Liz Nable 0:00
Today's episode of the podcast is for anyone who's ever dreamed of landing media coverage, or for any of you who've already had some success, but you're still not sure if your business is truly ready for the attention before you fire off that pitch or slide into a journos inbox, it's crucial to make sure your digital presence is set up to leverage every bit of publicity that comes your way. That's exactly what I teach inside my brand new media readiness boot camp, a high impact 90 minute session designed to get your business in tip top shape for media attention right now inside, I'll show you the biggest mistakes small businesses make when chasing PR what journalists are really looking for, and the foundational assets every media ready brand needs, so you can grow your audience, authority and revenue when the spotlight hits. And today, we're taking a deep dive into one of the most important pieces of your media readiness toolkit, Instagram. I'm joined by digital educator and business mentor, Tracy Harris, who built her own seven figure business from the ground up and has helped 1000s of women do the same. Tracy is here to show, to share. Her teach, share, show content system and 13, yes, 13 actionable ways to optimize your Instagram so you're not just visible, but truly discoverable by the right people, including journalists, producers and potential clients. If you want to stop guessing and start showing up like a pro, this episode is for you. And if you're ready to get your ducks in a row before the media comes calling, check out the link in the show notes to join my media readiness boot camp. Let's get your business publicity ready starting today.
Liz Nable 1:52
Hello and welcome to medium magnet, the podcast for female founders and women owned businesses, startups and side hustlers who want to learn how to grow their business leveraging the media and free PR, I'm Liz Nabal, and I'm your host, personal publicist. PR, strategist and dedicated hype woman. My goal with this show is to give you a behind the scenes tour of how the media works, to break down the barriers between your business and the big mastheads. So you can see how easy it is to get featured simply by giving journalists what they want. At media magnet, you'll also get access to the top journals, editors, writers and PR people in your industry and beyond, sharing their secrets and expertise on the how, why, what and when of pitching and getting featured in the media consistently, I will share with you how to build your reputation as an industry expert so successfully, the media will be knocking down your door. When I first started in small business 12 years ago, I had no idea what I was getting into. I had spent 15 years as a television news reporter, working at several major networks in Australia and then as a freelancer in the US and around the world. I spent years dividing my time between working long shifts on a news desk and traveling the world, chasing stories it was unpredictable and exciting until it wasn't anymore. I decided I wanted a life where I was in charge of what happened next and where I was working to build my own empire, not someone else's. There was a lot I had to learn about running my own business, but getting media and great free PR was not one of them. I already knew what the media wanted. I knew the secret formula for what made news, and I knew how to leverage those media outlets to build my business, get more exposure, and ultimately make more sales. I was featured in every major media outlet in the country, and I never spent a single cent on PR. I took that knowledge for granted until it dawned on me one day that I could teach what I knew to other businesses, let them in on the secret, and they too could build their brands with organic media and PR, let me help you take your brand from Best Kept Secret to household name. This is media magnet, the podcast, and I'm pretty pumped to have you here.
Liz Nable 4:31
Hi, Tracy, thank you so much for coming on media magnet.
Speaker 1 4:34
Hello, Liz, I'm honored to be here. We're
Liz Nable 4:38
honored to have you. I have been watching you from afar, not in a stalkery, weird way, but on Instagram, and how amazing you are, and I've I saw an Instagram reel, as you know, a few months ago, maybe with some of your incredible insights into how to get new eyeballs on your business using the Instagram platform. Com, and I was like, now I have to get her on here to share all of that and a little bit more about your social media success and and how you've made that work for your business. So thank you for coming and giving us your
Speaker 1 5:11
time. Well, thanks for being in my community, for watching on Instagram, for listening to the podcast, or however it is that you're engaging with us, and yes, that reel that I know that you saw, I needed to put that out there as just like some foundational content for everyone in my community, so that we can understand that there are so many opportunities for us to get in front of more people for free, but unless you understand the way that the algorithm works. And I think there's like 1314, ways that I'm happy to walk through today, like then, once we know, then we can leverage them. We can be more strategic. And the beautiful thing about that is and we don't actually have to post every single day, absolutely,
Liz Nable 5:57
and I'm all about that. So as you know, very similar to your audience is mostly women founders, female founders, entrepreneurs, startups, business owners. We are all very time poor, and we're all about those hacks, whether it be getting traditional or organic PR and social media or, you know, social media. We're all about doing things in the least amount of time possible. So love any insights you have on that, before we go into that, tell me a little bit about you and your business. For anyone who's listening here who has not discovered you yet or doesn't know about your background or your history, tell us what
Speaker 1 6:32
