Episode 92 – Making it happen on Instagram with Devin Robinson

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Scott: What kind of photos does a turtle take? Selfies. Nice. Alright, cool. Cool. Cool. All right, I'll take it. Alright. Welcome to episode 92 my name is Scott Wyden Kivowitz and I'm joined by my guest, Devin Robinson. Welcome, Devin. I'm glad to connect with you.

Devin: Hey man, I'm excited to be here. Also, really quickly, my two year old son loves turtles, like obsessed with turtles, so I will definitely tell him that joke. When I pulled out a camera, I'm going to say, Hey, let's take a, let's take a shellfy.

Scott: You're fine. That's the litmus test to a good corny joke is if you all can laugh at it. Right? That's for sure. Yeah, I definitely let me know what happens in the middle. Yeah. Awesome. Okay, so quick intro about Devin. Devin, a rod Robinson has grown his business anchor and veil into a high end destination wedding business where he travels all over the world photographing weddings. Right? So he has been in 10 different countries and over 20 States, but who's counting? Yeah. Wow. Sometimes it's nice. My dad, his, yeah. Yeah, I count. I have a whole map. That's cool. Fun. It's fun. It's fun. So, so Devon's business now includes five other photographers and two cinematographers. I think that's amazing. So far this year, Devin has got over 400 inquiries, has generated 110 wedding leads from Instagram alone and has reached 450,000 in revenue. And one of the reasons why I sort of emphasize on Instagram is because Instagram is today's topic. So Devin also runs the anchored business podcast and YouTube channel. As you, as you know, as if you're listening to the podcast. I am also pretty big on YouTube. I focus a lot on YouTube content. So it's nice to S to also chat with additional YouTube content creators.

Devin: Yeah, I'm not, I'm not a, I'm probably not the best content creator on YouTube, but I do what I can. Not all that level. Not quite to your level yet.

Scott: Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if I have a level, but I'm also doing what I can. So you know, it is what it is. Yeah. Well it's fun. It's fun to create content, these people through it. So that's, that's all that matters. So Devin has one of the largest wedding photography courses in the world and it's called the wedding photography masterclass. And there's a Facebook group which will be linked in the show notes, which we'll talk about later. Hey cam, that's my favorite part. Devin, what is going on in your world? What's new?

Devin: Hey okay. So a lot of things are, I guess, new. And I guess if we're, we kind of put a timetable on new in the past. I don't know. So I guess new in my, so I started recently, I guess in the past since last November. So I guess in a year I started the kind of associate program where they're not referenced as associates to my clients. They're kind of our family. But I started that and there's a lot of growing pains I had to do with that. But now it's kind of becoming a well oiled machine. It's still a lot of growing pains. And then when it comes to new, new I

Devin: In April, so I guess it's, I mean it's six, I guess we fostered an eight year old and then in June we got a one and two year old as well. And so life got real crazy for us. And so things have been kind of crazy. And then at the same time just kind of trying to grow a brand that kind of helps a lot of people. Man. That's like my biggest, that's my heart. And I know a lot of people say it. You know, but like I tried to give so much to where people go, wow, this guy is actually legit, just trying to help people. And that's, that's my, that's my heart man. And so I love being able to give as much as I can. Like you said, there's something about my course, but like I don't even have it available for purchase right now because I just want to give, give, give. And so like that's just, that's, that's kinda where I am right now.

Scott: Yeah, no, I, I totally feel that, you know, like I've got, I've got courses and I don't promote them that much and I'm constantly constantly pushing out free content, whether it's blog posts, podcast episodes, YouTube videos, and to me that's what it's all about. And if I make some extra income from people who care enough to buy, then great. If not I'm happy to just teach. So. Yeah, man and I love stuff. I love that about you as well. So. Cool. So today we're going to be talking about Instagram now before we start recording, I mentioned to you that I'm really excited about this topic because I feel like a lot of people have Instagram strategies including myself, have we, you know, everybody's got their strategy whether it's working or not, and some people just don't want to share their strategies. Yeah. And so today you're going to be sharing some, some things and I'm really excited to learn from you about what's working for you on Instagram because you are generating leads and clients through it, which is very difficult.

