Episode 5 - SocialBuzzONAIR - Jason G. Miles -- Instagram Power - Build Your Brand
This is a production of http://SocialBuzzONAIR.comOn this weeks episode with chat with Jason G. Miles author of "Instagram Power : Build Your Brand and Reach More Customers with the Power of Pictures.Jason explains his thought process behind writing the book and gives some excellent tips on how brands can use the power of Instagram to tell their story.Grab your copy of the book here: http://www.instagrampower.com/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
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Deezer This is a production of http://SocialBuzzONAIR.comOn this weeks episode with chat with Jason G. Miles author of "Instagram Power : Build Your Brand and Reach More Customers with the Power of Pictures.Jason explains his thought process behind writing the book and gives some excellent tips on how brands can use the power of Instagram to tell their story.Grab your copy of the book here: http://www.instagrampower.com/
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Oh yeah, we know what that sound means. This is social buzz on air. What's happening, everybody? I'm Sebastian Rusk, as always, your host. I got a bow tie on, but you probably can't see that because this is the podcast. Probably listen to this in the middle of the next week. Thank God for the power of podcasts. This week's show is really excited. I'm really excited about it. We're talking about the ever-popular evolving platform of Instagram. My guest today is the author of the brand new book, Instagram Power, Jason Miles. Jason, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00Thanks, man. How are you doing?
SPEAKER_01I am just tap dancing on top of the world, brother. Thanks for asking. All right. So I was really excited when McGraw-Hill sent me this book because I consider myself an Instagram power user. I don't know if those exist. Has the platform been around long enough for that to even happen? Sure. But um as I dig into the book, I'm seeing this as more of a step-by-step how-to uh for Instagram. Was that really the thought process behind it?
SPEAKER_00Uh it was some of that and really it's geared towards marketers, you know, small business marketing in particular.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because I get that question a lot. How do I use Instagram for my business? And as I the more I read the book, the more I really start to discover what it's all about. Uh if you're just tuning in, maybe you're fast forwarding the podcast along. We've got author Jason Miles uh on with us today, chatting about his brand new book, Instagram Power. Build your brand and reach more customers with the power of pictures. Books available anywhere, books are sold. Be sure to pick up a copy. You can also grab it from the link that's embedded right within this podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Jason, let's get right down to it. So you wanted to write a book about Instagram. Why the title Instagram Power?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh, well, the first book in the series with McGraw-Hill was Pinterest Power. And uh so once they accepted that title, I kind of figured I was hooked on the power track. And uh so then the subsequent books we figured better be in line. So I I've actually published now uh three self-published books um Craft Business Power, eBay Auction Power, and um email marketing power, and then Pinterest Power was the first one with McGraw-Hill. It made perfect sense for this one to come out and be Instagram Power, and then in January, uh YouTube Marketing Power is coming out with McGraw Hill as well.
SPEAKER_01So fantastic. So I I almost want to cue the song from the 90s, I got the power, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, whatever.
SPEAKER_01So uh keep keeping the theme consistent here. Well, that's fantastic, and it's it's clear that you have a good handle on what's going on in the in the social space and really helping people better understand. Uh first it was it was uh you said the first the first two published books uh Pinterest, yeah. Right, right.
SPEAKER_00So you've got uh Pinterest, Instagram, and following up with YouTube, and then you self-published um eBay, you said eBay and email, and then craft business power, which is all about Etsy and eBay selling and craft fairs, stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01So my next question is when's Facebook and Twitter power come out?
SPEAKER_00Uh well here's the thing, my man. Um I truly believe that Facebook is last decade, and you know, at least for our market demographic, um Pinterest and Instagram is where it's at. Now, you know, we have 33,000 uh fans on our Facebook page, and we use Facebook ads all the time, but people have done Facebook, you know, so people know how to use it for marketing. I think it's pretty well covered in terms of you know kind of the documentation on how to use it. Um and Twitter, I've just never been a huge Twitter fan personally, nor was it for our business work could we ever really incorporate it into our our you know day-to-day actions. So yeah, yeah, well let's those won't be topics I'll be covering.
