Instagram For Creatives : A Beginner's Guide To Grow Your Brand And Business

1. Introduction: Ciao, I'm Simona and I'm an Italian professional photo videographer. If you live in a 21st century like me, you're probably aware that social media has become an incredibly powerful tool to build an audience online and increase your revenue as a photographer. To be honest, a few years back, I didn't really believe in social media because I thought it was impossible to grow an audience. If you're a normal person coming from a small village in the middle of nowhere. But while working as a personal trainer, I simply started sharing my videos and photos on Facebook and Instagram. It was just my passion. Not long after I started receiving Creek risk from France to create content for the businesses. Aha moment, what F, I start starting more in depth, how to be seen online as a photographer. Maybe I can transform my passion into a profitable business, Fast-forward today with more than 1 million followers between TikTok and Instagram, my full-time job has become what previously was only a passion. I'm definitely not the best photographer in the world, but I do know how to exploit the potential of social media today, posting content online without the right strategies and tools will just waste your time and energy. And that's why I decided to create a course that will help you understand how you can build an audience and start earning money, doing what you love, or increase your revenue if you already own a business, the coolest thing is that anyone can unlock the potential of social media because it really doesn't matter who you are and where you come from. The first part, we'll start from the very beginning to understand how social media works. Then we'll focus more on Instagram and all its main features before touching upon some advanced techniques that will help us grow on multiple platforms at the same time. While in the past, Instagram and social media in general, we'll just an opportunity today they are the number one marketing tool. And thanks to revolutionary recent changes in the social media landscape, we are now in the moment to start taking action. And with this course, you'll save a ton of powers and energy, especially at the beginning. Don't swim in the ocean alone. Let's lay the foundation of your online presence together. I'll see you on the other side. 2. Why Social Media : Hi and welcome. I'm super excited to start with you this short yet intense journey that will help you understand how to explore the potential of social media and use a specific word, potential. If you're living in the 21st century like me, I'm sure you're aware that there are people that were able to create a living or of simply posting things online. Some people are still reluctant believing that being an influencer is actually a real job. Well, let me tell you that myself, even if almost indirectly, I built a business purely on social media, I never spend a single penny in any other sort of marketing activities. But if you're here, I also believe that you're very conscious that today taking care of your online presence can bring you huge benefit to your persona and business as well. Our goal in this course is not to transform us into influencers, but it's to understand and start taking concrete actions to develop our presence online and obviously expand our business. How can having a good profile on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube would ever bring your business. Or think about yourself when you're looking for something, where do you look for it? The majority of people don't open books anymore, or even less newspaper because Google has a faster answer. And very often the solution is on YouTube. Starting from my generation, there's no way that brands would reach us on TV or prints. And instead, they want to target the things that we use the most, aka social media. When brands come to me and asked for sponsored posts, they know that my audience has an interest in photography and creativity in general. And that they are tied to me with an emotional attachment that you want fine. For example, if you put an ad on a print or in the middle of the highway or on Facebook towards audience that have never seen you before. That emotional attachment is what really makes social media so powerful. Because not only allow us to have an audience whose interests in what you do, but the coolest and most incredible feature about social media is that it's completely free. Some YouTubers, Instagrammers take talkers are earning millions having invested 0 or close to 0 at first. But let's now talk about millions because that's not what we want, or let's say is what we want him down. But it's not easy. And like with everything in life, only a few people can make into debt stage. So let's focus on easy things because social media is not only about being an influencer, Actually, you know what, forget that word. Instead, think about putting you out there, showing your work. We're talking about a free worldwide marketing platform because the reality is that you can use these platforms to, first one, showcase your portfolio. Which means you put your work out there in platforms that have already billions of users and anyone can access and see your profile. Second, showcase your talent. Many times photographers to have a website with portfolio and stuff, but you can't really put everything you want into your website has to be clean, to be professional and so on, so forth. Whereas on Instagram or TikTok, you can show to the world how you create it, a certain piece of content, adding so much value to define our result. Plus if your dream is to work for Coca-Cola, for example, you can take some shots for Coke and just post them in your profile. And there's a chance that if the photo is really catchy and high-quality could hit to how Griffith go viral and be seen by Coca-Cola itself or other beverages company. And let me tell you that this is not that uncommon as you might think. On the other hand, is very unlikely to go viral wet just a blog post. Why I'm saying this? Because it happened to me many times and loads of other friends too. But obviously it's not that you post one photos Napa finger, and get a gig with Coca-Cola. That's not how it works at all, but we'll get into this later. Third one, also, you can be discovered by brands themselves by exploiting some SEO principles of social media. Trust me, whenever a brand wants to find ambassadors, they really go on Google to find them. It happens very often on social media because of the same principle we just mentioned. Same thing happened with me and my Global Ambassador ships with Joby, which is part of the biter group that also have mom fructose syrup, low Pro and others that I'm pretty sure, you know. And obviously as well for the lighting parts, for getting brand deals, which means you're not paid for your time directly, but you're paid for your audience, for your communication skills and talent. And if brands pay you, first of all, you get a ton of free gear, which is always useful for us photographers. But the concept is that you're not monetizing your audience directly, but instead, the brand pays you. You create free content for people, people by the brand's product if they like it and everyone's happy. On the other hand, monetizing directly your audience is always a little bit more complicated with your products and services. Fifth, last but not least, you built our authority into space at this point. There's really no need to talk about it because you know very well that being Fricker, nice as an authority in this space and brings you huge benefits. Now, to close this video, I just want to show you a one-minute speech from Kevin O'Leary, a famous US investor, as you might have seen him in Shark Tank and more if three years ago when I was asked this question, what degree gives you the highest chance of success in a career? Number one would have an engineering number two, engineering number three, Engineering. And generally it's the graduating cohort of engineers. And about a third of those classes go on to take their ideas, turn them into patents, turn them into businesses. But I've changed my mind in the last two years and I'll tell you why. Since the pandemic hit the number one demand I have for my companies are people that can take the concept of the business and tell a story about it. Produce a video, do really rich photography, build-out 59 seconds, 39 seconds, 29 second videos, 14 second videos to plaster all over social media to sell product direct to customer. So if you're a graduate from the arts, or you're a writer, or you're a photographer, or an editor or a videographer, all of a sudden, I'm paying you a $150 thousand. I would have thought I could have hired you for nothing because you are starving artists. 3. The Ultimate Goal: What is the ultimate goal of any social media? Even though sounds weird, saying social media in general, because while TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat are all different themselves, the goal is always the same. They need to earn money because they are our business. But if you're a user, you're not paying to create an account or to post picture to watch out as people content. Well, then how they can make money. You know very well, external advertisers, whenever we want to try to grow on social media to gain exposure and be picked up by the algorithm, we need to think on how we can satisfy Denise that these platforms have, which is keeping the user as much time as possible on the platform. Because the more they stay on the platform and scrolling on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, wherever, the more ads they see, and therefore more revenue for the platform itself. Let's say you post a photo on Instagram. The user is really caught by this photo, decides to VDS your profile and then scroll throughout your whole feet and check out all the photos you have. It engages with you and maybe send you a message. This person has stayed very long on the platform. Thanks to you. This will be a great advantage for the algorithm because it's like saying, okay, this users tastes so much on the platform thanks to you. So I want to give you more exposure because you're helping me making money. Now, while it seems old theory now, this concept is going to make sense very soon. And it's extremely important to understand that everything we do on whatever platform has to answer this question. Will this action MEG, the user stay longer on the platform? We're getting into this later, but this is the reason why Instagram from a photo sharing platform has moved to a more video sharing platform because the retention rate of videos is much longer than a photo. I use your tend to spend more time on a video than on a photo. Once we understood this concept, then we're ready to ask ourselves how we can make the user stay longer on the platform, how we can adapt our content for these purpose, it's really important to understand this as well. Because when we're shooting our photos, maybe we're onset and we want to make sure to think about how we can create some type of content to them. Post the final photo online, which means that, that content has to be more shareable on social media afterwards. And yes, we really need to think in that way. For example, when you're doing shooting, you can take some behind the scenes which you weren't doing before. Or you can showcase how you took a certain type of photo in certain type of scenario, or how you set up a certain type of lighting or whatever it comes in your mind. Keeping people on the platform can be achieved in loads of different ways, which include inducing also micro actions for calling your accounts commencing as much as possible messaging on the app itself. And in general, being active and think carefully. 4. Which one to choose: Whatever social media you're planning to use our objective as photographers East to create some sort of relations with an audience that will ultimately bring us loads of benefit, as mentioned before, including direct sales of our products and services, revenue from third parties authority in this space and so on, so forth. So what is the best way to create a relation with an audience? The answer is simple. You need to show up where the audience might relate. We use the most sounds abuse, but it's not if you're selling windows or gaming fair might be not the perfect place to find clients. Same thing with social media. Which social media has the best target for you as an Instagram, TikTok or YouTube snapchat, Pinterest, LinkedIn clubhouse, while showcasing photos and talking about photography could be adopted to any platform. Maybe clubhouse is not the best if you just want to showcase photos. Instead, instagram is surely better because he's actually something for posting photos and videos. Do you want to teach what you know with long form content wall then this case YouTube is the one. Our needs might be different, but I can tell you that my go-to social media or TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. Where this last one being the long term strategy, TikTok being more short-term breach and Instagram for building a community. And this is because for how the algorithm works. Victoria pushes content to new audience every single time while Instagram tries your followers first, then expand into new people afterwards. If that piece of content is worth it, don't worry, this might not make any sense now, but let's break down a little more the key points of the most used social media, Starting from YouTube. Youtube is the second largest search engine, which means after Google. If you need to find something, you go to YouTube. It's mainly based on long form content that could last anywhere two minutes, five minutes, ten minutes, 15, or even more. As a photographer, I think is an amazing platform to teach others whatever you know. But there is a problem. We YouTube, making high-quality videos to post on YouTube picks a massive amount of time and effort before seeing any kind of result. They could actually take years, but obviously, it depends on the quality of your work. And overall, I think it's a fair platform because if you grow, it pays you pretty well. Instead, instagram doesn't pay you anything at any point in time. It's also the platform that allows to create the strongest site revenue stream because the span of attention of the viewer in general is much longer than any other social media. Which means that people take their time because of maybe they want to read the description of the videos. They check out the links, which is something that doesn't really happen on Instagram or TikTok. They've recently introduced shorts which are up to 60 seconds for now, and our vertical clips and can be uploaded and a specific section. While they can give you quite a big boosting subscribers, I, I personally don't believe much in this function due to the nature of the platform itself. If you have time and energy, because building your channel and requires an incredible amount of willpower. I think YouTube is the way on the long term that you should take. However, if you don't have time and skills to create a high-quality videos. My suggestion is that you start from TikTok, which is these new app based only on short videos of 15 to 60 seconds. Now they're expanding into three minutes videos, but let's not talk about it. Tiktok was the first platform that may mean explored on social media because it was much easier to go viral than in any other platform. You can upload pre edited videos or create new ones using the in-app editing software. It has lots of built-in effects that can be used to make your videos more engaging at any time. And even these can be applied directly in the app. Now the question is, should you start a TikTok? My answer is yes, especially because now you could use the same video that you use for TikTok, for Instagram Reels and for you to shorts. So this means creating one piece of content and posting three different platform. The biggest problem about TikTok is that it requires high frequency of posting. I personally posted three times a day in the first four months of opening the account with an average of 1.5 hours worked to make the video for editing, shooting and stuff. Now, it is not necessary anymore posting soft. And because the app is much more saturated than it was when I actually started, because we're talking about videos and not posting photos. If you're not familiar with editing, engaging short piece of content, growing on TikTok might take awhile before seeing any results as well. Same thing can happen with Instagram. Okay, let me make this story very short here. Back in 2010, it wasn't really the first photo-sharing app, but for a few reasons was just the best one for photographers. Until a while ago when Masaryk, the