with Chris Taylor
Welcome to Boostly Podcast Season 8 Episode 27. This is a recap of my interview with Chris Taylor and we talked about hidden Instagram tactics.
Here's the audio for this episode:
Here's the video for this episode:
Timestamp
02:10 About Chris Taylor
03:40 About Instagram
05:30 How to use hashtags in Instagram
06:40 Great Hashtag sets to use in Instagram
07:30 Where to put hashtags in Instagram
08:10 How to identify best hashtags to use on Instagram
09:50 Biggest mistake that people do on Instagram
12:00 Chris' experience on sharing his first video
14:50 Chris' big Instagram tip
17:30 One Instagram tip that Chris does not agree with
19:50 Quickfire questions
Whilst you’re here
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Audio – Boostly Podcast
Transcript from the Episode
Chris Taylor and his business partner built up an Airbnb business over since 2018. They became really well known in that industry very quickly using social media. They did a bit of service accommodation training, they have products that they sold, which was called The Complete Guide, this is now being sold by multiple different users all over the internet.
They made a lot of money considerably selling that product all through Chris' Instagram following that he built up. He walked into a mentorship with his 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 or businesses that need to know that knowledge and need to be able to learn from you and how to do it.
When Chris first started the company, he was just documenting his journey telling people his story, giving away everything that he learned, the good, the bad, the ugly, and he built up a following from it. But then when he started to really research the platform and what made it great, he started to see some opportunities to help others do the same. And the Airbnb industry was one that they use our tactics quite specifically.
Location is the biggest thing that they use on Instagram in the Airbnb world. And it helped them get direct bookings quite well.
About Instagram
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's it is a photo and video sharing platform. And it's basically the easiest way to connect with an audience to purely because of the amounts and different types of content that you can produce.
With Instagram, you've got the best combination of Facebook. Now tiktok is in the arena and YouTube. So you've got a 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 fit 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 helps.
Instagram TV is long-form content. So it's any video the last one within a minute best way to explain hashtags are like a back of nonfiction books 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 image 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 to use hashtags in Instagram
Chris does hashtags in a very different way. They're putting out content, which is just people's problems. If you use the hashtag property, or hashtag, entrepreneur, or 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 in the first place.
Because what you will notice if you go into 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 in a lower engaged forum, you want to be trying and spending as much time in those hashtags as you possibly can.
Great Hashtag sets to use in Instagram
Chris uses a software called flick.tech. What it enables you to do is put in a keyword. It requires you to put a keyword in and set the volume ranges. So you go in there you have your keyword, and you want to see hashtags, the top performing hashtags, which have got less than 100,000 posts against that keyword. That will then pick 15.
Chris just selects 15 of them copy down into the notes section, and then do the same for 500,000 in a million plus.
Where to put hashtags in Instagram
Chris says it doesn't make a difference where you put the hashtag. The reason people do it is that majority of people will share their Instagram content directly on Facebook. You can tell that someone's got one bit of content, and then just copied and pasted everywhere when they've got a big block of hashtags in the body. So people say to put them in the comments, just highlight them so they don't go across when you're sharing content.
How to identify the best hashtags to use on Instagram
Chris doesn't change hashtags too much. Because as long as you have more than five different sets, you've avoided the shadow banding together. As long as you've got five keywords to use, if you don't get the hashtag reason you're looking for so there's not getting if you're getting over 100 hits on your hashtag, look in your insights, you only have insights if you were a business account. And so if you're not currently a business account, you don't know how that works, most likely you're a private account.
So you're a person so just switch. All you need to do is click your profile photo icon in the bottom right-hand corner thing go to the three lines the 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 is for influence is mainly about to sell products. It's not doesn't really happen to change. But the minimum you want to be as a business account because it gives you access to data called Instagram insights.
The biggest mistake that people are making on Instagram
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 gold with it. Chris got a 30-day challenge for a reason. 30 days is normally the time it takes to be able to get some momentum on your account. Consistency is everything, especially on any social media platform.
The other thing is posting selfishly. They have no strategy behind the content they put out. Chris shared their thing in their agency, where every Thursday there's a product or service launch for them or one of the clients to work with, whether that is an offer on a property in your world, or a new property going live or whatever it is, they have something where they're building up to every bit of content they then put out is strategically focused about seeding that without actually selling. It's all about providing value over that time frame. Then when it comes towards people like begging to come and stay with you or begging to go and work with you.
Chris' experience on sharing his first video
Chris says he doesn't look at himself during his videos. Because if he does, he's the most self-critical person ever. The way that he got over it was the fact that he was receiving quite nice messages basically, from people telling me how much he was helping them. Chris' profile has photos on there. Basically, he didn't do any video, it was just all photos and bringing the caption.
Chris is a writer at heart, he loves to write and it's where he spends the majority of his time. A lot of his products are ebooks, which are in a step by step because that's how his brain works. So when it came to video,he's awkward, unless it's a conversation where he can just obviously have a chat with someone, which is how he first overcame his fear, it was basically just going on with somebody like yourself, just talking to them and having a conversation.
Gary Vaynerchuk was the reason Chris actually started doing this. Because he saw him he was doing a one to one consultation with somebody. And he just recorded them the whole process. Chris was thinking, you know what, when I'm wanting to learn with someone, I, the things I come out with are actually quite useful.
Chris says if you put him in front of a camera, he gets to hold the camera up like that, and then try to talk. He looks like a stone like a complete brick wall. He's a complete robot. Whereas if he can actually get it to a point where he is almost answering a question.
Someone asked him a question the other day, and they asked him how he can get 1000 followers in 30 days. He can actually flow with the content because he's just responding and talking. A lot of people struggle with is this image Do you have to set your tripod, the big green light, and then you have to stand directly into the camera don't blink at all, like just try and deliver content. And 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 and great but Chris used to just pretend that no one was watching.
That way if he mocked up it didn't really care, he's actually talking to no one because actually it just happens to be recorded and put out to more and more people.
Chris' big Instagram tip
The biggest thing that you can do right now is focusing on connecting with people, we've got such a huge opportunity right now where one life network is actually becoming.
If you're a business right now looking to use Instagram or any other social media platform, just focus on networking and connecting with your ideal audience. Spend time leaving meaningful comments on your ideal clients work. And then the other thing is to slide into the DMs and say hello to everybody.
One Instagram tip that Chris does not agree with
Volume is everything. Everyone talks about posting as much content as you possibly can. 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. There is actually such thing as content fatigue, and content, overwhelm. And you posting volume is great, however, at some point, and you're going to start pissing people off, and as much value as you can give, people can get fed up.
Chris is talking high volumes here, like 100 bits of content out a day, 60 of it or 50 of it being Instagram stories, and then 50 other things, whatever, on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, wherever. Be everywhere, like you've got scheduling software to be able to do it. Just leverage the systems and the automation and use it and 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, 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.
Quickfire questions
What has been on your to-watch list?
McQueen documentary Breaking Bad.
What is the one thing that you've missed most since being on lockdown?
Hanging out with office mates.
Favourite purchase in the past year under 100 pounds?
Microsoft keyboard and mouse
Favourite podcast or YouTube channel?
Chris' advice to help boost direct bookings
Connecting and using the messaging functions on social media more effectively. So not just putting content out there and inspecting results but proactively prospecting so with the only way that we got direct bookings was by going out and asking people
Know more about Chris on his Instagram profile.
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