#151 Mail-Right Show Instagram Tools & Tips Plus Info On Instagram IGTV

In this episode I really go deep on Instagram and the new Instagram IGTV app.

Main point I’m trying to make during this show is if you are an real estate agent and you really want  to increase your local profile online which will lead to more quality leads you really should look at using Instagram and especially Instagram IGTV to promote you and your brand. Also consider this Instagram is a growing and powerful platform that has over 1 billion users! You will find all the links mentioned during the show at the bottom of this page.  

Here’s A Full Set Of Show Notes

Jonathan: Welcome back folks to the Mail-Right Show. It’s episode 151. Robert Newman, my co-host has come back from Chile. He looks very relaxed and happy but I think I’ll let him do that. What we’re going to be discussing in this show, it’s going to be a discussion between me and Robert. We’ve got a load to cover. I’m going to be talking about Instagram and tools, tips, how to get into Instagram. Robert wants to talk about voice and echo and mobile first. So we’ve got a lot to discuss and I think you’re going to find it fascinating. Like to quickly introduce yourself Robert and tell them about your Chile trip?

Robert: Sure. Oh, I would love to. So, Santiago, Chile was amazing. My name is Robert Newman. I’m the founder of Inbound Real Estate Marketing. I stepped out of the country and took my first real vacation in over 20 years and I worked when I was there. I did a lot of writing. But Santiago is a writers paradise. It’s quiet. The weather’s like California. There’s lots of music, lots of art. It’s a beautiful place to do some work and I did half my yearly content when I was there so all of my fans will be seeing lots of new stuff from me which has been the first in like 6 months.

Jonathan: Yes. He’s actually got a job with the Chilean Tourist Board. He’s working part-time with them.

Robert: I think they would prefer it if people stopped coming.

Jonathan: All right. There we go. That was a bit of English flippancy there. So, we’re going to first of all delve into Instagram and why I’ve been getting more into Instagram folks. So I thought I would share my experiences and we’re going to be adding Instagram functionality to Mail-Right in the coming months. Videos and YouTube plus Instagram are a couple of really exciting areas that you, the Real Estate Agent, should really understand and should be starting to use right now.

Robert: I agree with all of that. But having said that, I know and you, having been kind enough to tell me what you want to talk today, I’m going to say that I don’t that much about some of the features that you’re going to talk. So it’s going to a whole lot of you talking. But I will say this, in terms of a guerilla marketing, one that’s free that you can use easily off the tool that is most present in your life as a Real Estate Agent, Instagram is an amazing way to go and I’m looking forward to seeing what you have to share this morning.

Jonathan: Yeah. What you’ve got to understand folks is that their growth is amongst different age groups. They’ve now got a billion new active users, mind-boggling and it’s a very visual medium. You basically upload images and video now and you can tag them, tags, hashtags, which makes it easier to find your content and you can write a description and people can write messages back to you. So it’s interactive as well. But why I really wanted to start off with this is that Instagram made an announcement in the past couple of days that they’ve got a new app that’s separate from the main Instagram app which is called IGTV and what this is about is that they are really aiming for the throat of YouTube in a big way now.

Robert: Okay.

Jonathan: Facebook has been in a head to head competition with YouTube and now Instagram, which is part of Facebook, is joining the fray in a big way. They’ve got this new app which will now enable you to upload video up to an hour in length. I think as a Real Estate professional you should be getting excited about this already because your target audience that you know love to hear about new properties, what’s going on in the market, this is the perfect platform for uploading houses that have just come up on the market, open houses you’re doing or just general description about the market. It’s just the perfect medium and it will be consumed. So they’ve just issued this app. The main technical difference is that most mobile apps like YouTube, when you watch a video, it will do it horizontally and as you know and I know, it’s pretty uncomfortable to hold a phone horizontally. You normally hold it vertically.

Robert: Right.

Jonathan: Instagram has decided that all the video is going to vertical.

Robert: I can see that. I’m looking at the announcement right now. It looks super cool.

Jonathan: The only problem folks is what you produce for Instagram is going to have to be slightly different to what you produce for YouTube at the present moment. So you’re going to need some basic editing and probably your editing software. I’ve got some tools here and it’s all going to be in the show notes folks so don’t worry if you can’t, just scribble, just go to the Mail-Right website and all the links are going to be there. So some of this is only Mac only but some it’s also PC. Now, if you’re looking for a functional basic video editor that will work on PC and Mac, I would suggest that you look at a product called Screencast-O-Matic. It’s about $20 a year. It’s basic but it does the job. Would you agree with that Robert?

Robert: I would. I would.

