Instagram Marketing Guide for Authors

Instagram
marketing
guide
for
authors

How to add value
Contents
What to post
Using features
Scheduling and time management
Links in your bio
Hashtags
Best Practices
Business accounts do’s and don’ts
Types of images
Photography
Branding
When to post

Add Value
What most authors don’t realize when they’re trying to market themselves
on Instagram is that they’re not adding value for their audience and
prospects. You need to create and share content that helps, inspires or
educates people. This will help improve engagement, increase your audience,
build your brand as a thought leader and drive sales. If you need
a really great book to read on this topic, check out my personal favorite
Content Inc.

Don’t make all your posts about
your book
What most authors don’t realize when they’re trying to market themselves
on Instagram is that they’re not adding value for their audience and
prospects. You need to create and share content that helps, inspires or educates
people. This will help improve engagement, increase your audience,
build your brand as a thought leader and drive sales. If you need a really
great book to read on this topic, check out my personal favorite Content Inc.

Use all the features
Instagram wants you and the rest of its users to spend as much time in the
app as possible - duh, that’s how they get paid! So they also want you to use
all the bells and whistles, and they reward you for it. That means they want
you to update your story constantly, tag people, use music, make a poll,
ask a question and all the other features they have. If you’re like me, that
sounds time consuming. I try to plan out a few stories that correlate with
my blog posts each week so I’m not generating completely different content.
You can make pinterest stories that are consistent with Canva for free.
Remember to tell your audience, “link in bio.”

use a scheduling system
Instagram wants you and the rest of its users to spend as much time in the
app as possible - duh, that’s how they get paid! So they also want you to use
all the bells and whistles, and they reward you for it. That means they want
you to update your story constantly, tag people, use music, make a poll, a
Learn from someone who has made every mistake on Instagram - posting
consistently and frequently is a key to your success. However, it’s not always
convenient. Use a scheduling system like UNUM or Tailwind to plan your
schedule and what your feed looks like. You wouldn’t think it’s important,
but having a curated feed helps your branding.
UNUM is the less expensive option and it makes it easy to use from your
phone. However, it’s not the most functional. UNUM does let you add captions
but it’s not flawless in carrying that caption over to Insta - so remember
to copy and paste your caption just in case it doesn’t. It also doesn’t automatically
post for you, which for me is a huge inconvenience. It does send
you a notification to remember to post.
Tailwind is the more expensive option, costing $120 a year. However, it has
some awesome functionality. You can use it to schedule out all your pins
and captions months out, and it’s fully automated, so you don’t even need
to think about it again. Tailwind also helps you pick the strongest hashtags
for your post and ranks them for you!

use Linktree in your bio instead of
your website
Instagram doesn’t want users to exit the app, hence why they only allow you
to have one link in your bio. Well, that’s not great if you’re constantly writing
new blogs and you want to link your audience to a different page daily.
Linktree is a service that allows you to link to multiple places from platforms
like Instagram. It is free if you don’t want any branding. This way I can have
multiple things going on at once. I can have an Instagram story that directs
people to a link in my bio and a post on my feed doing so as well.
Pro tip - Linktree also counts as a backlink to your website, which helps your
websites SEO (search engine optimization). Instagram does not, so if you’re
using Linktree you’re giving yourself one more backlink, yay!

hashtags
This may not seem intuitive but you don’t want to repeat the same hashtags
constantly. Instagram will actually dock you for that behavior. Keep hashtags
to a minimum (let’s say about 5) and change them each post. Make it
relevant to the content you are posting!
##########

should you practice
follow-unfollow?
Some may say yes, others are going to say no. Here’s the deal, it doesn’t
work. Follow-Unfollow is when you follow mass amounts of accounts just
in hope that they follow you back. While it may work temporarily, it is not a
good long term strategy and it can hurt you in the long run.

should you participate in a pod?
Instagram is anti-pods and has been cracking down. Pods are groups of 15-
20 people who are in a group message that comment and like each other’s
posts in order to trick the Instagram algorithm into thinking their post is
more engaging. While this does work in the short term, it is time
consuming and doesn’t build your brand. In addition, Instagram could
delete your account or shadow ban you and your audience will most likely
start to see through it at some point in time.

don’t make a business account
Instagram wants to make money. Naturally they are going to give
businesses less impressions (that’s how many times your post shows up
organically in other people’s feeds), because they want to make money from
you advertising instead. Rumor has it, if you keep your account as a
personal one you will get more organic impressions and engagement.

post mainly vertical images
Vertical images look better on instagram due to the cellphone layout. Wide
landscapes become compressed and don’t display as well. Instagram
automatically takes preference over portrait style images due to this fact
alone. So remember to take vertical photos!

improve your photography or
hire a photographer
Here’s the deal, Instagram is saturated with great photos - your iphone
photos probably don’t compare. If you want to stand out and be noticeable,
you’ll need quality imagery.

make your ig branded
Instagram is a visual platform, so you’ll want to make sure it’s branded and
consistent. You can do this a few different ways, but if you’re posting photos
you’ll want to keep them consistent through editing. You can do this pretty
easily with Lightroom mobile and using a preset. We have two free presets
that you can try out in our Clubhouse. Join the clubhouse to download
them. (By the way, it’s freeeee).

post when your audience is online
Posting when people are asleep really isn’t useful, mainly because the first
30 minutes your post is up is the driving force for how well it will perform. I
generally know my audience is using social media during the early
afternoon and evening, so I try to post to my feed during that time. You can
post stories throughout the day more freely.

who are we?
cat t y wampus
We don’t believe in boring marketing. We believe
in standing out like a sore thumb. We’re the purple
cow, the pink elephant in the room, the peacock
in the business meeting. We’ve never wanted to
blend in. Neither should you. We believe that good
marketing will make a bold statement, and demand
your audiences attention. We’re not here to fit the
status quo, we’re here to raise the bar. You could say
our approach is daring. Its audacious. It’s wild. It’s
disruptive. It’s off-kilter. It’s Cattywampus.
c l u b
We belive in community and collaboration over competition.
That’s why we’re one part business, one part club. We actually
have a club! This is were we foster education, innovation, and
collaboration. WHO ELSE HAS A CLUB? No one. We’re in the
process of growing and developing, but our clubhouse offer’s
free resources for entrepreneurs, authors and artists looking to
develop their marketing and creative skills. We hand out free
educational tools and resources. We have a forum. And in the
future we’ll have events! Okay, so maybe it’s a cult. Cult? Club?
Community? Same difference.

cattyw
Clu

ampus
b

Join us in the clubhouse
for more freebies and
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www.cattywampusclub.com