Legitimate Ways on How to Get Real Followers on Instagram in 2019

Gaining more followers on Instagram can open many doors for you and your brand.

People with large Instagram followings have a better opportunity to market their products and services, raise brand awareness, and even make more money by posting sponsored ads.

But, the road to gaining more followers is not an easy one. You can’t just start requesting everyone and their mom to follow you and hope that they follow back.

Nope, in order to get real followers on Instagram, you need a plan.

What do you need to do?

Read on as we cover some of the most basic and effective ways to get real followers on Instagram.

1. Optimize Your Bio

First impressions mean everything. And in the world of influencers on Instagram, the aesthetic of your bio is definitely your first impression.

And, seeing as people only take a quick second to glance at your bio, you better make that first impression count.

How do you do this?

Headline and Keyword

It all starts with your headline and keyword. Below your Instagram handle, there’s a line for you to put your brand name. Next to this, you should also write a keyword that helps describe who you are. For example, something like “Fitness trainer”, “makeup artist to the stars”, or “skincare expert”.

It doesn’t need to be anything fancy or lengthy. Instead, it should just be a couple of quick words to let people know what you do.

Body Section

The body section makes up the majority of your Instagram bio. However, it’s much different than the body section for a blog post. You want to keep it short and sweet.

The point of the body section is to clearly describe who you are and what you’re about, all while speaking in the voice of your brand.

You can see a nice example of this in the Lewis Howes social profile below. Notice how it has a nice profile picture, a URL to his podcast page, and high-quality content and images throughout the feed.

Here’s what should be included in the body section:

About Me

Your about me section should include a condensed version of your mission statement. You only have 150 characters, so use them wisely.

That being said, don’t be afraid to add a bit of personality here with hashtags and emojis.

Call to Action With URL Link

We’ve all seen brands do Instagram posts that say “link in bio” in them. Well, this is a perfect example of a call to action.

Below your about me section, you should have a call to action that entices your audience to click on the URL link that goes back to your site. Something simple like, “Click now for 10 percent off today only”, is perfect.

Social Proof

Customers are all about social proof these days, so be sure to add a line that gives your brand some credibility.

Examples of credibility include a certification, a social cause your brand gives back to, or a feature in a publication.

2. Get Crazy with the Hashtags

As you probably already know, Instagram now allows users to follow hashtags and not just profiles.

This provides a huge opportunity for those wanting to gain more followers, as the right hashtag can really boost your profile.

There are also plenty of useful tools out there to help you find the most relevant and popular hashtags trending at any given time.

But, you want to make sure you’re playing the hashtag game smart. First of all, make sure you’re not just using one-word hashtags. While these are valuable, it’s still smart to mix it up with multi-word hashtags that are more nice and creative.

And, don’t worry about every single hashtag being directly related to your brand. The goal of hashtags isn’t just about getting more immediate followers, it’s also about showing your personality so your current followers stick with you.

For example, let’s say you’re a personal trainer. It would be pretty boring if all of your hashtags were things like #workoutday or #staymotivated. Instead, you should try to have a little fun with it. For example, if it’s a leg day you could say #gettingaleguponthecompetition or #cantmoveafterthisworkout.

Lastly, make sure hashtags aren’t taking up the majority of your copy, as that can make your captions difficult to read. A smart thing many people do is put the hashtags at the end of the copy.

3. Get Descriptive With Your Captions

A picture certainly does say a thousand words. However, this doesn’t mean you want all of your captions to be super short.

While it’s definitely good to have some posts with short captions, you definitely want to dive into detail with other posts.

By being descriptive with your captions and telling the story behind the picture, you will generate more interest in your posts and be able to grow your following.

Also, storytelling is a great way for your customers to get to know you, so if you’re a one man or woman show, don’t be afraid to get a little personal on there too.

Someone who has the Instagram caption game down is Kayla Itsines, a personal trainer turned fitness entrepreneur who gained most of her business through Instagram. While Kayla keeps some posts short and sweet with workout demos, other posts are much longer and go into great detail about what she does to stay so fit.

She also shares with her audience stories about her family, friends, and travels.

Also make note of the URL being used in her Instagram profile page, as it leads right to her sales page — which likely adds a decent amount of new paying customers to her business and weight loss training programs daily.

4. Tap Into Influencer Marketing

If you’re looking to gain more followers so you can build your brand and grow your business, then you need to tap into influencer marketing.

But, you need to be smart about how you play the influencer game. First of all, you need to find people who not only have a strong following, but who also align with your brand values.

For example, let’s say you’re an organic food brand. It’s probably not a good idea to partner with an influencer who is constantly out partying and eating junk food. Instead, you should find influencers who focus on their health and fitness.

Once you’ve found a good number of influencers you’re interested in working with, start following them. And, be sure to turn on post notifications so you’ll get an alert every time they post something new. Whenever they post something new, be sure to interact with their profile. You can do this by liking their photos or by leaving comments.

Once you’ve started to develop a relationship with an influencer, you can finally reach out to see if they’d like to work with your brand.

But, the key is to not sound desperate. In other words, don’t say something like, “would you please post something about our product? We’ll pay you big money!” This is both unprofessional and spammy.

Instead, you should say something like, “Hey we really like your profile. Would you be interested in trying out some of our products?”

At the same time, if you are just starting out on Instagram and don’t want to try and build a brand and following from ZERO, the option is also there to use a solution like Famoid. They have plenty of services and solutions in place to help with Instagram growth, follower counts, and social sharing for your account.

5. Take Advantage of VPN Solutions

As bloggers and internet marketers, we often hear about the benefits of using a VPN to protect your information and browsing data all of the time. The concept is nothing new, but thousands of people are adding such privacy tools and solutions into their daily browsing habits daily.

However, VPNs can prove useful when doing any type of social media marketing and research online. Three of the most commons reasons for using one with Instagram are:

1. Country-Based Restrictions
2. Workplace and Academic Restrictions
3. For General Security and Privacy

As noted by SurfShark’s VPN Affiliate Program, “Virtual private networks allow users throughout the world to bypass censorship. Everywhere. The internet should be an open hub of knowledge and sharing. Using the right VPN allows users to access Instagram content, from anywhere.”