Devin: Yeah. But actually, which is the most important part because like a lot of people would teach so many things that are like how to get followers, how to do all that stuff. But if I'm not generating revenue, then what does it matter? Like this isn't a popularity contest. Right. I know you've probably heard this said plenty of times, but like I try my heart is to be as practical and making it happen, but like profitability over popularity, like I don't give a rip about like who follows me if they ain't paying me, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. So like I do, I do hope like there, there are photographers that follow me for inspiration and that hopefully follow me for education. But like when it comes to like wedding clients, I want to engage in follow in order to build and generate revenue because ultimately my bills gotta get paid and likes don't pay him.

Scott: So one thing you just mentioned, cause I run into the same situation as you as a photographer who, who has clients but also

Devin: Teaches photographers. First things first, and this was not a question I had planned, but I'm going to ask this. Perfect. Do you separate your Instagram accounts between client content and photographer content? And if not, how do you separate it on the one channel? On the one profile? Yeah. Great. Great, great question. So I don't, I don't use Instagram as much of a, I use it more of a vehicle rather than a destination for, for wedding wedding photographers. Like I want to push them where I can give them the most about amount of value, which comes from back and forth interaction. And so that's not necessarily on Instagram because it's fairly one-sided now. They can ask questions, they can do all that stuff, but I can really dive into them on something like my Facebook group. And so that's where I want to push them.

Devin: And so there'll be a lot of photographers that follow me for inspiration for things like that. But I always try to push them back to my Facebook group because I think that's where a lot more authentic relationships can be made with educational clients because I can really are educational like photographers or that type of brand because then I can really dive in, hone in on them, ask in a group context a lot of things. And so then it becomes relational and it becomes communal. And so that community atmosphere or that community feeling is what really builds and yields trust, which then ultimately if you're trying to sell builds trust, which then leads to ah, two revenue and leads to buyers because people don't like be, they got to like trust and know you. And I think that can happen on Instagram, but I think that community is really fostered within something like a Facebook group.

Devin: But then when it comes to my clients as far as wedding photography, clients like brides and things like that, aye. Aye. Aye. Here's the thing, man. And I say this all the time, nobody cares, right? And nobody cares about what you post. Like nobody cares about the pretty picture. The only people in this world, they care about. The pretty pictures that I post are me and my mom. My wife didn't even here. Look, listen, it's the weirdest thing. It's like, this is the strangest thing. My mom has somebody else's wedding photo as the background of her iPhone and I'm like, mom, that's not even me like that. Like, why do you have that photo? It's Jesus. I love this picture baby. And I'm like, well, and so like I'll show, I'll show an amazing picture in like France or whatever to my wife. And she's like, Oh, that's cool.

Devin: You know? And I'm like, Hey, what's the reason? This is cool, this is awesome. It's so like, I don't even like it as much as I do. And so in the same way, like the people that follow us don't follow us like specifically or strictly for our work. They follow us for the way that we make them feel. Right? Maya Angelo has an amazing quote and it says, people will forget what you say. People will forget what you do, but they'll never forget how you make them feel. And I think Instagram is an amazing Avenue to be able to to be able to bring that together and to make people feel something. And so people will follow you, not for, not, not specifically for your work, but for how your work and for how you make them feel then. So then I translate that into the DMS and things like that. So I am heavily sliding into the DMS of people and heavily doing a lot of those things to be able to generate those emotional contact points, which we can talk about in a little bit. But that's how I separate them. To answer your initial question.

Scott: So how much time are you spending on Instagram? Because, cause I, you know, like there's, you've got, you've got a an engaged Facebook group, you've got other, you know, you got emails going on, you've got Instagram, there's so many different places, but how much time specifically will you, are you at your age? Are you opening Screentime I'm exactly, that's exactly right. So you know, like you're going to like lie about it. I'm going to tell you exactly, you know, like I probably spend maybe 30 minutes at most every I, I'd have to open screen time too, but at most, maybe 30 minutes a day I've never spent more than 30 minutes on Instagram even, you know, in DMS and comments and stuff like that.

