to look at?
00:07:10 [Melissa]
Because you gotta remember your highlights are obviously things from your stories that you’re saving.
00:07:14 [Melissa]
And I think we didn’t we start off with just a couple?
00:07:16 [Melissa]
Like, you were only allowed, I think, four to start.

00:07:18 [Melissa]
Five to start with, I wanna say.
00:07:20 [Melissa]
And then and then we could have unlimited.
00:07:21 [Melissa]
And so, like, when I scroll through mine, I think really you should focus on to start with a behind the scenes.
00:07:27 [Melissa]
So having something like that, because then people can see you shooting and things like that.
00:07:31 [Melissa]
And then your portfolios.

00:07:32 [Melissa]
So basically, I have a category for family.
00:07:34 [Melissa]
I have a category for newborn, for maternity.
00:07:37 [Melissa]
I have one for products, and then, like, things that are interesting to me.
00:07:41 [Melissa]
So, like, I have home decor stuff.
00:07:43 [Melissa]
I have let’s see here.

00:07:44 [Melissa]
I have nurseries.
00:07:45 [Melissa]
And then I have my life, and then I have sailing and stuff.
00:07:48 [Melissa]
And in fact, I almost forgot.
00:07:49 [Melissa]
I actually have a shopping one, which I think I have affiliate for stuff.

00:07:53 [Alison]
That’s that

00:07:53 [Melissa]
in mine too.
00:07:54 [Melissa]
Money.
00:07:55 [Melissa]
You can have that kinda stuff.
00:07:56 [Melissa]
So definitely, you wanna think about what your main categories are, showing those off.
00:08:00 [Melissa]
People wanna learn about you.

00:08:02 [Melissa]
And I think I really when it came to the highlights, I treated it like I remember taking Jenna Kutcher’s Instagram lab many years ago, and she had a big thing about the j k five.
00:08:11 [Melissa]
And the idea was it was like picking five things that you were going to focus on, which was helpful because for a lot of us, we were like, I don’t know what to post.
00:08:19 [Melissa]
So I treated that the same for my highlights initially was I just went with that JK five.
00:08:23 [Melissa]
And so maternity, newborn, family, my life, and then I don’t remember what my last one.
00:08:29 [Melissa]
It was probably sailing my last one.

00:08:30 [Melissa]
Probably.
00:08:31 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:08:31 [Melissa]
So it was like a my life, my kids and stuff, and then sailing was the other one.
00:08:34 [Melissa]
And then they opened it up, obviously, and you could do a lot more.
00:08:37 [Melissa]
But that’s a good strategy too to think about what am I gonna put here.

00:08:40 [Melissa]
You know?
00:08:41 [Melissa]
Come up with five to three.

00:08:42 [Alison]
Yep.
00:08:43 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:08:43 [Alison]
Really will resolve that decision fatigue.
00:08:45 [Alison]
So right now, I have exactly what Melissa just described.
00:08:48 [Alison]
Like, I am not an early adopter.

00:08:50 [Alison]
I have no idea that they limited that in the beginning because I was not one of those first people.
00:08:55 [Alison]
I guarantee it.
00:08:56 [Alison]
But, like, right now, I have way too many.
00:08:58 [Alison]
I have a category on what to wear, about traveling in Oahu.
00:09:01 [Alison]
I have printing stuff, military ceremonies, things that are pretty off target.

00:09:07 [Alison]
Not necessarily off brand, but just not my sole focus.
00:09:10 [Alison]
I think I have, like, food hacks because I hate cooking.
00:09:14 [Alison]
So I wanna share with other people how they can get out of it too.
00:09:17 [Alison]
But my strategy, and maybe by the time this episode drops, maybe I’ll have executed this idea.
00:09:22 [Alison]
But my whole philosophy to family photos is fast, fun, done.

00:09:26 [Alison]
So I want to just narrow it all down to three category three highlights, a fast, fun, and done, and just put everything in there.
00:09:36 [Alison]
But we’ll see.
00:09:37 [Alison]
That’s my idea.

00:09:38 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:09:38 [Melissa]
And with my new account, I’m taking up some ideas.
00:09:41 [Melissa]
Allison had an idea for me to do because I’m opening a second account for the SEO side of my business just to put it separate from the photography side.