head of Instagram, declared that this is not a photo-sharing app anymore. It used to be a photo-sharing platform, but it's not anymore. It was born as a tool to showcase your best pictures of your daily life, but now it's officially transitioned to a video sharing platform. Why? Because of the reason we already mentioned, videos are more engaging. They keep the user login the platform, which means more money for them, 70% of its user RH below 35. It's estimated that 60% of user watch IG every day and beverage screen time on this app is 53 minutes per day, is the social media with the highest engagement rate. And because of these numbers, Instagram has become like a business card. Brands go to IG to see who to sponsor clients that come to me. Look at my IG first. It's, it's indeed the most important platform and that's why we're now focusing on it. One thing is true, it's changing a lot. And this is dangerous because like what happened with Facebook when you want to be too much, you're just going to be a little bit redundant. One of the reasons why AIG kept its leading position throughout the years, despite being acquired by Facebook in 2012, is because they always maintained their core and values where they work since they started not talking about Facebook, I can tell you that has become a social network for older people and almost no one in the new generations actively uses it anymore. Personally, I think has become only annoying showing things. I don't want to see what loads of different notifications, probably the most positive thing about Facebook right now, our groups, I don't use that function in my community, but could be a viable options if you require a place to gather people online with or without restricted entry. We could also mentioned Twitter, Snapchat, pinterest, flake, behance, LinkedIn and more. But I don't want to give you redundant information because that might confuse you. The bonds that should you start all of them? The answer is, well, it depends how much time and energy you want to dedicate through expanded your online audience. Many people think that you should try to stretch as much as possible and therefore open all the accounts and tried to post everywhere. This case, the risk is that you'll burn out and you want to continue whatever social media you're gonna choose. The chances to go viral and grow in a very short time are extremely low. Therefore, my suggestion is that you focus on one or two and then try to implement the otters with time. Keep in mind that eventually is not crazy difficult to transport, to move people into different platforms. So it's better to take care of one, which means posting and focusing on high-quality content instead of posting everywhere with poor quality. First, is totally up to you and depends on the time and effort you want to put into it. 5. Pick A Niche: Talking about social media, you are competing with the world. A billion people that could substitute u because there are actually no barriers to entry and incredible benefits for those who success. So the question is, how can you stand out, right? When I had the explosion on Instagram, I decided to analyze what happened to me. I grew from around 28 K, two basically a 100 K followers in three month, thanks to the virality of my reals, I generally didn't know that this was even possible. However, are understood debt by combining several unfair advantages of mine, I was able to attract a unique audience. A few years ago, I was a professional model working in Milan for big brands and doing these kind of fashion shows shootings. I learned how to post in front of the camera. Funny enough, I move behind the camera as it's happening now. And I found that the two things combined together are not a common bundle within other creators. I'm not saying that I'm the only one being a model and a photographer the same time. But if I compare the pool of photographers, would the pool of photographers were a wholesale model? Well, the competition becomes a fraction and not by chance, my most viral post on Instagram are the ones where I show you how to stay in front of the camera and take photos with self-portraits. Plus, when I was actively working for clients couple of years ago as a videographer, I will specialize in short commercial 15 to 30 seconds videos. Tiktok or YouTube shorts are made for this type of videos. And this is a huge, huge, huge, unfair advantage for me because I already have a ton of experience in crafting short Value pack videos. Now, I know what you're thinking. 90% of the people have their self-confidence below 0. And thing to have nothing unique in themselves. But stop there. Every one of us has some kind of unfair advantages and you just need to be honest with yourself, I'm a 100% sure that you have some sort of skills and talent that if combined together, We'll make you stand out from the crowd. It's really not about the single skill. There are millions of photographers out there. There are ten times better than me saying the least. There are tons of model much more handsome than me. But they're not millions of photographers who are also models and are specialized in short video content. Do you get what I mean? This is the number one factor for picking a niche. Exploit your unfair advantages. Alright, well this being set and almost all the social media, we can identify three types of accounts. First one is a educational. So whatever you're doing, you're teaching someone else how to do anything. The second one is entertaining. So you're just doing fun stuff. There is not a real value, rather than just wasting time having fun and smiling. The third one is those who follow trends. And this could be also about news. If you want to update people on what's going on in the world are also what's going on. Maybe in social media or jump on new trends that are going violet right now, the question here is, who do you want to be? And to answer this question, you need to understand what's your goal with social media? Why are you using social media? And number one thing is, what needs are you solving? Many times it happens that maybe you're not identify a need that is already existed in the world, but you can create your own problem. Let me give you an example. When you're taking a certain kind of photo that people do not understand how it was taken, then you're creating a problem because these people want to know how you created that piece of art. You really need to ask yourself why people should follow you? What is the value that you're adding? Which is the reason why they should lie, comment and save your photos. And to do this, you can also think about you watching content online. Why are you watching that person or that YouTube video or Instagram? How did it catch your attention? Tried to analyze these kind of factors about yourself and try to understand how other people could follow u. Plus one more thing is that the content should also refract your personality. It is difficult to stand out as a normal photographer, as a portrait photographer, but it's easier to stand out as you, as a photographer putting something that is not common to other people. It could be that you're funny. It could be that you using a specific set of gear. It could be that you're explaining things extremely well and therefore people want to follow you. So it's definitely easier to stand out, not as a photographer, but as a photographer with a certain personality. Think about your personality and how you'd like to be perceived by others. And this is also about understanding your target. Are you targeting juice beginners, which are always the majority of the people at the bottom of the pyramid. Or you're targeting more advanced, which means that you have high knowledge in a certain topic and you're looking for high ticket selling points in general, when you're selling to beginners, you need to set a low price thanks to a lot of people. Whereas if you're advanced, if your target is advanced people, then you can sell much higher prices to a lower number of people. It really depends on what's your goal, and it really depends also on your experience. For example, you're just targeting general people interest in photography. So maybe you are creating the knee for these people to learn how to take good photos. And this doesn't really have like an ultimate monetary goal. It could come in the future, but it could be also just to make friends and to create a community. One of the really key things here is that you really need to pick a niche and be extremely specific. Star, extremely small in your niche, and then expand later. If you want to be a photographer on social media, it's very hard to just be a photographer. It's much, much more effective to be editing portrait photographer or Photoshop expert only, or the person who tries out all the new gear there are coming out in the future month is really about picking that small niche of a niche. So we have a niche about photography. That's not enough. This is way, way too broad because there could be portrait photography, landscape editing, Photoshop, lightroom, new gear like loads of different smaller niches. And to start out to be noticed by social media, it's really important to just find one. It's pretty difficult because myself, I got trouble doing this. Because what I'm doing right now is that I'm just teaching photography and I'm very broad because I like to do everything. I can not decide what I want do because I get bored very easily if I do portrait for 24 hours. So it's not impossible to grow as a kind of a broad portfolio, but it's much easier if you have a niche. If I would have picked a niche, I would have gone already much higher on YouTube that I'm doing right now. But that's my choice because what I wanna do is I want to enjoy the process and go long term. I know that myself. If I decide to go only for portrait tutorials on YouTube for six months, I would just burnout and I will live it lay there. I prefer to grow slower and have a broader niche. But my suggestion is that if you have a passion, if you have a niche, just go with it if you can. And if you know that you're not going to burn out, touching upon everything is not the smartest idea ever. But again, I just want to do it because I want to enjoy the process and do what I love to pick Cornish is also important to understand the categories of social media. So you need to find the people who mattered the most to your business. And there's actually a tool that helps you doing this to understand a little bit more insights from Google. And it's called Find my audience. So if you just go on www dot google.com, then you'll find a feature called Find my audience. And then you just need to select the type of audience and then your category, depending on the type of photography. For example, you could just go for sport and fitness if you're a sports photographer and then see a few insights of that kind of audience. One more goal of building your own niche and just staying there is that you build authority there. And you know very well that building towards in a certain space will give you tons of benefit. If you pick a single niche is going to be easier. If you do like me that you pick everything, then it's more difficult, yes, and building the authority on teaching photography. But if someone has to think about whatever portrait photography than maybe not the best in this space. So it's gonna be also easier to have more sales if you pick an issue and then you're going to sell products on that single niche. I could be an authority in posing because loads of posing videos that I posted where literally viral. So if you can build authority, they can have more respect and you can be the point of reference. And therefore, again, is going to have more cells just at the end of the day and branch will look for you when they're thinking about a certain type of style of photography. So that's totally up to you. I hope you enjoyed the video and I'll see you the next one. 6. The basics: Now let's talk about the basics. When we're talking about Instagram, the first thing that you need to know is that there are few account type. So the first one is that you have a normal personal profile. This case you don't have access to statistics and in general or just for people that want to hang out with friends and sea otters, people's stories. But it's not really for creators. For creators, if you're a photographer, if you're a business, is better if you have either creator account or a business account. They're very similar. You have a little bit more functions that on the private profile, but the difference is that you have access to actually these statistics. My suggestion is that this pie, there's not a big difference between creators account and business account. Only a few details when you're doing at, you always stay on creators. Why I'm saying this? Because a few weeks ago I tried to change from creator to business and that heart, my account quite a lot. Because the concept, as we mentioned before, is that Instagram wants to make money. And if you are a business day, want you to pay for us in order to reach a new audience. Whereas if you keep, as a creator like Candice, I kind of influencer profile than Instagram doesn't block you as much as a business. One more thing that you can do if you have a personal account is that you can put your account on private. That means that when someone wants to follow you has to recruit first and then you can approve it. Or not. Only for your approval, you will see your content, your feet, and your stories. Right now, let's jump into Instagram. So whenever you open the app, you have the first page, which is called the feet, basically is the page where you see the content of people you follow. But again, we're going to talk later about how the algorithm works. Then you have the second page, which is the search bar and Explore page. Here you see content of people that you don't follow and is based on your interests on what you usually like. We're going to talk again about the algorithm later. And then you can see reals, you can see normal posts, you can see videos, and you can also search for things. For example, if you go on search, you can write literally anything and then they'll pop up the most appropriate result or otherwise, if you just want to search for accounts. So if you're looking for your friends than you going accounts, and then you write the name or if you're using for tax. So here we're talking about hashtags for example, I use a lot crazy, amazing. And then you click, Okay, you see there are 6 thousand post, that is the number of posts that use that hashtag. You click on it and then you see all the posts that you just asked. Again, we're going to talk in depth about hashtag later. And then you can also find in places, for example, if you want to go into the Dolan meters, you can write Dolan meters. And then you see this place right here. And then all the posts that people use while in millimeters, they'll pop up here in this section. Or you can also view information about, for example, if you're looking for a restaurant and this restaurant has geotagged, then you can see old information and you can also see the map just by clicking on it. And then you can zoom out and see where did millimeters are. There you go. Then the next tab, depending on your region, because reals are not available in all the regions in the world yet, but they'd probably be, is that our reals? So in this case, you're just seeing all these kind of video vertical format. There are about 15 to 30 seconds. As of right now, I think frills that are about 15 to 30 seconds optimum minute, but usually you see them about ten to 20 seconds, that's the average. And then obviously you can put likes, you can comment, you can share it. And you can see the caption just right here with all the hashtag and so on, so forth. Then you have the sharp feature. This is a new thing that Instagram is implementing in this month. But as TikTok is doing, they really want to push this possibility of poor changing things from the app. Or if you are a business, for example, you can tag in your selling clothes. You can tag your own quotes in your post and people can just need to click on it. See the price acts as your website by n, That's it. Then last one, we have our profile. So this is the main fee. That's what we're going to call feed. This is the grid, is what you want to take care of really for the colors. And then you have the reals tab. So in this case, only reals. When you post videos, you'll be able to post them in your feet or not, or just keep them in the real step. And then the last one is whatever photos had your tag. So these are all people that taught me in their photo. And obviously there are some of my photos as well because you can tag yourself in your photos. Then there is another top. So let's find another