Devin: Okay. So now I'm really curious for you to open your Screentime because I think it adds up over time. Like I think it adds up more than you think. And so anybody listening, I would suggest you open up your screen time and then go over to, you could go over to like [inaudible] last week or whatever, but then click on day and it'll give you your in it. If you click on Instagram or you can just click on Instagram specifically and it will give you your day average. And so my daily average on Instagram, and so I'll be honest with this, straight up is an hour and three minutes daily. Wow. Now I do. I do bet you that a lot of people listening spinned around that anyways, they, and they don't make the money that I make on it. So we'll talk about that. But Scott, what do you got? Three minutes. 90 minute. Okay. Okay. Hold on. You had like today or yesterday, what do you have for like last week? So if you go to last week and then you go, then you click on Instagram from last week.

Scott: Let's see, let's do, let's do the week and then Instagram. Okay. So seven minutes is a, is, is the daily average for less credible.

Devin: That's incredible. Okay. So now I have a fairly my, now I would venture to say that the average person, I would say the average person spends a lot more than seven minutes on Instagram probably. And so I'm impressed by you for only spending seven minutes. [inaudible]

Scott: Okay. Now I will try to restrain myself.

Devin: Now I will say that like my average a while ago when I was really heavily establishing this foundation was probably around an hour and a half to two hours a day on Instagram. But like I would spin that anyways a lot of times because it was me and my wife, like we didn't have kids yet and so I wasn't super distracted. I was able to do doing this. Now some people would have kids, but I do also think that there's times where you could do this, like, like for me, like, Oh, I'll do this when I'm going to the bathroom or when I'm like, just wake it up or something like that. Or like there's so many opportunities for me to do this in my strategy when I talk about it a little bit. So a lot of times I will mindlessly like photos or I'm, but I'm always intentionally engaging.

Devin: I'm never just scrolling. And so I do this a one, one big thing I say is I say you have to streamline authentic engagement. And so people were going to go, well, what the heck do you mean by streamlining authentic engagement? Does that make it not authentic? And so what I'd do is I go to, I use keyboard shortcuts. So if you have an iPhone, I can tell you how to do this. If you don't, I have no idea how to tell you how to do this. So, but you would go to settings, general keyboard, text replacement. And so I have all types of things like whenever somebody gets engaged, I will go in and I will write this every single time I will go in and I will say I'll type in the words dream wedding and then, and then I'll press space in this whole paragraph populates that says, Oh my gosh, so excited.

Devin: Swooning over that ring. Let me, let me actually tell you exactly what it says. I don't, I don't, and that's very smart. It's kind of like a Gmails, a canned replies feature. Exactly. You're basically creating for, for engaging in just on Instagram. It's very smart strategy. Yeah. Just exactly. And so what I'm, but I don't have to type it out every single time. Yeah. Which saves me so much time. It saves me another hour on Instagram because like I'll tell you one thing that's been really cool. I've done this so much that on a Saturday or Sunday right around now in this season, every time I open Instagram on a Saturday or Sunday, the very first photo that pops up is an engaged couple that literally just got proposed to because Instagram, because I've engaged so much with it, Instagram goes, okay, this is the content you want to see.

Devin: We're going to keep pushing it to you. And I'm like, thanks algorithm. So many people don't. Many people like complain about the algorithm who literally is bringing me clients because I've engaged so much on a specific type of post, people getting engaged. I've typed in that keyboard shortcut, which is authentic. It's not like red snap like you know, like it's not one of those and it's high value. So what I say is it says us so excited. Swimming over that rain. Congrats. Enjoy planning or dream wedding. If you ever have any questions or need anything, don't hesitate to let us know. We are so excited for you with a bunch of emojis. Heart, iHeart eyes, ring fires, works, champagne, confetti, confetti, heart eyes, you know like it has those emojis in it. Yeah, but it seems super authentic and they always go, Oh my gosh, thank you so much.