00:09:48 [Alison]
How long have you said you wouldn’t do that?

00:09:50 [Melissa]
How long has that been?
00:09:50 [Melissa]
Oh, I know.
00:09:51 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:09:51 [Melissa]
Normally, guys, I do not recommend a second account.
00:09:54 [Melissa]
Because if you’re not keeping up with the first one, why in the world do you think you’re gonna keep up with the second one?

00:09:58 [Melissa]
Amen.
00:09:58 [Melissa]
And I can tell you that because I actually have a second account for my so this will be my third account.
00:10:02 [Melissa]
I have my primary account, which is used to be my weddings.
00:10:05 [Melissa]
Now it’s maternity and newborn and families.
00:10:08 [Melissa]
I also do branding photos and stuff like that.

00:10:11 [Melissa]
And my purse my my family newborn motherhood side of my business, I have it’s a lot softer, I feel like, with the editing and things like that.
00:10:20 [Melissa]
Whereas my branding side is a little bit more bold, more similar to probably like Allison style of, like, bold colors.
00:10:26 [Melissa]
I don’t tell people to wear neutrals all the time at their branding session like I do at a newborn session.
00:10:30 [Melissa]
Branding, I’m like, what are your colors?
00:10:32 [Melissa]
Let’s go with it.

00:10:33 [Melissa]
And so I felt like from my work, it they weren’t gonna match.
00:10:37 [Melissa]
It was gonna be that the branding session wasn’t really gonna work, like, they would stick out.
00:10:41 [Melissa]
Whereas I know Allison does branding, but it fits because her editing style is very much the same as her newborn style.
00:10:47 [Melissa]
And so I just didn’t feel like for mine, it was gonna be that that well.
00:10:51 [Melissa]
But what’s happened is I have this account.

00:10:52 [Melissa]
I think I have a few posts up on it, and I never update.
00:10:56 [Melissa]
So it’s out there, but

00:10:57 [Alison]
I don’t really remember.
00:10:58 [Alison]
Forgot you had that account, but I remember when you made it.
00:11:01 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:11:01 [Alison]
It was a couple years ago.
00:11:02 [Alison]
Right?

00:11:02 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:11:03 [Melissa]
And so knowing that I am terrible at updating that account, that you’re probably you’re asking yourself, why in the world are you opening a third account?
00:11:12 [Melissa]
And my SEO side of my business has I noticed the other day on my photography website, all the posts at the bottom from Instagram were all SEO.
00:11:20 [Melissa]
And I was like, oh, I need to get some photos stuff in here.
00:11:23 [Melissa]
So I just wanna separate it out.

00:11:25 [Melissa]
I have a team now that works with me and stuff.
00:11:27 [Melissa]
I have a marketing coordinator, so she’s gonna handle more of that kind of thing.
00:11:30 [Melissa]
But we are also looking at going with a different strategy for that, which we’ll talk about when we get into the grid and things like that.
00:11:37 [Melissa]
But for the stories we were talking about doing, like, one of them will say s, the other will say e, and the other one will say o.
00:11:42 [Melissa]
And then I can talk about, like, my business.

00:11:44 [Melissa]
Maybe I could talk I guess, e could maybe be what oh, e was education.
00:11:47 [Melissa]
Yep.
00:11:48 [Melissa]
And then, o, I think we were still trying to figure out.
00:11:50 [Melissa]
We were like, maybe optimization.
00:11:51 [Melissa]
Maybe I’ll have tips in there or something like that.

00:11:53 [Melissa]
But that at least what I love about that kind of thing is it goes back to that j k five of it tells me these are the things that we need to be posting.
00:12:00 [Melissa]
So that way, I know it’s gonna fit one of these categories.
00:12:03 [Melissa]
And then just trying to keep that going and keep that account really strictly for photography education and not so much, like, photos of of my clients and stuff.

00:12:14 [Alison]
Absolutely.
00:12:15 [Alison]
One of the primary reasons you were creating that third account was for a different audience.
00:12:19 [Alison]
And that’s really what it all comes down to is how you serve your audience.
00:12:23 [Alison]
And so the goal of Instagram is engagement.
00:12:28 [Alison]
Like, I know we get frustrated with the algorithm and we blame it and we try to work it and manipulate it to serve our purposes.