Besides protecting your information and online browsing information, VPNs can also help with accessing different Instagram marketing and scheduling tools you might be using. Depending on where you run your business or if you are trying to access wifi at different locations, this may limit your ability to access some sites and social platforms.

When it comes to VPN and running a business or brand online, it’s always better to be safe than sorry.

 

6. Get Local and Target New Audiences

When trying to build your following on Instagram, the smartest thing to do is to start local and to build your way up from there.

You should make frequent mention of where your business is headquartered. And, you should give shoutouts to your local community and point out local attractions.

As pointed out in this Search Engine Journal localized Instagram branding article, they focus a lot of attention on the importance “To optimize the local reach of your Instagram page, you need to focus on localized hashtags.“.

For example, let’s say you’re a yoga apparel brand based in New York City. You could create a post about bringing your yoga mat to Central Park for the weekend and then ask your followers about their place in New York to do yoga.

Once you’ve tapped into the city market, that’s when you can start thinking about expanding to the whole state, then the whole country, and then the rest of the world.

7. Post Quality Photos and Videos

If you’re doing all the above and still not getting followers, then perhaps you need to look at the quality of your Instagram photos.

If you’re posting a bunch of dark and grainy photos that look like they were taken on an original iPhone, then it’s time to make a change.

Even if your business has nothing to do with photography, your photos should still look professional. Otherwise, people won’t take your brand seriously.

If you’re just starting out and you can’t afford a fancy camera or a  professional photographer, don’t be afraid to use stock photos. Many of these are high quality, and you’d be surprised at the number of photos you can find that fit into your brand’s message.

Also, make sure you follow the 60/40 rule when posting photos. That is, 60 percent of your photos should be directly related to your product or service. The other 40 percent should be lifestyle shots. in other words, shots of your community, travel adventures, employees, or family. Or, they can also be quotes.

How to Get Real Followers on Instagram: Are You Ready?

Now that you know how to get real followers on Instagram, it’s time to put these steps into motion.

And just remember, a million followers won’t come overnight, so be patient with the game and take your time with each step. Pretty soon, those numbers will keep growing and growing.

If you have any questions about gaining real Instagram followers, please let us know in the comments below. And, don’t forget that Instagram is only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to building your brand.

Another major piece is your blog. Don’t know how to start a blog? Click here to learn in detail what you need to do.

The post Legitimate Ways on How to Get Real Followers on Instagram in 2019 appeared first on Zac Johnson.

5 Effective Branding and Marketing Tips for Instagram Success in 2019

Whether you’re running a brick-and-mortar business or looking to make your ecommerce a huge success, you need to work on your social media presence. These days, so many people are looking online first before making a decision about where to buy products and services. Even for something as simple as getting an iPhone fixed, potential customers are going to thoroughly study online reviews and check out your Facebook and Instagram pages to learn about what sales you might have going on. If you’re just starting a new business, then you definitely need to up your online presence: that’s where new customers are going to find you.

One of the most important ways to improve your online presence is by mastering Instagram. By using these following tips, you’ll get lots of followers, which means that you’ll eventually get sales by engaging with them.

1 – Post Great Content Consistently

Let’s say you have a great idea for what your Instagram’s going to look like. You’ve done your research; you know what your competitors are doing and what kind of content your ideal customers will enjoy and engage with. But that isn’t enough. Posting consistently is hugely important because that allows your followers to expect posts from you at certain times during the week. If you’re only posting when you’ve got a huge sale or just after you’ve started your business, you’re going to lose followers, which means losing potential sales.

According to research by Sprout Social, the best times to post on Instagram are Wednesday at 11 am and Friday at 10-11am, with the safest times to post being Tuesday through Friday, 10am-3pm. If it seems challenging to do this (especially the early mornings!) use a scheduling app to make your life a little easier.

2 – Use Geo-Targeting and Location-Based Ads

One of the easiest ways to boost engagement on Instagram is by geotagging anytime you post. If you’re someone who travels a lot–you’re a digital nomad or in a touring band–then geotag whenever you can. That will get local followers from wherever you’re currently posting, which helps cut through a lot of the work it takes to get their attention otherwise.

So how can a local business take advantage of Instagram targeting options? Think of something like this.

Most local services have something to offer, and are commonly purchased when a home owner or person is in need of something urgent. This can be anything from home services, home care, pest control, etc…

Take Moxie Services, for example, who wants to increase visibility for pest services in Chantilly. Since they already have an active following on Instagram, they can start targeting their followers (and non-followers) through the use of the Facebook Ads (Instagram) platform. Organic reach and followings are always great, but once you start putting some paid advertising dollars behind your campaigns, then you will start to see some real results.

Just like all options with Facebook Ads, the same can be done for Instagram as well. Moxie can then start targeting audiences within their designated town, city, zip code or other local radiuses. It would also prove useful to them to create a wide range of ad copies and split test what works best.

Considering that more than 40 billion photos have been shared on Instagram, this is a great way for yours to stand out among the crowd, while also making sure your ads are only being seen by potential customers in your area.

3 – Increase Your Follower Account Daily

Getting organic Instagram followers is all well and good, especially if you’ve already got some traction on Instagram. But if you’ve just started a new business or just don’t have many followers, using a service to buy Instagram followers can be very helpful. After all, once you’ve got enough of a following, other users will be interested in you because you’re already popular. 

However, the one thing to remember when buying followers on any social platform, is that they usually aren’t as active as ‘real and organic’ followers. That is why we often recommend using a tool like this one, which automates the engagement process and allows for a more natural flow of new subscribers and followers to your Instagram account.

With more than a billion users on Instagram, it’s not that hard to built a following once you have the right content and tools in place. Over 60 percent of users log into Instagram daily, so use that opportunity to use the right tools to get their attention!

4 – Mix Up Your Content with Images and Video

Instagram’s all about posting cool pictures, right? Wrong!

This is especially true with the rising popularity of features such as Instagram Stories, you should use video as much as you can. In addition to this feature, you should post simple videos or even GIFs to engage with your audience. Using live videos is also exciting because it gives your brand a kind of authenticity that’s necessary in today’s curated online world.

There’s a reason why there were 400 million daily active users of Instagram Stories as of September 17, 2018, and that’s because it’s a great way to engage with users.