Devin: And then what I'll do right here, Scott. So I go straight from here. I literally go straight into the DMS and then I T I S I send one another one that is 100% value. I go, Hey, I just wanted to send them more personal. Congrats here you go. Here it is a guide. And so for some of your listeners out there, you could create a sample timeline, you can create an engagement session guide on what to like, what to wear during an engagement session, right. I live those things you could create. And then I say, here you can have this. This is a gift from me just to say congrats. And then I say this, I say, full disclosure, if you get this guide, it will sign you up for, you'll get one email over the one email per week over the next two to three months and it's going to have like tips for helping you to plan your dream wedding from the photographic standpoint.

Devin: It's going to have getting ready tips, family photo tips, engagement session tips, engagement session, what's where, all types of tips. And then I say, you can unsubscribe at any time. You don't have to hire me. But I know a lot of people find a lot of value in this and I hope you can as well. And so then they're like, Oh my gosh, that's amazing. And they all sign up for it. And then what happens over the next two to three months? I'm building trust with them. I'm building grand awareness with them and I'm building this this, this feeling of reciprocity with them. And so then what they want to do immediately is they're not going to, nobody else has done this. No other photographer has done this. So I'm going to be the roots out. I'm going to be the one that they go, Oh my gosh, like why wouldn't I hire them?

Devin: I've seen a bunch of their work already. I don't know. I like their work and they've given me so much value already. And so that's been really huge for me. And then I have so many other keyboard shortcuts. Like I'll tell you another story, Scott. When I I went saw this bride and you know, like she, she didn't really follow me. And we could talk about how to get the clients and how to find brides because I follow probably about 6,000 of my ideal clients and I'll tell you exactly how I do that. Just a second. But like I, this girl didn't even follow me or anything like that, but I saw, so I live near Charleston, South Carolina, which is an amazing location. I loved Charleston. Oh, so gorgeous in, and they have this one venue that I love and I'd never shot at before.

Devin: It's right on King street, like the main street. It's called the William Aiken house. And I went into the location, sir. Oh, no, no. I followed this girl and she was just like, just got married or just got our venue. So excited to get married here. I typed in my keyboard shortcut for venues that was like, love that venue. Your wedding is going to be an absolute dream. You're going to be the most gorgeous bride. And like now the town now, the countdown route, now the countdown begins and things start to get really start to get really excited. That night I posted that the girl followed me, sent me an inquiry, met with her the next day, booked her all because of me commenting on her photo and stuff like that. And so like being able to go out and also, here's the thing, here's another thing Scott.

Devin: People are like, who do, I'm a guy and that's just kind of creepy. I'm a guy too. Okay? Like I'm a guy and I've been doing this and it generates leads and has generated revenue and people feel valued. They don't feel creeped out by it because we live in such a narcissistic culture that like when people post on Instagram, they post in order to get affirmation. Like there's studies that are shown that when somebody gets affirmation on their, their photos, dopamine flies to their brain. So like this reward circuitry place associated with this feeling of, of joy and reward every time somebody gets likes on their photos, that's automatically associated to my brand. And so now I'm building that and building that and building that. So then, you know, they say it takes somebody an average of seven times to remember your brand. But if I'm constantly over and over and over affirming them and every time they see a anchor in Vail, like their photo, a shot of dopamine goes through their brain. Now I'm not trying to like take advantage or leveraging, but social media is doing that anyways. I'm just using that for my brand now. And so like I'm, I'm, I'm creating this, this positive reinforcement and, and association with my brand that ultimately leads to bookings.

Scott: You know, I love the fact that not only did you get back in this net particular story, not only did you get that client, but you got to photograph the wedding at a venue that you were dying a photograph. At. So I just, I just Googled the picture of the, of the building the property. Oh, it does look amazing. So yeah, it's pretty cool. And one of my

Devin: Photos from it is like chandelier is everywhere from that was so like it was a really nice wedding that I got because I

Scott: Commented on a photo. Nice. Yeah, that's great. So, so how do you find your ideal clients? Is it just searching for specific hashtags, a searching for specific locations? We're, is it like following what other places are following, which is I know a common thing as well.