Jonathan: Then, there’s another bit of software that you use for screencast, a bit like what we’re doing now but unfortunately, it’s Mac only. Screencast and also pushing video live to Facebook plus you can do a copy and it will record a copy of the video to your desktop and it’s. I’ll have a link to that. That’s $79. But if you’re going to push this live to Facebook or YouTube plus you want a recording which then you could push to Instagram, this is a great tool. But like I say, it’s only Mac only.

Robert: Right.

Jonathan: Then, if you’re looking for a better editor and you’re a Mac person, this is what I use. It’s ScreenFlow. It’s $129 one-off payment but it’s a very powerful editor. There is another competitor, which, unfortunately, I’ve forgotten folks, I must admit it. I think it’s called Camtasia.

Robert: Camtasia?

Jonathan: Camtasia.

Robert: Camtasia.

Jonathan: Camtasia.

Robert: Yes. That is probably the most powerful video editor on the market, is Camtasia.

Jonathan: Well, I would slightly disagree with you there. There are some like what Adobe and also what Apple provide.

Robert: Okay. I haven’t used those other tools. I’ve used Camtasia.

Jonathan: Camtasia.

Robert: The most powerful video editor that I’ve ever used.

Jonathan: Yeah. I see where you’re coming from because it is pretty powerful but the good thing about that, I think it’s around the same price as ScreenFlow. It might be a little bit more expensive but the good news folks is that you can use it on PC and Mac only. The main thing folks is don’t be intimidated. You need to get into this world of video and pushing it to Instagram because this is going to be where your leads, your possible new clients, this is where they are. So you push your photos using your camera. If you just want to get into this and do no editing, you just use your iPhone or Android and use the Instagram app and there’s a number of mobile apps that enable to edit video. I will find a couple of the best ones and put those in the show notes. So you can take the video on your iPhone or Android, do a basic edit and then you can push it to Instagram.

Robert: Right.

Jonathan: How does that sound, Robert?

Robert: I think that and I’m going to take a moment and talk more than I have for the rest of the segment because I don’t, like I don’t, you’re the one who told me about the new Instagram application, so I have very little opinion about all that but I’ve heard and have been saying because all of that people that I follow and respect in technology have been saying 2018 is the year for the video and I’m starting to understand what it is that they were looking at. I’m sure that this has been something that’s been in development for a while because major things like this don’t happen in a vacuum. And so, you’re right. The battle for everybody’s screens has moved to video. Instagram has thrown their hat into the ring. One of the things I love about Instagram is that they have little boxes that you can check where basically anything you create for Instagram gets automatically populated to either a Facebook page or your own personal account which means that really when we’re talking about Instagram, we’re not actually not just talking about Instagram.

We’re talking about Instagram and Facebook. So Instagram has a billion users and they’re not the same users as Facebook. Instagram has captured a whole nother audience. They’ve captured very, exclusively and completely, they’ve captured the youth market and that is more powerful than people in Real Estate realize because your kids and what they’re doing and how they’re consuming content, they will impact the decision making of the family unit in a way that I think that Real Estate Agents don’t realize.

Everybody’s reached this place where like my brother who is 22 years my junior, he educates me in technology all the time. When I’m ready to understand how people are using technology, I go to my brother. I’m not the only one. My entire family does. My dad, my step-mother, my grandmother, every single older member of my family goes to either my brother or my cousin when they’re trying to understand how to operate content and he’s the one making recommendations to them and they are listening because that’s the way the world and this generation works is that we have our, the center of influence has gone upside down. If you’re interested in learning something online, go to somebody who knows it better than you do and then they tell you. And where these people kind of understanding, like grabbing ideas or content off Instagram.

Jonathan: I think that’s so right. The only thing I would say Robert is that there’s a lot of millennials on there as well and if you look at the analytics of the audience, it’s very female dominated. It’s also a very, like a say before folks, it’s a very visual medium so it’s just ideal for an Agent that’s got a good iPhone or a good Android phone, which we’ve discussed in a previous episode and you’ve just got the right tool and the right platform for you. Now, most of you, you’re going to be managing and taking videos using your smartphone but another area where you might look at your desktop is if you want to actually, if you’re on a laptop and you want to push to Instagram, there’s a couple of tools that will enable you to use your laptop or your desktop to publish to Instagram as well.

The one I use is Flume, F – L – U – M – E. It’s a Mac only application. It’s free or you can pay $10 one-off payment and you get the Pro version. I’ve just been using it recently and it’s a lovely application. There’s also an Instagram app which you can get for the PC that will work on all PCs. These that I’m discussing will work on tablets as well so that’s another reason why you might be interested in them and this is free for the PC and I will have the link, you get it from microsoft.com from their app library but I will have the link to that as well.

Robert: Okay.