you do. Oh my gosh. Well, I can't believe it. This year, I'm actually celebrating 10 years in this business, and it's an online business. I'm an online coach and digital educator, and I teach women how to create their life by design, through First and foremost, self improvement and personal development. I call that my fresh framework with a freedom filled business. And then once we have those two things, once we are fresh, once we've created a freedom filled business where those two intersect, that's your life by design. And how I got into this myself was just over 10 years ago. I was a primary teacher, an executive primary teacher at only 29 years of all years old, and I just become a mum. And just a little bit before that, I started doing some more personal development in my own time, not through work, not through my career. And I remember I did an exercise by Brian Tracy. Um, he's like an OG of personal development. And it was where I finally put pen to paper and I wrote down what my ideal day would look like, like if I wasn't if I had no limitations, if I could do anything that I wanted to in the world, if money was no object, if, you know, I had all the time in the world, if I wasn't attached to the legacies of a previous career and studies and just anything, and I just allowed myself to do that exercise. And I kid you not, within months, I started to see things kind of shifting away that were not like part of this big vision that I I'd finally put down into paper, but at the time, I didn't realize what was happening. And it sounds so crazy, and it sounds so woo, woo. But I think when we get clear on what we want, and when we have the courage and the audacity to really proclaim what we want, everything kind of rises up to meet us. All the blessings start to come in, or the falling away of things that don't fit that vision starts to present itself. So that really started to happen to me, and I found myself in a position at work where they were just piling on more and more and more. It's very obviously just another cog in the wheel. You're very replaceable. I was a mom, I suddenly had greater clarity over my values and what I wanted my life to be. Remember I'd done that exercise previously where I literally scripted it all out, and I had this moment. It was like a fork in the road moment. It was this moment where I was just like, gosh, what am I doing? I'm either making decisions that are going to take me towards that vision that I wrote down, or I'm making decisions that are taking me further away from it, and I'll never have it ever. And I decided to choose myself in that moment. So I quit my job. I decided to choose my mental health, the type of life by design that I wanted to have, the type of mom that I wanted to have. And I had no idea how to start a business at the time, but I knew that Instagram existed, and I'd been listening to some pod. Cast on my commute to work, and I thought, I'm going to start a podcast. Why can't I? I didn't have attachment to how many listeners I wanted or anything like that. It was purely just for me to start putting myself into something purposeful. I had no PR opportunities. I had no connection. So I thought, I'll be my own PR. I'll just start a podcast, start an Instagram account, and if I show up with consistency and with value and with heart, I have full faith that eventually people will find me and people that resonate will come along on the journey. And so yes, that's what I did. I started 10 years ago, and I've got the most amazing community and incredible online education products and mentorships to support women that that want to build this for
Liz Nable 10:52
themselves. Wow, I love that, and I love that you sort of chose yourself because it's similar to I think what I've done I'd got really sick of waiting. Obviously, it was a news reporter and journalist for a really long time, and I just got really sick of waiting for someone to choose me. I just knew that my destiny was in someone else's hands, waiting for a promotion, waiting for a job opportunity, and so I chose myself. I mean, I don't know if that's just a personality thing or a lifestyle thing for me, but I was like, No, I was like, No, I reckon I can do this. I'm just going to start my own business. So your business is called mums with hustle.
Speaker 1 11:29
Well, it was so this is the thing. It was called mums with hustle. And the podcast is called mums with hustle. My Instagram account, I should really change that name. That's called mums with hustle. But my business as of I think it was in 2020, I shifted just to trade under my own name. So it's Tracy Harris. Company is the business name,
Liz Nable 11:52
right? Okay, my bad hustle. So mums with hustle is the Instagram account, though, guys, in case you jump over there and follow Tracy. So what did you start the pod like? What does one make a podcast? I mean, I knew, for mine, I knew mine would be about media and PR. But what, what did you decide to talk about? I decided
Speaker 1 12:09
just to share my journey of growing a business as a mum from the beginning, from the ground up. And the purpose was, if I can just every single week, show up on a Monday, and I have done for 10 years, and I'm so proud of that, if I can just show up and teach back one thing that was it, that was the purpose, because I just believe that we're here to help each other as we learn and as we grow like our Knowledge isn't just for ourselves, it's about raising the collective and bringing other people with us and moving forward together. And so I was just like, I may not know everything, but as I learned about what an ideal customer avatar is, I did an episode on that, and I'd hear back from people that were like, thank you so much. I'd never heard of that before. And so I started to realize that there's always someone just one step behind you, and you don't need to be the greatest at whatever your craft is. You just need to be one or two steps ahead, and you need to be willing to share and help other people. And so that's really all that it was, and still is.
Liz Nable 13:25
That's so interesting, because what you just said is exactly what I teach as a mindset for the women and men who do the media masters program. You don't have to be the best know it all, because, by way of lived experience. By starting a business, you do become an expert in understanding sales, understanding accounting, managing a team, culture, sales, social media, you become an expert. So you don't have to be the best. I'm all about not being the best, but being the best known. That's what we do in my program. But you've obviously, now you've grown this huge Instagram following. How many followers do you have now? Roughly
Unknown Speaker 14:05
over 60,000 Wow, that's, yes,
Liz Nable 14:10
that's insane. And so tell us a little bit about how you I mean, back in those days, what year was that when you sort of started, 2015 2015 so obviously, yeah, social media, Instagram, speaking specifically in Instagram, has changed quite a lot since then.
