154: Crush It On Instagram: Build an Audience, Generate Leads, and Increase Sales with Luke Bender

Robert Plank 0:00 Robert plank Show episode 154 Crush it on Instagram, build an audience generate leads and increase sales with Luke Bender Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Robert plank show where we talk about making money online. Our guest today is Luke bender. Now Luke Bender is going to talk to us today about Instagram. He's an Instagram marketing expert. He helps businesses and online entrepreneurs build a targeted audience generate leads and make sales using Instagram. So Luke, what's happening with Instagram today?

Unknown Speaker 0:41 Oh, exciting things are happening.

Robert Plank 0:44 Cool. I mean, I'm glad to hear and I can't wait to get all the details on that. So I mean, I mean, Instagram. I know, I know, next to nothing about it. I know about you know, Facebook, Twitter, maybe a little bit of Pinterest. I know that Instagram is a place where I guess people like, share photos, and they can like stuff and there's hashtags. But that's about the extent of my knowledge. So could you explain to us, what is Instagram? Exactly? And kind of how does it fit in with, you know, Facebook and Twitter and all these other platforms?

Speaker 2 1:14 Yeah, so Instagram is a huge social media platform, it, I think just recently reached 500 million users. So it's about second to Facebook. And yeah, you it's strictly photos. So you upload photos, and it goes into a feed, and it's a great place to just connect with your audience and build an audience and then, you know, grow your business. So I'm really excited about it. And I think the future of Instagram still looks good. So

Robert Plank 1:50 awesome. It's just it seems to me like like one of those those weird sites, sort of like a, like Snapchat or something where maybe I'm too old to understand it. And I mean, like you said, like 500 million users. And I see on there some of these sites where like, there's a lot of people using it, a lot of people just really cleaning up on it. So okay, so Instagram, you can only post photos. And then so in the context of us, you know, internet marketers, business owners stuff who have people who have things to sell, I mean, what do we, what do we do there? Because I can understand if you're, you know, Kanye West, or Kim Kardashian, or like a celebrity, but if we're a business, what kind of photos are we posting on Instagram?

Speaker 2 2:35 Yeah, definitely. So it is interesting, because it's mostly photos, you actually can't post a link in the caption, so you only get one link on Instagram. And that is in the bio. So when you're on the main page, viewing someone's Instagram page, you get one link there. So it is interesting in that aspect. So I would say, you know, if anyone's creating like educational content, or content around a certain niche, you know, you can take, like, what I really like to do is take like quotes, you know, if you're writing blog posts, you just take, like, original quotes that you create, and then you can kind of use apps like this one I use called type of Rama. So you can actually create, quote, pictures within this app. And those do really well especially if you know, they have to do with your niche and you're providing value or motivation or inspiration, any type of those, you know, pieces of content. And then you know, I like to if anyone's building an audience around their own personal brand, I really like to encourage people to you know, give a little bit of their personal life and actually really establish that like a know like and trust with their followers. Because I think that's key when when people start following me you want them to really know who you are. And that way you can engage with them and they'll be more interested in your stuff. So mix it up between I really like quotes and and then personal life stuff but one thing to keep in mind is that content on Instagram does need to be good pictures because it's you know, primarily pictures it needs to be you know, good luck and stuff so you know, I would just encourage people to maybe learn how to do a bit of editing on their on their phone and you know, frame up a picture nicely. But yeah, those are some tips on how to get post good content.

Robert Plank 4:46 And is Luke Bender your Instagram username? Is that right?

Speaker 2 4:51 It is Yep. Just Luke Bender Kool Aid. Yeah. And I have it pulled up

Robert Plank 4:55 right now and I'm seeing like your you know, your water skiing. You're doing a battle Flip you do there's like surfing, there's all kind of like you said, like, there's some, there's some cool, there's some like cool shots to begin with. And then there's like the the color or the filters or whatever make it look even slicker. And then on top of that I'm seeing that you have your quotes, like adventures are the best way to learn on top of one, you can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf them. And so I mean, yeah, I'm getting what you're what you're saying in the end that the photos have to look pretty slick.