person. Let's say none light that has this type right here. This is IGTV. This is long form content, so it's kinda like YouTube for Instagram is not really used. So I'm not gonna go in depth. But if you want to post, for example, YouTube video in here, This is gonna go on IGTV. Then there is another button here, which are the guides, Instagram launched guides a few months back, but I think that didn't really pick up. So these are basically e-books that you can access with information. You can put posts, you can put links and stuff like this. Again, we're not going to really go in depth for this because I think they're pretty useless for now because it just didn't go well. So when you are in the homepage, there are also these tourists right here on the top and stories or content that is available only for 24 hours and are usually people that you follow are ready and they pop up based on interests. For example, is my friend Luca. He's, there is one story only and you can see the timer on the top right corner. So whenever that timer is going to finish, then next Tory will pop up. And then next door, next door, you're just need to tap left or right to see the previous story or the next story. Or you can slide to see the next person every three or four story, there's always an ad which is pretty annoying, but I actually like it sometimes because these ads are very targeted and they show me things that maybe I didn't know. Sometimes it's bothering me, sometimes he's okay. But that's how it works. That if you want, there is also your face on the left side where allows you to add a story. In this case, you can use the built-in camera or you can just swipe up and access to your camera, roll and post whatever photo you have. This is based on recency. So if you want to post, let's say this photo, you just tap on it and this will be a story. And you need to click on your stories on the bottom-left corner, introduce posting. Or you can do lots of different things that we're going to see later to modify stories. Once you are in the homepage, you can click the plus button to access that posting site of Instagram. So here you can just lie left or right and see if you want to do a post before I do a story. If you want to push the reals or if you want to go live. Live is another option. But I didn't do it very often because I just don't use it live and I don't believe in live much, but it's going to come out to be a big feature in a few months or few years time. Then here you can see all the people that puts like all that tagged you to take you in stories that come in you, everything. And then here are the messages. So you have primary and general. General usually where I keep the followers that I don't know personally, in primaries where I keep all the people that I know personally. So there are these two sections that are available when you're a creator. I'm not sure if you can access them on the spot or not, and then you have the request. So people that are not following you, but they tried to send you a message, they're going request and you need to approve or delete if you want to accept the message or not. If you want to reply, you need to accept it obviously. And then you can decide whether to let them go in general or in primary. And that's pretty much it about Instagram. If you want to have a quick look on TikTok, when you open the app, there is the For You page, which are all of these videos that are from people that you don't follow or people that you follow is a mix of both. Or you can pick the following page where there are videos of only people that you follow. Let's say in the For You page, you can see the description, the likes, then you can tap on that person to see their feet and older videos. Then you have the Discover page where you can search for everything he's like the Explore page for Instagram. You see the trends, you see the hashtag, they're going on the music. And then you can go in inbox where you see all your notification people that are following you, that like you and all the things plus the messaging side, which is only available if both of you follow each other, then there's the profile where you see all your things and then there's your description. You can edit your profile or your links and so on, so forth. You click Plus, you'll be able to post a video, whether you want to upload your own or just create with the built-in video editor, old effects filter enhancing timers and all the things. There are actually a lot of things here that even here, there is the TikTok shop, which is something that TikTok is implementing again this week's month or whatever is only available in the UK. My account is based in the UK, So that's why I have it. If you're somewhere else, you probably don't have it depending on when you're watching this video. Then the last step that I want to touch upon is YouTube Studio. So whenever you create a channel, you want to see your stats. You can, you need to use this app. And then from here you see your subscribers, your analytics, the last video that you posted and all the videos they're about to come up. Comments and stuff in general, when you want to push in YouTube is always better to exit from desktop because you'll be able to see and change your banner, profile image and all the kind of things plus a much more analytics, right? That's it for this video. Thank you for watching. I'll see you in the next one. 7. Setting Up Your Profile: To set up your profile, the first thing that you'll have to choose, a username. Username is extremely important because it's the first thing that someone types in the search bar in order to find you or when you need to communicate your Instagram name is exactly the username. And there are a few things that you need to understand before choosing one because you don't want to make some mistakes as either. My unfortunately is not the best because it's a little bit difficult to read and a little bit difficult to pronounce it. For foreign people in Italy is pretty clear, but somewhere else is not. And you need to find something that is easy to remember. Because it's going to act also as your personal brand in the future. You need to avoid lengthy name like too long. Or if you come from a country that has a difficult pronunciation, than just avoid it. Find something extremely simple that is easy to pronounce and easy to remember. And obviously because you want to be easy to remember, that has to be as short as possible. You want something catchy that makes you remember your name and whenever you see it. Oh, that guy, right? The best way is just try to think in different languages and especially in English. Is it easy to pronounce it? Is it easy to remember? So for example, mine is not really great, but I decided to keep it because it's borderline. For example, you can use words like photography or visuals or vision and loads of people actually used, for example, their initial so m dot visual. This is a London photographers super easy to remember because there is just his initial adult and visual. Lot of people have visuals in their name. So maybe you can be a little bit more creative, but just make sure that it's easy to remember and catches your attention somehow. The next thing that you want to have and take care of as the title. This is extremely important because this is searchable. So whenever you put some words in a search bar, this pop-ups as well. For example, me, my name, my username is federal 21, whereas my name, my title is Simona in my name and Marsh renamed. And the best thing is to put what you do there in the title. So for example, when I communicate how to find me on Instagram, either I say my username or I say my name because Simona variety in the title, a searchable. So if you put two monophyletic on Instagram, you'll find me. I'm gonna be probably the first one, the first result. But if you can put your name in the username Dan there, or if you have space there, you can just put, for example, London photographer. This way, if you look for London photographer in the search bar, everyone that has London photographer in the title will show up. So this is really important as well. So user specific word that makes you identify with a certain profession or where a certain skill. Portrait photographer, landscape photographer, videographer, whatever comes in your mind or whatever, who are you. Then the next part is the bio. Even this one is extremely important because it's like US business guy, whenever a person visits, your provost sees the bio. And sometimes these underrated, I see creators that don't have like a catchy bio and I think this is just a mistake. You need to take care of the bio as it was your business card. So make sure to have something catchy there has to be easy to read and put there what you do, again, if you didn't put in a title, maybe portrait photographer, and why people should follow you. So if for example, I put learning and teaching photography, so you should follow me because I teach you photography. You got one amine and also you can put them some major achievements. Which means I have a Guinness World Record that I achieved on the Mount Everest in 2020. So I decided to put it there. If you've been awarded for the photographer of the year or whatever achievements you have and just put it there. If you have a website, you teach Photoshop and you got already more than five k people signing up for your courses. You can put teaching Photoshop to five k people. Think about your best achievement and tireless and why people should follow you and try to squeeze it there. Also, if you are an ambassador for any kind of brand, then just put it there. I'm a German ambassador, ambassador, and I obviously put them there as well. Next thing to take care of is the profile image. Even this one is a little bit underrated. First has to represent you. Your profile image is you, is your face, and you need to speak to your target as well. If you are a photographer, then took a profile picture with a camera or an outstanding photo that you have where you are in a scenario, if you're a landscape photographer or something that really represents you with a piece of gear that is very expensive that you have and makes you different from others. Use something that identifies you with your profession and make sure that it fits the circle very well. That circle is small and that's why I'm telling you have a portrait just on your face. Super-important. Don't put landscape photo with you there. It could be. Okay. But he's also dangerous because it's such a small photos, such a small circle that is better to have just the face or maybe you have a full figure when you walk in the beach with a sunset. Something that works where the circle, because the profile picture should be recognizable. Many times you just don't read much, but we have a very strong visual memory as humans. And therefore, your profile picture becomes also an identifier for you. So when I scroll in stories, I don't look at the name, but I looked just at a profile photo. My suggestion is that you shouldn't change it very often is like WhatsApp. You have visual memory, boom, you know already without even reading what that group is about, then the last thing, extremely important as well as the link in bio, this is the number one and only contact point that directs people to external website or wherever you want. Usually you can put only one link. So if you have your website or if you have YouTube, you put your link there. But eventually you can use a third party services like link tree or direct me, as I used to have multiple links in the same length. You click on the link that could be direct dot slash your usernames Pharaoh 21, and then multiple link will pop up. You can put your website, you can put your YouTube, you can put your sharp, you can put everything that you want there. But be careful don't make the same mistake as I did because I put like ten different things in that link before there was Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, my sharp, my work, my latest YouTube video, especially YouTube video that someone was asking a sharper collaboration. Like feelings too many. You just don't want to confuse the audience when is touching up that link. So you want to have maybe three or four maximum five link in debt one and try to direct people wherever you want. So if your first parts of content is the Webster's, just put the website. If your focus is YouTube, then put YouTube is a first one, maybe their website and maybe another link and debt say, if you're selling products and put the main product as a top one and not too many afterwards, take care of the Lincoln buyer is super-important. I hope you enjoy it and I'll see you in the next one. 8. Reels Focus: In this video, we're going to talk about reals. What are reals? Well, you might have heard about TikTok and this new type of content, which is short videos, let's say 101520 seconds, 30 seconds maximum, one minute. Well, you're so engaged because it's like something that you can't stop watching this funny videos, entertaining or learning type of content. And thanks to a huge explosion of TikTok, users of this app, first in Asia and then in Europe as well. Then obviously the Instagram decided to implement this feature as well with Instagram videos and YouTube and YouTube shorts. Personally, let me tell you that I love them because in a very short period of time, you can learn lots of different things. Thanks to TikTok, I learned a lot of trick about photography and a lot of website that I didn't know where sources and stuff. I think there are very, very useful resource if you'd like to learn. Because many times the algorithm understand what you like. If they see that you like, let's say cats content, they're going to show you lots of funny stuff which are useless. They're fun, they're entertaining. But at the end of the day, I want to learn, and therefore I always watch these kind of learning videos and do your amazing. Now, there are loads of things that I would like to say about reals because even though they're like 15 to 22nd videos, they're actually packed of small details that if put together, can really create this viral effect. They're actually not random. Every single thing, every second is well-thought. And obviously, this kind of talent of creating lots of value in a certain way in such a short time is actually a big talent and it's difficult to do it due to the short time where you actually need to put a load of value. Sometimes it's much easier to make a 10-minute video rather than maybe a one-minute video where you actually put all the information from the ten into the one. The best way to create reals, or that's what I do is that I use an external app called cap cut, which is free, allows basically to edit videos on my smartphone and then I'll post them on the various platforms. So TikTok, Instagram videos and YouTube shorts. Why I do this? Because in this way I just need to edit the video once instead of using the built-in editor in TikTok, Instagram or YouTube, and then post it into these three platform. And then I just need to add a text and maybe a couple of custom effects if I want to. Now, let's talk by the pillar of content in general and even more of reals or this type of short videos. It's value, no matter how cool the biggies, if you don't add value in that video, is gonna be very difficult to make the people enjoying, stay there, rewatch it, and so on, so forth. In order to add value, you can either put some educational content so you can teach people or inform them, or you can entertain. So making something funny, these are the two big types. And our goal is that we need to let the people stay, obviously the longest possible on the platform. And with video means letting them watch that video until the end. But what is the reason of why people are motivated to stay until the end of the video. At the end of the day, it's all about interaction. So that means watch until the end, rewatch the video. Stop the video to maybe have a look at a certain part or analyze details, the wow effect and saving factor. So that means there are all these kind of action that we need to think about how we can increment them. So when we make a video, think about these things and try to implement them all while is not truly necessary to have all these kind of characteristic in one single video. If you want to make a viral video, then you need to have most of them, which means dipolar stopping on the video to see what's going on. People are re-watching the video. People are saving that same video. People are having this wow effect, that they love it and share it with their friends. Our goal is to add value and increase the chances of interaction with our post. Which means, for example, having a clear value and declare it at the beginning. So you can put, whenever you have a video, you