Hidden Instagram Tactics with Chris Taylor

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You've got an Instagram account. I know that I do. And keep your hand up. If you've actually given it a bit of attention over the last 30 days, have you been posting every day on stories and in the posts? If not and you want to find out why that's important and I encourage you to stick around for this podcast episode. We're in season eight, episode 27 and today it's all about Instagram. I have invited on an Instagram expert. It's somebody that I've been hassling to come onto this podcast for ages. I've known Chris Taylor for a while now through Instagram, got to know him through there. And one of the very, very few plus points of these coronavirus crisis is that to get hold of experts now is easier than ever. And seeing that we're on lockdown, he can't go anywhere. I've managed to pinpoint him down to Tonight we're able to sit down and have a really good chat. If you want to go watch the video, head over to yout Instagram Wherever Ostler uk. But this is the audio version and there's so many tactics and advice that we give you. Plus as well make sure you go and follow Chris on Instagram. It's his handle is Chris Taylor ig and also from there you can sign up to his daily email list and all of the other cool things. But for now, what I would encourage you to do before you do head over, go to hostfully.com go and get your free digital guidebook for your guests so you can wow them before they arrive. If you want to upgrade, Go Premium. If you put in Boostly 2M in the promo code, you get two months free of their premium service. Which is, which is really cool. Also as well, this is brought to you by the Book Direct Membership. Chris talks about tonight about having 30 days worth of content. When you've got that with the Book Direct membership, 30 days of content you just copy, paste, personalize and post. Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook. You don't have to think about content at all. It's all there for you. All you got to do is personalize it to you, your business and your brand and you're good to go. So go check out booster.co.uk bdm. Please make sure that you listen to this podcast but most importantly implement the advice into your business. This is an interview with Chris Taylor, the Instagram expert.

For those of you that don't know me, me and my ex business partner Steve Fryer, we built up an Airbnb business since 2018. And we became really well known in that industry, in your industry, actually, very, very quickly using social media. We did a bit of service accommodation training. We had a product that we sold which was called the Complete Guide. The service accommodation now being sold by multiple different users all over the Internet. Be it for like 30 quid, obviously, which is all good fun. But we made a lot of money considerably selling that product. All through my Instagram following that I built up, I walked into a mentorship meeting with my mentor at the time. He basically said, if you're making money being able to generate that from your Instagram profile, there'll be other experts, other businesses that need to know that knowledge and need to be able to learn from you and how to do it. And I'll be totally honest, at the time, like, I didn't really know what I was doing when I first started the company. I was just documenting my journey, telling people my story, giving away everything that I learned, the good, the bad, the ugly. And I built a following from it. But then when I started to really research the platform and what made it great, I started to see some opportunities to help others do the same. And the Airbnb industry was one that we used our tactics quite specifically. And I'll go into a few different things that we do, but location is the biggest thing that we used on Instagram in the Airbnb world, and it helped us get direct bookings quite well.

If you could just explain very quickly in simple terms, what's Instagram, What's Instagram stories? What's this Instagram TV that we've heard about? What is a hashtag? If you just sort of walk us through some of the bare basics, please. When it comes to Instagram, buddy.

Instagram primarily was built as a photo sharing platform for photographers, right? It's been going for a number of years now. Recently acquired by Facebook, it is a photo and video sharing platform. And it's basically the easiest for me, it's the easiest way to connect with an audience purely because of the amounts and different types of content that you can produce. So what I like to call it is with Instagram, you've got the best combination between Facebook, now TikTok is in The arena, and YouTube. So you've got photo and written content, you've got long form video content, and you've also got short form entertainment content is primarily used in the best by the best people to document their lifestyle, document their journey, and show people that they're actually doing what they're talking about because each Instagram account, especially the top ones, has normally one specific thing that they're looking to help people with, especially from a business perspective. So not just posting random stuff, but having a strategy behind it that helps. Instagram TV is long form content, so it's any video that lasts longer than a minute. Best way to explain hashtags are they're like a back of a nonfiction book, like an index in the back of a nonfiction book. So if you're looking for specific topics or specific types of information, if you've got a nonfiction book or an encyclopedia, you flick to the back of it, look what page it's on, and go to that page and there's your content, which is about that one specific subject. Now, hashtags work in the same way. They are simply a way for the platform to organize content.

How have you personally used a hashtag strategy to sort of build your brand on that platform?

