Why Instagram is so powerful

Recently, I put together a couple of videos from a Q and A that I did with Danny from Optimize My bnb and it went down really well. You loved it, the comments and the messages that I got back. So I dug into my little archive and I managed to find another fantastic Q and A with Chris Taylor, who is an Instagram expert. These videos are going to be packed with information, so please do take note. They're short, sharp, to the point, but they will give you all the tools and the tactics that you need to make Instagram work for you and your hospitality business. So please do stick around. Before we get started, Uplisting are sponsoring this episode. Uplisting, Fantastic pms. They're guaranteed that you will never get a double booking. They are all about the direct bookings. They've recorded some really big numbers. They've got some fantastic people that I know quite well that rave about it. Shamil May down in Birmingham, we've got Ryan Luke, who's now using it up in, up in Newcastle. Luke Holmes. So again, please, please, please do go check them out. Boostly.co.uk forward/up listing U, P, L, I S, T I N G. And without further ado, let's get on with today's lesson when it comes to the social media rankings. Facebook, LinkedIn, etc, where does Instagram sit just so people can gauge the popularity of this platform?

So Instagram is currently the second largest in terms of monthly active users. So Facebook's top has 2.34 billion monthly active users, something like that. Instagram's got like 1.8 now, so it's reduced, it was 2 billion, it's just dropped down to 1.8 billion monthly active users. So it's second in the rankings. TikTok is actually the fastest downloaded app in the whole from 28, 2020 through to this year. I don't use it. I'm not a very good dancer, so, I mean, I can't really use that app. Doesn't really work for me. But yeah, Instagram is second on the list. It was. It's just the one. Right. So for me, I talk about this a lot, just briefly to cover it. So there's a big difference between social media and social networking. So. And actually the platforms that provide the perfect balance are the ones where we need to be focusing on. Now. What I mean by that is social media is where we produce content and it stores on the platform. So what we want is to have the best potential for what we call organic reach. So natural ability to reach people that are following us or not following us via hashtags, which I'm sure we'll go into more detail. And then the networking aspect is actually where we spend 80% of our time. So the networking is actually having conversations with people, indirect messaging, looking to understand if they have a problem that we can solve. If they have the problem, we can convert into a prospect and therefore turn into a customer. So again, depending on what business you're in, or irrelevant of what business you're in, the platforms that are going to be around forever, the platforms that are going to be sustainable are the ones that have the perfect balance between social media and social networking capabilities. Which is why I love LinkedIn and Instagram so much.

So very, very quickly, for those of you who don't know, Instagram is one of probably the only channels that I know of, tell me if I'm wrong, where you can send a direct message to somebody even if they are not following you. So for example, Twitter, I mean, try sending a message on Facebook, it just always ends up in the other feed. If you're not like part of their network, LinkedIn, you know, you can connect, but again, they really want to get you on that premium route, paid route. If you want to send messages to everybody. Instagram has got that amazing ability, just like Chris is saying, where you can send a message to somebody even if they're not following you. Now, I know we have got a training section on this in the vault and I would encourage you to go and check it out where it is about working with influencers, social media influencers. And this is a big part of finding somebody to work with with you. And your hospitality business is using Instagram direct messaging. So please do remember that it's a great tool for networking. It's a great tool for building your local network. Even if you think you may be following on Facebook, you'd be amazed at how many businesses do not check their Facebook direct messages. But everybody checks those Instagram direct messages.