5 – Make Sure Your Bio Looks Awesome

According to Verma Farms, “Your logo, including the colors and fonts you choose, all have an impact on how your brand is viewed and how recognizable it is. It only takes 10 seconds for a customer to form a first impression of a brand’s logo, so it’s important to do all you can to make your brand visually memorable.”

In the same way, your bio needs to stand out. So spruce up your profile photo (which, by the way, can be your logo, if that works for you), and create content in your bio that’s relatable and told in your voice. There are opportunities to play around with emojis and fonts, though check before doing this that it’s something your audience will be receptive to!

Take a look at any of the top accounts and influencers on Instagram and you will quickly find that many of them share the same basic traits — which are commonly a great looking bio photo, a short bio that delivers a message, content that is high-quality and looks great, and a nice mixture of video and image content. You will also find a custom url to their main website or a landing page, depending on the objections of the Instagram account user.

These are some of the best strategies you can use to have success on Instagram.

Whether you’re an aspiring Instagram influencer or working to make your business stand out online, these tips will get you the followers you need!

With mobile usage on the rise and Instagram continuing to reach more audiences and users daily, it’s no longer a question of if or when you should start using the social platform as a branding and marketing tool — but how.

Start implementing these tips and winning methods into your business today, and start seeing the ROI almost immediately.

The post 5 Effective Branding and Marketing Tips for Instagram Success in 2019 appeared first on Zac Johnson.

Business Investment Strategy 101: How To Fund Your Small Business

You don’t need to be a financial expert to realize that there’s something wrong with the economy, and traditional solutions aren’t working anymore. Things keep getting more expensive, and wages are steadier than ever. More and more people are starting to realize that the answer isn’t a 9 to 5 job, and if they want a more secure future, they’ll have to do more. Investments are becoming more popular among the middle class, and people are starting their own businesses everywhere to secure a better future for themselves and their families. Yet, it’s not that easy, and to start a business, there’s much that needs to happen. The first problem most encounter at first is how to fund their small business, because you are going to need some form of capital to do that. It’s not easy, but it’s definitely doable, and this is how you do it.

Do it yourself

Might seem like a no brainer, but your first approach to funding your project should always be doing it yourself.  This can keep you going for a while until a more extensive source of funding comes along, but it can definitely be done. You can do so by going through your assets, if you have any, and selling whatever you can of it to get that initial boost needed to get the business going. This is why saving from an early age is always a great thing to do. That can include a savings account, some gold you have stored, an apartment somewhere or a piece of real estate that can get you some money, and so on. You could also resort to zero interest credit cards; it’s definitely not the easy way out, but it’s your own project and you’ll need to invest in it one way or another at some point.

Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding has been quite the popular approach to starting businesses over the past few years, and plenty of companies are doing it and are killing it through crowdfunding campaigns. If the project is creative enough, and has enough promise to it, you’ll find that plenty of people are willing to help you. Sites like Kickstarter.com can help you get to your end goal of a starting capital, and they’ve funded hundreds of projects since they first came to life. It isn’t exactly a long term solution though, and it’ll only get you started, but you’ll have to make your own way after that.

Loans

You knew eventually this one would come up. Nobody likes taking loans from banks, but sometimes they’re the only option you’re going to get. Fortunately enough, lending restrictions are not that tight for all banks. Some offer easier rules and procedures, but you never know what comes with that. Bank loans aren’t your only option though, you can get an inheritance advance on that money that’s taking months, maybe even years, to get processed in the courtrooms. Probate is the legal process in which assets are transferred from a deceased person to their heirs, but this happens through legal proceedings through a court which decides if all things are in order and who should get what. The option of an inheritance loan can come in handy, and after you finally get your inheritance, you can pay it back.
While some people don’t like bank loans for their high-interest rates, they might not also have any impending inheritance. But there’s another option of title loans, which is basically when you give up ownership of your car or vehicle title, temporarily, and you get an amount of money for it. Title loans have a lot of pros and cons, but one of the most important pros is the fact that the lenders don’t put too much weight on credit history. You might have to pay higher interest rates in that case if you have a bad history.

Friends and family

There’s always the option of borrowing money from friends and family, and it’s probably one of your easier outs. Unless your family consists of some seriously bad people, it’s highly doubtful that they’ll charge you for interest rates, or put you away if you’re behind on payments.

Angel investors and accelerators

This is probably how most startups get their money these days, and it’s one of the most eloquent paths you could take to raise money for your startup. You need some really good connections and a powerful, scalable model to reach out to either, though. An angel investor is a person, or a company, that will basically give you the money in exchange for owning a piece of your business. So, they need to see that your business has potential and can actually grow into something big that will make their investment worthwhile. The same goes for accelerators, as they also own shares in the company in exchange for initial funds. This is why the process of planning out your business and having a solid plan for the future will come in handy when you do need the money.

Competitions

Startup contests are also another excellent way to go about getting that initial funding your business needs. Some competitions only need an idea for an entry, but it has to be something really special. Others require a scalable and clear picture of how your business will unfold in the future. Whatever the case may be, if you do all the right things and get all the necessary details in order, you can get your initial funding without having to pay anyone back.

Plan ahead, work hard

The truth is, everybody wants to start their own business and make it as an independent entrepreneur, but very few actually make it. It’s a lot of hard work and sleepless nights of planning ahead to what might be your key to financial security. It won’t come to life overnight, and even if you somehow managed to secure the initial funding, you have to know what you’re doing. If you’re just winging it and hoping for the best, you’ll have very little chance of success.

Do THIS to create a niche site worth 5 figures

 it is possible to reach your goal.

Today, I’m going to show you how to drastically increase your chances of hitting your goal (and give you one exercise to work on over the weekend).

I am proof that YOU can create a niche site that gives you freedom.

I’m just a normal guy that used to have a job that I didn’t like.

I wanted to make some extra money on the side to pay off some debt and student loans. Maybe get a newer, used car to replace the 10 year old beater that I was driving.

I doubted myself...I was anxious about money and stressed out. (sound familiar?)

I’d never even heard of a niche site...or WordPress. I failed a few times with poor keyword research and even bad link building.

Over the last few days, we’ve learned something important...

If you set things up correctly and avoid the big mistakes, you can do it.

It’s just like renovating your kitchen - you need to have a plan in place. You can’t just start ripping out cabinets and sinks and expect to have a great kitchen.

