TUNE IN : Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher

I’m hitting you guys with a quick tip that will make a HUGE impact! This is especially important for my smaller influencers who want to be found by legitimate brands!

As a smaller influencer the odds are stacked A LOT more against you in terms of being found by a brand.

There are really only 3 ways that a brand can find you:

1. They already know about you
2. They are using a paid search tool to find you
3. They just find you doing an instagram search

In the case of #1 theres over a  billion users on instagram, and as a smaller influencer on instagram the odds of them already knowing about you are much smaller. If you have 1,000 followers that basically means 1,000 people know about you. Most of them are probably not brands or managers. So, this is not our best option to be found by brands.

In the case of #2, if the brands are using a search tool the odds of you being in the tools database already as a smaller influencer or somebody who hasn’t worked with a brand yet are very very low! So, this is not our best option to be found by brands either.

Most likely the only way that a brand will find you is through an instagram search. BUT something to keep in mind is that instagram has a VERY limited searchability.

So we want to make sure that you guys are ACTUALLY being found if someone is searching for someone like you!

So, let’s dive into how we can have you show up more in searches.

If you have ever tried to do a search on instagram, I am sure you’ve realized that instagram is not a search engine like google, and it does not have a lot of searchability. There are only a few places from profile and content that Instagram is actually pulling in order to decide to put you in search results.

With over a billion people on instagram whenever someone searches by name or keyword, the biggest profiles will always show up first. Which makes it really hard for you as a smaller influencer. So i want to make sure that you guys are optimizing your profiles for the best odds of being found in an instagram search result.

If you click on your search right now, you’ll see there are 4 main categories that show up:

• First is Top
• Second is Accounts
• Third is Tags
• Fourth is places

1ST: TOP

This is really only going to show the top or biggest accounts in that search. So if you type in “Fashion” for example, it will only show you the top fashion bloggers, etc. So as a smaller influencer you probably won’t be found there, so let’s not worry about this category for this training.

2ND: ACCOUNTS

The second category is Accounts and this is the main one I want to talk about! This is where most people will be looking when they are looking for accounts to find when they are looking for influencers. So there are two fields on your profile that instagram pulls for these results, your @handle and your name field.

So lets say I type in “fashion” to the instagram search your account will pop up if the word fashion is in your @handle or if fashion is in your name field.

We don’t want to change you @handle because that is what you are recognizable as, but we can change your name field.

Your name field is different from your Username or @handle, which forms your Instagram profile URL (http://instagram.com/username) and gives your profile page its brand name.

The Name field makes up the first 30 characters of your Instagram bio and is key to helping with Instagram SEO.

Weather or not Instagram is your primary platform, know that this is where brands generally always start their search. So, it is important to make sure that of the billion+ people on Instagram; you stand out.

The name field might not strike you as important, but it is VERY important to maximize this space. When someone is searching profiles in instagram the ONLY fields it looks at are your @ handle and your name feild.  Most people just put their name or their @handle again. Utilize this space to double down and use keywords.

If your @ handle is your real name: then use the name field for keywords only. The benefit to having your name as your @ handle is that you have more characters to utilize for keywords. Use the most you can.

Examples:

• Fashion Blogger + Beauty Guru
• Fashion Blogger + Tutorials
• Makeup Artist + YouTuber
• Fitness, Health, Mindset Coach
• Travel, Fashion, Fitness, Life

If your @ handle is NOT your real name: use the name field to have your name and keywords.

Examples:

• First Last – Fashion Blogger
• First Last – Fashion + Beauty
• First Last – Makeup Artist 
• First Last – Mommy Blogger
• First Last – Mom Life
• First Last – Health & Fitness
• First Last – Health Coach

FYI if you are using a font generator, these characters do not show up as words. So it will not be searchable, so DO NOT use cool fonts in your name field.

3RD: Tags

This is really just Instagram hashtags. I don’t want to dive too much into a hashtag training, because that could take us down a whole rabbit hole. All we’re talking about is searchability.

I want you guys to remember that you’re allowed to use 30 hashtags on every single post. Those hashtags should contain keywords that will help you be found in search results as well. So, let’s say you are a fashion blogger, well, then you want to do #fashionblogger, #fashion, etc… you know all the different kinds of keywords that are fashion. Because if a brand is looking for a fashion blogger, and they are checking the hashtag section on the Instagram search, we want to make sure that you show up there as well.

So, just make sure you guys are utilizing those 30 hashtags on every post. And make sure you’re utilizing hashtags that are keywords that brands might be using to look for you and your niche.

4th: Location

Always use a location tag! At the very least use your city location tag. This is a great way to be found by local brands who are looking for local influencers to collaborate with. This is especially important if a large number of your followers are local to you (you can see this in your analytics)

Niche specific location tags:

I suggest to mostly use niche specific location tags. There can absolutely be a method to this. Of course if you are actually somewhere that makes sense to your niche, use that location tag.