Speaker 1 14:27
Oh my gosh, yes. There were no Instagram Stories, there were no reels, there was no oh, did we even have direct message DMS? Maybe, I think maybe there were DMS. It was so basic. You could just share one photo at a time. Like no carousels. There was no SEO. There was no algorithm, really like, if you posted, you'd be at the top. So the whole feed was in chronological order. So yes, which people were very sad when. That switched. But I mean, in order to have visibility back, then we had to post, if you posted, you're at the top of people's feeds because it was in a chronological order, and if you did not post, then you would be way, way, way, way, way down. So yeah, things have changed massively. We used to have to post three times a day almost to stay relevant and seen. So that was a lot for
Liz Nable 15:26
us now, because one of the other kind of key, I guess, ingredients that I teach about media and PR, but what we want to sort of discuss a bit today about Instagram specifically, is you don't need to post three times a day anymore to be visible. What are some of the other I guess, knowing what you know, before we dive into your 13 tips for getting new new eyeballs on your business, what are some of the like? Do you have any kind of top, tried and true tips that still resonate now for you about how you've built that community, knowing now that obviously the algorithms have changed and all those, is there any sort of Mainstays that have helped you grow?
Speaker 1 16:04
Yes, my content system has lasted every algorithm change from 2015 to now. It's something that I teach in my free Instagram class. We can share a link for that at some point as well, but something that I I teach inside of my social method, society, which is a membership where women come to learn how to grow a brand presence on Instagram, but really create an authentic pathway for people to go from being just a follower into becoming a customer. And that content system is teach, share and show. So as long as we are showing up with content, it doesn't matter if it's a reel, it doesn't matter if it's an Instagram story, it doesn't matter if it's a post, as long as it's falling into one of those three categories of Teach, because that shows your knowledge and your credibility and you're helping people, you know, we're giving. The world works on reciprocity, so we're giving, and then we can receive. And then there's share, which I always, maybe, because I'm, you know, a bit of a visual learner at times, I always think of a love heart, right? We share, we share pieces of ourselves. We share our personal story that our audience will connect with, things that they'll see themselves in. We share the stories of other people so that our audience knows like, oh, hang on, I can actually trust this individual, because they get other people results. If people don't see themselves in your story, they are going to see themselves in the stories of others. So start sharing. That's the share. So we've got teach, we've got share. And then, if you're a business, you do need to be doing what I call the show content like, show us what your offers are. Show us how we can work with you. Show us if you've got a free masterclass, show us. You know, if what is the next step in the in, in the pathway, in us working with you. So it's those three that have stood the test of time. Please write it down. Everyone, teach, share, show. That's the content system. Got it? Yes,
Liz Nable 18:18
that'll be the show notes. You guys. So we talked about this a bit before we hit record. But what I've noticed in the last sort of two or three years of teaching is that a lot of my I guess, customers or students who apply to be a part of the MMA program think they want media and PR and then I do like a clarity call with them, and we talk about where their business is at and those sorts of things. Yeah, and we realized that there's social media and other things in their business, but for the point of today's conversation, their social media isn't really set up to leverage any media that they do get. So they might have, you know, not posted in three months, or some businesses were operating off a Facebook page with no actual website set up properly. So obviously we then, kind of, you know, I work with them to get those things set up before they go and get media and PR attention, because we want them to be able to leverage that media and PR back through their socials, to get reach and all those sorts of things and sales, obviously, what are some of the basics that anyone who's sort of starting out or perhaps has neglected their Instagram, yeah, should have set up when they're when they're going through this process of looking at their social media platforms and those sorts of things.