On Monday, I told you about 3 mistakes that I’ve made and the most common ones that niche site owners make too.

Here’s a recap…

Mistake 1: Not Knowing What To Work On
You have limited time so you need to know the most effective things to do. You do NOT want to waste your time looking up blog posts trying to “figure out what to do next”. If you are “flying blind” or “winging it”, it’s a sure path to failure.

Mistake 2: Picking A POOR Niche
Picking the wrong niche can be a HUGE disappointment. The real deal is that means you’ll be doing a whole lot of work and you’ll never get a payoff. We all want to make the web a better place and provide value, but you also NEED to generate revenue for your efforts.

Mistake 3: Doing the Wrong Things to Get Traffic

If you manage to pick a great PROFITABLE niche, you still need to get traffic. The best traffic is free, organic traffic from Google. It’s targeted and the visitors are PRIMED to buy products. But if you have a great site and no one reads it, then it’s all a waste.

A lot of people believe (and I’ve heard from a lot of you) that you have to get lucky or that you need to have the perfect niche to start a niche site that gives you the freedom you want and deserve.

Then, we make excuses…

Maybe I just don’t have what it takes...
Maybe my idea is just bad...
Maybe other people are just smarter than me...

That’s all wrong.

Instead, I found that creating a profitable Amazon Affiliate niche site is the way to reach your #1 goal.

It’ll give you freedom with your time, so you can stop trading your time for money.

You’ll have more freedom with your money. You can pay off debt, student loans, or supplement and diversify your retirement income.

Want to have more spare income?

Start a Niche Site

Want to have more control over your future (instead of your boss dictating it to you)? Create a niche site.

Want to make more money so you can do work that you enjoy (where you’re the boss)?  Take a guess...

Create a niche site.

Now let me SHOW you why you need a niche site is the best way to get started online. And how an Amazon Affiliate Niche Site will help you reach your #1 goal.

Meet Dave. He’s a musician - drummer and guitarist.
Image
Dave had a goal and a little idea...

Dave knew about niche sites from a few different blogs and podcasts. He wanted to create a niche site and he followed the steps that he learned about from all these free sources online.

He bought a domain, started a site, published lots of content...he even got traffic.

After a few months, Dave was getting the hang of it and the traffic grew. He hit a wall…

There was an issue...He’d picked a bad niche. The price of the product was pretty low. Too low.

So, there he was with a site that was taking up his time, but it wasn’t paying off.

Dave started to change his approach and use the techniques and methods the I use for my niche sites.

Guess what happened next?

Dave went from almost no income to $50 per month in July of 2015…
Image
Then $500 per month…

To $1,000 per month…

Dave is currently making a full time income, pulling in $5,000 per month.
He used the techniques that I showed him, focusing on the 80/20 of niche sites, to reach a full time income. And it’s no fluke because Dave has started new sites and they are profitable, too.

And Spencer Haws even asked him to be on the Niche Pursuits Podcast:
 Image
 That’s the power of using a proven system to Create a Niche Site.

Image
How do you create YOUR Amazon Affiliate niche site with a great niche?

The basics are straightforward…
Find a product.
Publish reviews.
Here’s the thing…

A lot of niche site advice focuses on keywords, keyword tools, and research right from the start.

It can be confusing and if it seems like they’re trying to sell you some keyword research app, they probably are!
“Find a keyword at least 5,000 searches per month”
“You need my software to do keyword research”
“Make sure the competition isn’t too strong”
When you try to mimic the strategies, things just don’t quite work out. So let’s keep it simple...

Your ultimate goal is to help people gather product information so they can eventually buy something on Amazon.

Why not go directly to the source: Amazon.

In the days when I first got started with niche sites, I wanted to make it as easy as possible. And avoid my previous mistake of picking a lousy niche. I used this technique to create a niche site that made $10,791 in under 6 months.

The best part?

I started the site completely from scratch.
It was my first Amazon Affiliate site.

I used this technique to find a great product that people really wanted to buy.

And it’s so simple that YOU can do the same thing by the end of this weekend. Here is how it works:

Step 1: Go to Amazon.com and navigate to a department. (Such as “Sports and Outdoors”)
​​​​​​​


Step 2: Go to a subcategory. (Such as “Yoga”)



Step 3: Start diving down deeper. Look at specific product categories. (Such as “Mats”, “Towels”, “Blocks”, “Straps”, or “Starter Sets”). You’ll see top rated products right there.
​​​​​​​

This works so well because Amazon knows consumers better than they know themselves. The best and top rated products are right there for you to see…

For EVERY SINGLE category. And subcategory.

All you have to do is look. The biggest danger with this is that you’ll get TOO MANY ideas. :)

The technique works great if you’re starting a new site or if you’re looking for new product ideas for an existing niche site.

Of course, there's a lot more than finding the right niche:
How do I find the right keywords to target?
How do I publish great content for reviews?
How do I get traffic to my site?
How do I promote my site?
How do I make sure my site doesn’t get penalized?
If you want answers to these questions and are ready to be taken by the hand and shown the exact step-by-step process, I can help.

I created a course that will walk you through a proven step-by-step system for creating a profitable niche site. It’s called Five Figure Niche Site.

It will be available to purchase on Saturday, June 8, 2019 at 8:00 am MST. I’ll be sending out more details as well as a behind-the-scenes walkthrough of the course on Saturday morning.

So stay tuned! Talk to you soon.
Doug

P.S. here is your assignment for today:
Action item 1: Go to Amazon and browse the departments.
Action item 2: Hit reply and let me know the broad categories that interested in.
Action item 3: Start looking at individual products to see what people are buying. Write out a list of your product ideas.

That’s it for today. Get to it!

In life, people tend to wait for good things to come to them. And by waiting, they miss out.

Usually, what you wish for doesn't fall in your lap; it falls somewhere nearby, and you have to recognize it, stand up, and put in the time and work it takes to get to it.

This isn't because the universe is cruel. It's because the universe is smart.
-Neil Strauss, The Game


pps:
How do you create a successful Amazon Affiliate Niche Site?

Having a plan and having a SYSTEM to get it done. This time I knew what steps to do and when to do them.

The result? The site generated traffic and revenue – on schedule.