SPEAKER_01No, no, and I I can I completely get that. And what do you know? I tripped on my headset again, but we're not gonna uh start the recording all over again. We're just gonna keep it uh we're keeping it real this episode here. So uh you continue to mention your business, and you mentioned your business in the in the book. Um let's chat about that for just a second and then we'll we'll segue into how you're utilizing Instagram for that. So you're in the American doll clothes business, correct?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so we started on eBay in 2008. My wife um has a mad skill, she's an artist really, uh, in designing doll clothes. And we started on eBay, started real small, and uh she would sew stuff and sell it, and uh that worked for about 18 months, then she was totally burned out. So we started publishing our patterns as digital guidebooks, and that really scaled and took off, and it helped us create you know our thriving six-figure business. And and then we started um working with seamstresses to sew for us. So currently we have four employees, five if you include me, and twenty seamstresses that sew for us, you know, by contract. Um our website is Liberty JaneClothing.com for our physical product, and then the website we created for all of our pattern sales is pixifair.com. And it's a marketplace for dog clothes patterns, and we have over 300,000 of them that have been downloaded from that site now. Um so it's it's become a real business.
SPEAKER_01It sounds like it. And how are you utilizing Instagram to um to not only generate business but spread the word about your business? And are you and are you in fact generating business um from Instagram?
SPEAKER_00We absolutely are, yeah. And that was really the premise of my work originally. We uh it um we had we had gotten into Pinterest because of the flood of traffic that it started sending to our websites and really dove into it deeply and kind of ignored Instagram. And then uh my my buddy, who's got a really cool little business he runs, I was talking to him about Pinterest and kind of you know trying to sell him on it a little bit, and he said, I'm on it, but Instagram is working way better for me. And when he said that, I was like, oh man, I'm behind the curve. I've been ignoring Instagram, and it sounds like it's working for him. So I asked him what he was doing. He showed me exactly what he was doing to attract prospective customers and put products in front of them. It made perfect sense. And then we started to jump into Instagram, and you know, I the way I write is I really start to document my own marketing work and then start to look for examples from other successful companies, you know, using a platform, and it just kind of naturally turns into the guts of a book. So in Instagram Power, I document 10 direct marketing strategies that are clearly working on Instagram right now. They're used by Mike, you know, we're using them for our business, big businesses are using them. Uh, and it's you know it's a it's a direct marketing platform that works really well, surprisingly.
SPEAKER_01Let's talk about those 10 real quick. What are they? I mean, of course, we don't have to explain each and every one of them, but just to give an overview, I want to we want to leave a little sizzle for people to pick up the book and really dig into what those 10 are. But if you could ramble those 10 off uh real quick and we can we can chat about that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, sure. Um let me just mention a couple of them that that uh we kind of really have enjoyed doing. The first one is that um Instagram is similar to Pinterest in the fact that they're visually driven you know social media sites. Uh the conversations are over, you know, and I think people are enjoying that. So it's really, if you think about it from marketing terms, what your opportunity looks like in Instagram on the image side is to marry images and copywriting. And you know, that's that's old school print advertising. So it's funny, but what's sort of old is new again on Instagram, and you can do very effective display ads, a beautiful image or graphic, and a call to action, you know, in the copywriting, um, very effective on Instagram. So I call that you know, sort of the display ad uh model. And you know, that can work very simply for a marketer. Let's say you're in uh a niche, um, maybe it's sporting goods, and uh maybe you've got an e-commerce site and you're you do sporting goods. Well, you know, you start to pin uh to post images all about uh sporting events, that niche kind of content, and then as you've got product available, uh you put it out in front of that crowd that you've aggregated on Instagram and use it for traditional display ad to put it in front of a lot of people. That works amazingly well. Um another strategy that people wouldn't naturally think about, but once you get into Instagram, you see it happening all the time, is what I call a visual product launch strategy. And you know, product launches have been popularized by using email, you know, you kind of build up to a new product launch uh and it you know, kind of build enthusiasm, intrigue, you get people interested in what you're gonna do. Um and then of course Jeff Walker popularized that happening with videos online, but you can do the same thing with Instagram, and you do that very simply by starting to publish pictures of your new product concepts or work before the product is available, and you build intrigue and interest. Um, and then as the product comes out, you tell people about it. And we are doing this literally all the time in our business, and it works amazingly well. It moves product very effectively.
SPEAKER_01You know, I saw somebody do that the other day. I ran into that situation. This girl was posting recipes, and she's got a pretty decent, um, a decent following, and I was like, wow, that looks awesome. Where can I get that recipe? And she says, Unfortunately, I'm in the process of launching um my new site or my new brand. Um so it's not available yet. Yeah, and I thought, give me the recipe, but that's exactly what she wanted me to think. Exactly right. And and then I also saw, you know, another day it was like, hey, here's these hot new women's workout pants. I love the hot pink color, but there was no stay tuned. There was no avail uh I think she just said available soon. And she didn't even give a website name. So the T's was enough to keep people engaged. Is that kind of the thought process behind the display?