00:12:35 [Alison]
But at the end of the day, Instagram is a social media app meant to make money by keeping people on the app and serving them ads.
00:12:45 [Alison]
So if we think about a goal and we try to align ourselves with Instagram’s goals so that what we’re doing serves them as well, then it’s gonna be this whole circular, I scratch your back, your back, you scratch mine kind of thing.
00:13:00 [Alison]
So engagement.
00:13:02 [Alison]
If you can engage with people and leave them the comments, the likes, the DMs that you want people to leave on your account, everybody’s gonna be happier.
00:13:12 [Alison]
So when it comes to how you use the the app, that really you really need some engagement in mind.

00:13:19 [Alison]
So be social.
00:13:20 [Alison]
One of the things that Shannon teaches is to spend some time in your feed, spend some time in your stories, and spend some time in your hashtags daily.
00:13:30 [Alison]
Being consistent, leaving the love for other people that you want people to leave on your posts and reels and all that stuff.
00:13:37 [Alison]
And then to nurture the people who are already following you by engaging them and cultivating that engagement, telling them that you’re there, that you’re seeing them, giving them positive feedback, asking.

00:15:16 [Alison]
Question.
00:15:17 [Alison]
In general, being a good human, being a fun, engaging, encouraging human, and it’ll make everything a lot easier and also a lot more delightful.
00:15:25 [Alison]
Because when you’re leaving those comments and hearts and likes and people’s stuff, you magically get them back.
00:15:32 [Alison]
So that’s my whole strategy.
00:15:34 [Alison]
I follow a lot from Shannon, but keeping that big picture in mind will go a long way.

00:15:41 [Melissa]
So let’s go back to the grid because we didn’t we haven’t covered, like, your actual grid.
00:15:46 [Melissa]
So obviously, we all know we’ve all heard the thing for starters, and there’s what, nine posts that show now?

00:15:51 [Alison]
Yep.
00:15:51 [Alison]
Nine.

00:15:52 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:15:52 [Melissa]
Okay.
00:15:52 [Melissa]
Your photo needs to be in one of those.
00:15:54 [Melissa]
And if you scroll more than nine photos, like, that’s a no that nobody sees your face.
00:15:58 [Melissa]
Isn’t that kind of the rule of thumb?

00:15:59 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:16:00 [Alison]
Show your face.
00:16:00 [Alison]
We wanna know who owns

00:16:01 [Melissa]
this place.
00:16:02 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:16:02 [Melissa]
So you gotta have your face in there somehow.
00:16:05 [Melissa]
I personally, on my like, going back again to the j k five, I need to know what to post.
00:16:10 [Melissa]
I can’t just randomly throw stuff up there.

00:16:11 [Melissa]
So I went with a pattern.
00:16:13 [Melissa]
I don’t know if it’s like a striped pattern or what.
00:16:15 [Melissa]
But basically, I alternate my post so that when you look at my feed, it runs like a stripe pattern or at least it it was.
00:16:23 [Melissa]
Lately, it’s a little bit of a hot mess.

00:16:25 [Alison]
Pre reels, it was a stripe pattern?

00:16:27 [Melissa]
There’s that too.
00:16:28 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:16:28 [Melissa]
And there’s nothing worse than when you schedule things out and then plan only didn’t post because you forgot to crop the image, and now your, like, pattern is out of whack and you’re like, But, yeah.
00:16:36 [Melissa]
So I do a Stripe pattern.
00:16:37 [Melissa]
I try to focus sharing nurseries, sharing products, and then sharing sessions.

00:16:42 [Melissa]
And so I Stripe myself out that way.
00:16:45 [Melissa]
I don’t do as much with Reels, but I do know even if you post a Reel, you can undo it from your profile.
00:16:50 [Melissa]
Right?
00:16:51 [Melissa]
Yep.

00:16:51 [Alison]
You can take it off of you hit the three dots at the top and you hit remove from profile grid, and it will still be in your Reels section, but it will not mess up your primary grid when people come to your profile.

