Influencer Targeting with @joannedesignco

The Power of Influencer TargetingYears ago a woman took a chance on a 20 year old girl with no college education. That chance led to a full-time position, in Thrive, a beautiful marketing firm in Phoenix, Arizona. That chance also meant opportunity, the ability to absorb and self-educate on all things marketing.You can probably guess that girl was me, Hayley. I was a stubborn, broke kid, I didn’t have much family and certainly didn’t have many rooting for me back then. The opportunity Puneh (my old boss) gave me, brought me to tears. Someone had told me they believed in what I was capable of… even though I had… no experience.She looked at me intensely, this strong , goregeous and often intimidating woman. I was a bit nervous waiting in anticipation for her last words before leaving the orientation that morning.“ Hayley, this is your chance to prove yourself. Tomorrow you’ll go into a room full of people and I want you to look to your left and then to your right. I want you to observe the people around you, because next week a few of them won’t be around anymore. The next month, most will be gone, they will quit, give up, cry about it. Will it be you standing there or will you be one of them? “That was it. I have NEVER been as motivated to succeed and win as I had that day. I stayed in that incredibly competitive atmosphere for 2 years, becoming one of the best in sales for our company nationwide.So you’re wondering what this has to do with Instagram… and influencers you ask?Well… everything. In two years in one of the most exciting and equally terrifying environments I’ve ever worked, I learned how to go from being the underdog… to being one of the best.The method?Copy. Cheat. Steal.You’re thinking, woah… that doesn’t sound right. Well listen, this isn’t like copying and cheating back in high school, this is a method… and a damn good one.The women in my office took time to not only train me, they sharpened me. They taught me to ask questions, observe more than I spoke, and to kill my competition through outsmarting them.Tony Robbins simplifies this strategy-- “The surest way to achieve success is to model someone who is already successful. If you don’t have good models, find someone who is the best in your chosen field and emulate them. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel – simply learn from the best.” Now that the psychology of Copy, Cheat and Steal make sense. I’m going to explain the steps to using Influencers on Instagram (AKA “Your Successful Model”) and how you can build an engaged audience from this knowledge.Step 1. Start with a listWhen starting an account, or building an existing, you need to start with a list of influencers that meet your needs. I for instance am a web designer and graphic design artist, therefore I would want to focus on large “Influencer Accounts” in my niche, or account my target client would also follow.Examples include: Large potentially more expensive web designers, small business owner general accounts, female business coach accounts, female entrepreneur accounts. I created a large list of influencers by ‘niche’ to get you started, please refer to my guide to get a feel for the accounts that might be relevant to your account growth.Step 2. Like, Like, Like… Comment… FollowStart with your influencer, in this example I’ll use @instantbosses. You’ll notice her follower count is at 50k, you might also know by clicking on that number you are now able to see all of her most recent and active followers in order. Those are Instagram users that have followed her THIS WEEK, meaning they are ready and available to follow other accounts they like as well.So begin by clicking the first follower on the list and head to that followers profile. Go ahead and LIKE, LIKE, LIKE the first 3 photos on their feed, and follow up with 1 GENUINE COMMENT (ie: “Woah I really love those colors”). Finally follow that users account. Continue to do this up to 60 times (60 different profiles!) in that ONE hour.** Instagram has hourly limits, you do not want to exceed the number of pages you follow/ unfollow each hour. **If you were to follow this process every hour for perhaps 6 hours… you can potentially grow more than 100+ real followers in that day.Another strategy for this technique is to target the influencers most engaged audience. To do this you want to look for a photo that they’ve posted, this photo should remind you of something YOUR audience would also love. Once you find a photo, click the image to view the engagement.There are two ways you can target your audience using this strategy. First you can see Jennifer’s photo has 430 “likes”. If you click on that number it will show you all of the accounts that liked that particular photo. You can use the same LIKE, LIKE, LIKE, COMMENT, FOLLOW technique using this list.You may also take this a step further by instead looking through her comments. The accounts commenting are the MOST engaged audience, meaning they may be more likely to also comment on your photos genuinely as well. You can go through each comment and follow the same LLLCF routine.Step 3: Rotate the influencers every dayFor me personally, I like to use a new influencer from my list every day and put the accounts on a rotation. This helps me reach a broad audience and measure my results each day by which Influencer accounts are helping me grow the fastest.If on MONDAY I am following users on Hilary Rushfords account and I gain 50+ followers that day and ….On TUESDAY I am following users on Beth Harpers account and I gain 100+ followers that day…I can start to follow more influencers similar to Beth to continue to grow at the same rate.Step 4: Unfollow 24-48 Hours LaterIf after 24-48 hours there are accounts not following you back, you’ll want to unfollow them to keep your numbers low. If you’re wondering how to track who is following and unfollowing you, use an APP! Personally I use MassDelete on Iphone, you can also find a link to this app in my guide.Step 5: The ShortcutThe last piece of advice I would like to share with you on this would be better in the words of Gary Vaynerchuk. “Use influencer marketing, you’ll kiss some frogs but there are plenty of princes. Some people definitely over price themselves, but a lot underprice themselves because they don’t know their worth.”Reach out to massive accounts with a simple DM: “Hey I really love your feed and energy, how much do you charge for a shoutout?”Paying a small (manageable) fee for a shoutout from an influencer is the #1 strategy for growing your account quickly while also targeting your audience effectively. If you’re worried you don’t have the time to follow hundreds of people everyday, this might be the best way for you to save time and receive similar results.It’s been a pleasure to write this short guide to Influencer targeting for you ladies, I’m proud to serve and support you in your journey to growing and monetizing your account!Grab the influencer list and more info HERE---------------Hayley JoAnne@joannedesigncohayley@joannedesignco.com