Speaker 2 5:31 Yeah, and it's not too difficult to create those quote, pictures, if you if you check out the app called type of ramaa. That's what I use. And yeah, you can kind of take pictures, like all those pictures are mine, even the ones with the quotes. So you can, you know, use your pictures and then use your quote, and then that kind of really, is there a unique piece of content that will do well on Instagram?

Robert Plank 5:57 Right? Because because I have seen on Facebook and Twitter, I've seen people take like a generic picture, like a picture of a mountain or of the ocean. And then, you know, grab some, you know, Zig Ziglar, quote or something and put that on there. And I mean, I guess that's a pretty good way of generating content. But what you're saying is, is on Instagram, it's better to have something that's completely original, is that right? Like your picture your quote all that stuff?

Speaker 2 6:24 Yeah, I would say for the most part, try to keep it original, but at the same time, it is is definitely okay to curate content, you know, for your audience, if you find something that you know will really be valuable to them, then definitely curate a good picture and a good quote, even if it's not yours, but definitely try to come up with your own unique content that people can really start to notice your brand. And you can continue to build on that.

Robert Plank 6:50 And I can see that on kind of clicking through your page here. I can see that I can if I see a photo, I can like it, I can leave a comment. But it there is no like retweet or reshare on your own page is there.

Unknown Speaker 7:06 No, there's not.

Robert Plank 7:07 Okay, so it's kind of like, like old school stuff where you're the stuff on your wall is all yours and only yours.

Unknown Speaker 7:14 Right? Exactly.

Robert Plank 7:16 So how much of a time commitment are we talking about with Instagram? Like, I mean, how, how much time would you say that you spent on this? And how often do you update your Instagram page?

Speaker 2 7:27 Yeah, so I probably spend more time than, you know, maybe someone your audience needs to just because I've really chosen that as my main social media platform to focus on. But you can you can get it down to maybe 30 minutes a day. Just engaging your audience and building your follower base. And I think that's doable.

Robert Plank 7:55 So, I mean, when you say 30 minutes a day, I mean, what, what actions specifically, would someone be taking to build up follower base and engaging with they? Would it be a matter of like replying to comments, would it be liking other stuff? I mean, in those 30 minutes, like if someone were to like repeat the same, say, three or four actions every day, what would they do for 30 minutes every day?

Speaker 2 8:16 Yeah, definitely. So posting is the first one, I would say at least posting every other day. In you can post once a day on on Instagram, as well, I wouldn't go more than once a day. So posting is something that you got to do in creating the content. And then besides that, what you really want to do is find out where your audience is. So you can use hashtags to research. And, and I would just say find big pages within your niche. So if it's like business motivation, you know, you can find tons of pages on that, if it's travel, there's tons of pages on that, as well as like health and exercise. So find big pages, find out where your audience is hanging out. And then what you're going to do is go to the latest picture that that account has posted. And then you're gonna go to all the people who have liked it. So you click on the likes for that picture. And then you want to start following people who would be your potential audience. So this works well, because then they'll get a notification that you follow them. And then almost 100% of the time, they'll click your profile to see who you are. And if you have content, and they can see that, you know, that that you there's someone that you'd want they'd want to connect with and be interested in your stuff. Then they're going to follow you back, or they're going to click the link in your bio to your website or your lead magnet. And that's how you're going to build your email list and build fans and build your brand. And

Robert Plank 10:01 so, I mean, and the way you're describing that it kind of reminds me of LinkedIn a little bit where, where kind of everyday you go in and you know, make new connections or view some of these like profiles and things like that.

Speaker 2 10:15 Yeah, exactly. And it's some people, you feel weird about following people just to get followers, but it really is like, you have to notify people that you actually exist. So that's just the best way to, you know, connect with your followers. And yeah, you, you make tons of connections, and you can do, like with LinkedIn, it's a little different, because you can only do a few. But with Instagram, when you go to those likes, like 1000s of people like this picture, and you can follow, like 60 people per hour, on Instagram, and then you can get like, a certain percentage of those people will be interested in your stuff, and then follow you back.