00:17:01 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:17:01 [Melissa]
So I love that idea.
00:17:03 [Melissa]
And so when I by switch making this switch, I will probably get back to products, nurseries, and sessions.
00:17:09 [Melissa]
I did it, which ended up sharing my SEO offering.
00:17:11 [Melissa]
So it was like products, sessions, nurseries, sessions, SEO, sessions.

00:17:16 [Melissa]
It’s like I had to do it that way, which is the other reason I wanna just go ahead and move it off to its own.
00:17:21 [Melissa]
And I’m considering I don’t know if you guys have heard about this, but a nine grid.
00:17:25 [Melissa]
But, Allison, what were you gonna say?
00:17:27 [Melissa]
Where do you put your face in

00:17:29 [Alison]
that the series of stripes?

00:17:30 [Melissa]
In the sessions.
00:17:31 [Melissa]
So yeah.
00:17:32 [Melissa]
In the sessions.
00:17:33 [Melissa]
And then within that, this is where my probably my strategy is a little technical.
00:17:37 [Melissa]
Within those that stripe of sessions, I will make sure my photos in there also do I’ll vary on whether it’s a close-up or a far away.

00:17:44 [Alison]
Okay.
00:17:45 [Alison]
So yeah.
00:17:46 [Alison]
Your angles and focal lengths.

00:17:48 [Melissa]
So it really makes it so that when I go to look at, okay, what needs to go in this little box, I know, okay, it has to be a product and it needs to be a close-up, or it has to be a session and it needs to be a far away.
00:17:57 [Melissa]
And I feel like for most people, they probably like that’s too many parameters and I’m like no, because that that like all the decisions are made for me.
00:18:03 [Melissa]
I just need to find the photo that fits this and then there we go.

00:18:06 [Alison]
It’s so freeing.
00:18:07 [Alison]
It’s so freeing.

00:18:09 [Melissa]
The putting parameters on it actually frees things up, which is absolutely.
00:18:13 [Melissa]
Absolutely.
00:18:14 [Melissa]
Okay.
00:18:14 [Melissa]
So let’s go back and talk about this nine grid that I’m looking at doing.
00:18:18 [Melissa]
There’s a nine grid, 12 grid, 15 grid, whatever, as long as it’s at least nine, I think is the way they’re going.

00:18:23 [Melissa]
So I personally know that I am not gonna be posting a lot to the SEO account on post.
00:18:31 [Melissa]
I’m just not.
00:18:32 [Melissa]
I’m not gonna have an audience there.
00:18:33 [Melissa]
That’s part of the thing that’s a little bit of a heartburn.
00:18:35 [Melissa]
I have a a big audience on my photography side that are photographers, and I’m gonna have to get them over to that side.

00:18:43 [Melissa]
But I just know that with the schedule and creating posts all the time and knowing that three people literally might be seeing it and probably one because of the Instagram algorithm.
00:18:50 [Melissa]
I’m like, I just I don’t wanna put all that effort in for now.
00:18:53 [Melissa]
But I do wanna run Instagram ads and Facebook ads for the SEO side of my business.
00:18:58 [Melissa]
And so I want them to have a place that they land that they’re like, oh, there’s actually stuff here.
00:19:04 [Melissa]
So I’ve been looking into this whole nine grid where you can do it as, like, just one giant photo.

00:19:09 [Melissa]
And I remember when this became popular several years ago, people just their feed would swap, like, nine foot it’d be, like, nine pictures is one, nine pictures is another photo.
00:19:17 [Melissa]
But I’ve looked into a couple different things, and I took a training recently for a service provider, like, setting up a nine grid so that it’s that’s when Allison said store window, I was like, that’s perfect.
00:19:26 [Melissa]
That’s exactly what I want it to be.
00:19:27 [Melissa]
I want it to be a store window that looks cohesive.
00:19:30 [Melissa]
We can still do reels, but I can unpin them from my profile.

00:19:34 [Melissa]
But when someone lands on my account, they can see what they’re looking for, even though it’s not necessarily gonna be constantly updated.
00:19:41 [Melissa]
But we will focus more on doing reels and then doing stories, and just let the grid stand alone as it is.
00:19:48 [Melissa]
And so I’m excited about that because it takes the pressure off me on posting to that one, and I can just focus on posting to the photography side when it comes to figuring out what those posts are gonna be.

