 program, Mary Pendleton. Mary Pendleton is a social media expert with a passion for Instagram. She helps purpose driven businesses get seen on social media and has been dubbed the Instagram queen by her clients. Mary lives in San Francisco with her three kids and husband and has degrees in art history and nonprofit management. You can follow Mary on Instagram at love Mary Pendleton. Welcome Mary. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me here. I'm really excited to dig in with everyone today. We're such big fans of the SF public library. So when you invited me, I just thought, oh my gosh, I cannot wait to dig into Instagram with everyone. So let's dive in today. We're going to talk about stress free social media. I know Kristi kind of did a little introduction on me, but one thing that we didn't mention is that I am a self proclaimed chillpreneur. I cannot deal with stress this past year has been a little bit more stress than I wanted, especially as a mom of three young kids here in San Francisco. But when it comes to social media. I just want to streamline it things my hashtag that I use all the time is Instagram and chill so today I'm going to share some of those chill, but productive tactics with you guys. So today we are going to cover. First how to locate the people who are most likely to buy your product or service on Instagram. Hello anybody out there, we're going to find them. Second, we're going to talk about how to position yourself for maximum exposure on Instagram. We want to find all those raving fans out there and connect you with them because everybody has something to offer that other people are looking for right so we just have to figure out how to make those connections on social media and find the right people for you. Third, we're going to talk about how to be as efficient as possible so you're not change your social media every day. This is something that I'm so passionate about because some people just get stuck in that scroll hole, do you know what I'm talking about where you're just like scroll scroll scroll or like so stressed about what to post in an hour later you've got like one sentence pulled up in an okay picture and it's just, it can be such a time suck so we're going to figure out a way to make things better. So does that sound good for everyone. Now you might be asking some questions in the chat. I'm not looking at them right now but we will dive into them at the end of the talk. Having the chat up is just like to to stressful for me right to distracting so we're just going to check it at the end but feel free to type things in there as we go and we will circle back at the end. So, like we said my name is Mary Pendleton I run Mary Pendleton social. It's been going for about six years now. And I really do full service management for small businesses. I've kind of, you know, do like some strategy sessions for people do I have a couple of courses. And the full management is what I've been doing for the past several years, and sometimes I feel like this, right. So I think I've had like up to 12 clients at a time. So creating content for 12 different Instagram accounts, five posts a day. I mean sorry, whoa not five posts a day five posts a week. I feel like such a juggle and I've really, I don't think I've dropped the ball too much but especially there at the beginning things were really disorganized. So I created a system for myself and that's the system I'm going to be sharing with you guys today and I call it the FAR method. It's my three step stress free social media system. So I hope you have your pen and paper out because it's going to be some good little nuggets in this. FAR is an acronym in case you couldn't tell it stands for find the people who need you amplify your value and replicate it. So we're going to go through those and look at how far you've come by the end you'll be saying that to yourself. I have worked with lots of different clients, everything from nationwide travel apps to small nonprofits, brick and mortar businesses, bakeries, all types of stuff. But today I thought as an example since I think most people here are location based businesses right like probably storefronts. So here I'm going to use as an example this hair salon that I used to run an Instagram account for called the lane, they're based in pack heights. And I thought that they would be a good example of work that I've done before so we're going to use them as kind of a sample as we go the lane SF. So let's start with number one find your people. So you've probably thought about your target market before, but maybe you haven't thought about it like through the eyes of Instagram like, who do you want to find you on Instagram who do you want to connect with and convert from audience into paying customer. So before you start creating any posts. You need to think about who you're speaking to. And there's really two ways to do this so you can look at them. First, based on demographics. So that would be like, you know, they're, let's use the lane as an example so maybe like a 27 year old eco minded female who lives in San Francisco, maybe demographics, the psychographics, though, well actually that eco minded, that's more of a psychographic right so that's kind of the mindset of the person. So what are their hopes and dreams, what keeps them up at night, what really stresses them out that you can help with those are the things that are are good to pinpoint on a person on Instagram to. And one reason I love Instagram compared to like maybe Facebook or Pinterest or something is that on Instagram people self segment themselves with hashtags and with accounts they follow and it's really easy to find certain groups of people because they're labeling with these labeling themselves with these categories across Instagram so it's really fun to