By Marissa Pané
Drop the credit card and move your finger away from the boost post button on Instagram. Take a step back and let’s get strategic about your social media marketing, my friend.
If strategy stresses you out, I’m here to give you a simplified process that works like magic to convert followers into customers. Just think of me as your personal Cosmo or Wanda, your fairly odd digital-marketing-parent if you will.
My proprietary system for converting Instagram followers into clients, The WAND Method™ is a four step framework that will take any stress away from the next steps of Instagram marketing.
Before we dive into each step, here’s the simplified version you can write on a sticky-note:
W – Wow your audience at first glance
A – Amplify their experience
N – Never miss an opportunity to engage
D – Direct them to the next step
Step 1: Wowing Your Audience at First Glance
When someone new first visits your Instagram profile, you have 150 characters in your bio to prove that your account is truly meant for them. This is where you’re going to entice users to dive deeper into your profile by sharing exactly who you are, what you do, and who will benefit from your account.
This may seem like too much information to share in only 150 characters, but it’s not! The best way to include all of this information is by utilizing your username and your display name to the fullest extent.
For example, my username on Instagram is @marissapane while my display name is Digital Marketing Coach. This allows users to know who I am personally and professionally without using any of the 150 characters available.
With 150 characters still fully available to explain who you serve, it’s best to use the “I help XYZ with XYZ so they can XYZ” formula followed by a call to action to dive deeper into your customer funnel.
Here are two examples of the formula in action:
Helping service providers leverage digital marketing strategies to grow their small business with ease👩🏻💻 Grab your FREE Content Creation Kit ⤵️
Teaching female entrepreneurs how to leverage digital marketing strategies so they can grow a successful small biz, stress-free. FREE LESSON of SCC 👇🏻🎁
In the first example, my Call to Action is to download my free content creation toolkit which is my evergreen CTA. This is essentially to build relationships with my Instagram followers by getting them onto my email list.
Whereas in the second example, my CTA is directly related to my live launch of Social Content Catalyst. If someone is opting into a free lesson of the course, they’re a warmer lead than someone who’s just popping by my Instagram and double tapping one of my promo posts.
To gain the biggest benefit from the link you include in your bio, follow these steps.
1.Create a custom webpage on your website that mimics a Linktree account. This will enable you to have one link, that links to a few different places.
2. Include lead magnets and other content that requires an email address or exchange of information so you can capture the details of your warm leads.
3. To ensure people click the link, always include a scroll-stopping call to action, similar to the all caps/emoji redirect example.
4. If you notice someone new follows you on Instagram, interacts with your content, and hops on your email list to download your lead magnet… START A CONVERSATION IN THE DMs. Say thanks for downloading your content and ask if they have any questions.
QUICK TIP: Instagram’s search feature is essentially pulling keywords from your username, display name, and your bio when people search for specific topics. If you’re location dependent, be sure to include your location in your bio. In the same regard, if you want someone to find you when searching for “Couples Photographer” or “Wedding Planner” add these to your display name.
Step 2: Amplify Their Experience
One step down, three to go! Now someone has found your account, read your bio and has determined that you’re worth their mental energy to dive deeper into the content. If you’re not posting consistently and a user sees that your most recent post is actually from three months ago, they will retreat faster than they came.
To ensure your ideal client stays on your page, you need to show up consistently. People want to know that they are going to receive new content from you on a regular basis. If they have no indication of when to expect your next post, there is a high probability that they won’t initially follow you.
Think about it, would you follow someone if you saw their last post was from five months ago? Yeah, me either.
On the same note, if someone is currently following you on Instagram and you don’t post for weeks at a time, when you finally do post, there’s a higher chance that they will forget who you are and either scroll past your content, or worse actively go to your profile to unfollow this stanger-who-intruded-on-my-feed-who-are-you-how-did-you-even-get here???
Personally, I recommend posting to your feed 3-5 times a week if you’re a small business owner. Alongside your feed posts, you should be posting on your stories at minimum once a day. As a service provider, you want to show behind the scenes of who you are and share content that normally would never hit the feed in your stories. As a product based business, highlight your customer shoutouts, create engagement stickers to better understand your audience and show some behind the scenes of what goes into making your products.