If you know what to work on, then it’s just a matter of actually doing the work. If you’re reading this, then you’re obviously not lazy and you’re willing to do the work if it’s going to pay off.

The key is to find the right niche! The right set of keywords so that visitors to your niche site will convert into Amazon buyers. That was one of the main issues with my first, “unsuccessful” niche site.

But how do you find the right niche?
That took me a while to figure out and make it repeatable. Now, I’m really good at it. You need keywords with the right metrics.

You need to use a proven, systems-based process.

In 2013, I started the Niche Site Project blog and wrote a book on building niche sites using project management.

How to Reach New Audiences on Instagram with Kicksta

As the growth and reach of Instagram continues to grow, so does the need to have a suitable marketing plan in place for your website, brand, or online business. What was just once a simple mobile application that made it easy for friends to share photos and improve their online following, has now turned into one of the largest social platforms and marketing opportunities on the internet today.
With Facebook being the owners of Instagram, we all knew this was only a matter of time. As new marketing opportunities continue to come into fruition on Instagram, it’s now more important than ever before to make sure you have a massive following in place, while also focusing on content creation, paid ads, and remarketing as well — all of which, Instagram makes quite simple.
However, waiting around for organic growth and random followers to find your content is something none of us to have time for. A better solution is to rely on the powerful set of tools and features that are being offered through Kicksta.
Let’s take a look at this powerful social media marketing tool and how it can help grow your reach and business through Instagram in 2019.

What is Kicksta and How Does it Work?

Social media platforms make it easy to create content, connect with other people, and measure your progress and growth over time. More often than not, this can be done through simply looking at your follower and likes/shares numbers, or digging deeper into your paid advertising on a specific platform.
However, where many of these platforms lack, is in the ability to grow your reach over time, while also having more control over who you target demographic is and how to grow your follower count at scale. This is where a solution like Kicksta comes into play.

As we all know, follower numbers alone don’t count for much. They look nice on the outside, but if the engagement factor isn’t there, then you are just left with a big fancy numbers that makes your account look big — but only you, as the owner of the account, knows it’s real value.
Through the use of Kicksta, Instagram accounts can zero in on their target audience or a specific demographic by ‘liking’ content from these users, which then increase the reach and engagement, while not having to pull in a huge number of ‘fake’ follower accounts in the process. The benefit here is that when another user sees such engagement, they are a lot more likely to check out your profile and organically and genuinely follow your account back.
By using Kicksta’s automation tools, this method can be replicated and automated at scale to generated hundreds of new engagements and followers daily.

Don’t Buy Followers. Attract New Ones.

There are many platforms and solutions out there that will sell the service of providing thousands of Instagram and social media profiles to instantly follower your own profile. As mentioned earlier, this sounds like a great idea, but if the engagement isn’t there — then it’s just a number, and that’s all.
With more than 2,000 active Instagram marketers now using Kicksta, they want you to clearly understand how this process works. It’s not about buying followers or advertisements, but instead making real interactions with other Instagram users, and then gaining their interest and follow backs.
Through the use of Kicksta, there are no tricks or spammy methods in place that are making engagements on other accounts and removing them if the end user doesn’t follow back. This would be unethical and definitely against the terms of service laid out on Instagram.

Just like the concept of growing a mailing list or setting up a new ad campaign, you really only want targeted traffic and legitimate users clicking on your ads and joining your list. The same concept with Instagram and using Kicksta apply.
The objective is to appear as natural and organic as possible. Not just to comply with Instagram rules, but to also attract and engage with new audiences as well.
Once you create an account with Kicksta, you will be able to login with your Instagram account credentials. This will then provide you with all of the necessary information and account features in order to target the exact audience you are trying to reach. The “Creative” plan allows accounts to target up to 10 accounts who have a similar target audiences to what you are looking for.
A good example of this would be if you had a clothing line or a make up business, and you wanted to target fashion Instagram influencers and their followers. Since it’s quite likely the followers of these accounts would have an interest in fashion, they they would likely have an interest in what your brand has to offer as well.
Should you want to reach a much larger audience, the option is there to target up to 40 accounts, through the “Professional” plan. This allows for audience targeting based on gender, location, and hashtag.
As mentioned earlier, all “likes” and engagement will appear organic, thus leading to more authentic followers and engagement to your own account — which also freeing up endless hours of manual outreach and promotion in the process.

Making Your Way Through the Kicksta Dashboard

The concept of Kicksta is easy enough, and so is making your way through their login and dashboard area. Once inside, you can add and manage multiple Instagram accounts, but each will need to have it’s own associated membership plan.

The first step in this process is to connect and select your Instagram account. You are then given a quick overview where you can review all engagements from your most recent activity and accounts. This will show engagements made, best performing posts, worst posts, and more.
This can all be easily accessed and viewed within the main navigation area. You can also click to see all of your post activity, how many likes and comments they received, and the type of content and targeting Kicksta is looking for to best target your demographic audience.
The “Targets” feature shows all of your current targets and allows for the addition of new ones as well. This can be as straightforward as adding in new Instagram accounts to follow, or diving deeper into demographic and targeting features.
Overall performance, daily growth and conversion rate tracking is available as well. With such stats and features in place, it’s easy to split test results across different audiences and influencers on Instagram

Kicksta is an Ideal Instagram Automation Tool

As always, nothing is as simple as ‘set and forget’, but Kicksta does do a good job at coming close to it.
Kicksta doesn’t guarantee any type of performance results or how many followers you will receive, but they do provide the tools and features to make growth on Instagram possible — especially if you are willing to put in the time and effort to split test and target different audiences.
To learn more about what’s working best for other Kicksta users, be sure to check out the various case studies on their website.
With most marketing on the internet being a numbers game, it’s all about putting in the time and effort to master a process, and then scaling it over time.
Whether it’s influencer growth, retail sales, or a branding play, the Kicksta platform has the tool and features in place to deliver results and increase ROI in the process.

How Much Does Kicksta Cost?

Kicksta currently has two monthly pricing plans. Depending on the level of growth you desire and your budget, you may find that one fits your brand and marketing goals better.
You can see a side by side comparison of the two plans below.