like, kind of go through and find little goldmines of potential customers that you can build relationships with. So, but we'll get into that in a little bit. So some questions to ask yourself about your, your ideal customer, who is your ideal customer, what problems can you solve for them, where do they hang out on social media. And by that I mean like, what other big accounts do they follow. Where have they checked in on on Instagram like, let's say your ideal customer is like San Francisco moms, maybe there's certain accounts where, there's some groups like Golden Gate Mothers Group or something like that. So, people who follow big accounts like that that really identify who they are. As a person, or like, maybe people have checked into the target on Geary or something like that and maybe you're searching for people who are those types of people. So, those location check ins can be really useful to find people, not that you should find them and start like spamming them. But maybe, well, we'll get into it in a little bit. This is just how we identify who those people are and where they're hanging out on social media. So the second step is amplify your value. This is the biggest step we're going to go through today and it's actually in two different parts. So, first of all, we have to bring the value before we can amplify it. This is really going to be our segment about creating posts, what types of posts do best on Instagram, and things to consider as you're, you're building them. So I always like to say your Instagram feed should be more like a magazine and less like a catalog. So by that I mean like more like a real simple magazine with lots of editorials lots of wide ranging stories and less like a Eddie Bauer catalog that is just kind of like a lookbook like offering things that you sell. So, think about things in a, in a broader sense of content rather than just like saying, I actually like to include, or like to use like a ratio like, let's say I'm doing five posts, four out of those five should be just providing value, and the fifth one can be like a very clear like salesy post, the I also include products that support whatever value you're giving, but it shouldn't be sale sale sale sale sale sale, because Instagram is really the personification of your brand. Social media started out as like, you know, single people. So when businesses come to social media, it's good to think of still having that personality there. So not just selling selling selling, but creating those connections and making people feel like their friends with the brand or their friends with the team behind the brand. And those are the kind of connections that will, you know, kind of plant themselves in the seed of the customer and create lifelong relationships. So I like to create content that builds a mental or emotional connection. So there's really three types of content that do that. The first is entertaining. So make them laugh right this kind of stuff is so good for social media. The second is educational, teach them something right diagrams charts, breaking things down three reasons why things like that. So we have entertaining educational and the last one is inspirational show people how things could be so much better if they used your product or how much fun they could have this. They came to your store, things like that show them the inspiration. That's a big reason why people come to Instagram. The titles of these types of posts that I made for the lane, or this was an entertaining one like a funny quote, Instagram gold. So this was right at the beginning of the pandemic. I don't think we knew how think how bad things were going to get but we said, no matter how crazy things get over the next few weeks I ask you please do not panic and box dye your hair. I don't think we had any right realization that it was going to be like a year until people can get back. But anyways, that one did pretty well. An educational post I did for the salon was teaching people, we did a real here teaching people about their eco beads faucets. That does magical stuff to the water as it comes out. I don't even actually remember the details but it was a pretty cool real that taught about their special environmental faucets that they have there. And then an inspirational one we did kind of just like a inspirational, not only hairstyle but just like all in all vibe type of a post. So something that you can do create three to five brand pillars that fit within these categories. So these are the types of things that you're going to post about regularly on your Instagram and people are going to start creating those connections. So for the hair salon, we did style tutorials, eco products, we talked about our team. We said, we, we did post about how it feels to be a client in the salon, and we did like lifestyle vibe content that kind of, I mean that's kind of also explaining how it feels to be a client in the salon. So another thing is people use Instagram to show people what it feels like to work with you or what it feels like to come into your shop. That's what they that's what they're coming for is that experience. So, and Instagram is a great tool to show that experience. So, like, I could get my hair done anywhere right but by finding this Instagram account and I'm like, Oh, wow. This is what it feels like to walk in the front door this is the, the whole. I mean, for lack of a better word experience I keep saying that again but show them what it feels like and that's what's going to make people come into the actual store. So let's talk about visual identity, a little bit this is like kind of the overall aesthetic of the account. So we all have a good sense of what a brand means, but I really like this quote here from Scott Cook, a brand isn't what we tell the customer it is it's what customers tell