Book Marketing For Authors Blog 84- Instagram

Instagram

 

Hey, my self-publishing indie authors, wouldn’t you agree that people love pictures? And guess what? Instagram is all about photos! They are also well-aware that people these days want to monetize on their social media channels. So they are doing everything they can to help their customers use fantastic pictures and make some money.

I imagine we authorpreneurs have heard of Instagram and are well-aware of the power of pictures. So, now you’re probably wondering how to tap into the power of Instagram, right?

Well, sit back and let me share a few things with you.

Did you know that Instagram has one of the highest engagement rates of any social media channel? This is awesome for us authorpreneurs. We all should have some kind of presence on Instagram.

We also all should be taking advantage of the real-time engagement that Instagram offers. In real-time, we could take a picture of ourselves going to a book signing, at a book signing, and then finishing up a book signing and be posting them throughout the day. We can take people on our journey as if they were there in real-time with Instagram.

Furthermore, we can take pictures of anything and everything we want to, and further engage in real-time communication of our lives, products, and services. People want to know we’re real, not just a picture. Instagram makes that dynamic come alive for all of us.

We want to grow our followers on this platform. It’s so dynamic and hip that we’d be foolish not to. In previous writing, I mentioned taking our followers from one platform to another. If you’re new to Instagram and have already spent some time building up another platform, then just go leverage what you’ve already done on a previous social media platform.

It’s easy. On the other platform where you already have a following, just post a picture with a link to follow you on your Instagram account.

Use hashtags and emoji on your Instagram account. People love this sort of stuff. Plus, it makes it easier for people to find you, too. It’s fun and effective. So go ahead and give it a shot. You won’t be sorry.

It also helps to have a theme on your Instagram account where people can easily identify you as you come across their computer screen. Random pictures slow people down because they have to take the time to figure out what is going on. All of our brains prefer the simple route of patterns to follow. Themes offer our minds an easier road to follow. So, definitely build themes into your Instagram accounts.

Be interactive with your audience. If you are, you’re going to have a leg up on your competition. Not all of Instagram users are interactively engaging back and forth with their audience through comments. Many just leave the pictures to do their talking. Engage with your market, and you’ll become more successful on Instagram.

Also, check out what the influencers of Instagram are doing. The strategies of engagement are always changing on every social media channel. So, of course, there are going to be better ways to use Instagram as time goes on. So, watch the influencers. Figure out what they are doing. Get into their pipeline and reverse-engineer what they are doing until you have a good grasp of their strategies. Then apply some of those same strategies to your Instagram in ways that make sense for what you’re trying to do.

Another great strategy to use is picture-quotes. People love pictures. And people love quotes. Instagram is the perfect platform to combine the two and come up with picture-quotes. Trust me. There are pictures and quotes everywhere. You’re not going to have any trouble finding them.

You could even go back into your books and pull out quotes that you have used or even said yourself. Find a picture of yourself, or maybe something else, if it’s appropriate. Then make some of your own picture quotes.

Don’t worry. There are places that will help you take a picture and a quote and combine the two in a picture quote for free. I use Canva. It’s easy. It’s free. We authorpreneurs love it when we get a great marketing tool for free, don’t we?

Instagram, like all the other platforms out there, is more effective in our marketing and branding strategies when we have a call to action and engage with people, as mentioned earlier. Many of the strategies that work well on other platforms are also going to work on Instagram too.

But, we’re going to have to invest some time and effort in getting a foothold in this powerful ally. And eventually, Instagram will help us with our marketing and social media strategies to sell more books and services and make more money.

Watch the free video lesson on this chapter!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buUNsmpjSAs&list=PL_-39bUXJitwL8cHUpiZ5mO0-JJuaPOVl&index=85