The big difference between the two plans is that the Creative plan is at a lower price point of $49 per month and is limited to just 10 targets, while the Professional plan is just double the price, but offers four times the targeting limit.
Both plans come with a 14 day money-back guarantee — which are no questions asked, and you can cancel at any time.
If you are doing any type of branding or marketing on Instagram, give Kicksta a try and see how it works for you.

How to Improve Local SEO Results When Using a Digital Marketing Agency

Running a business can be very rewarding and exciting, but there are also many challenges that you have to try to overcome. One of these barriers is the stiff level of competition you face, no matter what industry you are in. If you want to be able to compete effectively with rivals, you have to ensure you have a solid marketing strategy in place and that the solutions you use actually work.
Unfortunately, just ‘creating content’ is never going to get you there. To rank in Google, your site will need powerful backlinks to improve the Domain Authority and Page Authority rankings of your site. Without these in place, your site will likely be found in Google for a wide range of long tail keywords, but likely somewhere between pages 10 to 100 — which is pretty much useless.
In order to effectively rank online and compete against already established sites, you will need to come up with a very creative and highly effective content creation and marketing plan. If you are a single person (or small) business, you will likely find that this task in itself could be a full time business, which is why many organizations outsource the process to a trustworthy digital marketing agency.
To help with the process of winning the war of online marketing and SEO, let’s cover some of the most important factors when trying to find a trustworthy digital marketing agency, and where/how you might want to focus your efforts and advertising dollars.

Local is Extremely Effective for Targeted Ads and SEO

When looking at the internet as a whole, there are more than a billion active sites online — which means they are all creating new content all the time, getting new social shares/backlinks, and ranking in Google. If you want to compete on this global scale, be ready for some massive competition.
At the same time, many smaller and local businesses don’t have the funds or resources to compete at these levels. For this reason, they should focus heavily on their local SEO rankings, paid advertising and demographic audience.
Neon Ambition, an SEO in Austin, has been working with companies for years now on how to improve their local reach and targeting, while also explaining the importance of how to find a positive ROI with SEO marketing, which can have a pretty much limitless ad spend cap.
They recommended the following take place:

“Having worked with hundreds of clients on a local specific ad campaign, we understand not only how hard it can be for a local business to rank, but also for them to spend a limited budget and see results at the same time. We have found great success with building localized content then targeting and remarketing location audiences to come back to the site once again. By additional social media and occasionally backlinking to such articles and resources, we continue to see progressive SEO growth month after month, while not requiring small mom and pops to spend thousands of dollars per month in the process.”

When it comes to local SEO and handing your business off to a digital marketing agency, it’s also important to have some basic understanding of how SEO works for your own personal and business expertise. You will also want to look for the following badges and certifications, as they will give you a better indication on how efficient and trusted an ad agency might be.

A great article on this topic can be found on Forbes, which ranks the following three factors as key elements that should be used when trying to rank in Google, target audiences, and find a positive ROI with local online advertising.
A company’s rank in Google My Business (GMB) results can be boiled down to three distinct areas of focus:

1. Relevance
2. Distance
3. Prominence

How to Use Content and Social Networks to Improve Rankings

As previously mentioned, if you want to rank in Google, you need to have a powerful website and/or blog with established backlinks. If you don’t have this in place, it’s something you can build up over time. However, at the moment, not all is lost.
Thanks to the power of social media, you can rank Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, and other social profile or local directories pretty fast and easy in Google. Since most of these sites are already trusted in the eyes of Google, it doesn’t take much to rank such inner profiles and pages on their site.

In that same Forbes article mentioned above, they highlight the following methods for relying on social media and local directories to improve site rankings and being found by your target audience.

• Select a high-volume keyword phrase that has location intent. Typically, for an attorney, this will be “practice area” plus “city name.” For example, “personal injury lawyer Philadelphia.”
• Create a page on your site targeting this phrase.
• Include the phrase in your page title, headings, page copy, meta description and image file names.
• Include your name, address and phone number on the page.
• Include the phrase in your page permalink as such: example.com/city-name/target-keyword-phrase/

By following these simple tips, there is no reason why your brand shouldn’t be able to rank for all ten listings on the main page of Google for your personal brand or business name. It’s something I’ve been able to do for my “Zac Johnson” name for quite a while now.
Social media is out there and it’s free to use. So take advantage of it!

Quick Ideas and Tips to Improve Local SEO on Your Own

There are many advantages to using a digital marketing agency when trying to rank and promote your local business, especially if you have no idea where to start. But there are also many things you can do on your own time to help promote your site and grow it’s site rankings and power over time.
Here are some quick ideas and tips to get started.

• Have a blog. This one is a no-brainer, as it will allow you to create content for your site and will also start ranking your site in Google for long tail keywords. Also remember to effectively promote each blog post, and don’t expect people to find them on their own.
• Create visuals and infographics for social media. This is a great idea, as everyone is already on social media and if you have a new recipe or service coming out, if you can make a quick infographic or animated video, it’s much more likely to be seen and shared.
• Contribute to expert round ups. Depending on your niche market and business, this one might work or it might not. Check out these expert roundup examples and you can learn more about this.
• Guest blogging on other industry/local blogs. Again, this comes down to the process of creating content for your sited within your industry, and then gaining exposure and getting backlinks as a way of compensation for your time, expertise and articles.

It’s likely that your digital marketing agency will be handling a lot of this, but there is no reason why you couldn’t start working on some of this at the same time. If you end up securing some nice placements and start to get a good feeling for how local SEO and audience targeting works, it might be something that you want to bring in-house as well.

Finding the Best Local Ad Agency for Your Business
When going with any local ad agency or digital marketing firm, make sure you always do all of the necessary research. Also, try to stay out of a super long term contract. Most SEO campaigns and work can take anywhere from 3-9 months before you start seeing real results.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to shoot me an email and I can help out with any questions you might have.
The post How to Improve Local SEO Results When Using a Digital Marketing Agency appeared first on Zac Johnson.

How to Stop Annoying Mystery Robo Callers and Business Spam Calls

We all have mobile devices and most of us are glued to the daily… so it’s pretty much the best way to contact millions of people around the world. However, it’s gotten quite out of control lately with all of the spam and robo calls that are just coming in non-stop!

For offshore business and scammy operations, it’s a fraudulent haven for making money off the unsuspecting and even for businesses looking to simply push their legitimate services call after call after call. Just like there are spam emails, spam blog comments, and spam forum and social media postings… this wave of spam phone calls is just the latest way for unethical businesses and startups to make money.