each other it is. Right so you want people to talk about your, your brand and explain how it makes them feel, explain the overall energy they get from it. And that consistent branding makes you look like an authority in your field, and that is very apparent when someone comes to your Instagram account. They still trust you more if they know what to expect. So if they come to your account and everything is like kind of random they're like, I don't think I'm going to follow this because I don't know what they're going to post next and it's not clear like what I'm coming up for. So using that visual identity to just kind of make things more cohesive and create that expectation really makes you look more like an authority in your field. So if you're not sure where to start I just like to search Pinterest for color palettes, you probably already have, hopefully I've like some brand guidelines, maybe you've worked with a branding expert. But you kind of like translate that into your Instagram account, and we're going to talk a little bit later about my favorite tool for this. But just wanted to talk about the visual identity now because it's really an important part of what makes people actually click follow, you know. Okay, and let's talk about captions. So creating the beautiful images one thing. But you have to have the meat of the post in the caption right to like close the loop. So it's really just a quick three step process I use on my captions. It's got to have a hook. It has to have value and it has to have a call to action at the end. So the hook would be like, wow, or oh my gosh you'll never believe, or teachers this is for you, whoever you're talking to whoever your target market is. Then you're going to give the value, teach them something, paint a picture for them tell a story, and then the call to action at the end is head to the link in my bio for XYZ. Give them some kind of free, or not free but give them somewhere to go to follow up to get more information. So always the call to action doesn't have to be clicked link in the bio it could just be encouraging people to respond with a certain answer to a question, or tag somebody in your life who needs to hear this something like just tell them what to do people are much more likely to do what you want when you actually ask them clearly to do it. I'm not going to get too much into captions today but I think that this three step method is super helpful. Okay, so the second part of our second step is that amplification so using the tools that Instagram gives you for maximum exposure. When it comes to tools there's like Instagram posts, there's Instagram reels or Instagram stories. Instagram has come so far in the past couple of years and really diversified their content creation tools, and it can get kind of overwhelming. Raise your hand if you get overwhelmed by all of that stuff. I can't see your hands but I know they're up. So let's just break it down a little bit. What about the grid. So that's like this kind of stuff here is my pointer on. No, let me turn it on these types of posts. So they're really the best for reaching a new audience when I'm creating posts in the grid. I'm speaking to people who I hope have no idea who I am. My current followers are like the majority of the people who see it, but I'm hoping to reach a wider audience and it's like wide open sea. This is me, nothing hiding. I'm, you know, like, this is me open to the world come find me. So reels Instagram reels are like those short form videos 15 second video clips. They do live in your grid also just like your posts do. I don't get too into to reels right now but this is the stuff that you're speaking to the public about. Then you have your Instagram stories, which when you post them are up here, there's like a little circle around your logo that's when you have an Instagram story, and that they only are up there for 24 hours. And I use those for fostering relationships with my existing followers. So this is more behind the scenes, less polished, silly stuff like getting to know me and so I'm talking about me as a personal brand but for a brick and mortar business or any, you know, brand that doesn't have a face to it. You could use this for getting to know our team. You could use the scenes kind of stuff, more information that supports whatever you posted in your grid that day you can say, head to our stories for some more ideas and then post a few more things there. But this is really good for growing, you know, warming up your customers once they start following you. Another cool thing about stories is that they have those buttons. So those are like the quizzes or the polls or the little sliders. It's really easy to engage on a story. So I love this because it tells anyone who engages on your story. It tells the algorithm that they're interested in your content, and it will show even more of your grid posts, it will show more of your, your stuff in the future to anyone that engaged with your story. So I say use all of those tools as often as possible. I try and create a poll every single day or a poll a quiz or like a slider. Do you know what I mean by the slider there's like a funny little thing. If you're creating Instagram story content, try and think of ways that you can engage your audience and think of ways that you can make it really easy for them to participate. And then that tells the algorithm that they should see more of your content. So it's super, super cool. Alright, so this is my theory Instagram is like a party and hashtags are the invitations to your party we're going to talk about hashtags now. And then so you are having your party on Instagram, but there's also other parties on Instagram that you need to go attend, but hashtags are the invitations to your party. So hashtags are really just a filing system that