We do hashtags in a very different way. We basically because we're putting out content which answers people's problems. I don't know if you've tried this before, but if you use the hashtag property or hashtag entrepreneur as an example, probably the most common ones in our industry, to gain traction before it disappears and slides down that hashtag and then gets lost again, you may as well have not attached it in the first place. Because what you'll notice if you go to the recent section when you search in your hashtags, so go into Instagram, type in hashtag Entrepreneur, go into the most recent section, click on a post to the most recent post, then come off it, refresh the page. Five seconds later, you'll no longer be able to see that post. It'll be gone. So what you need to be doing is really coming down the volume of posts per hashtag. So rather than hitting anything above a million, if you've got under 10,000 followers and a lower engaged following, you want to be trying and spending as much time in those hashtags as you possibly can.

Do you have a set 30 hashtags that you store on your phone, on your notes. So when you put a post up, you just go, right, grab it, copy, paste. Or are you for each post, looking at different variations, talking about different things?

So we have a bit of software that we use. It's called flick tech. So F, L, I C K dot tech. If you Google it, it will come up. And what it enables you to do is put in a keyword. And I think you can get a free version which Pretty good. I pay for it because we use it for our agency, but it enables you to put a keyword in and set the volume ranges. So you go in there, you have your keyword and you go, I only want to see hashtags, the top performing hashtags which have got less than 100,000 posts against that keyword, that will then pick 15. So I then just go and select 15 of them, copy them into a notes section and then do the same for 500,000 and then a million plus.

When it comes to the hashtags, does it make a difference if you put it in the post or if you put it in the first comment? What's the reasoning behind it? Why do others say other things? What's your advice on it and what's your opinion on it?

More importantly, it doesn't make a difference. No, there is one thing that could cause a difference and I'll explain to you what that is. But the reason people do it is because majority of people will share their Instagram content directly onto Facebook. Is the biggest tell ever. When you can tell that someone's got one bit of content and then just copied and pasting it everywhere, when they've got a big block of hashtags at the bottom of it. So people decided to put them in the comments, just hide them so they don't go across when you're sharing content. That was the main reason when it.

Comes to the actual research that you do, and I say you look at every keyword that you use more or less and you try it all out. Have you got more technology that's doing that or have you just got a list like an Excel sheet on your computer, hashtags that you've tried and tested over the years, or are you relying on a bit of a software, a bit of a kit to help you with that?

I don't change them too much because as long as you have more than five different sets, you avoid the shadow band altogether. So as long as you've got five keywords to use, if you don't get the hashtag reach that you're looking for. So if it's not getting, if you're not getting over like 100 hits on your hashtag. So if you look in your insights, you only have insights if you were a business account. So if you're not currently a business account or you don't know how that works, most likely you're a private account right now, so you're a person. So to switch all you need to do is click your Profile photo icon in your bottom right hand corner. Then go to the three lines, the hamburger menu in the top right and then click into Settings. Then go into Account and then from there you'll see switch to business or switch to Creator. Ignore the creator. It's for influencers mainly to be able to sell products. It's not doesn't really have that much of a change. But the minimum you want to be is a business account because it gives you access to data called Instagram Insights.

Again, for everybody that's wondering and hasn't done this already with Instagram, by following that exact step that Chris just explained there, switching to a business account, not only do you get the benefits of the Instagram analytics, but you can hook it up to your Facebook business page. And for those of you that are doing Facebook advertising, you can then run those same ads that are going out on Facebook, but you can do it into Instagram. Out of all the people that have come through your programs and your training programs and whatnot, what would you say is the one biggest mistake that you see people make when they first get going on Instagram? What could you share with everybody watching.

Is the fact that they give it a go for like two weeks and then they give up. And that's when they normally are just about to hit goal with it. I would normally say I run a 30 day challenge for a reason. Like 30 days is normally the time that it takes to be able to get some momentum on your account. I have to say consistency is everything and for me it really is, especially on any social media platform. So the biggest mistake that I see a lot of people make is the fact that they'll give it a go. Like they'll say, yeah, I'll try it and I'll put a few bits of content out. I'll do this weird thing that you call a story, I'll press the live button and shit myself and then come off again. And then I'll just go, you know what, I've got better uses to my time. I'm too busy. I'm just going to go back to what I know best and I'm just going to keep having around the phones or so on and so forth. So the biggest thing is consistency. The other thing is what I call posting selfishly. So there's no strategy behind the content that's put out. So we have a thing in our business, in our agency, where every 30 days there's a product or service launch for us or one of the clients that we're working with, whether that is a, an offer on a property in your world or a new property going live or whatever it is. We have something which we're building up to and every bit of content we then put out is strategically focused about seeding that launch without actually selling anything. So we don't sell. It's all about providing value over that time frame. Then when it comes to the launch, people like begging to come and stay with you or begging to go and work with you.