Devin: Good question. So so Scott, quick question, do you know the maximum amount of people that you can follow on Instagram?

Scott: I know it's somewhere up in the thousands, but I'm not sure what the total number is.

Devin: Cool. So 7,500 people, so 7,500 people is the maximum it will allow you to. And I, if you look at my Instagram right now, let me see how many people I follow cause I'm not quite sure. I think I follow 7,494 people, 95. And so because like what I do is I will actually go and things like, so hashtags not so much. I will actually go to location services because I know where my target audience goes. So my target audience goes to bank of America stadium to watch the Panthers play my target IOT and goes to inc and Ivy, which is a bar uptown Charlotte. Because my target audience is 26 to 35 professionals that are that like to go out, enjoy time with their friends, things like that and are most likely paying for the wedding. Most like 80% of my clients are all like doctors, lawyers, dentists, things like that because that's where I go and I understand where those people go and hang out and do things socially.

Devin: They don't go to, like if I lived in green Greensboro where, where I went to college, they don't go to like Greene street club, which is like a, like a, okay. So like they don't go there. They go to nicer, higher end bars, enjoy times with their friends. And so I'll actually go to those locations. So I'll go to the search bar type in that and I'll go to that location and I'll look at all, I mean like the thing about Instagram is it allows you to be extremely picky with who you want to follow. I will follow my exact tar. I know exactly what they look like. I know what they were, know what they were kind of purses they carry. I know all of those things. And so I can take a look at some somebody's sister [inaudible] and know that that's my target audience and we would all be lying if we say we couldn't do that either. Like I think most people know

Scott: Who they want to photograph. Yeah. You want, if you want to start doing a an hour a day on Instagram, that's like the best way that you can spend an entire week of doing an hour a day is, is, is to do the research to find your, your ideal clients. You know, the way that I do it is, or one of the ways that I do it I should say, is I actually start looking at my clients cause I follow all my clients on Instagram and then see who they're following and see who has a family, see who, who who's posting photos of their, of their newborns and stuff like that. And, and I will start following them. And that way I can track who's, who's ready for a family session and who's ready for whose, whose child is turning one and ready for a kicks mess session and so on. So

Devin: Yeah, and you can, and you can easily like slide into those DMS and go, Oh my gosh, I saw that if you want to, but you can be like, I just saw, you know, like now I don't think this is kind of creepy. I don't know. You could, I don't know, but you should be like, I'm like, Oh, what a cute baby. I have all my website, like five ways to sleep train or something like that at sleep train and newborn or things like that. Which people can find a lot of value in and ultimately that's what we want to give them is a ton of value. And so yeah, that's what I do. And like exactly that. I will actually, so a lot of people will go, okay, well how do you find people, like if they're private, you know, like private accounts.

Devin: And so what I'll do is, you know, like some of those, some of those people that come up in my location services, they're either in a photo with their boyfriend and I'm like definitely them. Or they're in a photo with like five of their other friends and I know what. And so I will go in and I'll look at their tags and I'll follow all five of their other friends. And then people say, well, do you follow them if they're private accounts? And my answer is 100% yes. Because now that's even better because if they're not private accounts and then my follow gets lost in their likes, you know, as they scroll through. But if they're a private account, they have to go through, they have to go to my Instagram page. They have to approve me and then, and so then they're more likely to follow me back and remember me rather than somebody who wasn't approved account,

Scott: That's for sure. And if they see that you're following their friends, that even increases the chances that they will follow you back. Cause then they're going to say, Oh, well I'm, I'm dating somebody. What if, what if I get engaged? Now I should, I should know this person, you know? And if they follow me

Devin: Back already, then there's social proof, you know, like there's social proof that I am a trustable account.

Scott: Yeah. Yeah. So how about how on average, how many leads do you get on Instagram each month? Like who all partners?