Speaker 1 19:33
Just at a minimum, if there had to be one thing, it would be an optimized Instagram bio and so when I say optimize, optimize to speak directly to the person that you want to hit that follow button. They need to know that you are talking to them and why they should hang around. The second piece, when I say optimize, you have the opportunity to put five links. Both in your Instagram bio now, so let's try to let's use that strategically to send people either to free content like your podcast Liz, or to to get on your email list, or if their next best step is to book a call with you, whatever. In the marketing world, we say funnel, whatever the funnel is to get them to take the next step, you've gotta make sure that that is in the bio. If you've got some of your offers or the things that you sell, maybe you want to put one or two of those into the link in bio as well, but it should be optimized for business. And the second thing, I'll give you just one more. The second thing is just being strategic with your pinned posts. So we can pin posts to the top of our Instagram feed, and I just want people to be intentional about that. Put yourself in the shoes of a new person coming along and they've found you, and maybe they've hit the Follow button because you've nailed that Instagram bio, but now they're really just starting with all of these hundreds, and if you're like me, 1000s upon 1000s of posts. And what are they supposed to do? Just figure out what it is that you do. Are they supposed to just jump in on the next teach, share or show post and understand everything like we can create a little bit more of a thoughtful pathway. So if you had to identify three posts to be pinned to the top of your feed that would help your new follower really understand where they are or how they can work with you, or maybe it's your best content, like have that pinned to the top and and I think those are the two most important things that you can do right now,
Liz Nable 21:51
I'm resisting the urge to grab my phone while you're talking and go to my Instagram page and check the post that I've pinned. I'm doing that as soon as we get off this call. Okay, that that's two pieces of gold. Tracy, you're on a roll. So let's talk a bit about because I know that obviously a media and PR expert, I am not a social media expert. I know a little bit about it from doing it for my business, but I know that particularly when I'm in launch mode for my business or I'm selling something, I do feel a little bit frustrated by, how do I get new eyeballs on my business? Like I've got this amazing following. I mean, I don't have anywhere near 60,000 followers. I have two and a half 1000 followers, but they're pretty engaged, and they talk with me on DMS, and they comment and etc. How do I get more people like that to know I exist? And I saw that reel that the reason why you're here today. And I was like, Tracy, share with us your gold. You had 13 tips, I think, for how, yeah, those on your business. It's a lot to get through, guys, but we will. We're going to attempt it here.
Unknown Speaker 22:55
Yes, okay, they were, what
Liz Nable 22:57
they are, if you can, and how simple they are, because so many of them was so obvious. Once you explain them, I was like, Duh, why did I not think about this before?
Speaker 1 23:07
So there are many, many ways for us to get our content in front of people that are non followers. That's what Instagram calls them. It's like new people. And understanding each of the ways that Instagram really shares us and puts us out there, can help us be more strategic and really leverage them with greater intentionality. So the first place that your content shows up is home. That's what it's called. It's people who found your content in their feed while, while they're scrolling. So these are generally people that are already following you to start with. Okay, so you open up your Instagram and you're scrolling and you see everyone's content that's called home, is that? So if you want, Yep, sorry. What was that? Sorry? Was that called discovery before? Or is that something different? No, that's something different. Okay, carry on. Yes, hold that thought. Actually, we're going to move into the next one now. So the next one is called Explore, and that used to be called discovery. Yes, the Discovery page, and now it's called Explore. And so that's when you open up Instagram and you see a whole bunch of almost like recommended content from Instagram. They're kind of guessing what you might be interested in based on things that you've interacted with in the past or things that you've searched so to really leverage this one to start showing up on the explore for your audience, you need to know the sorts of content that they're engaging with, and I got that little bit of insight from speaking to someone at meta. It could have been a year ago or a couple of years ago. So someone from meta said, Hey, would you like to hop on a call and you know, I'll give you some of the latest tips, because you're teaching Instagram, so I'll give you some of the latest intel. And I was like, That's very nice of you. Meta. Okay, yes. So had this call, and they were like, tell your people to start paying attention to the sorts of content that their ideal customers are responding to, and to create content like that, because then we'll feature them on the Explore page. Because what Instagram wants to do is make sure that their users are enjoying their experience and making it really easy for them to find content that is interesting to them. So here's a little example. One of my mentees in my social method society started doing this, and she noticed two things, two patterns. Pattern number one was a particular visual style of content, and we call this a visual hook. And it was having, like, a nice glass, like a nice drink and a nice straw, like some kind of drink, and like, just stirring it whenever she showed up, like, and she was a naturopath, by the way, whenever she showed up with a piece of content that just had a drink like that, and she'd kind of just stir it around. Oh my gosh, her content would get so much more reach.
Liz Nable 26:28
It's crazy with you.
Speaker 1 26:31
I know it's like a little trick. Isn't that ridiculous? We can just sit on that one for a second. Oh no, that's amazing. Wow. It's amazing. But then the second thing that she did, and she applied it on top of this, okay, she noticed that the word cortisol is a very trending word, and you would know this in media and PR, you just need to jump onto things that are timely and relevant, and then you Gotta, like, ride that wave. And so she took the word cortisol, and she would try to use that word in as many different ways as she can, with her hooks, like her text written hooks on top of her reels videos that had the strong trending visual hook of the drink. And what do you know? Boom, now, she grew her Instagram following by like 12,000 people organically in the space of 90 days, just from doing that rinse and repeat. Because, yeah, I know what. How often was she posting? Oh, she was trying to do one post a day, okay with the drink and the drink always mentioning cortisol and like varying the hooks, so it might be my favorite drink that isn't coffee and it lowers my cortisol or something like that, like whatever, just, like varied. Just always having that word in there was huge. So yes, that put her on the Explore page almost every single time. So pay attention to the Explore page and have a little look, or start looking at the content that your audience is like, start following or start engaging. Start looking at your competitors and seeing what sorts of words they're using on repeat. How can you like? What are the buzz words in your industry at the moment? Is it things like cortisol? I had another. This one's crazy. She grew her audience by 35,000 people in a six month period, and she was noticing that whenever she used the words signs or angels, because she's an intuitive, a coach that teaches people how to use their intuition to make better business decisions. That that's her messaging. And so whenever she'd show up with content that would use the word signs or angels, bam, she'd end up on the Explore page as well. So you know, it's about knowing your audience deeply and knowing the timely and relevant keywords to be using, and you'll end up on the Explore page.