Now you document your business better than most and like you say you've been doing it for a while now. There's a lot of people who are watching this, listening to this, that still are a bit worried of opening that camera, flipping it on themselves and having a chat. Like what? Were you always confident in front of camera? Or have you been nervous and it's something you've had to self train yourself? And if so, do you remember back to that feeling of your first video when you spoke into the camera? Like how did you combat that? How did you get better at it? Or have you always just been confident in front of camera?

For me right now I'm not looking at me, I'm looking literally directly at you. Because if I look at myself I'm just like, I'm not the most self critical person ever, like with chubby cheeks and sitting in lockdown pile of wait. You know what I mean? I can't stand it. I'm not the most self conscious person going the way that I got over it was the fact that I was receiving quite nice messages basically from people telling me how much I was helping them. And once when I first started, if you go back to my profile, there's photos on there basically I didn't do any video like it was just all photos and written caption. I'm a writer at heart really. I love to write. It's where I spend the majority of my time. If you look at any of my products, a lot of them are long form ebooks which are in step by step because that's how my brain works. So when it came to video, like I'm a proper awkward unless it's a conversation where I can just obviously have a chat with someone, which is how I first overcame my fear. It was basically just going on with somebody like yourself, just talking to them and having a conversation. And actually Gary Vaynerchuk was the reason I actually started doing this because I saw him, he was doing a one to one consultation with somebody and he just recorded the whole process. And I was thinking, you know what When I'm one to one with someone, like, the things I come out with are actually quite useful. And if I can just capture it somehow, because if you put me in front of a camera and get me to hold the camera up like that and then try to talk in it, look like a stone, like a complete brick wall. And I'm a complete robot, so I find it really difficult. Whereas if I can actually get it to a point where I'm almost answering a question. So if you look at any of my content, normally it's. Someone asked me a question the other day and they asked me how I can get a thousand followers in 30 days, and then I can actually flow with the content because I'm just responding and talking. What I think a lot of people struggle with, and I did at the start, was this image that you have to set your tripod up, your big ring light, and then you have to stare directly into the camera, don't blink at all, and just try and deliver content. But actually, they're the sort of people you find awkward to watch. And all you really want is someone to sit back, relax, and if they've got useful information, then great. But I used to just pretend that no one was watching. And that way, if I mucked up, I didn't really care. I was just like, I'm actually talking to no one. Because actually I'm sitting here in a room talking to no one. It just happens to be recorded and put out to more and more people.

So if there is a business right now, hospitality business is a hospitality podcast, obviously, that's looking to get started on Instagram, or they may have just started and they want to improve, what would be that one big tip? So that most common tip that you give to everybody when they go into your messages and go, chris, need a bit of help.

For me, the biggest thing that you can do right now is focus on connecting with people. We've got such a huge opportunity right now where online networking is actually becoming normal. Before this whole pandemic, before, like, people were spending an hour's commute going to a networking event, meeting loads of people, and I did it. I love networking events. I miss them death right now. Like, I miss. I actually don't know what someone's bottom half looks like anymore. I'm so used to just seeing T shirts and heads. It's like no one's got any legs anymore. But I miss networking massively. But I think we've got such a big opportunity, and if you're a business right now, looking to use Instagram or any other social media platform. What I would look to do is just focus on networking and connecting with your ideal audience. My biggest tip right now, and then also moving out of this pandemic into something else, is spend time leaving meaningful comments on your ideal client's work. And then the other thing is to then slide into the DMs and say hello to people, everybody.

I think with social media and influencers are as guilty as this as anybody, but they get associated and they get obsessed with the numbers game. You know, I want to have 100,000 subscribers, I want to have 100,000 followers, et cetera. They want to get the biggest and the biggest numbers because they feel that with the bigger numbers then the more potential money they can make, or, you know, they just associate the follow up with an amount. Now, as we all know, it's quality over quantity. But then there are people here who look at Instagram and look at sort of social media and they look at the big numbers and then they get presented with opportunities where they can buy followers. The reason why you see these platforms around is that influencers, social media influencers, they, they just, they knew and they got taught by the people that were doing this. Like the fellow you explained that the more followers you get, the more brands and businesses will be looking to work with you. But the problem is, is that brands and businesses have got smart over the years and they have learned that it's not just all about the banetry metric, not all about the numbers, it's about the engagement and the actual real followers that people have, but 100% still see it. Now, to finish with, before we go on to the quick fire questions, I would love to know of all the businesses that you've been in and are in now, and all the networking events that you've gone to, and obviously all the conferences and all the people that you've met. What is the one bit of advice that you see being given by your peers in the industry that you just do not agree with?