help you get found on Instagram they categorize your posts. So hashtags are, you know, you can use up to 30 of them they go somewhere in your post and, and they kind of just like a little library filing system, they put that post in 30 up to 30 different places however you categorize yourself. I always love this shit's Creek meme hashtag. Is that two words no it's just one word. But when it comes to using hashtags, so people search hashtags all the time on Instagram. So by you putting yourself out there that's inviting your 30 different types of people to come see your stuff. But when it comes to hashtags, some hashtags are really, really big. So for example here on Instagram I searched hashtag here, and you can see all of these posts have millions and millions and millions of posts that have used that hashtag before. So it's just me that these hashtags are not going to be effective for my brand. It says that so many people have used to these that when I post with the hash, these hashtags, my post is just going to get lost in a big sea of other posts. And instead use more niche hashtags so that I can actually have a little piece of that pie, a bigger piece of that pie, rather than competing with all of these other people who are using here hashtags. So instead, look if we do SF here, these are more likely the hashtags that I want to use. And especially since we're all San Francisco based right here using location based hashtags is a really effective way to get found by local people. And so I actually use a hashtag ladder strategy. And by that I mean, so if I'm using 30 hashtags in a post 10 hashtags will be up to 25 K uses. I didn't include the word uses here I don't know why up to 25 it's been used up to 25,000 times 10 more hashtags have been used up to 100,000 times. And the last that has been used the biggest up to 500,000 uses. So a third really small, a third somewhere in the middle, and then a third on the bigger end. So I, for this lesson today, I'm keeping us all on the smaller side. Really, you can probably go up to about a million uses on hashtags. But I think that if you are location based you should keep things even more niche because you don't want to attract someone in Cincinnati that like is not going to come to your store right. So it's better to have more quality than quantity and this system is going to help you really hone in on the exact right person. So when it comes to types of hashtags you're like how in the world do I even think of 30 hashtags sounds like so much. So, here's some ideas you can do location based hashtags, you could describe your ideal clients you could say like SF mama. You could describe the actual image itself that's always a great way to do it. And then also using emotional words like hashtag tired mama. So I'm explaining myself right now. But those types of hashtags people really dig into on Instagram as well. And so like, you can always start with SF here, and then Instagram suggests all these other awesome ones. So, grab a pen and paper, if you're old fashioned or grab the notes pad on your, the notes app on your iPhone, and create little sets of 10 hashtags at a time. And then you can just copy and paste them into your post, depending on what you're posting about that day. So think back to the brand pillars that I was suggesting you put together and create some hashtag sets that relate to each of those brand pillars. And then when it comes time to post, you can copy and paste from your pre researched hashtag sets and paste them right into the post. So if there's somebody out there saying, is it better to post your hashtags in the caption or in the comment I get that question like, it's probably my second most asked question. The first most asked question. I'm curious if someone's going to ask it we'll see at the end I'll answer it anyways. But this question, it really the answer is it doesn't matter. So I'm going to paste all your hashtags in the first comment because it kind of just buries it looks a little bit cleaner on the account. And later once there's other comments, they kind of get hidden and, and it's just cleaner. But if you want if you're going fast and you just want to paste all your hashtags right in there with your caption. That's totally fine. Both of them are just as effective. Right. So, like I said, Instagram's a party. That's how we're inviting people to see our posts, but we also have to go out to their parties, and we should bring snacks and champagne or something right. So let's talk about outbound engagement. So this is going out, finding your ideal customer commenting on their posts, not being like a salesy weirdo but just saying, you know, answering whatever question they asked or commenting them on their shoes, or just being, you know, a supporter of whatever they're saying. So this is actually called the dollar 80 method. It was coined by Gary V Gary Vaynerchuk. And he said, basically, leave your two cents on up to 90 posts, it adds up to $1 80. You're just leaving your two cents here and there, you know, leaving little comments leaving your little thoughts for people. Now he suggests doing 90 posts a day. I never personally reached 90 posts a day because I have other things to do, but I could do 12 to 13 posts a day, and that equals 90 posts per week. So I do the dollar 80 method every week. And it's actually great I get a ton of visibility by the right people. And let me show you a tool that I use to do it. So I search hashtags that my ideal customer would be using on her posts. This is a tool called dollar 80 calm, it's spelled out, and it's a Chrome plugin. And basically you can tell it what hashtags, you want to comment on, and it pulls them up in these nice little categories of course you could always do this method, like, natively on Instagram but I like doing it on this Chrome