Devin: Gosh, good question, man. You know, I love ballparks, but I also all about real numbers, real numbers. So let me just, let me pull it up right now and tell you, that's a great question. Okay. So in the last, let's see, lead sources leads by month. Instagram, so in, okay. Ooh, yeah, this is really interesting. Okay. So 104 teen total so far. And it's November. I got, let's see, January is a big month. I got 23, February 14, March 15, April, that one's a little bit lower. Six leads may seven and then so 11. So I guess I would average, Oh, and then October 12 and then these next couple months are already like spiking up. And so I would say like I average at least 10

Scott: Around us. What I was thinking per month. Yeah. Nice. That's, that's, that's pretty good for just Instagram, which is, I have to say Instagram, while it's the most photo centric potential social media network for potential leads, it's, it's the hardest. Yeah, it is the hardest. And so that's, that's good. 10 10 on average is pretty impressive.

Devin: I'll get a lead from Instagram.

Scott: And, and, and so you're, you're using the strategy of sending them to your, to your wedding guides and, and stuff like that. So while you're in your analytics about on average, how many of those leads do you get to convert to, to clients?

Devin: No, 26%. So one out of every four turned into clients, which is great. And we're also in a higher end, like my associates start at 35, which means nobody books 35, they all book between like the average for my associates are around 4,800, 5,000 and the average for me as a little bit over 7,000, so we're still on the higher end. So if I were a little bit lower than we would convert at a much higher rate, but we're still a little bit too expensive for a lot of people.

Scott: Nice. Yeah. And you know, that's obviously going to you know, the potential people who are obviously not your clients will obviously know, hire you. So, you know, that's exactly right, which is perfectly fine. You don't want, you don't want the people who, who to, to not necessarily waste your time, but you know, you want to be able to focus on the people who are more likely to hire you anyway.

Devin: 100%. And I'm also sorry. And I also like don't want to just, just because I have an associate does that mean that I want to give them every bride? Like I want them to be happy with the clients that they get as well. Not just give them those people just so I can make more money.

Scott: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, and there's people that, that as an, I don't have any associate photographers in my photography business, but you know, there's from, from the outside in, there's probably clients that you get that you won't connect as well with that one of your associate photographers might connect better. Yeah, for sure. So you're gonna wanna pass along and vice versa depending on each person. So, so profiles, right. This is a, this is a topic where I feel like there's so many directions you can go. I wonder if you have a strategy for color scheme for your profile or texts on photos or never texts on photos or a specific posting schedule that you go by. Do you have a strategy for basically how your profile functions?

Devin: Man, I am. I am so glad you asked me this question. I really am. I love this because what I think is the way that I do Instagram makes this completely irrelevant, like just so irrelevant. It's not even funny man. Like I hear so many times people are like, Oh, you know, like posting of yourself so people can get to know you and things like that. And I'm like, that's awesome. And then they'll say, Oh, post a pretty profile so your scheme looks great. And I'm like, that's awesome. The only one scheme that I've ever stayed with is like, I have one row of black and whites. The other two are colors and like that's it. Let me tell you, I have posted. Okay, you ready? I posted four days ago and then before that I, this is this is November 12th. I hope it's okay that I say the date.

Devin: Yup. I posted four days ago, which was November 8th last time I posted before that, October 21st last time I posted before that October 15th last time, October 5th I may be maybe post once a week or once every two weeks. And so like this strategy and then like, but the crazy thing is all of my posts still get extremely high engagement except the last one because I used a copyright song and so Instagram didn't allow it to go fart. Yeah, but the posts that that engagement is going to be because you're engaging, excited, anything. Oh my gosh, exactly. Like that's the thing. It makes, it makes the algorithm or it makes how much you post. Completely irrelevant. I post once a week maybe and I still get super high engagement and I still get an inquiry every three days because it doesn't matter. Like, like I said, people don't come to my feed because of my work.

Devin: They come because how I make them feel and if I can make, what I do is I go to them to make them feel a certain way. I don't need them to come to me, I'll just go to them. And that worked a significantly better than me trying to worry too much about my, my Instagram profile and it leading, yielding nothing rather than I go to them and doing and do the work. And that's just most important I think. And are you doing any stories at all? Yeah, I will occasionally do stories. I do think stories. I think stories are far more actually engagement on stories as going down right now just because Instagram in general, but like, because Instagram and, or because Facebook and so I think though, but, but, but if you, if you were to take a poll and you were to ask who immediately when they opened their Instagram, it goes to the story first or it goes to this feet first.