can put in an initial test called the elephant in the room, as I like to call it. Which means you're telling what's going to happen in the video because that's going to increase the chances to have a look at the whole video. For example, if I'm telling you, great tip for photographers or every photographer should do this or result is crazy. Something like okay, I wanna, I wanna have a look at what's going on in this video. At the beginning, it's always best to keep these videos. These videos and textile is very short because you don't have already and audience. And therefore, it is difficult to maintain the attention of someone that doesn't know you for a long period of time. And therefore you should say between eight to ten seconds. Ten seconds will be the video at the beginning. You can go longer, but I suggest to stay short whenever you're going to gain a little bit more audience than you can move towards the ten to 15 seconds, 1520. I personally never go above 20 because it is difficult. To maintain that retention rate, that is going to help you with the views of the real big concept is that you need to train people in your audience, that you're going to put a lot of value in that video. And therefore the chief stay until the end. But at the beginning, short is always matter. The amount of information that you put in each video should be balanced. Therefore, it means not to less and not too much. But otherwise you're going to create confusion if you want to write, I don't know, 20 websites that you found that are useful for you and you think that could be a hip. Don't put all the 20 website in 20 seconds. Just bump, bump, bump, bump, bump because you're just going to create probably confusion. So it's better maybe to give three different website that you found food that will help you in photography later in 15 seconds. So even here, think about a good amount of information, a good amount of values that you want to add in each video. It could be also one. That's not a problem. Maybe you can explain it for a few seconds, what's going on, or you can put more than one. For example, in my videos like three poses for men, let j, where I show you how to pose and take the photo. I showed you three poses and not five, not seven, not ten, not 13. Because I think three is a good amount that people can remember, but they also want to re-watch it because remembering how to enhance how to put the hair, how to put the shoulders with three different poses is not easy. Maybe they want to rewatch it or save it and therefore it's going to increase my reach. In general, when we're talking about reals and TikToks, we can identify a structure of three main points. The first one is the hook, which is usually the first three seconds maximum of the video, where you really need to hawk the viewer there and you want to increase his curiosity to watch the overall video. And as I mentioned before, it could be maybe a great tip for photography or did you know that? Or I can't believe it the result or three killing poses for men. Now, this kind of catchy hook something that really catches your attention. Then the second part would be the explanation where you actually adding the value, where you're explaining what's going on. And depending on what type of content you're doing, this can have different ways of doing it. Obviously, even this case, you can use, for example, a voice-over after. So in the video you're just showcasing what you're doing. And then we'd have voiceover afterwards recorded in the app. Then you can explain it with the voice or you can just put text to describe what's going on. Third one, which is optional depending on what you're doing is the result. There were some videos at the beginning, a few, a few months back that we're just showing things and then you are expecting a result, but then there was no result. And this was so annoying for me because he just doesn't make any sense. Whenever you're adding value, you're explaining things, just add. The result is like I'm telling you three killing poses for men and then I don't show you the result photo, it just doesn't really make sense. I always suggest you put the result. Now. There are few things that maybe don't need the result. For example, if I show you a trick for the high-quality uploads that not many people know about that setting, then that's the setting. You just showed the setting and that's it. You don't need to show our result that the photo uploader will be high-quality, doesn't make any sense. Then next thing that is super important is music. Make sure that you choose your music carefully because you don't want to have an exciting video with the boy music at the same time, you don't want to have maybe an explanation of behind the scene with a super APIC dramatic cinematic music. Try to match the music with the video. Okay, Let's have a look at an example of one of these reels. In this case, this video that will show you received 500 K or something views on TikTok and he went pretty well on Instagram as well. So let's play right now with no music and nothing just to edit. So let's play right now we just edit and no music, nothing because this is the external app that I use to edit the videos. And then you put music and texts in the apps that I told you before, TikTok and Instagram. So in this case, I start with three killing poses for men, and this means there is some value inside. Then I show you how I made the pose, and then boom, I show you the result. Second pose. And people are already hooked because the photo is a banker is a great photo. Then again, I show you how to do it and boom, the result. That's 20 seconds. If we have a look, for example, at TikTok, now, let me find that video yet, 470 k views. All right, so that's the video as you can see, there's a text behind, I taught my friend three killing positive format. And this is also relatable because when a person is watching this video saying, okay, he thought his friends, so I could be their friend. So let me have a look at this video. And these are three killing poses, so they must be good. It will help me be more good looking in my next photo shoots, so you're going to watch it. And then you see the first post this in the music. You got it. So the music has debt it, it starts low and then when it hits, then you see the first result. And that's also what catches the attention. Plus the photo, again, is a great photo and therefore he's gonna say, okay, Wow, this is amazing, so I can do it as well. And then you're going to watch also the second one. If there's one. All right? Class, not only this, if you hear the song, he says black magic, right? And these are black and white photos plus is magic because from the behind the scene you don't expect such a white background traumatic photo. So that's also important, very important. Let me give you another example of a real instrument. This video, for example, received 700 K abuse because right now I'm going to show you that a is just a simple tutorial on how you can make better photos or you can take better photos with your phone. Have a look at it. Okay. As you can see now at the beginning of the reel, I just show you how you still taking pictures like this and probably you can relate with this. Most of the people just take picture while they're straight. And then I tell you, no, this is not the right way to do it. And then I'll show you how to do it. Plus the music is exciting. Getting, getting, getting, they're getting, they're getting there. And then it starts when you see the result. The result is pretty outstanding, nothing crazy, but it's definitely better than just taking a photo straight. Now once again, there will be tons of other things I want to say talking about reals, but we're probably going to make a different class on the barrios. Thank you for watching. I hope you enjoy it. 9. Posts Focus: For all the reasons that we mentioned before, taking care of your feet is extremely important. While it is not necessary to have an outstanding feet, it is certainly helpful to make a good first impression on whoever is visiting your account, because that's the first thing that they see. And you can achieve a beautiful grid by posting consistent colors or subject in normal poster rules. Regarding the reals, you can decide whether you want to keep it or not in degrade, but we're going to see that later. You can decide to post several format of photos while posting normal feet. But the best way is always having a vertical four by five format because it's the one that occupies the more real estate in the main page. You can also post an horizontal format, but whenever you're scrolling, this horizontal pieces will stay and will occupy just a smaller part of the screen. Whereas if you post a four by five, which is the maximum, then you can see basically one post and the screen instead of maybe two if they are vertical. So always try to occupy the most real estate due to the reason that we said before, to maintain as much time as possible the user on your content and for the same goal, is best to use causal features, which allows to put multiple photos and a single post. Now before showing you how to do the carousel post and how to post, we need to activate an important function that might not be available in all the countries, but check it out in your profile if you can. So you go in your account and then you go and the three dots on the top there you're going settings. Once you're inside, as you click on Account, once in account, you go in data usage and make sure that you have that high-quality uploads turn on. This means that Instagram will not compressed as much as before. The photos or videos that you're posting. Extremely important, Not everyone has it yet, but check it out sometimes. Alright, so how do you post a car results? So you just go into plus. And then when you are here in post, you just want to make sure to click on the first photo that you want to post. That will be the one in your feet. So check out on this one and then you click this button right here that allows to post more. But first of all, you want to activate the vertical format, which is these two arrows on the left side of the screen. So this now is four by five, which is the maximum available. Then you're going to click on the cardinal feature and you'll be able to click on more photos, which will be also on vertical four by five. So the first photo of the carousel or video, always besides the format of the whole carousel. So you cannot post one vertical, one horizontal turn where vertical one squared, all the cars will photos must be the same. And if the original photo is not like that, then Instagram will crop it for you. So let's say we get three and let's get a cat in it. I don't know it just random. Then maybe you can post a behind the scene of the video, whatever I'm just using this one, then you click Next. And in this part you'll be able to change the order of the photos, choose holding on it, and then moving on one side or the other. There you go. Remember, the first one is the one that's going to show up in your feet. Then you'll be able to add whatever kind of filters to all the photos. But because we are photographers, I don't think we're going to use this. Just don't use them. And then you'll be able to mute if it's a video or just keep the audio. Then you click Next. Then here you have all the options. So you've read the caption, which is actually really important. We're going to talk just in a bit. You'll be able to talk people. So for every photo, you can add, for example, this is Jamaica, so I'm going to click on Jamaica and then done. So she's going to see, whenever we post it, She's going to see that she has been tagged in the tab that I showed you before. Or you can add a partnership label if this is a sponsored post and you can add the branch and he's going to show up paid partnership. Or you can add location, even this one same as before. You can just type whatever location you are in and click on that one. And then you'll be able to post it directly on Facebook. If you have a Facebook account linked or you can do an advanced settings and hide lie can view counts on this post. Not sure if this feature is available in all the countries yet, you can turn off commenting and no other kind of things. That's pretty much it. One more thing in advanced settings, if you want, you can write alt text. So you describe what is this photo about, and this will Instagram what the photos about in case someone is using some accessibility functions. And also somebody says is for the ad Griffith, I never do it because I think it's a waste of time. But just telling you that there is there, That's pretty much it. And once you're ready, once you've got the caption, you just click Share and the job is done. But let's say you want to prepare it and don't post it. Now you can write whatever you want, just go back and then once you click back in this screen, you'll be able to save draft. And then once you click a new post again, you can go in drafts and you see that the draft that you created. So this one, we can go next and then start from when we ended up before. Once again, encourage you just combine whatever you want and it's a good practice if you're showing a photo then to show the behind the scene or some detail, the lighting setup and all the kind of things. Okay, let's have a little focus on the caption. The caption is very important because one post is composed by the photo of the video and the caption. And this can be used for multiple reasons. The most important one is that you can engage with your audience there or you can tell a story. You can tell what's behind the photo, how you shot it. If there was a problem, start with something catchy all the time to grab the attention and tell them if you're using that cars will function. You just tell them, hey, swipe left if you want to see the before and after. If you want to see the behind the scene. If you want to see more about that photo. If for example, you're putting before and after or a different editing process, you can describe the transition from the first photo to the second photo to the third one, the fourth one and so on, so forth. So try to really think about how you can keep the user that the longest time on your content, even telling a story could be right. Because if you posted a photo of something that went wrong, for example, it could be interesting to read, how did it happen? Or how you shop that portrait because the person wasn't feeling well, whatever, just tell us Turiel, what's behind. Or for example, instead of a story could be also something fun about you or how you shut the picture. Or maybe you can ask questions to engage and induce people to come in. If you post five photos, there are different. Ask them which one is your favorite? The first one, the second and the third, 1, fourth, 1, fifth 1. And this will allow people to actually really comment on that photo and telling, Oh, my favorite is the third one, I liked the first one. And remember that the caption is super important because L allows you to write a CTA, which means call to action. So if you posted a video on YouTube and year posting a photo on Instagram to tell people that you're posting a YouTube than there you can say, alright, check didn't you video, link in my bio or you can tell them, visit my website, I have a 50 off on a new product. Or you can tell them, Hey, there's a great news I partnered up with this one. Here's the link or whatever you want. Now, you can really put links in there. So the best way is just put the link and the buyer using maybe multiple links and then tell it in the description, just go link in my bio, check it out. There's a new video, whatever you want. And I always do this for YouTube, for example, we're going to talk about later about cross-platform content. For example, I post a photo on Instagram, which is a great photo, whatever, maybe a little bit of behind the scenes, just ten or 15 seconds or even a real, and then maybe I posted a full explanation video on YouTube. So what I'm saying is hey guys, if you want to know more about how I shot this portrait, then check the link in my bio for a YouTube video. And in the link in my bio, of course, I'm going to put the link of that YouTube video. I hope you enjoyed this video and I'll see you in the next one. 10. Stories Focus: Let's talk about stories. Actually, stores are probably the most used function within Instagram. And this is due to the fact that which stories you're actually interact with the life of that type of user. So many people, I see that today are not even scrolling through feeds, but through watching stories. Because it's actually, you're living with that person because what a story is, is a piece of content. They stays there for 24 hours only and then disappear completely, which means that you don't have to take