plugin because it separates me from Instagram and keeps me from getting distracted. I can use this. I think it's free to, but like there's a free version, but this is this screenshot that I took was for a client who was engaging with Austin based mom so not our San Francisco crew but it works the same way. And it can pull up either top posts or most recent posts that have used those hashtags. And then basically we just go through and comment on as many as possible. And it gets a lot of visibility, not just by the person who you're commenting on, but by their audience as well and the hope is that they see your comment and they're like, cool, what's that and they like click your name and follow through and they like, discover you naturally but really, you did it on purpose. It's $80.com. It's a Chrome plugin. Go find it. It's built in like New Zealand or something the team that made it is really awesome also. We become Instagram friends they probably found me by commenting on my post right and like did the whole method to get me as a customer and here I am I'm a customer of theirs evangelizing so it works. Now let's talk about other ways to get amplified. I'm cleaning up this. So, by this there's a few different methods that I have to tap into your community. When one of us shines all of us shine and using the power of connections and relationships to grow our accounts. So one way to do this is with Instagram live. They now have a way that you can chat with up to three other people so four people total and an Instagram live, and it alerts all of the followers of all of those people. So, one great strategy is to do an IG live with other people once a week, you could have a recurring show, you could bring on your customers that you love you could bring on other experts in your industry. Do like a Q&A session with somebody else, but it's a great way to get visibility in front of that other person's audience and for them to they get visibility in front of your audience. So find someone that has a similar audience to yours and partner up. It works really well. Now giveaways are also effective on Instagram. You have to make sure you're giving away something that people actually want, but partnering with one other account, putting together a really cool package and just saying follow both of us and comment for a chance to win XYZ. It's like kind of an old fashioned way to grow an account but it still can be really effective so my only suggestion is don't do a giveaway all by yourself. Always partner up with another accounts that you can kind of share followers that way as long as it's an account whose followers are also ideal customers of yours. Like let's say there are a few businesses all in a similar shopping district like I live in the inner sunset so let's say like a bunch of the 9th Avenue shops get together, put together a fun little price package and say, you know, we're doing a 9th Avenue customer appreciation week or something. And so then the followers of Kira kids might also be interested in San Francisco and Tartine and everyone there and miss, you know, the magic shop right there. But it helps just get a lot more exposure for the other businesses that may may not currently follow them. Pay partnerships are another opportunity. So not only ads ads are fine. But I'm talking more about like finding influencers for lack of a better word, but like people who already have a big following of people who were your, your ideal audience and doing a sponsored post with them. And that is a really good way. It's kind of like a giveaway but was like a heavier hitter and you, you like give them something nice in return probably money but maybe it's a product that you have or, or something else. But that is like putting just a little bit of money in it can really grow your account a lot faster. So we've reached the R out of the FAR, which is replicating all of this with systems, because you might be a little bit overwhelmed at this point, and not sure how it's a sustainable approach. But I like to put systems into place to replicate this exposure over and over again, put things on autopilot, not have to reinvent the wheel every single week, because I think we've all been there. So I'm going to share with you my two favorite tools. The first one is canva templates. So I hope that you know what canva is by now they do have a really big like ad campaign right now so I think even the bus stop by my house has a canva add on it and they see their ads on TV and billboards and everything. But it is such an amazing tool for creating content when it comes to Instagram. And I love it because you can create templates on Canva, and you can duplicate it, change it a little bit, and then the graphic is ready to go and it still has all of your same fonts and colors and general, you know, layout and idea. So here's an example of a template that I created for the lane. So we did this quote card thing, and I created it once. And then I duplicated it and I created another quote duplicated it created another one duplicated it created another one. So that's four pieces of content that like did not take me that long. Of course I wouldn't post these back to back, but let's say every Monday I, I post a quote or something super easy to create one set of templates, and then like just kind of fill it fill them in every time. So here's a look into my Instagram account, and I also use templates with Canva to create these. But actually, I have a membership to a canva template subscription run by your template club is what it's called, and they send me new canva templates twice a month. And it is like such a time saver because I don't have to create the templates myself. They have these really awesome like some really talented graphic designer creates them so it's not me who like I'm not actually a graphic