“You might not realize it, but the solution to all of your struggles when it comes to building and monetizing a massive following online has been hiding in your cell phone this entire time.” ~Jeremy McGilvrey
In life and in business, the solution to our biggest problems is often right in front of us but often times we’re unable to see it. We can’t see it because we’re so attached to the old and comfortable way of doing things that we become completely blind to the new and better ways that are all around us!
I’m the type of person that’s always looking for new ways to take my online marketing success to the next level. Within the past year or so, I started hearing stories about entrepreneurs and business owners who were absolutely crushing it on Instagram. But I was unsure where to start when trying to get the same results for myself. At the same time, it was clear to me that successful entrepreneurs were seeing massive profits within the mobile social media platform, so I was curious to learn more.
I wanted to find out WHO was dominating on Instagram, and HOW they were leveraging Instagram to collect leads and make sales. Eventually, I met someone who was able to provide high-quality advice and demonstrate how he used that same advice to build up his massive following and profit on Instagram: Jeremy McGilvrey.
Jeremy founded Instapro Academy, the #1 online Instagram training program in the world. He also built Instajam, the safest and longest-standing Instagram software platform designed for helping businesses get targeted customers on autopilot. If that’s not impressive enough, he also wrote “Instagram Secrets”, a book that is the single best resource on online marketing I have ever read.
The Texas entrepreneur didn’t have a training course, venture capital, or any kind of guidance when he initially began building his following on Instagram. Back then, a lot of people were trying to figure out the Instagram game but few seemed to have the answers.
After an incredible amount of hard work and perseverance, Jeremy’s big breakthrough on Instagram came in a rather unexpected way.
One day, he bought a shoutout from Jason Stone, who owns @Millionaire_Mentor and has currently amassed 2.4 MILLION Instagram followers. But for Jeremy, it was about something more than the shoutout. Jeremy wanted to interview Jason and get him to reveal how he had created massive success on Instagram, and then sell the interview as a digital product.
That single interview eventually transformed into a mentorship where Jason taught Jeremy all of his secrets to building a powerhouse business on Instagram. With these secrets, Jeremy was able to increase his follower base, build his email list and generate consistent sales! After becoming successful on Instagram, Jeremy started teaching other Instagram users how to grow their own following from scratch.
Currently, Jeremy’s business page @ElevateYourMindset and his personal page @JeremyMcgilvrey have over 300,000 followers. All of this growth was achieved in less than a year and a half.
When I managed to connect with Jeremy and he revealed his insider Instagram secrets to me, I realized — throughout our conversation that I was missing out on an extraordinary opportunity. Things were not as complicated as I thought they were on Instagram and I quickly discovered I was leaving tons of money on the table by not being on Instagram.
Jeremy’s unheard-of results convinced me that he had the solution I was looking for. Every piece of advice he gave me was easy to understand, and easy to execute. Using Jeremy’s strategies, I was able to increase my follower base on Instagram from 991 to 2059 within just a few weeks.
I was also reminded that it’s just as important to know what NOT to do on Instagram. Jeremy told me that the vast majority of Instagram users are making some very expensive mistakes every day without even realizing it. As long as you are able to avoid making these errors, you can turn Instagram into one of the most powerful weapons in your marketing arsenal!
MISTAKE #1: BUYING SHOUTOUTS THE WRONG WAY
In case you’re unaware, a shoutout is when an Instagram Influencer — someone with a massive following promotes your products or services and/or your Instagram page on their Instagram page. The shoutout sends the Influencer’s followers to your Instagram page and/or instructs them to follow you as well as purchase your products or services.
Are shoutouts expensive? Not at all!
You can buy shoutouts from Instagram accounts with 100,000 to 200,000 followers for about $20. Instagram accounts with 500,000 to 800,000 followers charge around $50 to $85. As you can see, it’s extremely affordable to get your Instagram page as well as your products and services in front of an extraordinary amount of people.
Marketing on Instagram is so easy that anyone can do it, but to get the maximum return on your investment from doing shoutouts, you need to work with the right Influencers. Jeremy explained exactly how you can make that happen:
First, you need to make sure that the Influencer is in the same (or similar) niche as you are. Putting your Instagram page in front of people who aren’t interested in you or your brand is a waste of time and money. Remember: Just because a page has a million followers doesn’t mean that those people will follow you or buy from you.
Second, make sure that you aren’t advertising with an account that has fake followers. You can figure this out in seconds using a free website called SocialBlade.com. All you have to do is type in the name of any Instagram page and find out if their followers are fact or fiction.
If you click on “Detailed Stats” after searching a username, you should see a table that shows the user’s growth in follower count over a 30 day period of time.
As you can see in the table above, the growth of this Instagram page is NOT consistent. Their follower count has a massive period of growth over four days (2017–05–23 to 2017–05–26), followed by a massive loss of followers over the next five days. That’s when you know that somebody’s followers are fake. The red numbers pop up because Instagram is great at deleting fake accounts.
The table above shows the daily growth that Jeremy’s @ElevateYourMindset account experiences. When you see consistent growth in follower count over time, that’s when you know an Influencer’s followers are real.
Third, you need to know how long of a shoutout you should buy. You only need 6 hours for your shoutout to be up on the Influencer’s page to see a dramatic increase in your follower base and/or drive a ton of visitors to your website or sales funnel. Buying shoutouts that are posted for 24 hours can be more expensive and not yield much better results than ones that are up for 6 hours.