as much care as, for example, you're posting a photo because posting a photo will remain in your fees, whereas posting a story will just disappear after 24 hours. So you can show loads of different things on stores without caring about anything. And it's really that interaction with the audience that will build that consistent relationship is super important at any stage of growth of your account. Now, not really sure why. It's probably cosy is a new feature. New is already a few years that is out there. But adults tend to not use much this function, whereas young people, they actually love it. We use it all the time. And probably thanks to Snapchat, which is another social media that has that action invented this kind of feature and is more targeting young people. So it's really the most intimate thing that you can do to share your life. And you can literally share anything or when you're shooting like this. And then maybe I can make a story saying, Hey guys, I'm recording on a new course. I have the light here, I have this one, microphone lights and blah, blah, blah. So you can tell your day at any point in life and really shows your personality because when you're posting photos or when you posting Rios is already a little bit more, but especially when you're posting photos, your personality is very difficult to show. And for the reason that we mentioned earlier and then we're going to mention again, your personality is SKY, even web stories, the same type of algorithm. Instagram understands which user you're engaging with, which user you're spending the most time off. And then he's going to keep showing you these type of storage. Because obviously if you follow thousands of people not going to see all the story of everyone. And even here, in order to increase your story views, micro actions are king and we're going to see now how we can use some of the features within Instagram, within Instagram stories that can help you maybe increase your chances to be viewed by people. Stories are not really for reaching new people. In general, the majority of times, only people who follow you ready can see your stories. But once again, is truly important to create that relationship in order to make them engage with your future content. So as we mentioned before, you just need to click on the Plus button or swipe towards the right. And then you're going to access this built-in camera that can be obviously reversed just like this. And now you see my big light right here. And you can also take photos or videos directly from here. Or you swipe up or click that bottom left button to add another photo. For example, we can add this photo, so this is my camera roll. And then on the top here you'll be able to add loads of different function. For example, the first one means that you're going to download these photos. So if you can, if you want, you can add text and stickers and then you can download this photo and find it back afterwards, or you can add some music here. It really depends on the country you're in because I am aware that in some countries music and Instagram Stories is not available or you can add some links. So in this case, you just need to put the web link right here or add a partnership label, but this is only available above ten K followers. And then you have all the effects right here. You can add a loads of different filters and stuff and you can download them from creators you like. And these are especially used for videos, not much for photos. Or you can swipe left or right to add this kind of presets that are already built in Lightroom. So there is also no Legos. Melbourne, Jakarta, Abu Dhabi, blindness, Irish, New York, and more. Now, let's keep it normal because the next one is about stickers and loads of different functions. In this case, you can add locations, you just tap on location and then if you have the location, activate it. It will automatically shows up where you are right now, or you can just type whatever you want and find your location. So for example, Jolla meters that you go to millimeters unesco n here is there. Then you can tap on it to change a little bit graphic. The next thing is that you can mention people, or you can also mention people just adding text. And then you put the ad, and for example, Pharaoh 21. And there you go, we show up and when is underlined, it makes it stopped. And when you talk someone, the other person will see it that you're tagging that person at any point you can take an element and drag it towards the bend, is gone, then there's an hashtag. Usually hashtag in stores are not much use. But for example, if you are an event, then you can use the hashtag of that event and there'll be able to see the stories that have been posted. If you want to be re-posted by them, then you can add question here. You can add, How are you today? And then people will be able to tap on this one. And then for spawn, and you're gonna be able to see all the responses that you've got. So let's delete this one and then let's see the next one. Next one is GIF, GIF. So in this case, these are useful to add some fun at some movement to your stories, even if it's a photo or a video, you can, for example, write hello. And then lots of things have our hello will pop up. And even this one, for example, I love gift. But there is one problem as of right now, and I hope you're going to solve these problems soon. Whenever you add a gift, your content will ruse resolution. So if I post a photo without that gift, It's going to look right. If I add a GIF is going to look a little bit grainy, which is extremely annoying. Hopefully you're going to solve soon. Okay, that's done with the GIF. Then you have music, same thing as before that we saw. And then you have this slider. So you can say how much you like this photo, and then you can add a different emoji, for example, this one. And then people will be able to slide, so crop the heart and then slide to the left or right. And you're going to see all the results of people that voted, then there is a poll. So you ask a question, do you like this one? And then there you go. Then you can write yes or no or ugly. You basically the sites, whatever you want. Let's delete this one. And then there's the next one which is a quiz. So you add where am I? And then option $1 meters option to Austria or SSH, option three, France, option for UK. And then you tap on the letter to decide which answer is right or which one is wrong, you click Done, and then people will be able to vote and see which is the right answer in which is the wrong one, then you can add some donation. Let's get vaccinated for COVID or you can add a countdown, for example, new post today and then you add When is going to end this one. So for example, we put today at 12. There you go. And then D is going to come down. And when people click on that arrow, there'll be able to set up notifications. So when this expires, then they'll get a notification on their feet to then see whatever you decided to do. And then there are loads of other things. For example, you can add another photo on top of it, so you click that button and then you can add a different photo like this one and then position it wherever you want or there or decrease their date and a few other things. There's this like that. You can put it wherever you like. So boom. Then the next one, this is basically a painter you can choose which kind of paint you want to use and then the color as well. And you can hold the color to let the creating sharp and then you can pick any colors because otherwise you just have these presets right here. And then you'll be able to draw different things with also the dimension of the brush. There you go. You can also drive arrows, or you can use the highlighter, then change the color and maybe use that one right there, which is an highlighter with a glow outside. And obviously there is their rubber. So you can modify wherever you want and be creative with this. Then the next one is the text. Even in this case, you can just write whatever you want. So hello guys, done. And then you can just put it in the middle. Or you can change. And you can just drag it and put it wherever you want. Just change the background. Maybe what this one is, an animation so it pops in slowly, not a big fan of that. And then you can change the text, just sliding left on this different preset and obviously the colors just tapping on the background, you can change also the color of the text itself. So for example, if you are like this, then let's pick, for example, there are green. Now I can select the text only and change the color of the text without changing the background. So here, again, you just need to get creative and do whatever you want. Now, let's put the story together, for example. So we just use the built-in. So we're going to take a photo. This was a photo. Now, we put recording day. And then we put a few emoji. We changed maybe the text. We change the filter like this. Something big X coming. There you go. We put maybe and go we put it like this. And then we can tag non-life. For example, here. There you go, because this is a poverty by non-life. Now I tagged them and I can click just on my stories and now is going to be published and every follower can see it. If I click on it, now, it's uploading, but here on the bottom left I can see how many people have view it obviously now now because I just posted, but in a few minutes will be available. And if I go on my messages, I can see that I tagged actually not like global in this photo. And they can see it as well and they can repost it. Now one more feature that I wanted to show you that here on the right, or you can pick into settings if you want it on the left, you can choose the friend type of, let's say, cameras, built-in camera, built-in effects. So for example, boomerang, you can just create a boomerang boom. And then you go and that's the result that you get. Or we can discard it, or you can use hands-free. So basically you'll be able to create a video and then tap on their rotation. And then you can see now this so you can describe it something and there you go. This is the final video. So first is me and then need rotates. Even here, you can just add text stickers, links, music, whatever you want based on your availability, then you've got the level. Not really a big thing, but you can see if you want to create a straight photo or not, then you have layout where you can put different photos at the same time. And that's pretty much it. If I want to slide left or right, I can see some effects that I download it. So this is, for example, lot crane film by, by Mike visual, which is Instagram or YouTuber. And there you go. You can snap a photo and there is already that preset that he uploaded and I download it and then maybe ask a poll. So put a poll and say, Do you want to know how many lights I'm using? Or you can do an ask me anything. So that kind of question box that you have to ask your audience. Do you have any question on by my set about my YouTube set up about lighting, about anything that you have there that said Fordist to refocus. I hope you enjoy it and I'll see you in the next video. 11. How the Algorithm Works: This could be probably one of the most controversial video of the whole class. Because the point is, no one really knows how the Earth works in depth. And we can make suggestion, we can make hypothesis. But the good news is that the head of Instagram declare that they want to be more transparent in the future to help creators understand how Instagram works. And I think it makes sense because we are working for the platform. If Instagram is, Instagram, is it because of the creators there are there. So I think it makes sense. Anyway, the past when Instagram started, the algorithm was just showing you content-based on chronological, older, all of the post of whoever you were following were published and you could see them on a chronological order. Now as simply not like this anymore, because most of the time you just follow too many people and do be impossible to see and to show you everything in chronological order, it will be crazy plus the majority of the time she also follow people. They're just France, my baby. They just put things that you don't want to see. And therefore, Instagram decided with AI, with the advancement of technology to just post a few content, to just show you whatever you want to see. And I think it also makes sense because if you're following people that you not engaging with as not really good for Instagram to show you this type of content. Because if you're not engaging and you're not staying on the platform, it's not good. So Instagram decides which content to show you based on your actions and what IG things you'd like the most, which means the type of content that you're more likely to engage and watch for longer time. How do we do this? Well, with big data, they probably know more about you than you do of yourself. However, there are a few elements of the z that help prioritizing the content that you see. The first one is recency. In general, instagram will show you more recent content, but not in chronological order. And facts you're more likely to see a piece of content that maybe it has been posted a couple of days before, that I've actually received higher than average interaction of that person. So let's say a friend of yours post the pictures on Monday and received great interaction because it's an amazing picture. Everyone comments, everyone loves it. It could happen that you see that photo maybe on Wednesday, two days after, let's say this, instead of seeing another photo of another friend that may be posted on Tuesday, It's an ugly photo and no one really engage with that. 1 second aspect is engagement, which means comments, direct messages, likes, shares, saves. If you engage with a person a lot, Instagram understands that you like that person, you like that type of content. And therefore, it's going to show up much more often than someone else which post content that doesn't really attracts your attention. As we mentioned earlier, the most important factor is the amount of time a user stays and watches type of content instagram has like a timer inside to track this. If a person engaged likes common days, long time on photography content, instagram will select photography content to show in his feet. In general, Instagram pushes our content as soon as we post it on a small number of users, it sees how it performs Dame to Rochester to having debt reaction. And based on that, the size, whether this post, this content is worth showing two more people. And this is going to happen multiple times, so in different stages, Let's say this is why also the early engagement is crucial. Most of the times you can see whether a post-World perform well or not in the first 20 or 30 minutes. Because you can see and you know, with time and we'd experienced the average of likes and comments you'd get in the first 30 minutes. And therefore, you can draw some conclusions which are obviously not given. They're not 100% sure because sometimes it can just pick up after a few days. Instagram really tries the same content on different batches of people, and therefore, depending on their engagement, then we'll decide how much they wanted to push the type of cotton. And this is also why you really need to strategize your posting time. The rule of thumb, Let's say is that you need to post whenever you think more people are on their phone watching Instagram. And usually this is during off-peak hours. Maybe where you're going to work, maybe during lunchtime, maybe afterwards, maybe before going to bed. This is really depends on your audience as well. For example, if you are in Europe, but you want to target you as people, then it's not really smart to post a lunchtime because in the US people are asleep. So think about your target and the best way is just to try different times and see which one performs best for your type of audience. Many people would argue that you just need to look at your insights. But my opinion is that insects are not really reflecting their reality. Let's say, just to be honest, just try yourself a few times and after 20 or 30 post, you're going to understand and you go with logic. However, this being said in recent times is not anymore like this due to this reals, because the expansion concept, it's very similar, but it's more spreading time, which means that some video could just starting getting views and GoViral after a few days, all my videos that go viral never went viral in the first 24 hours. Whereas the main difference between normal post and reveals is that posts in general received around 80% or 90% of their engagement in the first few hours. Whereas reels can keep gaining views and engagement after many days of posting, our goal is to end on the Explore page, which is the page