Unknown Speaker 0:00
Today we're going to talk about how I was able to grow a brand new Instagram account. To literally in the lambing. In the last two months, I think we, um, probably husbands have gained 25,000 new followers. And I'm going to talk you through how this has happened. And in doing that, building this account, we have now created a five figure side business, creating content. And it's one of the things I'm probably the most proud of right now, you know, when the pandemic hit, and Stephen and I were in New York City, and I was working on Broadway and wicked, I didn't know how we were going to make ends meet. I was definitely nervous because the most money I've ever made was working as an actor on Broadway and my coaching business and always been a side hustle, I deep dive into pandemic. I know blessed a lot of people in a lot of ways and do hurt a lot of people in a way that sometimes I feel guilty that it was probably one of the best things that ever happened to me because I've been able to really thrive in being a creative and running my business and growing probably husbands. But that account, which is always done pretty good and always been a steady climb has taken off recently. And so I'm going to tell you a little bit about how we were able to do that how you could do that for yourself, if you're somebody who wants to grow an Instagram account, and hopefully these tips are going to help you navigate your growth. So I know it's a big goal for a lot of people. It's fascinating. My personal account, Bret Shuford is verified, and a lot of people that want to know how I got verified. And I'm like, it's not even worth the energy to figure out how to get verified because Broadway husbands isn't verified and I make more money on that account. And it starts with pillar number one of my course of the creative visibility course and programme, which is clarity, right part of the create method is really getting clear of who your audience is. Most people think your audience when he's your audience, you're thinking of 1500 people. And it starts by really getting specific about one person and who's that one person that you're speaking to. And the question you need to ask yourself is what problem do I solve for them. Now, a lot of times people initially think problem solving, that means I have to run some sort of business that is a product based business or a service based business. But you can also be a creative a performer, someone who creates entertainment and solve a problem. Most of the time, the problem is either some sort of emotional problem, right? You help people feel seen related to you help people laugh, you help people cry, you help motivate people into taking action, those tend to be the kind of content creators that we follow or you know, taking action even like shopping, right? We see those lifestyle influencers, what do you want to solve? And who do you want to sell it for? For probably husbands we were looking at, okay, I want to create visibility for gay, same sex couples marriage who make a living in the arts, I see a lot of couples who do real estate or some gay couples who are just really beautiful, and I have no idea what they do for a living. But I wanted to create something that would motivate my younger self to continue to pursue their career. And so that's really where that was built out of. And of course, it's become now it's a parent account where we talked about being dads, but it can always evolve. But it starts with clarity, then you do a little research who's already serving a similar audience. And this is where so many of us can get into a spiral around the imposter syndrome, because instead of just researching and gathering information, we can start to get into an emotional place of oh my god, they're doing better than me. I you know, why? Why would I ever start, that impostor can show up. So I always warn people be careful, we want to come from a place of collaboration, not competition. And in that research, we can see what our audience is already responding to, you don't need to create the same thing that people are creating. But you can gather that inspiration. And that's really how it probably has been started, I was seeing a lot of other gay couple accounts were doing. And I thought we could create something similar but with a different lens, right, with our lens with the lens of being performers, and artists, and New York City and all of that. And so that has steadily progressed into us finding our own voice and finding our own authenticity and our own audience. Okay, so those are the two sort of foundational things that most people don't do, right? They just start creating, but if you don't do those foundations, then the next stuff doesn't, you're gonna burn out and burn out. And you'll never want to show up again. Because if you don't know why you're showing up, and who you're showing up for, you're gonna burn out and you're gonna never show up, and I've seen it happen time and time again. So the next part of building an Instagram account is building a consistent schedule for yourself. How much can you post? How often can you post and can that content really speak to your audience? Let me just say that you're not always going to nail it. You're not always going to make the most prolific content that your audience is going to love. You have to experiment you have to try and sometimes you have to fail but for us what really is kicked it into gear is me started to create two meals a day we would do basically breakfast and dinner we would do a real wheel
Unknown Speaker 5:00
So know that dance reels because it's something unique that we have that not a lot of couple accounts have that always does well. And we always now of course, are slanting towards being dads and being parents, and that's giving us another lens. So we do two reels, breakfast dinner, and in between, we do a feed post. So two meals a day. Wow, people say, Oh, my God, that sounds like a lot. Yeah, it can be a lot unless you don't be so precious about your reels. We sometimes literally open Instagram, find an audio and figure out a way to give it a lens, it doesn't have to be the most profound prolific thing. You just have to do it. And sometimes I found the things that we did we took the least effort are the ones that go the most viral. So stop overthinking, commit to a posting schedule. And of course, everything I'm teaching here is about organic reach, right? I'm not going to tell you how to spend money and buy ads and get followers. That's not something I believe in. And that's not something we've done. I'm telling you how we've done this organically. And organic means it takes time it if you're impatient, put on your patients hat if you sometimes aren't consistent, figure out a system where you can be consistent consistent for you. If two meals a day is too much not pot, it's not possible for you, that's okay. But I will also say if you feel like two meals a day, as a lot, you clearly haven't made enough reals in your lifetime. Because making two meals a day is not as hard as you think as long as you're not too precious about it. Okay. And then. So we did two meals a day breakfast dinner. And then we do an additional feed post, usually right in between. So usually an image, a carousel post, something like that. And in those posts, we also tag, I tag locations, I tag brands, I tag other gay couple accounts that are feature accounts. And I'm not going to tag gay couples that aren't in there. But I will tag you know, same sex parents, which is an account, I will tag accounts that would like that, that content, if it's highly valuable, might be great for their feed, it might be great for their audience in the hopes that they'll share it. And if they share it, you get exposure, new audience, and that helps increase your followers. The other thing I think it's important is that when you've done that research, and you've looked at accounts that are similar, you also want to follow those accounts and you want to engage in their comments when they make posts. So I like to set notifications up so that I receive notifications, whenever those accounts, make posts, and then I can go in and comment. That's the easiest way, some people will schedule 15 minutes twice a day to do engagement. And that's literally just to go into accounts that you follow with a similar audience and comment, interact, meet people in their audience. That kind of community is really what the social part of social media is about. And I think so many people miss out on that. And then lastly, I think one of the most powerful things you can do now and this is probably in the last year really was Instagram more important than anything else. I meant to say like posting your stories, you can post your stories anytime all the time doesn't really matter I have found but when you go into the DMS, DM your followers, when someone new follows you shoot them a direct message, just say hi, welcome. What would you like to see from me, and if you're somebody like me is very busy, you've got a young kid and your dad, like you're doing a lot of things, you might want to outsource this, this is something that I'm practising with right now. And there's also automations that can do that I again, really believe in organic so I'm actually hired someone to go in twice a day. And they go into my DMs and they comment with people on my behalf so that I can get that interaction because otherwise it just doesn't build that deep connection. You want to build a connection with your audience, right? And if you don't know who your audience is, it starts with clarity and if you don't know how to get that clarity come take the creative visibility programme I am here to help you with the creative visibility programme. You can get all the information at Bret shuford.com/apply You can see the details you can actually apply to set up a meeting with me and see if it's something that can help you grow your brand and grow your business. I hope this helps you be more visible this week. Take some of that bravery that we all worked on on Tuesday and apply it and start to build your following on Instagram. I'll talk to you next week.