Jonathan: Another area I want to discuss is auto publishing. What I mean is that Hootsuite or something else that you did your Facebook or your Twitter and Mail-Right does this for you as well folks as part of its suite of tools and in the near future, we’ll be adding Instagram. What I’m talking about is that you have a calendar or some interface and you can pre-schedule a whole month of Instagram of Twitter or Facebook out. You can have two half hours a Monday or Friday morning and that’s when you publish a lot of your content to social media and you can schedule it to go out at different times. The problem was that Instagram didn’t allow that. There were some services that would send you a push notification and then you would have to use your phone and then send the Instagram out. They didn’t allow these automization services access to their API.

They’ve changed that only on business accounts. With Instagram, it’s very similar in some ways to Facebook. You have a personal profile and then you can have a business page. With Instagram, you have a personal account and you can have a business account. You’ve got to set up a personal account before you can set up a business account and as a Real Estate Agent, you need to set up both. And then, if you have a business account, you can utilize these services. The two that I would suggest that you look at is either Hootsuite. I’m not a great fan of it to be quite truthful about it because I think it’s really clunky, their interface. One that I would suggest that you look at is called Later. They do a free service that’s not totally crippled and then their next one up is $9 a month and if you really get big into Instagram, I think it’s worth it. Like I say, in the next month, Mail-Right will be adding that to its Facebook and Twitter calendar system, scheduling system and I’ll be offering some free accounts to listeners for you to try but it’s definitely worth looking at.

Robert: Hey, Jon?

Jonathan: Yeah?

Robert: I’m going to jump in because whether you realize it or not you’ve either accidentally or intentionally just laid a boatload of instructions down on the audience.

Jonathan: I’ve just whacked them, didn’t I?

Robert: I’m going to give a suggestion. So guys, if you listen and you’re interested in following some of Jon’s advice, which I highly recommend that you do, I think Instagram is amazing, here’s what I suggest that you do. Open up whatever your favorite list application is, I suggest Wunderlist and now make the following bullet points. Number 1. If you don’t already have it, open an Instagram account. So, that’s easy. You can Google it. No problem. Okay. Number 2. Open a business Instagram account. You need to Google that too. There will be some great content out there from guys like Neil Patel and other people that I endorse and I would suggest that you follow their advice on how to open the account. That’s number 2. Number 3. Create your first video.

That’s your third bullet point. Create your first video. Get out your phone, sit in front of it, talk about something you’re passionate about. That’s my advice. Jon can weigh in. I just suggest that you, like it’s not so much that you have the world’s best anything to say, it’s only important that it’s important to you and the right part of your audience, it will resonate correctly. So, number 3, create a video. Number 4. Edit the video. And then, at the point that you hit number 4, I would suggest that you maybe come back and you listen to this. I think Jon has laid down six separate tools throughout the course of the conversation. You have the Mail-Right tool, you have Flume, Camtasia, Screencast-O-Matic and something that he was talking about for Apple. I’m not an Apple person so I don’t remember what it is. But anyway, create a bullet point list and create just a list of all the tools. Don’t worry about the tools until you get to the part of the process that I’m talking about that requires that you use them. That’s my advice. Jon can weigh in in any way he wants.

Jonathan: I think you’ve saved me there actually. Thank you so much, Robert, because I was going big and deep, wasn’t I? Listeners, I’m always fearful that I’m not offering you real value and I think that’s Robert’s main concern that you get something from listening to these podcasts. We know you’re busy people. That was my main but I did throw a lot of information. It will be all in the show notes but I agree totally with Robert there. The main thing is to get over the hurdle and get that first video and get those first images. The first thing is to set up an Instagram account. Just do it, folks. If you’re listening to this podcast, after you’ve listened to all of it, obviously, is then set up your Instagram account and your business account. It’s really easy and then just get some photos, start playing around with it. You’re totally right Robert. We’re going to go for our break folks and then when we come back, Robert’s going to be talking about edge, voice, and mobile when it comes to getting leads. It’s going to be a great discussion. We’ll be back in a few moments folks.

Male Voice in Commercial: Do you want quality leads from homeowners and buyers right in your own neighborhood? Then you need Mail-Right. It is a powerful, but easy to use, Online Marketing system that uses Facebook to generate Real Estate leads at a fraction of the cost you’d pay from our competition. We stand behind our work with a no question asked 30-day money back guarantee. So don’t delay. Get started today. Go to mail-right.com.

Jonathan: We’re coming back, folks. I’ve had a real about Instagram. Over to you Robert.

Robert: Thank you, Jon. So guys, like all of our listeners, when we were talking about the show, Jon and I get together and we put our heads together and we talk about, it’s going to do a show, it’s going to be the two of us, we talk about things that we want to talk about. The thing about the two of us is that we’re not very good foils for each other because we happen to agree on a lot of technology stuff so we don’t end up debating too much. There was one item and I’m sure it’s going to come up that I really actually found, oh, it was about accelerated mobile pages and I’m really looking forward to getting into it because Jon actually took a strong stance on the, “Eww, not those,” and I’m a big fan of them.