where you see the content of people that you don't follow and that are not following you. Because people that are not following us can actually discover us. It's actually the biggest driver of new audience for normal posts. And the key concept here is always the same once you have an higher than average engagement on a post or on a real Instagram. Understand that that video is worth showing two more people, and we're much more likely push it in the Explore page or two people, they're not falling as I'm ready. Remember that all the micro actions ticket on your post count towards letting IG understand whether debt post is worth something or not. This means obviously classic likes comments, share, saves, but also profile visits, tap on tax hashtag research, time spent on it. Scroll through the carousel. If there is a multipoles, people that watches until the end means like, okay, this is an interesting post for calling your account. Everything that makes the user stay longer on the platform, on your content as long as possible. Always the same concept when we talk about our growth. This is the general concept and this I can tell you that is the concept that every social media users for that I grew up with. Because as we mentioned before, the goal is always the same. I hope you enjoyed this video and I'll see you in the next one. 12. Hashtags: Hashtags are one of the most controversial topic regarding social media because they could have several functions. First one, people search for hashtags. You're a portrait photographer. You can search for the hashtag portrait photographer and loads of other poets. I should come up. Second one, you can build your own hashtags to build a community for yourself. Third one tells Instagram what the post is about. By clicking on an Azure Stack, you can see how many times it has been used, ever seen before. And same thing when you adding it into the description of a post, you can see how many times it has been used. Now I've heard a lot of things about hashtags and I'm going to demystify one thing. The majority of the times you hear that you need hashtag from the front, several types of audiences. So a few on a very small niche. So hashtag that have been used, very little, a few on the medium range and a few broader ones. Despite I think it makes sense. I've had a call with an Instagram internal employee for a one-off project that we're carrying out to help creators understand your tools and utilized correctly. The answer can stuff. She said that on drills, you should only use seven or eight hashtags as specific as possible. So nothing that goes over a few million views, a few million times used, let's say the reason is that this will tell Instagram what the video is about and we'll try to push it to the right audience. And if the video is pushed to the right audience, it means that they're more likely to stay until the end or re-watch the video. And therefore, you are going to benefit even more for a win-win situation because even instrument will make more money if an hashtag has billions of views means that it's way too saturated. So there's no point using it if you use random hashtags below your post, just because they've been viewed a lot, you're just creating a big confusion on the algorithm. So it's better to just use a few niche ones and avoid too broad ones. It is important to understand that nowadays, hashtags are not really used for being discovered, even though sometimes it happens. But they're more for letting the platform know and understand what the content is really about. Plus they can be used for a certain type of challenge and community build it. For example, if you want to build your own audience, you can decide to invent an hashtag, whatever you want, and then tell your audience, Alright, use this hashtag. And then maybe in the next YouTube video, in the next whatever days, I'm going to check out all the submissions and then you'll win a prize, whatever it is. Now, I want to show you one of these example because this could be also applied to challenges. So if you want to create a challenge, for example, the best photo in a week, or if you want to give it theme, maybe give a read Theme, and then people will post photos using that hashtag. You'll be able to see all the submissions. Let me show you right now. This is a YouTuber is called subnuclear. I love this guy because he's super, super fun when he talks and he's a great filmmaker as well. And recently he launched this campaign with Vin Sarah, which is a watch brand. And basically he said, alright guys, for the submission of this edit, he was giving like raw footages and you need it to do your own edit and then post it on Instagram. He was saying, just use this hashtag, then Sarah, some Newton, and then I'm going to see who's going to win. So when you click on the hashtag, you'll be able to see the number of posts that use that are stuck in this case is 1 thousand plus. And you'll be able to see all the people that actually submitted a video under this hashtag. So for example, let's take a video, this one. If we go on the description and click more and we can see that varies. That hashtag. Some newt, been Sara, some Newton, right? Not a guy that actually is doing a great job. He's my friend Sam, optical wonder on Instagram. What he's doing is that he tells the audience are right when you want to be featured in my YouTube, just use that hashtag. And then after every video, I'm going to go through the submissions and just mention a few of you. So if we click on that hashtag, optical wonder, you can see 146 thousand posts. And these are all people that are following him and decided to use that hashtag because it's free, you don't have to pay anything. And then maybe there is a chance that on one of his YouTube video he's just gonna go through them. And Dan mentioned your name or show your post and then like your photos. Now, if you decide to create your own hashtag at the beginning, if you don't have an audience, is going to be very difficult that someone is going to use it, but it's better to start as soon as possible because there is no harm doing it. I hope you enjoyed this video and I'll see you in the next one. 13. What to post: Remember the goal of any social media let the user stay on the platform as long as possible. So is that photos the longest possible audience retainer? Obviously, not because he's just going to take a millisecond to have a look at a photo like it and scroll down. Think about scrolling through photos in your feed to have a look at a photo, maybe you can stay 1.5 second 1. But a video, a video usually has an average of at least three seconds. And videos are key, especially right now with the explosion of TikTok than Instagram, videos and YouTube. Sure, it is clear that emotion, entertainment, and font, whatever you wanna call it, lies in videos. But there is a problem. It takes a very long time to make a cool video because you need to record consistently then you need to edit. But if you want to grow on social media, That's why you need to do now. Yes, For me, it's super fun. I love making videos because it's also a memory that will stay with you forever. And especially when we're talking about photography, when we talking about us, I think behind the scenes are a must and are just amazing because it really shows what's the word behind what you're doing. Sometimes might be surprising because it's much simpler. Fat you can have or think, or sometimes it's extremely complicated with a massive crew that he had massive lights, depending obviously what kind of nature and to enter the day, I know making videos is take much longer is much more difficult, but growing an audience is like building a business. You need to put in the time first, free to make it happen and to earn money in the future. So it's not about photo, Forget photos, but try to think on how you can put these photos into videos. And as a photographer's, how do we do this? Well, you can invent whatever strategies you want to implement these photos into videos. It could be just three poses for men. You have great portrait, right? You're a portrait photographer. That photo looked so beautiful and make a video on how to pose for the photo or just showed that behind the scenes, showed the lighting setup, show lots of things. And the next video I'm going to give you more ideas. But the concept is just like really think on how you can implement this photo and showcase them creatively and a video. So do you remember that I told you I had a call with an Instagram employee. Well, at the end of the call, she summarized the best practices. And here I am telling you what she told me. First of all, she emphasized the importance of consistency. She told me that it's much more important to post once a week without missing a week. Then posting maybe three times in a week, then disappear for a month and go back and post three times per week again. So it's better to maintain the same kind of proportion and be consistent with your posting. She also mentioned that the optimal range will be between one to three reels per week. I'd say something manageable. Personally. I've been posting at least a couple of fields per week and it worked pretty well. The optimal length is around 15 seconds, as I mentioned before. But if you have an existing audience, that's kind of okay. But if you're starting out, I think it's best to stay a little bit short-term, maybe stay around ten seconds for gardening store, as she mentioned, that you should post five to eight stories a day to engage with your audience on a daily basis and just showing what's going on with your life. You should use feed posts. So normal photos, not real, not stories, only when you can cover something with veils or when you don't have the time to create a real or edit the video. So you can keep up with posting where the consistency and keep the audience engaged. It's okay to post once a week of photo. Again, not mandatory. Whatever you can do with veal, then you can do it with photo. But she also said to don't waste too much time on these as they bring up you, As they don't bring you a high organic growth at all. Then there's IGTV, which is the long form of content which I honestly never use. That is to post to be used once a week. And my personal opinion, this is going to die. Because now Instagram is focusing on real so shorter form content. So don't waste too much time. And concluding with lives, she said that the best practice is to go live once a month. Again, I'm not a big fan of life. So I'm not doing it because I find it weird. And I think the ordinance is not really engaged for me. It's better to use an hour to create a real instead of using an hour to go live. But that's totally up to you. Lastly, remember that when Instagram rolls out new features, they don't want them to fail. So they want them to be successful and therefore they're going to always offer extra exposure to those who use these features. And therefore she said to try out all these new feature and tried to implement them. And maybe your reels in your Instagram or whatever in general, maybe using stickers may be using remix or whatever comes new and these apps, and that's it for this video. I hope you enjoy it and I'll see you in the next one. 14. Personal Branding: As we mentioned previously, social media in general, especially Instagram, have become a very powerful commercial tool. In fact, we can compare it as being like a website where people come and check out who you are and what you do. If you own a business or you're a freelancer. You know very well how important he is to have your own logo, your own phone, your own style, your own personality, and so on, so forth. So we need to think the same way when we're using Instagram. Try to personalize it as much as possible and 3D like a portfolio where you basically showcase your work to the world. We are competing with tens of thousands of photographers. It's super saturated and therefore, if you want to stand out, you need to do something different and unique. But being unique does not mean that you need to reinvent the wheel. But instead, using your unfair advantages of having fresh ideas or combined what you see out there and make it your own. The best way actually will be to use all of these three elements together. But it's obviously pretty difficult. My suggestion that you should actively spend time on the platforms and try out and try to understand what works, what catches your attention. Then, take a few inspiration from many people and tried to mix parts of what you see in part of your own thinking. Let me give you an example. The format that I've been posting about three killing poses for men that I showed before when viral almost every single time, inevitably other people started copying me with poor results because there were simply trying to copy and paste without really knowing how to pose effectively in front of the camera or putting anything from their own talents were just to copy and paste. Instead, let's say you are a food photographer. You can take that format and do three killing poses are three killing sets for sushi photography. You've taken something that I've worked before and try to put it your own. You've got what I mean, right? I'm not a big fan of training things, but jumping on trends, actually alpha lot. Now, careful with this, do not post trending things if they are not related to your own niche. Because even if you go viral, you will gain a lot of followers that are not interested in your content. And we'll just bring down your engagement further down the line. In general, something that is experimental with real value in it works. So feel free to experiment with new ideas, new formats, new creative work, new ways to showcase your work and have a look at works and use it as an element of your personal brand. This could include also hashtags. Hashtags are free to use and you can invent and use any combination of letter to create a unique hashtag that people can use to be discovered. Like my friend Sam is doing it right now very successfully. I would say, in my case I use a lot the hashtag, crazy amazing. It started out as a joke and now has become my go-to hashtag to describe whatever I think is a good situation in general, I think this is a great way to gather your audience. And one single page, Let's say. Then you can engage. We can create a relation and maybe build something bigger. Obviously, as I said before, when you're just starting out with social media, if you try to use your own hashtag and promoted, usually no one uses it, but further down the line is going to have another way to create a strong personal brand on social media is trying to adapt to the platform, depending on which one you're using, there gonna be a lot of tools available and you're not going to use them all, but it's worth taking the time to check them out, understand why they're there and if they could be useful for your type of content. So be proactive. Ask questions to your audience as we've seen before in the stories and give them what they want. And Instagram, for example, you can leave the box. Mea asked me anything where people can put in there question based on a topic or simply commenting about something. Or you can use pulse with yes and nos after you posted something to ask the audience if they liked it, a certain type of content. Or you can use polls before posting a certain type. For example, if you're a portrait photographer and you'd like to post maybe a product photo, then you can ask your audience, Hey guys, do you want to see a tutorial about product photo that I took a couple of days ago or something like this. So you know, also the reaction if you're willing to see it. Because if you're a portrait photographer, you want to post something product-related. And you asked that question and a 100% of the people, they're going to say No, you're going to have a hard time bringing up their engagement when you post that. So make sure that you're posting something that audience wants to see as well. Obviously, the most important part of personal branding on social media is your unique personality. You absolutely do not need to be the best photographer, but you can somehow make yourself irreplaceable, which means your type of content has to be unique. And people, if they want to see something similar, they need to come to you by saying this, we're recalling the authority principle that were mentioning before. If a person wants to find inspiration on how to pose in front of the camera, they know that they can find this type of stuff very high-quality, very often on my account. It's always easier to find another photographer, but it's not easy to find another. You take time to understand what kind of niche you want to go in and take time to understand how you want to build your personal brand on social media, because that's a really powerful