Robert Plank 10:55 So when you do this, this technique when you go and follow all these people, do you have like, a goal or like a set number of followers that you want to do? Or is it just a matter of how many feels good?

Speaker 2 11:10 Um, well, I try to hit like, 100 new followers per day. But usually, I'll follow Yeah, around 60 per hour, and, you know, insert Instagram, they'll block you from following more people if you do it too much. So yeah, I would say my main thing is to is the targeting to figure out, you know, where my audience is hanging out. So if I can target and then and then get a good amount of engagement, and people that follow me, follow me back? You know, it just varies. So it's not too specific.

Robert Plank 11:48 So when when you personally, when Luke Bender goes to find these, these high traffic, Instagram pages to see the popular stuff and follow all these people, I mean, what keywords and what hashtags are you personally looking up on, on a given day.

Speaker 2 12:09 Um, I am looking up a couple of different pages, but I like to look up any type of motivation or luxury pages and there's a ton of those ones, like a big one is millionaire underscore mentor. And he just posts a bunch of motivational stuff. And I just find those people to be really active on Instagram, they really like checking out anyone who's providing valuable content. So if anyone is educating people on, you know, personal development, or business or things like that, that's a great, you know, page to check out. And then one thing to note is, when you find a big page, that that really lines up with your niche, you can click the drop down arrow next to their, the Follow button on that account. And it will give you all the similar pages. So once you find one, you just click that drop down arrow, and you'll find all the similar pages in that niche. And then once you're on one that has a large following, all those other ones will also have large following. So it's just like, an unlimited supply of people that might be interested in what you have to offer.

Robert Plank 13:23 Awesome. So just to make sure I'm following along. So what you would do on a on a given day to build these followers is you'd go to you log into Instagram, you'd go to the search box, you type in pound sign, motivation, or hashtag motivation. And then there are all these high ranked photos. And one of them is this millionaire mentor page. And then I could, you know, click on a button to follow them or next to next of this Follow button, there's an arrow that drops down a lot of similar popular pages, like I'm seeing there's like, like a Think and Grow Rich page, like, you know, ask a millionaire kind of stuff. So then you can just kind of kind of add those to your your hit list, I guess. Is that

Speaker 2 14:08 right? Yeah, definitely. That's exactly right.

Robert Plank 14:11 And so so there's all these these daily actions to be taking. And I'm seeing near the bottom of the page that there is some kind of API or, you know, a way to hook into things. So are there tools, the same way that there are tools for Twitter, but for Instagram, to, you know, schedule posts and follow people is stuff like that?

Speaker 2 14:34 Yeah, so there's a tool that I use called later. It's an app. And also it's a it's a helpful website as well got some helpful information. So it's just later.com. And that is an Instagram scheduling tool. So the thing with Instagram is actually, there's no third party resource that can automatically be post to Instagram. So you have to manually post on your phone. So it will, you can schedule your posts out with the pictures and the captions, and then it will send you a notification when it's time to post and you just slide that open, it will put it into your Instagram, then you just click post. So, yeah, you can organize things that way. So at the beginning of the week, sometimes I'll schedule out posts for certain times when you know your following is active. So that's one you got, you got the scheduling. And then there's a couple other tools like analytics tools, one called ikono Square, which gives you all your Instagram analytics. And then also something interesting is Instagram just came out with business profiles. So you can link your Instagram to your Facebook business page. And that is super easy to do. Just go into the settings and you go down to link to business page. And then you get actually analytics about your followers, what time they're most active. And you know what day they're most active in, in countries where they're from and cities where they're from. So that's a really helpful resource if you haven't already switched your Instagram to a business profile.