Unfortunately, more often then not, most of these call are routed from other countries, and may even show up as a local number on your mobile device. This makes it even more annoying to find and report them, let alone stop them.

The good news is there are some ways to not only block, look up and avoid these numbers… but there are some fun ways to mess around with the robo callers and India call centers as well.

Here are some fun and useful resources to help out in the process.

Start With a Reverse Phone Number Lookup

Your phone should be a helpful part of your life. When you receive multiple calls from people you do not know, it becomes a nuisance. If you notice that your phone is ringing more than normal you need to start looking up the numbers with  reverse phone lookup. Several numbers from strange area codes may be from telemarketers or bill collectors. You may even be getting calls from people trying to reach someone else. Enter the number on the reverse lookup site to receive information about the person or company that is calling you. Make a list of all the questionable numbers you receive and get started quickly

The option is also there to check out the FTC site and add your name to the do not call list, but as most of us already now — it usually doesn’t make a difference. It’s kind of like trying to unsubscribe to as many emails and newsletters in your inbox, but you just keep getting more and more.

Learn How to Individual or Bulk Block Numbers By Mobile Device

Once the number is listed on the site, you are given information about the person calling. Sometimes you get a name of a person or company. If you are familiar with the caller, you can return the call and find out what is needed to stop excessive calls. If you are given a spam warning or do not know the caller, it is best to block the call.

There are several reverse phone number lookup sites out there and plenty of them provide useful information for free. When someone gets a spam call, they often get pissed off and want to report the numbers online, so there is a good bet the number that just called you is already listed as a spammy number somewhere online.

Either way, one of the best ways to stop unwanted calls is to understand how to bulk remove, ignore, or report numbers based on the mobile device you have.

Working Methods to Block and Protect Your Number from Spam Calls

Your goal is probably to reduce the amount of mystery calls coming to your phone. Look up all the numbers you are unfamiliar with and block the ones that are not relevant. If you are receiving a lot of telemarketer calls, find out how to get off the call lists. When you block a telemarketing call, they often try again with a different phone number.

It is important to be clear about ending the calls if you talk to a telemarketer. You must be firm with your demands and keep blocking the numbers. Bill collection calls can be stopped by communicating with companies when you are late on bills. They can often decide with you and lessen the calls. Blocking these calls is also an option, as you can call the companies yourself when you are ready to resolve payments.

Get Revenge By Wasting the Time of a Live Call Center

Most robo calls start off with a random call, then if they can tell someone picked up the call, it will then forward over to a live person. Usually there is a pause or click noise, which is easy for people to tell right away that it’s an annoying spam caller.

The good news, is that there are plenty of prank apps and tools out there to turn the table.

Apps like robokiller.com make it easy to download the app, then have it run on your phone. It’s cool because the premium version is working off an ever expanding list of all users who are getting phone calls, so the app is actively blocking and reporting new calls all the time.

Even better, when a spam call does come through, you can set it up so there is a fake conversation that will drag on for several minutes and completely waste the time of the call center person. It also records such conversations for funny audio files you can listen to later on.

We All Hate Spam and Robot Calls… So When Will Then End?

It feels like an invasion of privacy when mystery calls take over your phone. You may wish to keep your phone available for calls from family or your business. Do not rush to change your phone number. As you can see from the examples laid out above, there are plenty are ways to solve the problem and discern between proper calls and those from telemarketers with a reverse phone lookup. With a little effort, you can enjoy your phone again.

And in the best situations… don’t get mad — get even!

Block their numbers, report them, and even use the prank call apps to give them a taste of their own medicine.

The post How to Stop Annoying Mystery Robo Callers and Business Spam Calls appeared first on Zac Johnson.

7 Ways to Compliment Your Written Text Content with Online Video

Creating articles and blog entries is essential to your website. It engages people and gets them to want to know more about your brand. If done well, you are offering quality content that makes people want to come back for more. But, let’s face it. Text alone can be boring sometimes.

We are visual by nature, so adding a beautiful picture or graphic to your text can help bring out the essential aspects of a post and help create hype for your brand.

Better yet, use video. Video is the most engaging format of media available today as evidenced by statistics on video marketing. Users respond to it 66 times more often than text because it adds a visual element to your content. It is also more shareable because you can add social media share buttons or have people share it on YouTube.

• Video marketers get 66% more qualified leads per year.
• Video marketers achieve a 54% increase in brand awareness.

Below are some practical ways that you can incorporate video within your text to complement what you’re saying while not interrupting your main message.

1. Use humor.

Using humor in videos is one of the best ways to captivate your audience through video. Whether you were using talking head and interviewing people on the street about what they think about your products or creating hand-drawn animations through a whiteboard presentation, using humor is one of the best ways you can attract an audience.

People love to laugh, and they want relief from the stress that they face every day. Studies show that people come to the internet through mobile devices many times looking for funny videos. Use this to your advantage by adding funny videos to your page to accent your text.

2. Create an engaging thumbnail.

Remembering that people are visual, make sure that you create an engaging video

That emphasizes what your video is about. Having bright colors or a logo that attracts their interest will help but always make sure to capture one of the most interesting aspects of the video. If you use actual video footage for the still shot, take a little extra time at this point to think about how to create an interesting thumbnail. The thumbnail will get indexed as an image in Google and also on YouTube when people look for content.

3. Try whiteboard animations.

One of the best things about using whiteboard animation is that you can tell an entire story of your brand or explain how to use your products or services. Through this systematic and detailed approach, users will see a hand drawing out the information that you want to show them, and you can build a whole city by showing the hand what to draw when you create your whiteboard animations.

People love whiteboard because perhaps it reminds them of their early days in school when teachers drew out things on the chalkboard. It may also be reminiscent of some of the old cartoons that were built on simple frames. Whatever the case or the motivation people love whiteboard animations and you should love them too if you’re a business owner. They allow you to take the viewer from start to finish all the way to your call to action. Also, studies show it keeps their attention longer than other kinds of video and may, therefore, make them stay until your call to action.