designer. So some of my posts might be a little bit funky but when I have this membership it's like, I know that these are tried and true graphics and I just have to pop my pictures in. So to my color scheme that's already set up in Canva pop my own personal pictures into the little holes into the little frames that they set for me, change the text out to whatever I want. And it's like so good to go like obviously like these are my kids here. This is just a picture of me I think, but templates are everything. So, this is what it's called I don't. I don't have my membership I'm just a member of it but it's called your template club. Definitely something to look into this woman named Manu runs it and it's such a life saver. I love her. Okay, my second favorite tool is plan a Lee. So plan a Lee is an Instagram planning app they have it for desktop or for your phone, they connect to each other. It's just a life saver because when I started as a social media manager. Everything was on my phone. That's actually when I started wearing glasses, because I was like, but plan a Lee lets me create all the content on my desktop schedule it. Maybe I can check on it on my phone later if I want but like being able to sit down and create stuff at my desk is such a better process for my creativity than doing it on my phone which makes me go blind. So, totally check out plan Lee I'm going to walk through some of the features that will save you so much time by using it. First, it lets you plan your posts on a calendar. So here is one of my other clients, the Britain fund it's a nonprofit tree organization. And so this is our plan Lee desktop app and let me just point some things out to you. So plan a Lee is a fund is a really small budget that can only do four posts a week, which is fine. We looked at their stats and it looks like their audience is most on Instagram Thursday through Sunday. Their audience is like professional arborists professional pre people who are not on their phones throughout the day. So Thursday through Sunday is mostly when they're on their phones. So in my mind we created these little sticky notes of their brand pillars, and we map out these recurring sticky notes throughout the months, talking about things that you know they want to talk about so you'll see on Saturdays we rotate between free downloads books that they sell using their smile dot Amazon thing on Sundays we always do a quote. So we talk about their different four states of their region on Thursdays and we rotate between them. Fridays we've been talking about birds on Fridays a lot lately we're going to switch that up pretty soon, but it's just so nice to map this out ahead of time to make sure we're covering all of our bases and talking about, rather than just like creating on the fly. And then accidentally like leaving out a whole portion of their things they offer mapping it out is so awesome. Then, we can auto schedule posts with planly. So this is the little content creation part of the tool. So we put the caption in here, we load the graphic in here, you can there's some editing tools there. And we can pop in same cash tags here, and we can schedule it to Instagram to Facebook or to Twitter if they had a Twitter account. It's so awesome now to use this you have to have a business account on Instagram which is like just a flick of a switch, but totally worth it. So the scheduling is just great because I can sit down schedule a whole month of content for them flick everything on ready to go. And then I'm done. Like, could you imagine just sitting down and creating a whole month's worth of posts for your business. And it doesn't even have to be five days a week it could be like this where you maybe just do twice a week, or you maybe just do every Saturday, like whatever you want to start with as long as you're consistent that's what's most important. So like I was saying, this hashtag thing here. You can save your hashtag sets and planally also. So like I was saying, in the hashtag section about like saving your sets and the note to app on your phone, you can actually save them here and planally and you just like paste them into your post, ahead of time I've saved so many sets of hashtags for all of my clients, and all I have to do is copy paste them in it's like a no brainer. It's so great. The last thing I love about planally is the analytics. So you can look at all of the data. Instagram itself only shows you analytics for one month but planally just keeps it in there forever which is so great. And also shows you what your top performing posts were. So, you know what did well and what you should do again, like super important part of planning your posts is doing more of what's worked in the past. Okay, I know it's been a lot of information. Let's all take a breath. This is stress free social after all. And we're going to go back to far find people who need you amplify your value and replicate. I do have a little bit of homework for you guys, along with the replay of this sent after the class is over. I have a PDF put together the stress free social workbook. It has a branding worksheet for you an ideal customer worksheet for you, and a list of resources, like links to planally and canva and few other things I don't remember. But it will really it's just like you know your personal playbook you can do with it would want but it'll help you line things out so. And a lot of people ask, what's like a regular schedule of Instagram for like what should I, what's the expectation. So I usually do maybe two hours a week planning my posts, and I could probably even get maybe two or three weeks worth of posts done in that brainstorming session, but I like to, you know, block out a big chunk of time and knock out as many posts as I can. I do about 20 minutes a day engaging with my ideal customers. And