Jodie Cook - Instagram Rules: The Essential Guide to Building Brands, Business and Community

THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO BUILDING BRANDS, BUSINESS & COMMUNITY

JODIE COOK

There are Instagram accounts that are incredibly impressive. Youve probably seen them. They pop up on your feed, their images are dazzling and their follower and engagement numbers grow effortlessly. They amass a tribe of superfans who rush to be the first to like an image or be the first comment. Their audience cant get enough of them. These accounts are responsible for the brand behind them, selling their products and building a vocal and committed community.

There are also millions of bad Instagram profiles out there, but the world needs (and wants) those that shine bright and stand out. It needs the ones people rave about to their friends and revisit over and over again. It needs those remarkable accounts to learn from, look up to and champion.

The book you now hold in your hands invites you to join them.

The people behind incredible Instagram accounts are organised and prolific. Theres no escaping that. They have systems and processes and they relentlessly learn and experiment. What these accounts have in common with yours is that they too started with zero followers and zero images. After that, its expertise, application and determination, supported by a great product or cause.

Herein lies the knowledge, the plan and the inspiration to replicate their methods and create your Instagram success.

So who am I to be telling you this? Well, Ive been a social media professional since 2011. Organisations from niche start-ups to global stars and everything in between have relied on my guidance to make social media a key driver of their growth; growth in sales, influence and databases. I regularly contribute opinions on current social media affairs for international publications and I have built a team of remarkable social media managers, trainers and consultants who manage, train and teach our methods.

The digital agency I run guides Instagram accounts from zero to hero based on the principles and practices you see laid out here. My team creates plans from scratch, manages the process on behalf of busy companies, consults with marketers and spots the small improvements that, when combined, make a huge difference. Weve agonised over algorithms and cheered for campaigns. Weve seen the patterns behind success.

Like you, Im a student of social media; always learning, testing and working out how I can grow the brands of my clients by applying commercial thinking to social media activity.

The 125 rules are here to give you an actionable framework from which to operate. The eight contributor profiles bring the rules to life, provide inspiration and remind you that its all possible. When reading the contributor profiles, see what strikes you about their stories. Although few say it directly, its clear that much of their Instagram success lies in consistency and enthusiasm.

Behind every great Instagram brand is a solid product offering. This product could be digital or physical, it could be a service provided by you or your team. The product could be a cause for change or for educational or entertainment purposes. It could be your personal brand. The substance of this product is the foundation upon which the guidance contained in this book will work from.

Throughout the book, Ill guide you through every aspect of Instagram success, split by strategy, content, community and growth.

Strategy is where we ascertain how Instagram sits within your marketing plan, creates goals and determines what success looks like. Content is for giving ideas and developing systems for creating and sharing brilliant content, including ways you wont have previously considered. Community is where you become noticed, then invaluable, to your audience. The focus of growth is ramping up everything achieved so far and taking your account to the next level. Theres a final bonus section, health, to ensure you run your Instagram, not the other way around.

I recommend reading a few of the rules at a time, then pausing to apply them to your Instagram account. Keep a notebook alongside you. If a specific rule doesnt fit with your account, just move on to the next, but stay open minded and ready to learn. Base your actions on feedback from your own community and results from your own account, rather than second-guessing or sticking to whats expected. Aim to stand out rather than blend in.

Instagram often trials new features before rolling out the best to all its users, of which 500 million use the platform every day. Its likely that the future holds enhanced analytics, closer integrations with shopping platforms and more ways of serving and interacting with a community. However, the premise and the basics of the platform remain the same. Instagram wants brands, influencers and consumers alike to spend more time using it, so every evolution of the platform serves this goal.

Whilst I cant predict every impending Instagram change, I can recommend that you jump straight on new features and be ready to experiment with commercial awareness in mind. Be prepared for any new feature to pivot your strategy, if it matches your brand and voice and is well received. You can find out about new features first by following @InstagramForBusiness on Instagram.

At any point, any of the features mentioned within this book could be removed from the platform, for which I can only apologise. Nevertheless, the premise of each feature holds true: look for ways to serve a community, look for methods to add value and look for excuses to engage.

Your audience is waiting to hear from you. If youre proud of your product then its ready to meet more people and heres how you do just that. Lets begin.

The first section of this book is dedicated to optimising your Instagram account for long-term success. With a strong foundation, you can build a formidable Instagram presence and a brand that is synonymous with what you stand for.

Your account and everything it shares must contribute to the bigger picture. So you need to be clear on what that bigger picture is and create an account that will get you there. For this, you need a strategy.

A strategic approach is hugely important if youre taking your Instagram presence seriously because it provides a framework to work within. Knowing what your brand represents and where you want to go makes your social media activity a more conscious endeavour and allows you to push your online activity further.

By strategy, I dont mean specific tactics for quick wins but laying the groundwork for long-term success from setting the right profile picture to choosing the right filters. It should be an embodiment of your entire Instagram presence and what you want your account to achieve for your personal brand or business.

Benchmarking where you are now against where you want to be is paramount: you might not realise how far your account has come until you look back. Growth in likes, followers and comments will become the norm, but applying the tactics and reflecting on them regularly will ensure this continues.

Of course, it is possible to grow an Instagram account without a strategy, but not while trying to maximise the chances of growth. Youll see from the case studies included throughout that even those Instagram accounts that started off without a plan, or with a scattergun approach, had to adopt a strategy at some point on their journey.