Lastly, you always want to test your shoutouts in different ways with different Influencers so that you can get the most followers at the lowest price possible. Here’s something you can do to test your shoutouts: Post the same message and image with multiple Instagram Influencers to see what the outcome is going to be. Just be certain not to purchase shoutouts that will be posted at the same time with different Instagram Influencers.
Running your shoutouts separately is important so that you can see which shoutouts are getting you the most followers. If you have more than one Influencer running your shoutouts at the same time, you will have no idea which Influencer is giving you the most new followers.
MISTAKE #2: NOT COLLECTING YOUR FOLLOWERS’ EMAIL ADDRESSES
Did you know that Instagram could shut down your account for no reason? That’s right — you could wake up tomorrow morning, open up your phone and be shocked to see that your account has completely disappeared. You would no longer have access to all of your followers, and Instagram might refuse to re-activate your account. Here are the first three “General Conditions” that talk about this situation in further detail ( taken directly from Instagram’s official website ):
- We reserve the right to modify or terminate the Instagram service for any reason, without notice at any time.
- We reserve the right to alter these Terms of Use at any time. If the alterations constitute a material change to the Terms of Use, we will notify you via internet mail according to the preference expressed on your account. What constitutes a “material change” will be determined at our sole discretion, in good faith and using common sense and reasonable judgement.
- We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason at any time.
Should Instagram ever terminate your account, you can protect yourself and your business by encouraging your followers to give you their email addresses.
An email list ensures that no matter what happens to your Instagram account, you can still add value to your followers and market your product(s) and service(s) to them without depending on a social media platform. You don’t own your Instagram followers, but you own your email list and nobody can take your email list away from you.
With that said, you need to make it a no-brainer decision for your followers to hand over their email addresses to you. What’s in it for them? You need to have a free giveaway (a.k.a. a lead magnet), such as a checklist or an ebook, that provides incredible value to your followers and make them WANT to give you their email addresses.
Before you determine what your free giveaway is going to be, you must understand the fears and frustrations of your perfect prospect along with their dreams and desires. If your lead magnet can help your followers solve one of their problems or help them achieve a desire in a short period of time, you’ll position yourself as a credible authority and make it easier to sell your products and services to them.
The BIG takeaway is this: Once your followers are on your email list, that’s when you’ll have the best opportunity to connect with them, put your offer in front of them and turn them into paying customers.
Many people falsely believe that email marketing is dead. But if that were true, the top online marketers wouldn’t be trying to get your email address with every chance they get.
MISTAKE #3: NOT UTILIZING INSTAGRAM’S NEW FEATURES
If there is one mindset to adopt that will put you light years ahead of everyone else on Instagram, it would be this: Your ability to recognize and capitalize on new features will be key to your success on Instagram.
For example, a brand new game-changing feature released by Instagram is that you can now add website links to your Instagram Story, creating yet another amazing way to collect your followers email addresses. If you’re new to Instagram you may be asking yourself, “What’s a Story?” An Instagram Story is a video or photo you post that appears behind your logo or main picture at the top of your page for 24 hours.
The website link you put in your Instagram Story can send your followers wherever you want. This link can take them to your website, your sales funnel, a YouTube video, or your blog. Here’s how to take advantage of this amazing new feature:
- In your Story, put a clear ‘call to action’. A ‘call to action’ is the action you want people to take. You can put this call to action in text form if you are using a photo, or say it out loud in a video. In this case, your call to action will be telling your viewers to ‘swipe up’ to get access to the content you’re talking about.
- Once you’ve created your Instagram Story make sure you add the website link for wherever you want to send your followers.
- When followers open up your Instagram Story, they can access your website by simply ‘swiping up’ on the screen.
Your Instagram Story should act as a teaser to get your followers to visit your opt in web page. Wherever your website link takes your followers, make sure you have some way of collecting their email addresses. This is usually done through an landing page, where someone will give you their email address in exchange for something of value (example: Your lead magnet).
If you want to stay on top of your “Instagram game”, you need to make sure you are QUICKLY learning and using any new features that’s rolled out. The best way to do this is closely follow Instagram experts like (@JeremyMcgilvrey) who are in the loop about Instagram’s latest updates to its platform.
NEVER GIVE UP!
As long as you have an Internet connection, a smartphone, and a persistent desire to build a profitable business online, you have everything you need to succeed. You don’t need any special formula or a substantial amount of capital to begin — just model the success of people who are crushing it on Instagram, and soon you’ll be achieving results more significant than you ever imagined.
I always knew deep down that Instagram was a hot spot for marketers, but I was so consumed with Facebook that I never realized the value that Instagram could bring. It wasn’t until Jeremy opened my eyes to the HUGE opportunity for marketers on Instagram that I started to take my own Instagram page more seriously.
These game-changing strategies have already started to work for me, and I know that they are going to work for you too. Instagram has made it easier than ever for people to build a massive following, collect leads (email addresses) and generate consistent sales. If you can avoid making the 3 costly mistakes that Jeremy shared with me, you will be able to build and monetize a massive following on Instagram faster and easier than you ever thought possible.
Jeremy McGilvrey 
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