tool and you can really do it. I hope you enjoyed this video and I'll see you in the next one. 15. Content Ideas: This video, we're going to talk about content ideas. You know what, when we need to start social media, the majority of people think that they don't have enough ideas to be posted throughout years, months, days, whatever, they'll think, they just run out of ideas sooner or later. But let me tell you that this is a myth. And in this video, I want to give you a structure of four different topics that you can touch upon in any video, photo, whatever type of content you're making. The first one is adding value. So in this case, we're talking about how to stack could be how to do anything with photography, how to open a camera, how to set a lighting that works better in a kind of environment. Whatever comes in your mind, then we can talk about FAQs. So whatever question that audience have than it could be a good opportunity to make a video about it or to MAY a piece of content than maybe your resource list. Have you found website? Have you found tools? Have you found gear that you think is super interesting and then people should know about, well then you can make less than people can download, or you can just pull stories or you can post content carousel where you talk about these kind of resources that you find. Or obviously could be tutorials and tutorials. It could be anything. And again, don't think that you don't have any time that people want to know about because that's just a myth. So just believing yourself for sure you have something that other people are not familiar with. The second structure could be niche related. So everything in this game that is about photography. So you could talk about lighting explanation. You could talk about how you plan a shoot. You could talk about mood boarding. You could talk about microphones, tanks, anything. Or you could talk about photography trends. So what's going on right now in the photography world? Or if you see some trend online, he can try to change it and adapt it. Did photography, you could talk about new gear or software that you've been using. Have you switched from, I don't know, Photoshop to Pixar or mobile for a certain reason than you could talk about it. You can make videos about them, or you could try out new gear and maybe make comparison within an old model or a newer model talking about our review new things even in advanced, if you look at some rumors, you can talk about these rumors. Or you could also talk about mistake that you should avoid or myth about photography. And this is all about your experience when you started out with photography, what were the mistakes that you did and that you think people should avoid. Now, loads of things that you could talk about niche for later and try to go even in-depth. Don't worry about being either in-depth or either superficial because you're going to find beginners as well that have no idea what the shutter button East or they have no idea what aperture is about or what the combination between ISO shutter speed and aperture, there is actually a lot of crown that you can cover. Then the third, let's say structure you can use is about promotion. This is not if you're just starting out with Instagram, TikTok or whatever social media is, might be further down the line. But for example, giveaways are a great way to bump the exposure and to pump the engagement because you offer something for free just for your audience to take a few actions, even if you have a small amount of followers and you haven't found any brand that wants to collaborate with you with giveaways. You could also purchase a fifth year, $7,000 worth of products or whatever amount you want, and then put a giveaway out there. Be careful don't invest too much in this because if you don't have any followers, then no, not many people are going to see your giveaway, but it really depends on your possibility, how serious you are. And if you want to do this kind of promotion or another thing is the hashtag to be discovered by you. So as we mentioned before, you create your own Shostak and you can also create some challenges where maybe at the end of the week you're going to talk, you're going to organize a live where you have a look at all the photos and you found out which one was the best one, which was more creating, which was more and more like technique and mood border and all these kind of things. Or you can also put challenges in the same thing. So you create a group of photographers, they know our interests. You can just told me two or three or four. And then these things that are going to expand because people talk a lot and you just promote it on Instagram. And then maybe someone is going to see you and then you're going to start chatting right to people as well. Because this helps a lot creating engagement, even if you don't know me, just shut them a message. Even Sam, my friend that I showed before, I had no idea who he was before Instagram and message him, Hey, let's find, let's catch up when you are in London. And we met up for a few times. I know we're good friends or you could do some FAQs about your products. So while you're using the camera, while you're using that lens, what tripod you have, these kind of things. Answer questions about things that you have already so you don't have to invest anything, but for sure, not everyone is going to have your own camera, so people would want to know a little bit more about your camera. And then you could do some special discounts if you have already a website or if you have already some digital products, are certain no more products. You give out some special discounts, maybe in the caption of a post or something like this. And this generates interests quite a lot. The force tracker, let say, is that they can talk about yourself. So in this case, you need to be relatable because many times we think that we're the only one suffering from a problem or having had that kind of self-doubt and stuff. But if you are a relatable, if people can relate with you is going to drive up the engagement and you're going to create that emotional attachment that we've talked about since before. Or you can talk about mistakes you've done until you've reached that point. You are in photography or you did with that type of editing that you edited too much, whatever mistakes you've done in your career. And could be photography or niche related, or could be also personal life related. You can do repost of your community if you've used the hashtag, maybe there are few people that use the hashtag and then you can repost the stuff and maybe talking comment in public about these photos that have been posted with your own hashtag where you can talk about resources that you found that help your growth both at the beginning of their career, both for your personal life as well, for your photography. And even here you can talk about literally anything that you found. Anything could be useful. Just look in your daily life, what are you using as your daily life? What do you think is necessary and what do you think people should know about? For example, I have this iPad and I bought secondhand the Smart keyboard. I don't remember what's the name? These very expensive bought a secondhand for less than a half price. This is actually amazing. I could talk about this because this helps me writing the scripts for all my YouTube, for all my courses and stuff and really speed up my workflow is not photography related, but it helps because it's in that niche as well. Because writing script is about photography as well, or is about might work or of creating courses and videos. And also you can talk about your future goals. So what have you achieved this year? What are you going to achieve? What is your goal in terms of commitment, maybe for content, maybe for photography, your goal is maybe to shoot a vast bar in Positano in Italy. I don't know, I'm just saying something random. Whatever goals you have, this could be something that could spark a conversation with your followers as well. That's a little bit of a general idea and some inspiration for content. I hope you enjoy it and I'll see you in the next one. 16. Cross Platform Content: One of the most important, yet not that easy thing that you can do is elaborate content that could be shared at the same time in multiple platforms. Let me give you an example right away so you can understand what I mean. Let's say you want to put out a content about lighting for portrait. My goal is to try to understand how can I post something on TikTok, something on Instagram, something on YouTube at the same time. First of all, I would have to create an in-depth tutorial here of like five to ten minutes to be posted on YouTube. And then think, how can I shrink this down into a 15-second video to be posted on TikTok and eventually reals as well because they're basically the same thing. So this way I can tell people are right from TikTok. Go check out the full explanation on YouTube. What the link in my bio and from Instagram, I can repost the same video is TikTok or I can post the final portrait. So a photo and then in the carousel, I can post shorter behind the scene where I show you a little bit at how you wanted to shoot. And maybe a third photo where I tell you that there is a video on YouTube with a full explanation and you'll find the link in my bio to access that video. And this could be used also in the comments. So careful always about the comments as well, because when you post impactful photos, there is a high chance that people will ask you question in the comments. This is a great chance to then send them through a different platform. For example, send them a link to your YouTube videos where you talk about how you created that piece of content. Then eventually in the YouTube description of that content, you can tell them you have a resource list that it's in your website that could be useful to bring your photos to the next level and then you live the link so they can go and check out the website and maybe download that versus least living to you their email. So you move someone from TikTok to YouTube, to your website. Isn't it a great deal for just one piece of content, even though he's like three different formats. This concept of multi-platform is also for people who may be interested in only short-form content or only long-form content. If someone is watching your YouTube videos but doesn't have the time to stay the whole ten minute, then maybe they can find a shorter version on TikTok or Instagram and therefore you can move them there. It's also about giving options to your audience. Because our goal, remember, is always to keep your audience, attach as much as possible to your content in as many places as possible. Same thing could be done also from YouTube to get a podcast. So you just need to use any kind of app after you recorded a video to get that audio. And then from that audio you can make a podcast and put it on Spotify or whatever Audit platform you mentioned it. The concept is that you need to induce curiosity in one platform and then add more value showing something else in another platform. And convince these people to go and check out that last piece of content or that shorter piece of content. For me, for example, because of these viral videos where I show you how to pose, I was often showing results with black background photos. And many, many, many, many times people ask me, How do I do this black background photos? Well, guess what? The very first video that I made on YouTube was about black background photos. And not by chance is the one with the most views in the lifetime of the channel. It was the first one. You have a big value that you need to try to break down into different pieces of content with one single idea. Now, keep in mind that different platforms may have different audiences as well. For example, TikTok, it's banned in a few countries, including India, which has 1.3 billion of people or something like that. This means that you might get 0 Indians followers on TikTok, but loads on Instagram. This is not necessarily something that will change your strategy, but it's something that you just should keep in mind. I hope you enjoyed this video and I'll see you in the next one. 17. Ring Framework: Ring framework is something that I came up with unconsciously when I wanted to test my audience on a free course, I'll be very honest here. My initial plan was just to offer a free course that he could help me create that emotional attachment with my audience. And it was based on the principle of reciprocity. So giving them a free high-value product would have resulted in them engaging, commenting, liking, saving, whatever more in general, with my content. However, this strategy that I use actually allow me to have a much bigger result than I ever expected. Before we talked about cross-platform content. The ring framework is something that draws on that concept, but much more in-depth and with a clear result in mind, everything starts with the core value that people were received at the end of this process that I'm going to tell you has to be something really good. In my case was a full mobile photography course with 13 lessons and create value inside the framework could be divided in several phases. In each phase, the goal is always the same. Tried to move the user across as many platforms as possible in order to make him complete a few simple actions that will have a big impact on our business or image, let's say as like a puzzle, where you need to collect a few pieces in order to receive something back at the end. And it's super effective because obviously it's worth wasting couple of minutes to do these steps and get a free course at the end. Now let's get practical on what I did in the first phase before the course was even ready. I was posting everywhere in my social media that I was building a course that would have been given for free to everyone. You just need it to message me privately on Instagram where I was replying with the standard message while the link of my website. Once he might website, you'd have to leave your email and a specific box, and that's it. This first phase, I pushed the Instagram algorithm thanks to the direct message, which means Instagram knows that because we're messaging, then the other person might be interested in my content. So there is a relationship between me and the user. Plus, because they visited my website, it's assigned for Google and push the SEO of it thanks to the traffic that I was sending it. Plus I was starting to collect emails off target at people. This is super important because if they completed all the steps, it means that these people are actually interested in photography and they want to learn it. And this is a big deal because email marketing is actually big and that's exactly what I want. I want to teach people photography. I'm collecting e-mails of people that are interested in this. Lastly, I was creating commitment in these people, which is one of the principles of persuasion described by Cialdini. But you haven't read the book. I absolutely suggest you read it. It's called Influence by Robert Cialdini. Cialdini stage that once we have made a choice or taking a stand, we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment. In practice, creating a small commitment at first will increase the chances of converting them with paid products afterwards. And the second phase, when the course was ready, I was talking to my TikTok audience by posting videos where we're shooting photos with my smartphone. And I was telling them to DM me, direct message me on IG, on Instagram for the free course. If they want an a free course, then I would send them an image that they need it to repost in their stories with a text made by me saying that Pharaoh 21 is giving away a value packed course and blah, blah, blah. And they needed to tag me in that story. Then I was asking their e-mail with their consent where I could send them over the link of the course which was put on YouTube. It seems a lot, but it was actually very easy process in this phase, the gain was massive. First transferring followers from TikTok to IG, then increase the algorithm in IGE thanks to the direct message, then exploited the viral effect thanks to the store repost and n, Let me tell you that doesn't matter even if that person has couple of 100 followers. Because these couple of 100 followers are actually true friends and they're more likely to follow his suggestion plus multiply this for hundreds of people who wanted the course. Numbers are pretty good. Got it right. Then I was obviously collecting e-mails for email marketing and redirected them on YouTube, which helped me massively to start growing my channel from 0. At that point, I still didn't have any uploads. But some people and I was asking because