sometimes if I'm posting stories that maybe takes me 10 minutes but yeah, that should be pretty easy, the posting stories shouldn't be like a huge content creation stress miss. In addition to the workbook that you guys are getting automatically I also have another free download if anyone is interested because I know there's a lot of Instagram but I did not get to cover. It's just a screenshot of the sign up page. Instagram Essentials bundle, it's free it has a link to supercharger Instagram bio 30 fill in the blank content ideas must use hashtags for visibility and a whole thing about Instagram highlights, which we didn't touch on at all. But if you go to that link down below Mary Pendleton social.com slash IG Essentials, you can sign up and it'll automatically email it to you. So that's about it. Thank you so much and we have any questions I'm happy to dig in. Thank you Mary that was excellent it was so fun and informative. Awesome. So I'm going to take a look at the question I didn't see that many but there was one. Someone asked, do you use the same hashtags for each post or do you switch it up. That's a good question. And the answer is, I switch it up. So I have sets of hashtags, each set has about 10 hashtags in it. And so like, I have a hashtag set for myself for mom for newers. All these hashtags that mom for newers use mom entrepreneurs right. And so I think I have like three or four different sets of hashtags for mom for newers, and I just mix through those four sets every time. I'm doing a post, I might do one mom for newer hashtags that one Instagram help hashtags it and one San Francisco hashtag set, but then on my next post, I would pick three different of my hashtag sets. So in the end, hopefully, they're all kind of jumbled together. If that makes sense. Okay, we have another question. Someone wrote good recommendations for physical presence. What about specific recommendations for artists. Yeah. Are you talking about hashtag recommendations or just in general let me think so like finding your, your ideal customer for artists would be you know, like, other blogs or other places where your ideal customer might be hanging out. I don't know if they would follow different Etsy accounts or I guess it really just depends on the type of art funky clothing lines or something like that it depends on you but definitely seeking out people still on Instagram. And then when it comes to hashtags like just I mean it depends on who your ideal customer is, but so I wouldn't say use any SF hashtags I mean you could, if you're an artist local people might be more interested in a local artists than other artists, but if you have any more details about your question I'd love to get more specific just comment. Whoever asked that question if you want you can put more details about what you're asking in the chat. So there's another question. How do we determine who and how many people to follow. That's a great question. I've heard it said that you should follow less people than follow you. But I, you know so you're not following like 3000 accounts because that looks like you're kind of spammy. I think follow as many accounts as you can, as you're interested in I don't think you should follow someone just in the hopes that they'll follow you back, because it's going to make Instagram a miserable place for you to exist on if everyone in your feed is like someone that you're not interested in. Do you know what I mean. So, I like to keep who I follow, like very, well I say very minimal I think I follow like 1500 people right now but I've been trying to cut it back, because I want my experience on Instagram to be positive, so that I want to like, continue staying there. And a big part of having a like mental well being on Instagram is not following accounts that make you feel bad about yourself, or following accounts that you know create like a toxic environment so be sure to choose about who you follow. Great, thank you. If there's another question. I am a performing artist variety, who also reps other variety artists have not yet used Instagram suggestions. Interesting yeah so you could create a cool community that features you and also other people so you could definitely like, especially if you're a performing artist, those like Instagram reels those short form videos would be a really cool tool so Instagram reels. Instagram is really pushing reels right now they're getting a lot more visibility than other like static posts. So, it's something to consider like, are you writing the account from the first person or in the third person like, is it you and you're showing yourself and then you're also showing other people that you represent that's a really cool way to do it. And that kind of is like how I was saying more magazine and less catalog like you're showing a broader range of things and I think your audience will appreciate that. But then if you did it like in the third person, you could include yourself in the group of people that are represented. Or you could have it come from, you know, yourself and you could just talk about the other accounts. I mean not the other counts the other performers and you could all kind of be represented by one account and one other cool thing you could do is each highlight could have like each one of the performers that's represented could have their own highlight. The highlights if you don't know are the little circles that live beneath your I have a picture of it that live beneath your bio and it's where your Instagram stories, if you want them to stay alive for longer than 24 hours. You can save them to your highlights like here. And then there's the Instagram highlights and they're really prime real estate so I would suggest creating a different highlight for each performer so that it kind of makes it clear to the audience. Who's