00:19:57 [Alison]
I think that makes a lot of sense.
00:19:58 [Alison]
Just with the whole goal of how you’re gonna use it anyway, I think that’s I think it’s gonna be perfect.
00:20:03 [Alison]
And I think it’s gonna be more interesting and easier to read for the kind of content you’re gonna be sharing anyway.
00:20:09 [Alison]
Okay.
00:20:10 [Alison]
So let’s say we’re working on Instagram, we’ve got things happening, and we know something big’s about the trop.

00:20:16 [Alison]
Like, we’re either gonna be featured or Like Allison?

00:20:20 [Melissa]
Allison’s about to be featured, which is why actually, by the time this episode comes up, Allison has already been on the This Can’t Be That Hard podcast.
00:20:27 [Melissa]
You guys should go listen to it.
00:20:28 [Melissa]
And the first time So it’s more Yes.
00:20:30 [Melissa]
But Allison’s is more recent.
00:20:31 [Melissa]
And when we were putting together our notes on this episode, I said, alright.

00:20:35 [Melissa]
How are you going to share, and what are you gonna do to prep your Instagram knowing that being on that episode are is gonna send photographers to you?
00:20:43 [Melissa]
And I can tell you it does because it did it for me.
00:20:45 [Melissa]
The first time I had an episode drop, I woke up that morning and I had messages from photographers across the world.
00:20:50 [Melissa]
So what are you gonna do to prep your Instagram

00:20:54 [Melissa]
so

00:20:54 [Alison]
that No nerves.
00:20:55 [Alison]
But, yeah, this is a great little case study.
00:20:56 [Alison]
So we know as of the time of the recording, we’ve got a feature dropping next week.
00:21:00 [Alison]
So my what I’m doing is, one, I’ve created a reel with with the host so that she can share that mess.
00:21:06 [Alison]
But, also, I’m going to create my I’m gonna make a link for my link.

00:21:11 [Alison]
So I have a page.
00:21:12 [Alison]
So if you’re using Linktree, you’d create a new link in Linktree.
00:21:14 [Alison]
I’m gonna create a new link and a button for my links on page.
00:21:18 [Alison]
It’s gonna be the very top because it’s gonna be the newest stuff.
00:21:21 [Alison]
I’m gonna turn something off because I’m not gonna be focusing on that offer or freebie for a moment.

00:21:27 [Alison]
And I’m gonna take send people all to this episode of this can’t be that hard.
00:21:31 [Alison]
That link gonna go directly to the episode.
00:21:35 [Alison]
That link is going to go to my blog post about that episode, which will then link to this can’t be that hard and maybe eventually somewhere directly to Apple or Spotify.
00:21:47 [Alison]
My link is gonna support my website and then I’m gonna support this can’t be that hard’s website by just linking everybody, have a big old link party on the back end.
00:21:56 [Alison]
Okay?

00:21:56 [Alison]
So that’s gonna be for your SEO.
00:21:57 [Alison]
That’s gonna I’m gonna move that to the top so it’s very easy for people to find.
00:22:01 [Alison]
I’m going to pin that reel once Onomy Reel will be pinned to the top of my profile for a couple weeks.
00:22:07 [Alison]
That blog post

00:22:09 [Melissa]
Oh.
00:22:09 [Melissa]
We haven’t even talked about pinning.
00:22:10 [Melissa]
So let’s put a pin in that to come back to

00:22:12 [Alison]
that.
00:22:12 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:22:13 [Alison]
And then that blog post will be there forever.
00:22:17 [Alison]
And so as long as people are still listening to the show, the show links will link to my websites, my email downloads, freebie downloads, and everything.
00:22:27 [Alison]
It’ll be one happy one happy link party, really.

00:22:30 [Melissa]
So you had mentioned you’re gonna pin that post, and I think we forgot about that.
00:22:33 [Melissa]
But think of it right now, I

00:22:35 [Alison]
I did a three you can do three posts.
00:22:38 [Alison]
Right?
00:22:38 [Alison]
Three posts or three reels on either page, either page.
00:22:41 [Alison]
Oh.

00:22:41 [Melissa]
Oh.
00:22:41 [Melissa]
Oh.
00:22:41 [Melissa]
I didn’t know you could do it on reels.
00:22:43 [Melissa]
Oh, good to know.
00:22:44 [Melissa]
Okay.