Robert Plank 16:27 And that's that sounds awesome, because I guess you could you could just start off and as you're picking up speed, you could kind of you know, post things anytime a day and try things out. But then once you have your Analytics, you can say, Okay, now that I have some content now that I have my followers, here's what they liked the most. And then you can just optimize for that.

Unknown Speaker 16:48 Yeah, exactly.

Robert Plank 16:49 And then, so looking around this. So is this is this next thing, correct that there is no way to? Is there a way to post via the browser? Or do you have to use the app for this?

Speaker 2 17:02 Yeah, you have to use the app. So yeah, you can't post from a computer. Interesting. Yeah, it is interesting.

Robert Plank 17:09 When one of those little quirks I guess that they probably did on purpose for some reason.

Speaker 2 17:13 Yeah. So then you do to you, it is a good thing to note that most of the engagement on Instagram is going to be done through mobile. So if you're linking to your website, or, you know, a lead magnet, I mean, it's been talked about a lot that mobile is huge. So just make sure everything is mobile optimized. Okay.

Robert Plank 17:37 I mean, yeah, fair, fair enough. If they click that one link, that you're allowed off of Instagram onto your webpage? I mean, it wouldn't make sense. If, if they're, if they're clicking using the app onto your webpage, it wouldn't make sense if the if the page wasn't optimized for mobile.

Unknown Speaker 17:52 Yeah, exactly.

Robert Plank 17:53 So are you doing anything with outside traffic? Or is this 100%? I like to build up your Instagram, you know, like your, your following and your traffic and your likes and stuff? Is there anything outside of Instagram coming in? Or is it all just marketing, within Instagram?

Speaker 2 18:14 I just build up my Instagram following using Instagram. Now, it depends if you have other social media platforms that have a big following. Like I know a lot of YouTubers build up their Instagram, from their YouTube. Or if you have a big email list and you want to work on your Instagram, you can always, you know, kind of promote it to your email list and make sure people are following you on Instagram. So yeah, it just depends. If you have reach elsewhere. You can utilize those, but I didn't have any reach elsewhere. So I just built it all from Instagram.

Robert Plank 18:53 Fair enough. And then so I'm looking at like your profile and some of the other ones like what's a decent following? Like, what should if someone's new to Instagram, and maybe maybe what should they shoot for in the first couple of months? Like is as 1000 followers good is 10,000 Good? Is 100,000 Good? Like, what's a good number to shoot for?

Speaker 2 19:17 Yeah, so if you're starting from zero, I would say just focus on getting your first 1000 Don't Don't worry about too much after that. But I mean, 10,000 is the first, you know, like, big goal after that. And then from there, it's sky's the limit. But yeah, just focus. If you're starting from zero, get to 1000. You know, figure out, you know where your audience is and in your content strategy in your branding, and then just take it from there from 1000 to 10,000. I mean, that makes sense. And I would say shoot 10,000 within it.

Robert Plank 20:01 Okay. And then so and then I'm looking, so I'm looking at your page. So you have you have what about 11,000 followers? And the the photos get about a 1000s likes or so on average? So is that something that you've seen? That's pretty consistent? Like, if you have X number of followers? Can people count on about, like, 10%? or so of their entire following? liking something? Or is this just isn't? Are the numbers I'm seeing? Is this higher low? I guess, like so to 11,000 followers about 1000 likes per photo? Is that normal?

Speaker 2 20:38 Um, you know, it depends my engagements pretty high, compared to most other accounts that I see. And that's just because of the way that I build the account is because I only engage and getting people to follow me that are also engaged on the app. So I would say it's a little higher than normal, you should shoot for about 10% engagement. But I would say, yeah, that's it, my engagements, probably a little bit higher than normal. So you definitely want to make sure the engagement you're getting likes and comments, too, it's, it's really good to get comments on your pictures. And, and that gives you a little bit of insight into your audience as well. And you can kind of connect with them that way.