knowing this, I was asking them to subscribe to the channel because soon I would have started to post videos. Obviously not everyone's subscribed, but starting with that base of a few 100 people, it's already huge on YouTube because that's the most difficult part when no one knows you there. Then started the third phase where I decided to donkey the course for free directly anymore. Because I put it on our third party platform that was giving them 14 days for free if they would just sign up. But also giving me ten years dollar per person that I was bringing on the platform, even if this person would cancel their subscription before the end of the 14 days. Obviously we're big numbers. Even if it's ten US dollar only, you get good amounts. Eventually, we could expand into fourth phase and fifth phase. But this is the concept. I know that this sounds a lot to digest, but it's really about moving these people in ways that could benefit you a lot, giving them a huge reward in the end, because they need to be motivated to do all these kind of things. And to be honest, I actually received the crate response because the course was very well-made. And therefore, even people, they had to leave their email, which actually is pretty small. There will be very happy to receive a Free Corps value packed super high-quality in the inbox directly, different framework could be implemented in as many phases as you want. You can have like a free course where you can have a free e-book. You can have a free resource list, whatever comes in your mind. But it's important though, that you think about the actions that he wanted people to take based also on the final value that you're adding. It has to be worth it. What otherwise, you're going to lose the trust of your audience and this is no good. I could talk a lot on strategies, how to implement this for each specific phase and each specific case. But for now, I think I've given you enough information. I hope you enjoyed this video and I'll see you in the next one. 18. The Downside of Social Media: In this video, we're going to talk about the downside of social media. Because yes, there are loads of incredible benefits, but you also need to be prepared of something that you're not going to like. Because many times, using social media also brings some negative effects on ourself if you're not able to control your mind. And this is because we tend to compare to others a lot. And everything that we see on social media when we're scrolling is always very positive. And it seems that others are having best life ever ten times better than us. In fact, almost no one really shares their struggles, their problems behind the scenes of our vibing where they are. For example, you might see a travel photographer posting an amazing, unbelievable scenery and you think, Oh wow, these guys, so lucky he went there. But maybe you don't know that he traveled five days, risked his life to get into this remote place. Maybe we're starving because it finished his food with no phone. The car broke on the way and so on, so forth. So it's you don't see the background, but many times you just can't control it. You're not thinking their struggle behind everything that you see on social media that looks great. All this, just to say that you should avoid comparing yourself to others because it's very easy to go crazy with this. It took me four years of 0 recognition before starting to do something on social media. So now you see only this success, but the majority of the times there is an incredible hard work behind it. So don't be discouraged if after a month or after six months, after a year, two years, nothing happens with your Instagram or TikTok. Another thing is that some people will grow faster than you, even with lower quality content. Don't take it negatively, but tried to analyze their content. It's not about the quality all the time of the output, but it's about the audience, how the audience responds to that type of content. If you create incredible pieces of content, but your followers do not understand it. Well, unfortunately is not going to work even if it took you two weeks of creating depth photo. As we mentioned before, this is like building a business. Hence, he takes time and effort, actually, a lot of time and effort and patients is the hardest part of all of this. My suggestion is to find your own. Why, why are you doing out of this? Is it because of recommendation, just fun, money? Why are you doing this? It's honestly really important that you start enjoying the process or otherwise is never going to work because you're gonna give up earlier than success for sure. Bear in mind that if you've never used social media properly at the beginning, it's going to look very difficult, like everything in life. So give yourself a decent period of time where you try things out and look for the fun part of it. You got to enjoy the process. You gotta enjoy doing these things. You're going to find struggles obviously, but that's part of the game. Next, very important. Listen carefully right now. There are a ton of services that will allow you to purchase followers, likes, whatever stats you can get in any social media for very cheap. And I talk about very cheap. Do not cheat because platform can recognize it quite easily and you're gonna be punished directly or indirectly with shadow bands where like stop the rich are lots of other things. It's a short-term result that kills your future on social media. Do not do it, or you're going to regret it or not. A very important part is that you should set yourself with realistic expectations. There's no way you can tell yourself that you're going to reach 10 thousand followers and X amount of months, let's say three month. Because this is not under your control. Posting regularly doesn't mean that the algorithm will pick you up and depends on loads of different factors. And my suggestion is that you enjoyed the process and do not have any expectation in the short term because you're just gonna be disappointed. But instead of saying you're going to reach 1 thousand followers in a month, tell yourself that you're going to post twice a week. High-quality content, because this is under your control. Having a certain number of followers in a certain number of weeks is not under your control. And therefore, you just going to be disappointed. Whatever target you're going to, you're going to think of next, which is gonna be very annoying. Unfortunately, social media like consistency. Therefore, once you disappear, It's very difficult to bring everything back. It's much better to keep consistency. There were already touched upon this, but it's better to post once a week forever, comparing to post three times a week now than visa peer for month, two months, three months, then posting again three times a week. There are some creators that actually these appear for much longer than month, even couple of years, I know. And then they got back and slowly, slowly they've built up again their momentum, but it's difficult consistencies much better. Also one more thing, be ready to be copied in case you find a good format or great simple ideas. There's nothing you can do about this, but just coming up with new great ideas, it's very simple. Social media is definitely hard, but if you put yourself in the right mindset, I truly think it's worth your time in the long run. Given a big investment in the short run, it changed my life. It can change your life too. I hope you enjoyed this video and I'll see you in the next one. 19. Apps you should use: In this video, I want to show you few apps that I use pretty much every day that really helped me keeping up with social media in general and what my photos, the first one that we've seen before already is cold cup cut. And I use it to edit the videos that I post on TikTok and Rios or YouTube shorts. Obviously all of these apps are free and premium version. But for these ones that I'm going to tell you, I don't have any premium version. So they're all the free basic one would somebody mutation but I think they're okay. So curb cuts allows to have multiple projects, right. So I can see all the videos that I've edited until today. And then I click Create a new project. Select all the videos that I want to put. Let's say maybe this one. And then you add multiple videos and basically it's just a video editor. So you can click on the clip and then you can split where you want to cut or you can drag this line towards the right if you want to cut that part or you can change the volume, or you can add also some overlays. So if you have an image that you want to put on top or if you want to have whatever kind of overlay and you can use this one or also you can register some voice-over. As I mentioned to you before, when I am some voice-over, I do it within the app so I don't have to register a voice-over and Instagram and TikTok and then a YouTube shorts. I do everything here except the text. Because the text is better to use the in-app text in all the three ones, they're eventually can add sound, but also the sound is better to use in the apps TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube in general. This one, this one honestly it has everything that you need, also has keyframe. So let's play this little clip right here. I can add, I can click this button right here to add a keyframe. And then I go into the end and say, okay, at the end of the clip, I want to be zoomed in in my face like this. As you can see, when we play back, boom, the clip is zooming back in until I set that key frame and there's the cut and then it goes back again. Even here you can add some transition. So you just need to click on the middle of the clips where there is a cut and then there are, there are bunch of transitions that could be used. For example, I use quite a lot this pull in. Dude, I, this, and boom, now doesn't make any sense because it's going out. But just to give you an example, and then when you're exporting, you can export to in one, in ten ATP or four K with a frame rate that you want. That's pretty much it. That's everything I used. Sometimes they use sticker. So if there is, if I need to point something, I can use some arrows built-in into app, and that's pretty much it. The second app better I want to show you it's called Unum and use it to plan my Instagram grid. So the free version allows you to put only 11 images, not more than that. So I always keep here 11 images or otherwise, the annual subscription I think is at 55 Sixty item now, you can check that out if you want, but I don't need more than nine, so I'm just using it. But the concept is that with this one, you can just move it around everywhere you want. So you can try out different images and then see where should I put this one, maybe here or actually here looks better. And then if you don't like this one, then you can replace it. So for example, this portrait, I can click on it, then click on Replace, and go find another image that I want to replace it with. For example, this one right here, Replace Item now I see, okay, this one looks better. So I'm just going to leave it there. But for example, because this portrait has the yellow on the left and then the previous image has the yellow on the left as well. Then maybe I want to add it and then adjust and reflected horizontally, then click Save. And this gives me a ready-made previous. How's going to look like in my Instagram? This is actually a great app because I've really liked that possibility of reflecting horizontally the photos so you can see how it looks better just on your grid planet. And then you're good to go. The premium version has loads of other incredible features so you can check it out and eventually you can get it. Next up is in shot and I used this one only to re-frame some photos that I need to use S covers or reals. When you push the real, you can add your own covert that could be the main photo, but has to be like in vertical format 916. And therefore usually the photos are never 916. So what I do is I, for example, pick a photo, Let's say maybe this one, whatever. And then I go in format and click 916, then change the background in black. That's it. Then I export it. And there you go, is now saved in my camera roll that you go. And he's very be posted as a covert in reals. So if you notice in my Instagram, let me show you here derails. You can see these black bars in almost all the images because otherwise the image will be stretched a lot. But I prefer to have these black bars because I can see the whole image instead of being cropped in. The next one that I want to show you is called unfold. And this is one of my favorite app to help me creating more creative stories without losing too much time. Basically, I use unfold for day template because they're very clean and they are super cool for stories. So let's say we create a new one, a creative story. And then we tap plus. And here we can have access to loads of different templates. And I liked the classic ones even here, I just have the classic. I didn't buy anything else because I think there are enough. So for example, we can grab this one, then we add a couple of photos. Let's take maybe this one and I don't know, maybe this one. There you go. Then you can add stickers, text or whatever you want. Here we write ten it. If there you go, then we can change the dimension of the text. We can change the font, like so. I put it here, boom. And then maybe we add a sticker. Couldn't maybe this one. There you go. And then let's add another sticker. Let's see where we can find free. First one, and you go, Not super easy. You could do, you could do this with Photoshop. What an app is much easier and takes a very, very short time to make it. Then you just need to save it to device. And then you have it in your camera roll ready to be posted as a story. This is very useful if you want to post, for example, multiple photos in a single story, which are otherwise wouldn't be very comfortable. If you want to go into stickers, then add a photo and blah, blah, blah. But this is much easier than the next app is mojo, which is basically the same thing, but this is famous because it does it in an animated way. It's the same thing as unfold, but this is more like creates videos where the image basically shows up dynamically. So let's pick this photo bomb. We click Done, and then you can see that the photo is pumping out slowly and then there's the text and then you can modify whatever you want. Now once again, there are loads of apps out there that you could use. These are just a few suggestion that could fit your needs. Maybe like that, maybe you don't like him. This is totally up to you. Alright, that's it for this video. Thank you very much for watching. 20. Conclusions: Alright, and what this last video we're heading towards the end of this class. I really hope you enjoy it. I really hope you got some insights. Now remember that there are incredible benefits or starch in social media. The, earlier the mirror just turning. Now, post a few things. Even if you don't want to be regular, is always better to post something debt, nothing, because it's really about your business card, is really about implementing this kind of free marketing tool into your daily life because you can be discovered by the world. Once again, it changed my life, but I dedicated a lot of time and energy to develop this. Was it worth it? Absolutely, yes. Otherwise, I wouldn't be where I am now. So it's totally up to you, something that is not a 100% necessary, but it's something that is suggested for the class project. I like you to create either a photo or a real with their right caption in hashtag to post down below, if you enjoyed this course, I'd really appreciate if you could leave a review. Also, as I already mentioned a few times, it's really important that you learn how to create short videos as Instagram and all the other social media in general are pushing them a lot. I have a full course here on Skillshare where I teach you everything you need to know about short engaging vertical videos with just your smartphone. As always, I reply to every DM I receive. So whatever question you might have, Just check out my Instagram, my YouTube, my TikTok, and my website for loads of assets, presets, asked me any questions, just reach out wherever you want and I'd be more than happy to answer your question. I post very often on social media about photography, about tips and tricks, about lots of things sharing my life there. So I'll definitely way you dare hit me a DM as well if you watch this class and let me know how you find it. If you found useful, if you think it was boring, any comment is much appreciated because I myself always trying to learn and get better every time and whatever I do. Thank you very much for watching again. I hope you enjoy it and I'll see you in the next one. Ciao.