There's one thing, literally I've changed my mind on this just recently actually, and I put it in my daily email that went out this morning and it was that volume is everything. Everyone talks about posting as much content as you possibly can, right? Like make as much noise as possible. Content, content, content, content, content, content. And the more that you post, the more reach that you get, the more visibility you get, the more followers you get, the better results you get. And actually what I found is because I've increased content levels across A lot of my accounts that I manage at the moment and there is actually such thing as content fatigue and content overwhelm and you posting volume is great. However, at some point you're going to start pissing people off and as much value as you can give, people can get fed up. And what I'm now starting to see is actually, and I'm talking high volumes here, I'm talking like a Gary Vee telling you to put 100 bits of content out a day with 60 of it or 50 of it being Instagram stories and then 50 of it being whatever on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, wherever and Omni platform. I agree. Be everywhere. Like you've got scheduling software to be able to do it. Just leverage the systems and the automation that I know you talk about all the time. Use it, leverage it and be everywhere. But actually be considerate and start thinking about the content you're putting out. Because I see so many people now just say, don't think about the content, just put it out there. Just create something. Take a photo, put it out. Take a photo, put it out. And there's no strategy behind it. There's no thought pattern of when I put this out and spending my time creating it. What is my outcome? What am I looking to achieve? Actually think about what you're trying to achieve with your content and what message you're trying to deliver and who you're looking to help. And actually you can then produce volume. But be considerate with the fact that there's a lot of people using social now. And if you get it right, at the right timings, with the right processes, with the right automation systems in the background, one to three pieces of content a day is more than enough.

Figuring out what works best and how to do that. And again, test Instagram by all means, because so many people use it. Okay, so you are obviously a busy guy traveling all over. You've obviously got movies and series that have been on your to watch list, whether it's on Netflix or Sky or whatever. What has been something you've had a chance to catch up on on Netflix or Sky or whatever. And what can you recommend to people, whether it's a movie or a TV series.

I actually watch a lot of these series actually. If you've not seen the McQueen documentary, I've only just watched that recently, but he's a clothing designer and he committed suicide just recently actually, God bless him. And that series is actually recommended. I was watching a Rob Moore video and he recommended it and I watched it and it Breathtaking. That was awesome. And I've never watched Breaking Bad before, so I've just started watching that. And that's meant to be really good. And everyone says you get first through. Get through the first three episodes and you're hooked for life. And, yeah, we'll see how that goes. I'm on episode two at the moment.

Yeah, I lasted till episode two and I was just like, nah, I can't do it. I do like it. I never got through it. But I was started that just at the time when I made a pact when I was growing Bruce Lee Back in 2017, I would cut TV series on the head. I would not watch any, which was hard because at the time I used to watch all of the series. Both Laura and I would watch Two Broke Girls, Billions, you name it, House of Cards, New Girl, we watched everything and it was. It was hard to do. But one of the best things that I made, because I used to wait. I used to waste so many hours watching, watching those TV series. But nice, nice little recommendations there. I do like that.

All right, so the best series ever, I can't get. I watched that on repeat over and over again.

Which one was that?

Suits.

Suits? Yeah, no Suits. There are a few of them that I totally missed. But like I say now, I've just been so ingrained to what? Not watching tv, not watching series, it's hard to get back in. Although since being on lockdown, Bargain Hunt has sort of sneak. Has snuck into the tv. It's one of those ones this always seems to be on. What is the one thing that you've missed most since being on lockdown? That one thing that you used to do but not being able to do.

It's going to sound really sad, but, like hanging out with my office mates. I've got two people I work really closely with and like the Office Bandits. Yeah. The gym I miss in the cinema. They're three things already.

Don't worry. There's been a lot of people who said that being in an office environment, being around, you know, office work colleagues, that's been a big one. But, yeah, I totally agree on the cinema. I love nothing more than going to a cinema and just switching off from the world. Phone off. And just one place that don't use that phone.

One place?

Yeah. 100%. 100%. All right. Your favorite purchase in the past year, under a hundred pounds. What's been that one thing that you've bought under 100 pound in the last sort of year that you're a massive fan On.

Oh, mate. Well, a lot of my money goes on travelling, so I would have to say, I won't lie. I've got a latest Microsoft keyboard and mouse switch. It's so much better than this laptop that I type on. That's been the dream when I'll be writing my book recently. So, yeah, I haven't spent much money in the past six months with everything that's been going on. So yeah, that would be my purchase.

And we heard it here first. There's a book on the way which is nice. How's that going on?