Liz Nable 29:26
This is mind blowing. So essentially, in a nutshell, pay attention. Don't just like mindlessly post stuff because you've gotta put stuff up and you feel an obligation to which is, let's face it, what most of us do, but pay attention to what is going on around you, and that Explore page to see what other people are like, people that you would like to be your followers are engaging with or liking.
Speaker 1 29:51
Yes, exactly, beautifully summarized. So the third place is search. So on Instagram, we can all. Keyword search to find content. If you go to type in chocolate cake, for instance, you're going to end up seeing a whole bunch of like, curated content from Instagram showing everyone's chocolate cakes, or 30th, 30th birthday cake or something like that. Like try just have a little search, just so you see how works. And so again, this is, this is just demonstrating the importance of keywords. So if you're not using keywords as text on screen for your reels or your carousel posts. If you're not using keywords in your caption or even in hashtags, we'll talk about hashtags in a moment, then you're not going to show up in those searches. So really make sure that every single piece of content has got words that your audience is actively searching for, that's important, that's
Liz Nable 31:06
like a that's like a big nugget of gold, because I'm thinking to myself, yep, no, you're not doing any of that. Yeah, lots to learn here. I'm learning just as much as everyone listening to this podcast right now.
Unknown Speaker 31:19
That's good. I love
Liz Nable 31:21
you. I love it. Love it. Um, okay, so Tip Five, are we up to five? No, we're only up to number four. Okay, sorry, number four. Okay, sorry, four. Okay, number
Speaker 1 31:33
four is an easy one, obviously, anyone that visits your profile, so the fourth one is profile. Anyone that visits your profile will be able to see what your latest post is. Now, these generally aren't new people, because they would have found your post somewhere else in and then ended up on your profile. But it's it's your fans, it's your closest community, people that will just search your name into the search bar, or maybe you've just had a really cool PR opportunity and you've promoted yourself, and now they're just hopping onto Instagram and they're coming over to find you, so they're finding you through a profile search. So that's another one. The next one is hashtags. Now, in the past, hashtags were far more important than what they are. Now, they're still important to a degree, but there is Instagram SEO, so there is, like keyword searches and things like that. That's just showing that there's some search engine optimization happening on Instagram now, whereas in the past, there wasn't. So we really had to tag our content using hashtags. It was the only way. But now it's not the only way. So we want to have keywords on like, Text on screen, keywords in our alt text. That's getting, like a little bit technical now, but like when you share a photo on Instagram, you can add alt text, put keywords there, put keywords in your caption, put keywords in your hashtags. You don't need to use 30. You can use three to five really hyper specific ones, but make them keyword specific, because people do still search hashtags.
Liz Nable 33:27
So that's really good to know, because a few people have sort of said to me in the last few months, oh, no, hashtags aren't a thing anymore. Don't use them. But apparently they are. Yeah, it'll
Speaker 1 33:35
helpful anytime you can tag your content or add keywords that they used to be the whole entire strategy. Now they're just part of the strategy, right?
Liz Nable 33:46
And can I ask a little side question about alt text? What's alt text?
Speaker 1 33:52
Oh, alt text is like, let's just say it's a picture of me sitting at my computer talk, and I would tag how to grow your following. So female, friendly, female entrepreneur, or successful woman in business, teaching how to grow your following like you're just labeling what's happening in the
Liz Nable 34:19
picture. Yes. So when you go to post, there's an alt text right down there where you can add mentions. Is that right?
Unknown Speaker 34:26
It doesn't it's not visible. Oh, it's not visible.
Liz Nable 34:29
It's just like notes behind, behind the image. Is that right?
Speaker 1 34:33
Yes, yes. That's kind of just like SEO on a website, like you would tag your images
Liz Nable 34:41
mind blown. Didn't know that. Yeah,
Speaker 1 34:44
so the more you're doing this in all of these places, the more you're helping the algorithm to help you and to put your content in front of people that are interested. Because remember, all Instagram cares about is their user experience. Yeah, helping their users find content to engage with that they love, the right content, not random content on their feed or in their explore. They're trying to create a very curated experience for everybody. So when you do your part through, you know, tagging or keywords, it just helps the whole entire thing.