Robert Plank 21:31 That's cool. You just kind of I mean, in a lot of ways you calibrate towards what they want from the comments and analytics and all kinds of and also modeling based on what you see, the higher traffic people getting. So that's, that's kind of cool. There's a lot of like, there's very little guesswork involved, it sounds like Right, like, you kind of look at what's there and then add your own flavor to it.

Speaker 2 21:53 Yeah, that's what I really like about it, you can really tell what's going on by looking at those analytics and things.

Robert Plank 21:59 So with Instagram, what big mistake Are you seeing a lot of other Instagramers making.

Speaker 2 22:08 I see a lot of people just not building their following as quickly as they can. So I see a lot of people who post good content, even I see pages popping up with great content, and they'll be posting all the time, but they're just not growing. So I think that's the main thing to focus on is that you're growing and by doing the research and following people who would be interested in your stuff potentially just over and over and over every day and staying consistent with it. Just making sure that you're getting people to follow you back, I think is the most important part. And yeah, a lot of people will just post and and that people will find them eventually somehow. But I think you got to focus on actually finding them first and growing your following

Robert Plank 23:01 and and that makes sense and and even kind of going back to your your 30 minutes a day thing you said that you know you should be some spending 30 minutes a day on Instagram and do the you know the research and the liking stuff, but only post every other day. So if I mean if posting a photo takes you know, two minutes then and if that's every other day then people will should only be spending about a minute posting that content and then the 29 minutes left over doing all the all the marketing stuff. So so cool. So exactly. A lot of a lot of interesting Instagram stuff. And so I mean, let's talk about you I mean what um, what kind of websites do you have set up and and how can you help people who are looking to increase their Instagram reach?

Speaker 2 23:52 Yeah, so right now I'm just focusing on building my Instagram and I'm with clients and also working on using Instagram to grow my YouTube channel. So you'll see that in the link in my bio, and yeah, I have Luke Bender comm is a place where I'm going to be posting helpful Instagram tips coming up here in the near future, so that should be all set up. If you want to check that

Robert Plank 24:25 cool so there's Luke bender.com And yet I'm seeing all awesome so that way we don't have to spell all the all the links to Facebook and Instagram and and YouTube and Twitter, all that stuff. So cool. So Luke Bennett on Comm. gets everyone gets everyone there. And then as far as once people get to Luke bender.com. I mean, what is your coaching offer specifically?

Speaker 2 24:50 Yeah, so I can do a couple of things. I can do one on one coaching with people or consulting or I'm even offering you know, businesses to actually do the growth and the management of the account on a monthly basis so either one of those and then I will be coming up with an Instagram marketing course here hopefully within the next six months or so. So that's where I am right now I will you know, feel free to message me on Instagram or email me with any questions I'm happy to help people get started but if anyone's interested in you know more in depth coaching and really taking Instagram to the next level I'm definitely available for that as well.

Robert Plank 25:41 Awesome and so I'm looking at Luke Bender not common if someone lands on this page and they want to hire you for coaching either for either in the context of a done with you like you said or a full on done for you once they get to loop vendor.com Is there a specific page or link here or should they just go to the contact form?

Speaker 2 26:02 Um, you know, I actually will be adding that here shortly so if it's not there just to contact me or I will have it listed like work with me or something like that.

Robert Plank 26:14 Awesome. Fair enough. So so cool. So Luke Bender COMM And that is L U k e n d. E r.com. And thanks for stopping by the show Luke for explaining to us this, this mysterious Instagram thing that I mean, it was easy to ignore up until now, but now that it has 500 million users, I mean, now it's the thing that a lot of people should be looking into to increase their traffic. So thanks for telling us what you had to say today about Instagram.

Unknown Speaker 26:42 Yeah, no problem, Robert. Thanks for having me.

Robert Plank 26:44 Hey, there, it's Robert plank. I'm so super grateful that you decided to listen to today's episode to make sure you never miss another episode go right now to Robert plank comm slash iTunes and click the subscribe button to ensure that you never ever miss a single episode of the Robert plank show. Ever, ever get go right now Robert plank.com/itunes