SPEAKER_00It is, and it's not just small companies that are doing this. Uh, you can see examples. If you look up Burger King, they're doing that with their new French fries, BMW's doing it with its new convertible. Um, big companies are doing this exact thing to you know hype and promote a product before it's available. And anybody could do that if you've got a product or service. What are the best apps to use to get words on a picture? Um, you know, there are apps right on your phone that are very easy to use. Um the ones I the the one I tend to use, and I'll just mention the apps that I use to support Instagram. Um I use uh Instacap, and it allows you to add captions to uh an image. Um Photoshop Express is an app that you can have on your phone to use. Um and then Instagram itself, you know, you can obviously include the description. You can't write on the image itself in Instagram, but you can you know include content in the description. Um and but then what a lot of companies are doing is they create the the content in you know Photoshop or whatever, they make it you know look awesome. Um and then the trick is you know, because all of your content has to flow through your phone to get onto Instagram, you basically push stuff to your website or blog, then you browse to it on your phone and you know take a screenshot of the image or you know, upload the image to your blog role or your phone blog, you know, image role, and then put push it out to Instagram. That's really the the novelty in terms of being a marketer using Instagram is you have to use your phone. You know, you you can't do this through the website currently. So Right.
SPEAKER_01And how would a brand that doesn't sell a B2C product necessarily adapt an Instagram strategy where they just basically do that by storytelling?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean I think that's one of the one of the effective strategies. Uh you know, I guess it depends on what your B2B business is like and really how many customers you're trying to attract. Um, you know, we have as a component of our business 1,300 seamstresses who use our patterns for their own business. So they sew and sell on Etsy or eBay or at craft fairs. We consider them our B2B channel, but you market to them, or we market our products to them just like we would B2C in many ways. Um so it kind of depends on how many customers you're trying to aggregate to yourself and those types of issues. Um I think overall, Instagram's probably a better play for B2C marketers than it is for B2B marketers. Um, you know, I I think for B2B marketers, you're probably better off using YouTube or you know, different strategies than you would be using Instagram. But you know, it depends on what your business model's like.
SPEAKER_01Right. In chapter four, you talk about an Instagram marketing plan and whether or not a brand should decide uh whether they should be using Instagram or not. And you call that the 510-20 test. Can you talk a little bit about that?
SPEAKER_00Sure. Yeah. So the idea is, you know, just to ask yourself a few basic questions about whether Instagram makes sense for you or not. And what I always say to people is um, you know, you you shouldn't be on any social media platform unless you can really crush it. And I'm not a fan of being on all the social media platforms just to say you're on them. So if you have crappy performance in YouTube or Facebook or Pinterest, I would not jump into Instagram. You know, I would get strong with one platform and go from strength to strength. Um, but anyway, that's sort of just my my philosophy about it. Um as it relates to the 51020 principle, basically what I you know ask is um think about what you're trying to do in terms of connecting to people and sell things. And if you're gonna have more than um five customers that you want to influence or connect to, then I would say Instagram could be you know potentially of interest. But you know, some businesses only have the federal government as their customer. Why in the world would they ever need to be on Instagram? Um so more than five customers, or if you're gonna launch more than 10 products in the near term, you know, maybe in the next year to two years, uh, you know, putting out 10 products, um, you would assume you'd want a pretty decent customer base. And if it's in one tight niche, then you know, Instagram could be very effective to that for that. And then the 20 is uh you know, ask yourself the question can your pricing power be swayed by 20%? Could you move from a middle of the pack pricing point to uh a premium provider if you had a bigger audience and more appeal? Um you know, our work is doll clothes, right? So, but when we do auctions, we sell our doll clothes for two, three hundred dollars an outfit. We can do that because we have you know 30,000 people that we can you know put our message out in front of and our auctions go crazy. Um and so you know, the bigger your audience and the network that you can control, the more pricing power you have if they're truly raving fans. Um so the 10 the 51020 principle kind of works like that.