You can get creative with location tags! Let’s say for example I am a Fitness account and I post a lot of gym workout videos– I would actually suggest rotating the different gym tags. Don’t JUST use the same gym you workout in every day. This is a great way to put yourself in front of a wider audience of people who might not ever check your gyms location tag.

Let’s say I work out at 24 hour at the downtown location. Instead of just tagging that gym, I would instead rotate all of the different locations that are in San Diego. I would also rotate Chuze Fitness, EOS Fitness, Fit, and other gyms. If you offer online coaching,m you could also tag major cities.

Think outside the box to get in front of a wide variety of your ideal audience, customers, and brands. The more places that you can be, the better.

IMPORTANT:

I want you guys to realize- especially because I’m talking to most of you who are smaller influencers who are trying to get brand collaborations. The number one thing you should be doing is pitching brands. We don’t want to have to rely on a brand finding us, because as I kind of mentioned, no matter what you do, it’s going to be harder because you are smaller and so they’re not just going to come out and find you as easily as they can find other influencers.

But, if you learn how to pitch them and you learn how to pitch them well, you will get a lot more legitimate brand collaborations. If you have no idea where to start with this, or how to pitch brands well, I do have a free masterclass called Land The Brands. It’s about an hour and a half depending on how many questions I answer at the end. And I teach you guys how to land paying brand deals with any size audience in less than a week and there’s so many good trainings inside of that one master class.

Register free here: www.landthebrands.com/masterclass

HOMEWORK:

Alright, you have some quick and easy homework! Go to your profile and audit your name field to add more keywords. If you need more help with this you can go to our instagram @thedailyinfluencers and find the highlight that says “Audit” I go over this in those trainings. OR go to the show notes for this episode to see my example photos. I will add the link to that into the show notes!

---

Links Mentioned:

Land The Brand$ Masterclass: https://www.landthebrands.com/masterclass

Instagram Account: https://www.instagram.com/thedailyinfluencers

---

Complete Episode Transcript:

0:07
Hey there,

0:08
welcome to The Daily influencers

0:09
podcast. My name is Erica Murray daily

0:13
farmer marketer and brand manager,

0:16
your influencer marketing coach. On this podcast we help both influencers and brands, maximize their collaboration, grow on social media make more money and waste less time. Speaking of which, let’s jump right into today’s episode. How many of you guys are so sick of those super spammy and scammy brand collaboration comments on your posts? Well, if you guys are looking for legitimate brands that are finding you,

0:46
I’m going to hit you guys with a quick

0:48
tip today that’s gonna make a huge impact for you.

0:51
And this is especially important for my smaller influencers who really want to be found by those legitimate brands. And as a smaller influencer, the author, really stacked a lot more against you in terms of being found by a brand. And so there’s really only three ways that a brand can find you. So number one, they already know about you. Number two, they use a paid search tool to find you. And number three, they just find you doing an Instagram search. So in the case of number one, there’s literally over a billion users on Instagram. And as a smaller influencer on Instagram, the odds of them really knowing about you or that you exist are much smaller. So let’s say you have 1000 followers, that basically means 1000 people know about you, and most of them are probably not brands or managers. So this one’s really not our best option to be found by brands. Now in case number two, if the brands are using a paid search tool, the odds of you actually being in those tools and databases already as a smaller influencer is really low, especially if you’re somebody who hasn’t yet worked with the brand, the odds are even lower. So just to give you guys a quick rundown on how the things worked. I actually used one called up Fluence for