Devin: And I would say 80% right now, let's say it goes to the stories first. And so stories are important. I have not put as much as I used to just because like my strategy is elsewhere. But what I do is I go to stories and I will immediately go and engage on their stories. They people post stories because the same reason why they post photos is they want to be engaged with in some way, shape or form. They want, they want some sort of affirmation for what they just like I saw a study and it was like I'll skip some of the stats, but it was like at least 7%, right? So I know that sounds low, but it was like 16% will post like seven to eight or we'll take seven to 10 selfies before they post the one that they like.

Devin: But then it was like 7% of women well we'll take 11 to 15 selfies before they find the one that they want to post. And so like seven to 8% is plenty of women in the world. It'd be my client. And so like I'm going to go and I'm going to go to like a lot of those people post because they, they find that perfect selfie whatever they want because they want affirmation and I'm gonna give them that in the DMS as well. Even if that's just like cute dog, whatever. Because then it's a lot more personal in the stories and in the DMS and so like, yes, I'll post the stories. Sometimes I'll post my work in the stories, but I do tend to be a lot more personal in the stories. We'll talk about our foster children and we'll talk about me either like speaking at an event or as being on vacation or things like that because people do associate with personal brands. I think it's that it's people are seven times more likely to buy from a personal brand or buy when I think it was like when they employees of a company post rather than when the company posts. And so they brought it from a more personal brand rather than just large brands. And so it just converts a lot better when you can be more personal. But I think you can also just be personal by sliding into the DMS and bringing that value as well.

Scott: You know, that, that's one of the reasons why Imagely started this podcast in the first place was to put a, an and the reason why we're doing it video is to put face faces. And mainly it's me doing it at imagery but, but faces to to the company cause otherwise, you know, sure we have a team page, but otherwise you're just looking at a company that you don't know who's who. So now when somebody thinks about imageries or they're thinking about my, my ugly mug, talking to them, you know, with him. But it's more mindset I guess, but it's more personal. Yeah. so two other two to basically two final questions I have about, about strategy. One is do you have a hashtag strategy when you do posts, which by the way, I do about once or twice at most a week as well. But hashtags, do you have a strategy to optimize for hashtags or is it just go with the flow?

Devin: Yeah. So I think like there's a misconception behind hashtags is that like, Oh, because it allows you to do 30, then do 30, quite, I haven't heard statistics that if you do 30 then you're more likely to be like seen as like a bot account that posts just 30. And so I would suggest, I think I say 25 to 27 hashtags in your comments in three in the caption. So that's like kinda how I tend to do it. Now you also want to be very kind of have like a, I have a certain, I can't remember the word, but like associate you amount of likes you get with a photo with the hashtags that you use. So like don't use hashtag wedding cause that millions of posts per day on it use something that's more niche or more specialized. If you get like, it's like if you get a hundred a hundred likes per photo, then use hashtags that are that are around 100,000 posts because then you're more likely to be on that top nine or whatever to being found.

Devin: And so what I'll do is I'll do nine in that hundred thousand posts and then I'll do nine in like the, the 200, like the 300,000 to 500,000. And then I'll do another nine in those like heavy hitter ones that, you know, get a little bit over that in the post. And that's like how I've researched my hashtags and scripted out my hashtags. I also use keyboard shortcuts for hashtags. If you are copying and pasting hashtags, then you are wasting a lot of time. I will put Charlotte wedding crest space and all my heart, my hashtags for Charlotte come up.

Scott: So, so I used to do that. But I was introduced to an app that I fell in love with. Cool. And it helps me optimize what hashtags are actually doing stuff. It's called smart hash. Okay. So and I can, I'll send you a link to it. I'll put it in the show notes as well. Boston, your link to it. It's iOS, Android and web. So you can even do it if you're doing something on the web that it lets you split test your hashtags and also, and also lets you get, she gives you a heat map of what is actually working getting you engagement so that way you know, okay, well this one's not working. I should stop using it. And also let you research hashtags that might be related to a search turn that you have.