who. Thanks Mary. I want to add a question about artists. So they put a little more information there. They were asking about specifics for photographers, not just hashtags but finding clients for fine art photos, as well as specific hashtags. Yeah. All right. So, I've worked with photographers before, and we I mean a lot of them are like family photographers so it might be different, but really getting niching down to maybe three different types of customers that might, that might shop from you. So maybe there are people who follow like architectural digest, or not just to follow but one good way to do this is look at architectural digest and look at who is commenting on their posts. There are also active Instagram users that you can then like click through and look at their posts and start commenting on their posts. Do you know what I mean. So, magazines are really are like big blogs are a really good way to find specific groups of people. So I would start there. And then when it comes to hashtags like there's a ton of fine art hashtags. So I also have a handpicked hashtag library that people it's like 3000 hashtags divided by categories, because I've written so much hashtag research over the years that I just like started saving them all into this really long doc and organizing it really well. There's a link for that resources in the PDF that's coming at the end, but there's definitely a lot of hashtags in there for artists and interior designers, and like home stuff. So, I would think people who want to buy fine art are buying it for their home, but that might just be an assumption I'm making. We have a couple more questions. One is, how do you target other business or technical people. This person is not an user at the moment. Okay. So, the question was how do you target other business or technical people. Yes, great. So definitely think about what other types of accounts they would follow. So actually, my biggest client I mean actually these days I only have one really big full time client. And it's an app that serves. It's actually the app that I'm using right now it's called mmhm, and we serve presenters, we also serve teachers, anyone basically who like uses zoom and wants to use this virtual camera. So with that account, I look for other types of accounts that professionals would follow. So a lot of it is like yeah people who follow zoom would probably also be interested in our app and we're not competing with them so I don't feel guilty, like engaging with their audience because we're really a companion app to zoom. So thinking about ways that you're not going to like poach people, but other like related accounts in your industry where people have started to hang out already like find the other parties where people are hanging out at and showing up there. So if you want to find people, you know, look for other apps that are in your same industry, if you're looking for technical professionals. There are definitely groups of these people out there. Also, go to those apps or whatever start looking at who's commenting and looking at what hashtags they're using on their posts. I did this once when I was trying to target teachers, and I found the teachers use this hashtag called feet up Friday, at least they used to in the before times, and it was just a whole bunch of teachers putting their feet up on their desks on Friday. I had no idea about this because I'm not a teacher, but there's definitely these little hashtag communities within different industries, and that if you do enough research on Instagram you can like tap into these little treasure troves of all of these people using this one hashtag so depending on what your business is, there's definitely people within those industries using hashtags to communicate with each other. I think the audience have their own hashtags. Oh, sure they do. Yeah, I love it. There's a question from someone I have several businesses restaurant dance teacher bakery. Do I need three accounts on Instagram. Wow I love that restaurant dance teacher bakery and I think the answer is yes actually this is a common question. And I think that if you're serving three different audiences, then you should have three different accounts. I would say like for me, love Mary Pendleton, I have you know different offerings but they all are serving the same type of person so it can often within one account, but I don't think that the things that you're doing. I think it would get way too confusing. If they were all in the same account. So Instagram lets you have up to five be logged into up to five accounts at the same time. And then you can switch between the three. I think he would get much more quality of an audience by being very specific on each account. I hope that was the answer you wanted to hear. That's that's great advice. Well, so far I'm just saying a lot of thanks to you Mary. This someone says this was such a helpful webinar. Someone says very helpful I have a lot to learn. Yeah, so far it's been great this. If there's no other questions. We can end the program and again I will be sending out the recording later but no so fun and super informative and. Yeah, anyone here have or has any questions just DM me on Instagram and I love to point you in the right direction so I'm actually I just pulled up the chat finally. Someone I just saw a question your template. Can you repeat so for the templates it's called your template club. I think I linked to it in the PDF I'm you're going to get shortly so in there. And yeah $80.com someone linked it thanks Karen. Yeah, I think that's it so feel free to reach out and I just love San Francisco and small businesses so thanks for having me here. It's so great to have you this was like one of my most favorite programs so thank you for joining us. Thank you. Bye everyone. Thanks everyone. Bye.