2:03
my business when I

2:04
was searching for influencers for all of my brand new clients. And we paid a lot of money to use that tool. And there’s a bunch of them that are very similar, but they all kind of work the same. And how that works is it’s not an opt in network. So basically, you as an influencer, can’t just put your information into this database. So all the brands that are using it can find you, the only way you get into that database is if the database adds you, which usually they’re adding all of the big influencers. And if a brand has added you because they worked with you and they wanted to track you through that database, and so most of the top ones are not opt in. However, if you’re in my course land the brands, there is a section called 20 opt in networks, and I list out 20 different networks that are opt in so that you guys can make sure that if brands are looking on those ones that they can find you but for a majority of you guys that are smaller influencers and from basically a majority of the day databases, the odds are that you’re not going to be in there. So this really is not our best option to be found by brands either. Now, most likely, the only way that a brand will find you is through an Instagram search. But something to keep in mind is that Instagram has a very limited search ability. And so we want to make sure that you guys are actually being found if somebody is searching for somebody like you on Instagram. So let’s actually dive into this subject and see how you guys can show up more in searches. So if you’ve ever tried to do a search on Instagram, I’m sure you’ve realized that Instagram is not a search engine like Google. And it doesn’t really have the capabilities or searchability like a traditional search engine. So there are only a few places from a profile and your content that Instagram is actually pulling in order to decide to put you in the search results. And with over a billion people on Instagram, whenever somebody searches by name or by a keyword. The biggest profiles are always going to be the ones that show up first. That’s just how the algorithm works, which makes it really hard again for you as a smaller influencer. So I want to make sure that you guys are optimizing your profiles for the best odds of being found on an Instagram search result page. And so if you actually go on your phone, click search right now on Instagram, you’ll see that there’s actually only four main categories that show up. So the first one is called top. The second one is called accounts. The third is tags, and the fourth is places. So for the first one that is called top, this is really only going to show the top or biggest accounts in that search. So let’s say for example, I type in fashion, it’s only going to show me the top fashion bloggers the top fashion, hashtags, etc. So as a smaller influencer, you probably won’t be found there. So let’s just not even worry about this category for this training. And then the second category is called accounts.

4:56
Now this is the main one I want to talk

4:58
about because this is really where most People will be looking when they’re looking for accounts to find when they’re actually looking for influencers to work with. So this is really the main thing we want to focus on when we’re thinking about how can a brand find me on Instagram. And there’s two fields on your profile that Instagram actually pulls from to put you into these results. And that is your att handle, which is like your screen name, I guess you could say, that’s probably not the right term that’s like

5:24
way old and your name field.

5:27
So for example, let’s say type in fashion again, to the Instagram search, your account will pop up if the word fashion is in either you’re at handle or if fashion is in your name field. And so I don’t want you guys messing with your att handle unless you really want to change your name, because this is what you guys are already recognizable as. But we can do a lot of work on your name field if you haven’t already done this.

5:51
So

5:52
just you guys know your name field is different

5:54
than your username or at handle. And this is what actually forms your Instagram profile. URL. So if you’re trying to send somebody the URL to your profile, it’s instagram.com slash username, which is your at handle. And this also gives your profile page its quote unquote, brand name. Now the Name field makes up the first 30 characters of your Instagram bio. And it’s key to helping us out with Instagram SEO, which helps you get found in that search results. So whether or not Instagram is your primary platform, this is really important for everybody. Because I want you to know that this is really where brands generally always start their search for influencers. So it’s important that we really make sure that out of the billion plus people that are on Instagram, you are the one that stands out to them. The name field might not strike most of you guys as important but it is so so important to maximize this space. I cannot stress this enough, because when someone is searching profiles on Instagram, like I said, the only fields that they will pull up in that account search is your at hand. In your name field, so most people just think they can put their name here or there at handle again, and they’re not using any keywords. But we want to make sure that we are utilizing this space and doubling down and using as many keywords as we can.

7:13
So let me give you guys a few examples.

7:16
If you’re at handle has your real name in it, then we want to use your name field for keywords only. Because the benefit to having your name as your ad handle is that you have more characters to utilize for keywords in your actual name handle because we

7:30
don’t have to worry about putting your name anywhere.

7:32
So for example, if you

7:34
already have your name in your ad handle, your actual name field could say something like fashion blogger plus beauty guru or fashion blogger plus tutorials, or makeup artists plus youtuber or fitness health mindset coach or travel fitness, fashion life, you see how

7:51
there’s so many more keywords that we can fit in there.

7:54
But if you’re at handle is not your real name, and you want your real name to be able to be searchable, so Like even if your friends are searching like Erica Marie daily, if that wasn’t my screen name or my ad handle I keep saying screen name then they wouldn’t find me from my ad handle so want to make sure I have that in my name field. So if you’re at handle is not your real name, let’s use the name field to have your name

8:17
and also keywords.

8:19
So some examples of that could be first and last name or just first name to start it. But we’ll say name dash fashion blogger named dash fashion and beauty named dash makeup artist named dash mommy blogger named dash mom life name dash health and fitness or named dash health coach, whatever you think the keywords that somebody would be searching if they were looking for an influencer like you. That’s what we want to put here in this name field. Now, I do want to say a little FYI, I know a lot of you like to have your profile look super cutesy and you want to use those font generators that actually create like a different font on Instagram, but something to know is that These characters do not show up as words to the algorithm. So basically, the algorithm cannot read the font generated different fonts. So do not use these font generators in your name field, because we need to make sure that those keywords are actually readable by the Instagram algorithm. Okay, the third category on the Instagram search results is tags. And this is really just Instagram hashtags. And I don’t want to dive too much into a hashtag training because that could take us down a whole rabbit hole, because we’re all we’re talking about is searchability. But I want you guys to remember that you’re allowed to use 30 hashtags on every single post. And those hashtags should contain keywords that will help you be found in search results as well. So let’s say you are a fashion blogger, well, then you want to do hashtag fashion blogger, hashtag, fashion, Instagram, you know all the different kinds of keywords that are fashion, because if a brand is looking for a fashion blogger, and they are checking the hashtag section on the Instagram search, we want to make sure that You show up there as well. So just make sure you guys are utilizing those 30 hashtags on every post. And make sure you’re utilizing hashtags that are keywords that brands might be using to look for you and your niche. And then the very last one is

10:15
your location tag.

