Top Instagram Marketing Hacks
Tai Lopez Oct 20, 2017
Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with Dan Fleyshman, the youngest founder of a publicly traded company, angel investor and author of How to Set Up Your Business for Under $1,000.

Dan has amassed over 30 million followers on Instagram and Twitter, and between him and his business partner, they’ve made millions and millions of dollars. And it’s not just one product, but several products - everything from supplements to tea and much more. Dan and his business partners are behind the scenes of huge launches - including blockbuster movies, new releases, and other hot trends.

Want to know how you can do that too? Who doesn’t! The good news is that even if you’re in a small business niche, like helping restaurants or tanning salons on Instagram, these industries need your help, desperately. Here’s how to help your local businesses while making yourself a nice recurring monthly income:

Visit 20 Locations in a Day

Go to your local strip mall or an area in your town -- this takes 4 to 5 hours at most. The goal is to get 4 to 5 managers to respond to you and close 1 or 2 accounts. That’s 100 locations in a week, 4,800 locations in a year. Even if you have just a 10-20% closing ratio, it adds up quickly. Most of the time they don’t have someone to handle their social media and that’s where you come in.

With Dan’s company, they managed to close 1100 accounts at $5,000 a month each just by going to local mixers, conventions and trade shows. Maybe local tanning salons and restaurants in your area can’t commit to a $5,000 per month, so if that’s the case, you’ll want to try and get them to commit to $1,000 - $3,000 per month.
 

Managing Instagram - Daily Service

The biggest fear of small business owners is not knowing how to do their social media. They know how to take photos and post a flyer of the sale or the menu, but that’s it. If you can provide one post a day for good content for your client, you’ve already changed their life and made their social media more active. If it’s a local chain, you’ll manage their core account rather than sending out the same piece of content to all their branches.

When’s the Best Time to Post to Instagram?

9 am - 5 pm. Most people are awake and checking their phone at this time. If you’re the social media manager of a nightclub or a bar, you might want to make your posts a bit later, or make adjustments if the business is in a different time zone, but generally, this is a good rule of thumb time to be posting on Instagram.

Getting the Content

Remember how Dan mentioned one good post a day? Where do you get the content? Of course, you could write it yourself, but there are only so many hours in a day, and I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to chain myself to a desk and try to write out one piece of content per day for 1,000+ social media accounts. It’s just too much.

The good thing is that photos also count as content, and you can use the camera on your iPhone or Android phone. Take great photos of the outside and inside of the venue as well as any cool features. For example, maybe the place has an arcade or a jukebox or whatever - make it look cool. Make the staff a part of it too. You can do this in a couple of days.

Search Hashtags

Searching the hashtags of the industry, any local events and even competitors can help boost visibility. You want to cherry-pick the ones with the highest engagement. Unless it’s a professionally-produced video or a video with music, you can use that hashtag. Many brands repurpose content - you can too.

Obviously, you want to avoid things like politics, sexual content, and drama. You don’t want to gamble with your clients’ social media. You can do funny, but make it “funny safe” -- nothing sexual-funny, racist-funny or anything like that.

Grow Your Clients on Instagram

Don’t use bots or spam on Instagram. Fake followers is a terrible idea, since you’re creating a false representation to the client, and they’re going to expect that you bring them thousands of new “followers’ a day. Anyone can click and see that the profiles are fake. So don’t do it. You can’t guarantee numbers of followers.
 

Tens of thousands of local people don’t want to follow the bar or restaurant or spa -- but what you can guarantee them is good solid content. In turn, local people will tag their friends - and those are potential customers.

Get the staff involved too. Encourage them to post at least once a week. They may have a small number of followers on their own, but those add up.  Look at competitors too, and see who’s within a few miles of that business -- and then like and comment on the people that are following THEIR pages. Nothing racy - but just commenting that their photo is cool or neat. Once they follow your client, ask them to tag three friends the next time you post a caption.

Imagine seeing a photo of a cute kitten posted by the local vet’s office. Maybe that kitten has fallen asleep in its food dish. If you post this, and then “tag a friend who can relate” - people will often, in turn, tag their friends - because who hasn’t had a day like that?

How to Differentiate Your Services from the Competition

The fact is, most of your competition isn’t going to do the legwork or go the extra mile to take photos -- your own content of the place and the people - simply spending the time sets you apart. Plus, once they have a couple thousand followers, having a contest is a great idea to set you apart from the competition as well. As you continue to build up a following for them, you can have people tag three friends to enter the contest -- a $50 or $100 gift card actually ends up costing the restaurant only $20 or $30, so it’s no risk for the company.

The great thing about setting up a social media agency like this is that you can literally run your business from anywhere. Whether you live in Wichita, Kansas or London, England, or you’re traveling, it only takes a moment to pull out your phone, check out the photos you’ve taken or the hashtags with the most engagement, screenshot and share that picture and write a caption.

And if you want even more tips on forming a social media marketing agency and dominating Instagram, be sure to check out the entire Social Media Marketing Agency Program for step-by-step tips and guidance just like what Dan has provided here today.
Tai Lopez

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