Liz Nable 35:19
Wow, that's so cool, awesome. Okay,
Speaker 1 35:23
six, up to six. Another way, yes, another way to get discovered by non followers is to tag your location. Now, you don't have to tag your house like that. Would be very dangerous, but like tagging a particular region. So one of my students inside of the social method society. She has a baking business, an at home baking business, and an online membership where she teaches cake decorating. So for her, she's based in Canberra, because when she does like a like, she's doing some school holiday workshops. For instance, when it's necessary for her to tag her location, which is Canberra, you know? So, yes, especially for those service based businesses, it's very important that if you serve a particular place, or if you're a bricks, bricks, mortar business, tag your location. Very, very important, and you will show up in the searches or possibly on the explore for people in that location too. So you can be really strategic. I've had some of my mentees tag locations on the other side of the world because one of my ladies, Bri she has a kids swimwear label. And, you know, in Australia, when it's winter, obviously her sales are down. So she's making the majority of her sales from European customers, because over there, it's summer, so she's tagging European locations,
Liz Nable 36:51
right? And you can only tag one location, correct? Yes, yes. So what if you got an online business like me, or you're servicing a larger, a larger kind of demographic or sorry geographic area of people. Is it still worthwhile tagging a location? Or maybe not so much?
Unknown Speaker 37:10
No, it is. Um,
Liz Nable 37:13
just changing it. It's very crazy.
Speaker 1 37:15
Yes, you can change it all the time. I generally tag between like Australia and Bali, where I'm based at the moment. But how's this for funny one of my friends, she's single, and she's here in Bali, and she started tagging the location Perth, even though she wasn't in Perth, and she got some DMs from some really eligible bachelors, all of a sudden, from Perth, and some new followers, some males that were interested. And when she looked at their profile, they were all from Perth. So she was like, Tracy, what's going on? I was like, Well, it's because you've been tagging Perth, so you've been showing up on their explore.
Liz Nable 37:58
And they're like, she's near me. That's
Speaker 1 38:01
hilarious. I know, so that's it. That's a funny example, non business related, but yes, that's how it works. Yeah, wow, that's awesome.
Liz Nable 38:12
So much insight in this. Okay, seven, I think we're at,
Speaker 1 38:16
yeah. Any is, yeah. Instagram stories, so views that that you see on your Instagram stories are most likely from people that are following you already. However, there's a feature in stories where people can send and send your Instagram story to someone else. So keep that in mind, if you're sharing helpful information in your Instagram Stories. Or if you use the call to action, you say, hey, share this Instagram story with a friend, because I'm about to share how you can blah, blah, blah, you know, get in the get in your local newspaper, or whatever it is like now you're telling people to share. Because if you don't tell people what to do, sometimes they're not just they're not even thinking of that. They're just sitting there consuming your content. So getting people to share your stories is another way to be discovered by non followers. The next one is similar. It is shares, so people who saw your post, so not necessarily your stories, but they saw your post because someone shared it. Now, Instagram have come out and said, this is this blows my mind. The number one place for anyone being discovered by anyone is in the DMS from people who send things to each other, yeah, or they'll send, yeah. That's the number one surface on Instagram, because your explore is a surface, your home feed is a surface, your profile is a surface, the DMS is a surface. It's the number one surface for being discovered. So how? People share your stuff and send your stuff to their friends, even if it's like you sending a holiday destination to your husband, or you sending a really cheeky meme to your to your group of girlfriends. Like sharing is where it's at. So create shareable content. That's
Liz Nable 40:16
how stuff goes viral, I guess because people so I share like, cute French Bulldog videos all the time with my family, because we love Frenchies, yes. And like this, most ridiculous videos have hundreds of 1000s of views and followers. And I often think, God, that's never really thought about why. So you're thinking about your content, then if you want people to share it, so you might have to be strategic about that, because it can't just be something that's kind of dry or boring content. It's gotta be something that thinking about why someone would share that.