00:22:44 [Melissa]
Yep.
00:22:44 [Melissa]
So I did the three pinned posts at the top that basically one was, like, about me, and then the other one is, like, testimonials, and then the third one was, like, SEO services because I wanted to have that on there.
00:22:55 [Melissa]
But I love the idea of pinning stuff that like, your features.
00:22:58 [Melissa]
So let’s say you had a feature on somebody else’s website or something like that and you post about it, then you can pin that at the top.
00:23:04 [Melissa]
I think that’s a good strategy for photographers of having things like maybe that’s where you put your personal picture where you’ve got a photo up there.

00:23:11 [Melissa]
You’ve got I love the idea of testimonials too.
00:23:13 [Melissa]
So

00:23:13 [Alison]
It’s almost like pinning is like a secondary version of highlights.
00:23:18 [Alison]
So you could have an introductory poster reel about you up there.
00:23:21 [Alison]
You can have a pin about your feature.
00:23:23 [Alison]
I recently just unpinned everything because everything I had pinned was so old.
00:23:26 [Alison]
But what I had up there was my NAPCP master certification.

00:23:30 [Alison]
So I created a reel with my portfolio that earned me a master certification with NAPCP.
00:23:37 [Alison]
And so that was up there at a newborn reel, a nursery feature.
00:23:40 [Alison]
It was the behind the scenes nursery feature and then the photos from that nursery for newborn stuff because I haven’t been doing a whole lot of newborns.
00:23:47 [Alison]
And so I wanted to keep that front of mind like, hey, I still do this.
00:23:51 [Alison]
And then the other one was another about me reel from actually a year ago, which is now no longer pinned, but maybe not quite a year.

00:23:58 [Alison]
Some of the footage was from a year ago, which honestly doesn’t really matter.
00:24:01 [Alison]
Nobody knows that.
00:24:02 [Alison]
I just wanted to refresh it.
00:24:04 [Alison]
So I have nothing been at the moment, but, hopefully, I will get back to it and put something about some social, whether that’s certification or testimonial.
00:24:11 [Alison]
I’ll put something up there about me and then something about up there about what I need my future clients to know.

00:24:16 [Alison]
What do they need to know about how to work with me or end products, print products?
00:24:21 [Alison]
What whatever makes you unique, your UVP, your brand promise.

00:24:25 [Melissa]
I love that idea.
00:24:26 [Melissa]
Think about your ideal client and what is gonna be helpful to them and stuff.
00:24:29 [Melissa]
And it could be that you you have a pinned post up there that then takes them over to your website or whatever, points them over to their your website.
00:24:37 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:24:38 [Melissa]
I guess with that, you would have to you would have to do it on the LinkedIn to tell them, go to my LinkedIn bio to to find the link for this.

00:24:43 [Melissa]
But even if you don’t send them over to your website, at least get them some information about what it’s like to work with you and stuff.
00:24:49 [Melissa]
A friend of ours, she was talking about that a lot of times when she gets an inquiry in, she can go over to Instagram and see that they started following her on Instagram too.
00:24:56 [Melissa]
And so keeping that in mind that if someone is inquiring and and I don’t know about y’all, but I’ve totally stalked people.
00:25:02 [Melissa]
Like, when they’ve inquired and I saw that they follow me.

00:25:04 [Alison]
Mhmm.
00:25:04 [Alison]
I’ll just stalk them.
00:25:07 [Alison]
That’s true.
00:25:08 [Alison]
That’s no no shame.

00:25:10 [Melissa]
You can

00:25:10 [Alison]
go out

00:25:10 [Melissa]
there and

00:25:11 [Alison]
they’ll follow you.
00:25:12 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:25:12 [Alison]
What do you want them to know?
00:25:15 [Alison]
What do they need to know before they contact you or after?
00:25:18 [Alison]
Oh, I had a client inquiry call recently who said she found me on Google, but she went over to Instagram.

00:25:24 [Alison]
And it was Instagram that made her want to book with me.
00:25:27 [Alison]
That was mind blowing because I don’t send anybody over to Instagram.
00:25:31 [Alison]
So how did she if you don’t find me on Instagram, I don’t know how she got there other than maybe she got one of my automated email flows from Flodesk that has my Instagram link in it.
00:25:40 [Alison]
That’s the only thing I can think of.
00:25:41 [Alison]
Or my email signature.