SPEAKER_01So you're still very active on uh online auctions like eBay?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, we what our models like um kind of goes like this we design unique outfits for the for the dolls, we auction them almost like a stunt. It's really a PR deal, but you know, so we'll have an auction and it it's like a circus. You know, people come and start watching them, and then you know, they'll pop for over 300 bucks for for doll clothes, and it just gets people talking. And you know, our eBay auctions will have you know, maybe you know, two, three thousand people come and watch them, which is an astronomically big number for eBay auctions. Um But we don't it's not about the money really, it's more about the PR value of that and really giving people something to talk about. And then we immediately publish um parts of those outfits as buy it now items with a premium price point, um, and people can buy directly from our website. And then we publish the patterns. So if people are seamstresses or sewers, they can download the patterns um and make it themselves. So that's kind of how our business model works. And we do the auctions in the spring and the fall every year.
SPEAKER_01And you're obviously leveraging the power of social networks like Pinterest and Instagram to be able to create interest, or I mean that's that's where you're really where your community's at.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, it's kind of funny to say, but we really when we started in 2008, we first started doing social media work on YouTube. And what we started, we stumbled into was we started making videos for our new eBay auctions, and people started commenting and engaging with us on YouTube. And so now we have, I think it's you know, 11,600 subscribers and over 2.1 million video views. Um so we we were on YouTube as a social network, you know, connecting with people before we even got into Facebook or anything else. And then from there we, you know, we got into Facebook and got about 33,000 fans on our Facebook fan page, and then Pinterest, of course, came along, and I think we're over 9,000 subscribers on Pinterest. Um and of course, email marketing has grown up as well.
SPEAKER_01So, how did you guys start growing your social community? So did you just start marketing the way you always had uh to the people that were buying your product via your website in eBay as these platforms progressed?
SPEAKER_00Well, you know what we did was um we we got good at eBay auctions, and then we got good at name email collection, name collection on our website, and started growing our email list, and then YouTube was we were we were getting views on our YouTube videos, and we got pretty good at making YouTube videos. And what we really did that worked effectively in YouTube was we started doing contests, and they worked amazingly well for us, and they still do, we still do them. So the contests really allowed us to get good at YouTube. Um, and then I'm you know, as I mentioned before, I'm a huge believer in kind of going from strength to strength. So we used our growing email list and YouTube subscribership, you know, to help make Facebook a reality. And on Facebook, you know, you can buy, you can advertise and get fans. So I discount anybody's work in Facebook, and really when I look at it, I just ask the question well, how big is their marketing budget? You know, anybody can have hundreds of thousands of subscrip of fans in Facebook if they've got uh a marketing budget. Um Pinterest, you can't do that with, and neither can you do it on Instagram. So those are those are pure organic and viral and kind of you know tactical strategy um you know efforts to get those really to scale.
SPEAKER_01Sure. We're almost out of time, but real quick, I want to chat about um hashtags. Yeah, I want to and I want to close things out with um nonprofits and service providers. So um do's and don'ts of hashtags um in general. I mean, we see them completely overused. Are they used on Instagram to build a following? Are they used on Instagram to categorize um like-minded individuals in one place or do all of the above? Um, what's kind of the hashtag 101 in your opinion?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's all of the above. I've got some fantastic examples in the book of how people are using them effectively. You clearly can use hashtags to your apparel and really screw it up. Um, you know, the biggest example that's occurred in in the last couple years is um McDonald's doing a disastrous campaign where they launched a hashtag out um into the world and gave it, they gave it life and then it turned on them. Um and it was their McD stories thinking. Oh wow. Yeah. And you know, so basically they they use it as a part of their marketing campaign, and then people started using it because it had a huge audience to still say horrible things about McDonald's, you know. Um, but the way you use it effectively, there's a few strategies that I document in the book. Um, the way that guy who I mentioned, his sites called Dakota Mechanic Studios that first told me about Instagram. Here's what he does. He upcycles airplane parts and sells them as like clocks and art, like stuff like that. What he does is he works at an airport, so he publishes pictures of airplanes every day, and he uses the hashtags like AVGeek and aviation and um you know war birds and a whole set of hashtags that are important to the aviation type people, you know, Air Force people and pilots. And then when he puts his product out, he's got it built in. Audience that's just raving fans. It just he's he doesn't even put stuff on Etsy or eBay anymore because he gets a constant stream of emails asking if they you know people can buy stuff from him. So it's a tiny little business, but that's how he's leveraging hashtags in Instagram, and it works in a fantastic way. Um big companies do it as well. Ben and Jerry's did a very cool strategy where they use the capture euphoria hashtag. And here's what they did they went out to all their people and said, hey, take a picture of yourself describing how you love Ben and Jerry's, use the capture euphoria hashtag, and we will feature the winner of our contest in our print advertising campaign. So then they picked up a lady, I think she was from New Jersey or back east, and they used her in the regional print and outdoor display ad and her image and kind of made her a local celebrity. And so it was a cool use of hashtags for a contest. Lots of people are using them for contests, you know, as a way to participate in a contest. Um the biggest thing is that you need to understand whether you have real brand negatives and negative perceptions or you know, people who are haters. And it just realize that if you publish a hashtag, they can use that as a platform to really share negative sentiment, then you cannot control it. So that's the that's the dark side of it.