Speaker 1 40:53
Yes, and it's often people going sending something to a a bestie or a peer, saying, oh my gosh, we should do this, or let's, let's go there next weekend, or show this to Susan, or whatever. Like, you know that that's the sort of, oh, this made me think of you, or, OMG, this is us, like girls weekend, or whatever sort of funny thing
Liz Nable 41:16
it is. Could you do? Could you do that with content that's not originally yours, and repost it. Do you know what I mean? Like, let's say there's a meme going viral. Could you post it on your feed? Um, yeah, something to do with your business, obviously, or relate it to your business somehow with your keywords and all that stuff. Could you
Speaker 1 41:36
do that? Yes, yes. So that's kind of called a stitch. Like you may see someone share a really cool piece of content, and then it's almost like you add your little piece to it as well. So it's giving awareness to the original creator. And then, like, you've got your little like stitching coming, and then you've got your little hot take on whatever the thing might be. Or maybe you add a perspective, yeah, or maybe you show yourself reacting to whatever the opinion piece is of the Creator, and you might just be there, like nodding along, or like, you know, just silently, like affirming what they're saying, especially if it's something that backs up what you do, yeah? So you that would be a fun creative
Liz Nable 42:26
thing to share, yeah? So you wouldn't just share that as it was, because that's not going to help you, right? You need to add your flavor to it. Well, funnily
Speaker 1 42:34
enough, I accidentally just shared someone's content. I think it was last year to my feed, like, quite literally, accidentally, and it went incredibly well. It was something that my audience really connected with as well. It was something about our kids, or it was something about parenting or something. And I think I meant to hit Share and put it on my stories, but it ended up on my feed, and my audience loved it, yeah, and they shared it, and that got lots of likes, and so, you know, I just thought, wow, look at that. I didn't even create this piece of content. And you know, it's not breaking any IP rules or anything, because they're they're mentioned, yeah, when you do this, so yes, you can sharing other people's content on your feed. You can also do that.
Liz Nable 43:30
Yeah, cool, yeah, that's a really good one. I like that one. I'm going to have a look at that one this
Speaker 1 43:33
afternoon. Yes. Okay, so we have gone through home. Number two is explore. Number three is search, number four is profile, number five is hashtags, number six is location, number seven is stories, number eight was shares, so we are past halfway. Well done, everybody. Okay,
Liz Nable 43:55
stay with us, guys.
Speaker 1 43:58
We've got this the next category. When you check your Instagram insights, you may see a category known as other. And so I wanted just to break down what other actually means, because a lot of people don't know. So other is views that don't come from the main categories that I just shared, and it can include embedded views. Now this sounds so nerdy, but really it's when your content is shown on a website or a blog that is outside of Instagram. So you can have a blog post on your own website, for instance, or maybe Liz, maybe in the show notes on your website, you might embed my Instagram reel where I share this exact topic, and so then you know when I go. To check out views on my Instagram reels, I might see a bit of a spike in other and I could assume it's from an embedded link on someone else's website where they've featured me as evidence for something that they're talking about, or as another example, or it could be on my own website. So that's embedded views. The next one is direct messages, DMS, so we talked about that. It doesn't necessarily show up as shares in your insights. It may fall in the other category, and it's just that people have sent your stuff to someone else in the DMS. The next one is saved posts, so someone has saved your post to come back to and view it again later. A lot of my mentees and clients, people that share tutorials or step by step processes, these tend to get a lot of saves for later, so things like recipes or workout routines. These are examples of some of the styles of content that gets a lot of saves people want to come back to it later. The next one from the other category is from your collections or your folders. So you may not know this, or you may not be really using this tool, but we can, when we hit save, we have the option to add it to be a bit more organized, to add it to a collection, or to add it to a folder. So maybe you've got, maybe people are out there and they're saving restaurants for date night or outfit inspo or gift ideas or table setting ideas or workouts, like whatever it might be. People are creating folders and collections. And so when someone hits save, and when they pop it into a folder or a collection that also and then they go to view it again, inside of that folder that shows up in the other category, right? Yes. And then the final one as we've made it to, the final one is notifications or alerts. So when a user taps on a notification that can lead them to your post, such as, you know Tracy, or mums with hustle just shared a new reel like now they're notified. People do have to select to be notified, but also, Instagrams been testing out a feature with me, and I don't it's not consistent, so that's why I know that they're testing, because it's not every single time, but I have seen, I've received a notification from Instagram before that, someone that I follow has left a comment on someone else's post, right? Yes, and so then I might be like, let's just say it's a mentor or a business peer of mine, and I follow them, then it will tell me that they've like, I'll get an alert on my app, on my Apple watch, or I've had that Yeah, last
Liz Nable 48:05
couple of days as well.
Speaker 1 48:07
Yes. So it's trying to Yeah, when your friends or people that you're following comment on other people's content now, Instagram's like, Okay, well, if he is liking the content, and she's friends with him. Then let's send her a notification that says her friend, Matt over there, has left a comment on this post. Now, what do you want to do? Okay, well, naturally, I want to go and see what Matt is looking at like I want to see and so then, you know, hello, back into the Creator has got more, yeah, more reach just from that.
Liz Nable 48:41
So interesting. So from all of that, which was is amazing, by the way, I know a lot of business owners, particularly if they're brand new. Well, they're not brand new to social media. No one's really brand new to social media anymore. But if this is not their superpower, and they're wearing a lot of hats in their business, as we all are, and they find all this stuff quite overwhelming. Are there any sort of tips, or any kind of, I guess, insights you can share before we wrap up about does this have to be time intensive? Do we need to be spending hours on our social media, you know, each week to make it viable for us, like, or are there a few kind of just basics that we can do to, I guess, build up enough of a solid doesn't have to be, you know, groundbreaking 1000s and 1000s of followers, but building up enough of a solid following that we can, I guess, In the end, use that platform as a way to share our media and PR wins, or, you know, build our business and make more sales in some way.