00:25:42 [Alison]
Honestly, I don’t know.

00:25:44 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:25:44 [Melissa]
But like you’re pointing out, they’re vetting you a little bit more because they’re going obviously, we’re all business on our website.
00:25:49 [Melissa]
Even if yours being fast, fun, done and stuff, you’re still all business on the website.
00:25:53 [Melissa]
But then if you guys, like I said, go over to Alice Graham, she’s got tons of, like, super funny reels that are very relatable, that are just let you in on her personality and stuff like that, which is why I always go to her when I have Instagram questions because

00:26:04 [Alison]
I’m like, I’m not good at it.
00:26:06 [Alison]
Of having boys, a dog, all the stuff.
00:26:09 [Alison]
I don’t like, I started out with that kind of j k five thing, but I just post whatever I feel like is relatable and real because that’s how life is.
00:26:17 [Alison]
To sum it all up, we’ve got the parts of our our Instagram profile.
00:26:22 [Alison]
Name and handle are searchable and that really matters.

00:26:24 [Alison]
Put your name in your name.
00:26:25 [Alison]
Okay?
00:26:25 [Alison]
Put your name there.
00:26:26 [Alison]
Bio is important.
00:26:27 [Alison]
You need to have a link preferably linking to your website.

00:26:31 [Alison]
Stories should be open.
00:26:32 [Alison]
They say that you’re open or closed.
00:26:34 [Alison]
So if you don’t have the little circle around your profile picture, it looks like you are closed for business.
00:26:38 [Alison]
And then what to do with your highlights, you can have a strategy or you cannot.
00:26:43 [Alison]
Sometimes it might be better to have a strategy there, but use that to your advantage.

00:26:46 [Alison]
And then overall, the big picture is to engage with other people and leave the comments and love that you want to receive because that law of reciprocity reciprocity there.
00:26:57 [Alison]
What you put out there is what you’re gonna receive.
00:27:00 [Alison]
Right?
00:27:01 [Alison]
And then it is a really good idea.
00:27:03 [Alison]
I actually have a monthly checklist of things, and I probably need to add a few of these on there is to update your bio link your bio.

00:27:10 [Alison]
Do you have a seasonal offer or freebie download that you’re promoting?
00:27:13 [Alison]
Update your bio to say so.
00:27:15 [Alison]
Hey.
00:27:15 [Alison]
Point them to that link for a freebie.
00:27:17 [Alison]
Update the links in your link.

00:27:19 [Alison]
Whether that’s Linktree or your page, make sure the stuff that’s in the top three that people see are what you’re trying to promote and really are gonna serve them well.
00:27:26 [Alison]
And make sure it matches whatever your story and everything stories are saying.
00:27:30 [Alison]
So that might be a good thing to put on your regular monthly or even quarterly review process if you have one.
00:27:37 [Alison]
But one thing I will definitely do is we will have a checklist to download.
00:27:41 [Alison]
So if you want to head over to the show notes and get that freebie Instagram checklist, that link will be in the show notes.

00:27:47 [Alison]
So thank you guys for listening.
00:27:49 [Alison]
I hope you found this helpful.
00:27:50 [Alison]
If you did, reach out to Alison or Melissa.
00:27:52 [Alison]
Direct links are in the notes.
00:27:54 [Alison]
Thanks, guys.

00:27:55 [Alison]
Bye bye.

00:28:03 [Melissa]
Thank you so much for listening.
00:28:05 [Melissa]
If you’re enjoying this show, would you do two things for us?
00:28:07 [Melissa]
First, leave a review.
00:28:09 [Melissa]
Just stars would be awesome.
00:28:10 [Melissa]
And two, forward this episode to a biz bestie, mil spouse, or anyone facing moving their business.

00:28:15 [Melissa]
We’d love it if you shared this episode with even just one person.
00:28:18 [Melissa]
If you have any questions, reach out to Allison on Instagram at alison belle photog or Melissa in her Facebook group, Raise Your Ranking.
00:28:25 [Melissa]
Check the show notes for links.