As Instagram keeps adding new features, it’s important to integrate and adapt your content to fit things like reels and guides too. But for right now, let’s stick with the goal of 3-5 feed posts per week and at least one story per day.
QUICK TIP: If you’re struggling with what to post about, remember that your content needs to educate, inspire, and motivate.
Educate – Share personal insight and explain the topics you have knowledge about that will benefit your ideal customer. These types of posts will highlight your expertise and prove that you are the go-to in your industry.
Inspire – Share results with your audience about what you or your clients have achieved. Provide them with stories and real life examples of what’s possible for them too when they invest in your products or services.
Motivate – Encourage your followers to share your posts, send you a DM, etc. because you are the go-to-girl on whatever it is you do. These engagement driving posts will help you to connect with your ideal customers on a deeper level. You can also share inspirational quotes or a few get at ‘em posts that will help your followers take the next step on their journey.
Step 3: Never Miss an Opportunity To Engage or Connect
If at first you’re only seeing one person watching your IG Live, keep going. Treat that audience of one like an audience of 100. What I mean by this is if you go live with a small audience, it’s simply practice for when you have a bigger audience. ALWAYS give them all you’ve got and don’t ever let the stupid little number in the corner bring down your content level.
The content you produce and the way you show up for a single person is a direct reflection of how you will show up for hundreds of people. Don’t degrade or dilute the information you have to share just because you’re not pulling in a huge audience (yet).
Another important note is to always engage with the followers who leave comments on your posts and interact with you. This can be via stories, feed posts or in the DMs. Don’t ever ignore their interaction as this is the first step of the customer journey.
If someone is taking time out of their day to engage with you, show them the courtesy of engaging back. It can be as simple as liking their comment or as complex as having a full conversation with them in the DMs.
Answer their questions, support them on their journey and remember that there’s always another human on the other side of the screen. If they value your content, show that you appreciate them. Simple interactions can go a long way.
And friendly reminder…The act of engagement is a two way street. If you’re noticing that no one is engaging with your content, ask yourself when the last time you dove into a relevant hashtag and meaningfully engaged on other people’s posts.
QUICK TIP: Deep dive into a relatable hashtag that your ideal customer is hanging out in and start interacting with the content that stands out to you. Don’t be lazy or spammy and use the same one liner over and over again. Read their posts and comment with an authentic reply if they asked a question or made an interesting point. If you’re not sure what to say, or how to make sure you’re not looking ‘spammy’ start with a true compliment before diving into your reply. Here’s an example: Can we talk about that [sweater/mug/etc.]?! I love it!! But honestly, I [really appreciate what you said here/ totally agree with you on XYZ/etc.]
Step 4: Direct Them To The Next Step of The Customer Journey
You did it! You made it to the final step (which totally links back to the first step, btw). Does a Call to Action sound familiar? I hope so because not having a clear next step for your customer is simply a bad user experience. There always needs to be a call to action of some sort in your caption (and as we previously mentioned, in your bio).
Simply put, people need to be told what they need to do next. Take any guesswork out of the picture and specifically tell the person what to do after reading your post by writing a clear, simple CTA.
Each post is an opportunity to point your follower in the right direction. Make it as easy as possible for that person to dive deeper into your customer journey.
This call to action can be made in the caption, the graphic, or even both. If you create an informative graphic with the desired end goal being for the user to save your post, remind the user to save the image in the caption or add a “save me” CTA on the post itself. When it comes to CTA’s don’t be afraid to repeat yourself (beginning of caption, end of caption, and graphic) as most people are not digesting the post in full.
In addition, don’t ever tell someone to do more than one thing. If you tell someone to save your post and click the link in your bio chances are they will do neither. It’s kind of like the Cheesecake Factory menu. Too many options and you just stare aimlessly because *help*.
Make your CTA clear, concise, and easy.
If you recommend taking two separate actions, the user becomes confused and/or overwhelmed by the choice of actions they could take so they freeze and ignore your CTA.
Quick Tip: Not all CTA’s are big asks. A call to action can be anything from “Double tap this post if you agree” to “Send me a DM to hear the details about the new mastermind”. Don’t let this part of creating a post trip you up. It’s so simple, yet so often overlooked. Add that CTA on every post and your audience will become accustomed to trusting that there is always a next step.
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