3. Create infographics.

Infographics were developed about 10 years ago, and they combined some of the best elements of informational text with graphics that appeal to someone’s visual interest. What’s more, you can make an infographic into a video using some simple technology and software such as you might find on the Simple Show website. Check out some of the video examples here and see what you might want to do to bring your content alive through whiteboard video for infographics.

5. Place the video at the top of the blog or website entry and describe the information in the video below it.

Some of the psychology involved in sharing videos that work is the placement as to where you put them on the page. If you put the video at the top of the page, it is going to be the first thing they see when they enter your website and therefore they will assume that it is one of the most important aspects of your site. Put it in your blog as well to draw more attention and make sure and use keywords in your video description so that you will pull in people from both YouTube as well as general search engine traffic.

6. Try a cartoon with frames and text written below.

Have you ever thought about creating a frame by frame cartoon the way they used to do it? You can do this through whiteboard animation. Take a look at some samples of whiteboard animations and decide for yourself which one might be the most effective with your branding. You’re entertaining people when you use white boarding, and that is the key to keeping their attention. People want information, but they also want it given to them on an interesting platform and format. You can communicate anything you need to communicate attractively and dynamically that will keep them coming back for more.

To learn more about the many different ways individuals and brands are creating hand drawn cartoons and using them within whiteboard videos, click here.

7. Use video testimonials and use captions to illustrate what people said.

Create character animations of people talking and recommending your brand. You can use dialogue from customer service emails or from the feedback you’ve received on social media so that it will be authentic. Then use characters to deliver the dialogue.

Remember you want to increase the visual interaction and draw more customers to your website, so whiteboard animation is a great way to do this while keeping their attention and staying on focus. Customer testimonials should talk about the positive aspects and why the people liked your brand so that they will want to share this with others.

There are many ways that you can build your brand by adding video as a main component to your content. This keeps the material interesting instead of just putting out text, which can be boring to people over the long-term. You can use these techniques on your blogs or websites and other sites by cross-advertising across your platforms using the same keywords throughout.

This is a part of building your brand and integrating your marketing strategy so that video becomes a focus of what you do. This will greatly increase your impact and this is backed up by research.

Think Visual!

Whatever you do, think video and think visual, because the future is about handheld devices looking for videos that tell them what they want to know fast. If you can meet this need you will be on the top of the heap in the near future as we move toward an AI dependent and video mobile-focused world.

The post 7 Ways to Compliment Your Written Text Content with Online Video appeared first on Zac Johnson.

Make easy money with OhMyDosh

Reading Time: 3 mins

Now this is something to get excited about. We know there are a lot of cashback opportunities out there and other websites promising to pay you for signing up to free trials and so forth. However, most of them are either difficult to use, lack offers or simply don’t work the way they should.

OhMyDosh has taken everything wrong with these sites and made it right.

It uses an easy layout and an even easier system to let you see exactly how much money you’ll get and what you have to do to get it. Fancy getting £4 simply for signing up to a free Prime Video trial? We certainly do. You don’t have to earn points or think about how cashback will work, here you simply get cash paid to you. You complete one of their offers and they pay you. It’s that simple.

We think this might be the easiest way to earn money online.

Get paid in 3 days

Currently OhMyDosh is also offering special Lightning Payout offers, where you’ll get paid within 3 working days. That’s almost unheard of in this sector. You do a few clicks to sign up to a trial or complete another offer through OhMyDosh and you will get your money in 3 working days!

Sometimes you need money fast, and these guys seem to know that.

Find out more about Lightning Payout offers here. 

5 Stars on Trustpilot

In case you were wondering whether this all sounds too good to be true, well, it isn’t. OhMyDosh have 5 stars on TrustPilot and looking at their reviews it seems there isn’t a single dissatisfied user in sight. In fact if you take a browse over some of the reviews you’ll be wondering where this website has been all your life. You might even want to keep it your little secret, because it really shouldn’t be this quick and easy to make some extra dosh…

One reviewer wrote:

“I have been dubious about sites like this in the past but I’m so glad I gave ohmydosh a go! I earnt just over £14 in my first half an hour and the payment was super quick too. The site is really easy to sign up to and use. I’ve told all my friends about it!”

Another happy reviewer wrote:

“A reliable website that offers users the chance to complete tasks to earn some money. You can contact the Oh My Dosh team with a query and they will reply promptly. Once you earn £10 on the site, you can cash out using a variety of methods. I would recommend.”

This site is sure to keep growing, so get onboard now.

Winner of the MoneyFacts Commended Award

In fact, OhMyDosh doesn’t just have great reviews, it’s also award winning! OhMyDosh was shortlisted in the ‘Cashback Site of the Year’ category at the Moneyfacts Consumer Awards 2019. And guess what? It won the MoneyFacts Commended Award. We’re sure many more will follow, because these guys and girls have created something truly special and unique. Move over Quidco, this is where the easy money is at.

 

How it works

So, this all sounds amazing and you’re wondering how it actually works, since you’ve never used one of these types of sites before? Well we had a look at their website and found an easy step-by-step guide to illustrate just how quickly you go from seeing a juicy offer to cash in hand.

STEP ONE – CHOOSE AN OFFER

Using OhMyDosh’s categories or search function, you can quickly find and discover offers you like and want to take to earn dosh!

So you’re able to take offers, make sure you have signed up or logged in at this point.

STEP TWO – TAKE AN OFFER

All the instructions and terms are stated on the offer page, be sure to read these before proceeding. Once you have decided what you want to complete, click the ‘Earn (amount)’ button.

Make sure you follow the terms and instructions!

STEP THREE – PENDING STATUS

Once you have completed an offer, the advertiser will let OhMyDosh know when they have received your information. This will happen automatically.

At this point, the offer will go into a pending status on your account.

STEP FOUR – PAYABLE STATUS

The average time it takes for an offer to go from pending to payable is 30 days (but this varies between offers).

Payments come from the advertisers OhMyDosh work with, which they pass to you. So once they are paid, they can pay you.

STEP FIVE – CASH OUT DOSH OUT

Once your payable balance is over £10, you can dosh out whenever it suits you.

Your outstanding balance will be paid into your bank account within 5 working days or even quicker if you choose to be paid via PayPal or do one of the lightning payout offers!

So there you have it. Go, go, go. Get your dosh. Sign up here.

 

 

The post Make easy money with OhMyDosh appeared first on MoneyMagpie.