Speaker 1 49:48
Yeah, well, it really comes down to, why are you on Instagram? Like, for me, it is one of my biggest forms of traffic to any. Of my offers or my freebies. It's like the beginning of my pipeline. It's the beginning of my social method, and that's the method that I teach inside of the social method society. But for other people, it might just be that it's not their biggest traffic driver or pipeline where their leads and sales happen. It might just be that their ideal customer hears about them and then does like, what's their what's their buying process? Do they where people used to go to someone's website? Back in the day, less and less people are doing that. Most people want to come and almost sense check you or vibe check you,
Liz Nable 50:44
as we'll move journalists will vibe check you or sense check you go to your social media first
Speaker 1 50:48
Exactly. So if that's the role of your social media and it's not necessarily for sales and conversions, then just having a presence is enough. You don't need to have a gazillion likes. Having a presence is enough. So maybe just having a couple of posts a week is enough for you. But if your goal is lead generation sales, sales directly from Instagram. In the past seven days, I had someone send me a message, not even send me a message. I had someone apply like an application came through for them to join my $6,000 digital business mentorship. And then I had another one just yesterday to apply for my mastermind. My mastermind starts at $33,000 Mm, wow, yes. And so that's two, and they came from Instagram, so they've seen a piece of content, maybe on the outside, it hasn't even got hundreds of likes. It doesn't matter. The messaging is very narrow. It's specific to a certain type of person. I'm telling them where to go if they want, you know, if they want to find out more. I'm doing my teach, share, show, content system, and then to, you know, have my team message me and go, Oh, Tracy, new mastermind applicant. Oh my gosh. She's come from a piece of Instagram content. Or, hey, Tracy, did you just share freedom filled business? Because we just got someone that applied, and she's ticked that she's ready to join and wants to pay in full I was like, Oh, amazing. And so that, but that's because my my purpose for being on Instagram is not just a present. I'm not just a presence. I'm not just there for the vibe check like it is optimized for leads and sales.
Liz Nable 52:53
So essentially, there's a good chance you're leading money on the table if you're not optimizing the basics on your Instagram, yeah, wherever your main social media platform is,
Speaker 1 53:05
yes, and I think, you know, I'm purely a digital business, so I don't have foot traffic coming past my my location, like I have to drive my own traffic to my podcast. When, when you have a podcast like you'll know, like you are responsible for driving the traffic source there, or no one knows that you exist. So for me, from the very beginning, I started my podcast at the same time as starting on Instagram, because I knew I needed a traffic source to grow the podcast. Yeah. And then I know if people listen to my podcast, they are so much more likely to get on my email list or to just reach out and want to work with me directly, because they've experienced me in in a piece of long form content, versus Just this super quick Instagram content. Yeah, yeah. Podcast is such an incredible way to, like, build your business. I mean, it really, I'm sort of mind blown by how it affects your business, because,
Liz Nable 54:11
obviously, I've got my own podcast, as you do, but it's, it's really an, you know, probably a total another podcast episode on how podcast episodes help drive your business, but amazing,
Speaker 1 54:24
yeah, I hope that that was helpful. I know going through like 13 points or whatever can be really overwhelming. Love it, but it just goes to show the opportunity that is in front of us, and it costs nothing but the time that you put into it. So if you want to post once a week, stick to that be the person that you know creates a plan absolutely and stick to it. Or if you want to post every day, post every day, but do it with intention,
Liz Nable 54:55
yeah, and consistency. This is so helpful. I'm like, so keen to like, hit stop record so I can go and check out my own Instagram and apply all 13 tips. Thank you so much, Tracy, you are an absolute legend. It's been such a pleasure having you on the show and of course, we'll put all those links to follow you and get more insight into the incredible work you do in the show notes.
Speaker 1 55:19
Yeah, I'd love that. So if anyone wants to check out the free Instagram class, they just go to Tracy harris.co/media, magnet, hyphen, free class, and you can go and check it out there. Amazing. Thanks, Tracy. Thank you. Liz,
Liz Nable 55:35
this episode of media magnet was brought to you by my signature group coaching program, the media masters Academy. The media masters Academy is a live, online, six week course taught by me and designed to teach you how to become your own publicist and give you exclusive access to pitch the country's top journalists and editors. Doors open just three times a year. Check it out at Liz nabal.com along with a ton of free resources to help you get started taking your business from Best Kept Secret to household name right now. If you love this episode of media magnet, please share it with your business buddies or on social media and tag me at at Liz underscore Nable, and if there's a specific guest you want to hear from on the show, or a topic or question you want to know more about, please tell me, so I can make sure the show stays dedicated, especially for you. You.
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