Scott: That's awesome. I just looked it up. Yeah. So it's a, it's pretty sweet actually. If you watch the video that's on the homepage of it, it's a review that I have. I did that. I did okay on YouTube. They just add it to their home page was pretty cool. So, so smart hash is what I use, but I did use to use your strategy of doing the, the, the text shortcut, the keyboard shortcut. So, so my, my final question is I noticed that you have one of those link in bio links, like the link tree or whatever service that you're using. And there's tons of those out there. So my question to you is why aren't you just linking to your website itself and adding the same content that's on the link tree link to your website?

Devin: Basically like one part of it is cause I was just lazy so I keep it man, I keep it real bro. Like I will keep it 100. I keep it so real and so I totally could do that and then I could pick so and I can do all that stuff. But like one of the hard parts about pixeling is like I don't know exactly where that comes from. And so if you look on that link tree, it goes to different parts of my website, which is great. People can click on the different things, which I could still do on my website as well. But I just did that just because it's been easier and I just didn't want to have to redo something like that. I totally could. I just did. Hmm.

Scott: Okay. All right. Well, I think I think, yeah,

Devin: I also don't, I also, sorry, I was going to say, I also haven't like seen a lot of data from that that shows a lot of people click. That made it like worth it for me to go, I need to do this right away. I could even, because one is better than none, but I just, I just hadn't done it.

Scott: Cool. I think what I might do for episode 93 for the next episode of this podcast is continue on on the Instagram topic and even maybe show people how to make a Lincoln bio page on their own site. I think that might be an interesting, I think for people to see. That would be cool. And, and maybe even do a quick demo demonstration of a apps and stuff that I use for, for Instagram. Duh. That way I can connect it to this episode as well. So that can be pretty cool. You should. So anything that you want to share that you would like the listeners and viewers of the, of this episode to check out that you're doing or any final advice you want to share

Devin: About Instagram strategy? Yeah, I guess the final advice I would, I would say is just do it like you're on Instagram anyways. So now make it intentional and do something about it and start to seek out like even if it's just going in and following, like I'll go in, I'll follow and then I'll like, like the first seven photos of that person to try and get their attention. Even if you do something like that, like even if you do that to a couple of people, you'll start to notice that you'll start to, you'll start to get more people interested in you because now what I'm doing is generating a lot of warm leads because they'll come to me, are ready, preface, we already have a relationship. They're already ready to buy from me rather than somebody that's just kind of searching for a photographer. There's a relationship that's been built, so do the work because in the long run it will work.

Devin: And I guess if there's something that I guess anything I'm doing or something like that, the only thing I would say is also just you could join me in my Facebook group. I love the Facebook group because I just want to give a ton of value in there. I will answer just about every single question that gets answered, if I can answer it. And a, and I just, I just love being able to help people and so you can find that anchored fb.com or you could just search in the anchored education group on Facebook.

Scott: Awesome. I'll also link to it in the show notes. So if you go to the show notes page, you'll be able to access it and, and everywhere that you'll be able to find. Devin. so thank you so much for joining the show today. I, this is a fantastic topic. I think my two biggest takeaways that I'm going to get started on immediately are one, follow more, more target clients and to get those keyboard shortcuts in there for act for comment. I think that is, I wish I've been doing that all along and now I'm like going to, you know, I want to hit myself for not doing it, but I can get it done. Hey you and I hope everybody else who's listening gets that done. But there's been a ton of value here, so thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Scott: Yeah, no problem. And also if you want to, I have a bunch of keyboard shortcut, like things like that. In my group. I have a unit section with like videos on it and stuff like that because I have for dresses and people on Valentine's day or anniversaries, all of that stuff. Super easy. Awesome. Yeah, that's great. So you can find the show notes where to find Devin, like his Facebook group. You can check out his weddings, his podcast. I've all, these will be linked in our show notes at imagely.com/podcast/ 92 and don't forget to subscribe to the show on Apple podcast, Spotify, Pandora, Google play, and wherever you listen to podcasts. Until next time.