It's a guide to 10k followers. It's a breakout.

Nice. Another guide. Lovely. You are a writer, that. That's good to know. Okay, so obviously you're on the road a lot when we're not on lockdown. Do you have a favorite podcast or do you have a YouTube channel that you could recommend to anybody that is tuning in?

Apart from this one.

Apart from this one. You're too kind.

I watch a lot of fitness. There's a guy called Christian Guzman who's a fitness influencer and he is also one hell of an entrepreneur. So he's got gym, energy drink company, clothing company, coaching company and he generates more money just through social media traffic than I've ever seen. So I watch that. That's my lifestyle show that I watch. So Christian Guzman, his fitness journey.

Would he be one of your ideal clients to work with if you could work with anybody?

He knows way much more than what I do, mate. Flipping out. The guy's got over a million followers. He's got the most rampant fans ever. I'd love, you know, there's some people where you just love to spend time just looking at their direct messages. I'd love to see some of the direct messages that he gets sent on a day to day basis. It'd be hilarious.

That'd be a good one. And finally, obviously, you know, you've had the accommodation business in the past and whatnot. You obviously know what direct bookings is all about. So what would be your one big advice to pass on to anybody listening if they wanted to help increase their direct bookings?

Yeah, for me it is all about connecting and using the messaging functions on social media more effectively. So not just putting content out there and expecting results, but proactively prospecting. So the only way that we got direct bookings was by going out and asking for them. So we were actually going out. I mean, it's simple stuff, right? Like it's just using the direct message, using that microphone. In the voice note to really actually gain the attention rather than sending a copy and paste message to everyone. The voice note made the biggest difference when we were getting responses back from people and that really helped.

I think the main takeaway there is just ask the amount of people who are scared to do so. Just ask. And you know, Dan Meredith, guy who I followed for years, says that all the time shy kids don't get sweets. So again, take that, put it into practice and all that we ask. You know, Chris has given up an hour of his time, which much, much appreciated for, and we're doing these free, free daily videos over the course of the last six weeks. All we want to do, all I want to see, all that Chris wants to see is that you listen to this or you watch this. Take on advice, learn just one thing, even if it's just one takeaway. But most importantly, put it into practice tomorrow. So whatever you can do to put it into practice, put it into practice because then that will mean that you're learning. But almost importantly, taking your business forward and moving the needle. Chris, any final words that you'd like to say before you leave us this evening?

No, not specifically. I think the biggest thing for me is obviously consistency. So don't give it a go for a couple of days, give it 30 days. Just commit to posting something on there for 30 days. And if you're interested in personal branding and about how we've got some really cool people coming on, we're just about to launch our brand new podcast. So it's coming live on the 1st of May, I believe we're launching. We've got some cool people on, from fitness influencers to heavy entrepreneurs. So if you're interested in personal branding and hearing some cool stories and come check out the brand new podcast. I will be shouting about it so loudly over the next two weeks, so if you're following me, there's no doubt you will not hear about it.

Good, good, good. And yeah, go and check out Instagram. It's Chris Taylor. Ig. Go and follow. Go. Save it. Go send him a message. Save it. You discovered it through the Boostly podcast and yeah, a massive, massive, massive, massive thank you for Chris for doing that. And again, all of these show notes, because we have thrown a lot at you in this episode. All of the show notes will be on the Boostly website. Go to boostly.co.uk podcast. Just look for Chris's face. We're in season eight and you can go and click on and get it all in there. Go to Chris's Instagram, go to the podcast when it's live and so much more. But finally, all I ask before I leave you today for another episode is to share this video, share this podcast, share this live stream that you are watching right now with just one person. So comment below and tag somebody. Click that share button which is in the bottom left hand corner. Go and share in a Facebook group, Go and share it on your personal wall. But tell people about this. Doesn't matter whether it's hospitality or not, because all of these tactics and tips massively can help any business. So if you just go and do that for me, that would be great. And finally, if you are listening to the audio version and you have an Apple phone, go rate, review and subscribe. We have just passed the 20,000 download mark, which is phenomenal and in the top 25 in the UK for podcasts, which is unbelievable, to be perfectly honest. And it's all thanks to you that is sharing it and telling everybody about it. So appreciate that. And we will be back again with the next episode where we're talking about pricing. Pricing post Corona. We've got Price Labs coming on and we're going to share some really cool stats, surveys and data that Price Labs have pulled for this episode. So that's going to be the next episode that you can find by tuning in@boostly.co.uk, forward/daily boost to get a little bit of a nudge before we go live on Facebook. All right, everybody, thank you very much. Have a good evening and we'll speak to you all very soon.