10:17
And this one’s also really important. And I want to make sure you guys use it as much as you can. And

10:23
at the very least, just use your city location

10:25
tag. And this is

10:26
also a great way to be found by

10:28
local brands who are looking for local influencers to collaborate with. And this is especially important if a large number of your followers are local to your area.

10:37
And you can actually check this in your analytics. But the

10:40
reason I say that is because I know when I’ve been looking for local influencers, and I wasn’t using my database that lets me do that. The only way to really find an influencer in your city without having to like go through a ton to just see if they’re in your city is to use that location tag. So if you’re not marking yourself at somewhere that you’re Actually as just a random picture of you, then go ahead and just use your city tag or the nearest large city near you. But we can also use niche specific location tags. And I suggest mostly using niche specific location tags. So there’s absolutely a method to this. And of course, if you’re actually somewhere that makes sense to your niche, then use that location tag, but you can really get creative with location tags. So let’s say for example, that I am a fitness account and I post a lot of gym workout videos, I would actually suggest that you rotate the different gym tags that are in your area. And what I mean by that is don’t just use the same gym that you workout in every day as your location tab. So let’s say for example, that I work out at the 24 Hour Fitness in downtown and instead of just tagging that gym, I would instead rotate all of the different gyms that are in the San Diego area. So I would also rotate choose fitness EOS fitness fit in all the other gyms and little gyms. That around the area, because let’s say for example,

12:02
you offer online coaching,

12:04
you could also tag major cities. So because you’re online, you don’t have to find people, they’re just physical. So you could find all of the 24 hour fitnesses across like the United States and tag yourself and just rotate it so that if people are checking their gyms tag, they might see you love your pictures, love your personality and want to work with you. So I want you guys to really think strategically here, you can really use these location tags very, very strategically.

12:31
Another great example

12:33
is let’s say that you are a fashion blogger and you didn’t necessarily go to Fashion Week, but you know, it’s Fashion Week and you’re posting some pictures that are fashion forward or, you know, showing off your fashion skills, why not tag Fashion Week, and then if a brand is looking through the New York Fashion Week, location tag to try to find fashion influencers, you’re gonna pop up there, even though you weren’t there, it doesn’t really matter. So I really want you guys to think outside of the box. To really get in front of a wide variety of your ideal audience, customers, and also brands, because the more places you can be at once, literally and figuratively, the better. Alright, so now you guys have some quick and easy homework to do. So I want you guys to go to your profile, give it a little audit,

13:18
change out your name field to add

13:20
more keywords that have to do with your niche. And I also want you guys to make sure using 30 hashtags, and always tagging a location on every single post that you make, this is going to help tremendously. And if you guys need more help with this, and you want to understand this a little bit better, go to our Instagram at the daily influencers and find my highlight that says audit I think there’s actually two of them. And I go over this in those trainings and you can actually see like real life examples of how I help people change out their profiles to do these things that I talked about. Or another option is go to the show notes for this episode. And I’m going to put in some example photos of what I’m talking about. And I will add the link to that into the show notes. Now something else very important that I want you guys to realize, especially because I’m talking to most of you guys that are smaller influencers, who are trying to get brands to find them. The number one thing you should be doing is pitching brands. We don’t want to have to rely on a brand finding us because as I kind of mentioned, no matter what you do, it’s going to be harder because you are smaller and so they’re not just going to come out and find you as easily as they can find other influencers. But if you learn how to pitch them and you learn how to pitch them, well, you will get a lot more legitimate brand collaborations. And if you guys have no idea where to start with this, I do have a free masterclass called land the brands. It’s about an hour and a half depending on how many questions I answer at the end. And I teach you guys how to land paying brand deals with any size audience in less than a week and there’s so many good trainings inside of that one master class. So to sign up, all you have to do is go to dub ww dot land the brands.com slash masterclass and I will also put that into the show notes you guys can just click on over there. Make sure you register make sure you guys show up live and I will see you guys there. Thank you so much for listening. If you liked what you heard it goes a long way if you could take 30 seconds and leave me a five star review and share this podcast with your friends. Alright you guys, I’ll see you on the next episode.