SPEAKER_01Didn't that happen to JP Morgan last week? I don't know, did it? I hadn't heard that one. Something something yeah, something went sour regarding the hashtag. So yeah, people are getting their teeth cut and their nose broken left and right, but I guess that's the way you learn.
SPEAKER_00The way I describe it is I say that hashtags are wild and free. And if you create one for your business, you just have to realize it is a free, free thing. And anybody, you know, you're basically creating a pipeline for communication and you can't control it. So you have to be very tactical about how you use them.
SPEAKER_01I think it's really tacky when people use hashtags for irrelevant subjects.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. There's a whole set of social norms around them as well. The original users of Instagram's uh Instagram would their convention was they would not use a hashtag in the description at all. It was like uh stupid or disrespectful. And they would add them in a comment, a secondary comment. So you'll still see people do that, and those are the old school hashtag users on Instagram.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So um to close things out here, because we're we're we're literally out of time, uh Instagram for nonprofits and service providers. Um what are three things they can be doing? I know you really dig into that in the book, but just a quick overview on uh because nonprofits always want to know how to really leverage uh and service providers want to leverage social media to their to the best of their ability.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, in the book, I'd um chronicle a regional uh big church here and uh how they use it with their youth group. And lots of nonprofits are using it. It depends on your context, but a lot of the direct marketing strategies, those 10 strategies we talk about in the book, all apply to nonprofits and cherry, you know, churches and charities. So um it just depends on your context and how you're trying to reach people. But clearly you can use them for display ad purposes, you can launch new, you know, educational events or you know, even new you know, content like books, um, just promoting events uh is very effective with Instagram, um, doing contests, doing in-event, you know, kind of social solidarity and you know, participation is very cool as well. So publishing your hashtag at your church service or your big nonprofit event. We did that when we hosted Russell Wilson at a university event we did last year. Um, and then people just participate, you know, they push pictures out. There's a great app that big event coordinators can use. Um, that's a regional company here that we really like. It's called TagBoard, and it allows you to consolidate all the hashtags from Twitter, even Facebook now, and Instagram, and it throws them up on a big Jumbotron style screen. So at your event, or and you can do this at a church service, even a big church. Um, just tell people what the hashtag is and they'll start adding content. And it kind of it makes it a very cool kind of event, you know. And is that a is that a smartphone app or is that a is that a uh tag board is a website that you can use, and then um then you broadcast it up on your jumboscron or jumbotron or L C D screen.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Very cool stuff. Very, very, very cool stuff. Yeah. And it's free. Yeah. Oh, that's uh this is all fantastic information. Um, but there is tons more information that we've been more than we've been chatting with uh for the past 25 minutes or so here. It's all included in Jason's brand new book called Instagram Power. Uh, we know what that sound means. That means we are absolutely out of time. Uh Jason, I really appreciate your time this morning. I'm really digging into this awesome book. I'm enjoying it. I'm about halfway through, can't wait to finish it up. Um, and I hope you can uh come back to the show uh soon when uh when the new book comes out in January.
SPEAKER_00Awesome. And let me just throw in one last note there. If you go to Instagrampower.com, I've got a free ebook that really dives into that visual product loan strategy that people can pick up, grab it off that website, um, even if they don't want to buy the full book, you know. Um, but that's a freebie. So that's at Instagrampower.com.
SPEAKER_01Well, I say do both. Grab yourself a copy, maybe two copies. It is the holiday season, the season of giving. Grab yourself a copy of Instagram Power sold everywhere. Books are sold, and then go to Instagrampower.com and get yourself uh the free ebook as well. Hey, thanks again, Jason. I really appreciate your time and come back soon, will you?
SPEAKER_00Sounds good. Thanks, man.
SPEAKER_01All right, buddy. Hey, I'm super master rough signing off from our studio here in downtown Miami for Social Buzz on Air. We'll talk to you next time.