But we’re going to run into that in a little bit. The topics that I wanted to talk about today because I’m getting these questions from the people that follow my blog and I’ve gotten emails and comments on my blog a couple different times now about people asking me about the direction of voice. And since I’m like a search specialist or that’s what I talk about a lot at least on my blog, I’m going to say that I suspect that what they were saying is how is it going to affect search and how people find you and that answer’s actually not all that complicated. It’s making me laugh that everybody’s asking me so many questions about it. So, I don’t know how echo works but I definitely know how the Google Home Automation tool works, the Google Voice applications work.

So, Google has a new AI called RankBrain. RankBrain is basically handling all of their long-tail queries. It’s literally Artificial Intelligence. At this point, 30 percent of the answers that we get from Google is all associated with RankBrain. So, I think that Google’s going to incorporate their AI and they’re going to incorporate their current local, so they have three divisions of their algorithm now. They have one that’s dedicated to local. It’s the one that gives you cool little push pins and tells you where to go and in terms of how voice works today, that’s exactly what they utilize. They basically take your query, usually, they try to apply it to your location based upon your phone because almost all people are using voice mobiley. So they’re trying to go somewhere, figure something out or they’re saying, “What’s the best restaurant near me?” And Google just uses their local data, the same data that we could look up physically and they say, “Well, the best restaurant,” which they’re, of course, meaning the highest ranked restaurant, “is located 1.5 miles away from you and serves Mexican food,” and that’s Google voice. How do I think they’re going to use it in the future? I don’t know so much about Alexa but I definitely think that Google is going to incorporate the RankBrain with the local algorithm. I think they’re going to start providing a lot more data, like they’re going to give numerous suggestions when you do a voice query and I think that they’re going to start calculating based upon your voice user history what it is that you want from voice the same way that they incorporated the same functionality into search.

I don’t think that Google’s going to reinvent the wheel because they already have the most important information parsing information gathering tool the world has ever seen. So, I think they’re going to keep the same model that they grew Google search off of and they’re probably just going to say, “These are three places that you can go,” like if you’re looking for a great restaurant, “they serve such and such and such and such and such and such a food. Which one of those places sounded most interesting to you?” And then you say.

Jonathan: Yeah. When it comes to Real Estate, Robert, what happens at the present moment? Let’s say you’ve got your Android and let’s say you’re saying, you’re in Sacremento and put in, “Give me a list of houses between $250,000 and $400,000 that are on sale now.” How good would be the data set coming back from a voice search like that?

Robert: It’s the exact same search criteria as if you’ve typed that in manually. The way that voice is changing things is when it starts to give you a voice-based response and the only time that Google is really doing that right now is when somebody’s doing what’s called Hyperlocal Voice Enquiries which is the same thing as doing a Hyperlocal Search Enquiry. So, they’re using the same technology the same way currently. I do not think that’s going to remain the same and it’s that thought that has everybody a flutter, to say that there is going to be something different. I think that it will be different too. I just think that Google’s going to incorporate, I think they’re going to apply that difference the same way they’ve applied other differences in the past. I don’t think they’re going to integrate it any differently than they have. I don’t know about Alexa though.

Jonathan: So, let’s say you’re in, I’m just using Sacramento.

Robert: Sure.

Jonathan: It’s in my mind. I don’t know why. Go away. Don’t be in my mind. No. Let’s say, let’s choose. You’re going a bit Dalek on us actually. I don’t know what’s happening Robert. You’ve suddenly gone a bit Dalek.

Robert: Dialect?

Jonathan: Well, it’s from Dr. Who.

Robert: Okay. Got it.

Jonathan: You’ve come back. Your sweet tones have come back again. Let’s say you’re in Reno and you say, “I’m looking to buy a house in Reno now,” and you put that in voice, what do you think is going to come up if you put that search in?

Robert: Well, I think the same query is going to come up and if memory serves me correctly and I’m not as much of an expert on voice as I should be, to be honest, because I do use voice and that’s where I’m getting my data from. I use it myself a lot. But what happens when you serve up a query right now is you get the same results back. So, if I say, “What’s the best house in Reno?” in my cell phone, it shoots out the same text that it would any other way. But you can select something and throw it into maps and then it will start directing you to that place. The place that I think that a lot of people are coming from is are you start seeing different queries based upon voice versus other types of search and I think that the answer is for the moment, no but in the future, yes is my opinion. It’s just an opinion. I have no idea if that’s really what’s going to happen or not. People are asking me what my opinion is.

Jonathan: You want to stay in that position Robert because as you lean forward, you’re going Dalek again. When you’re in that position, your voice comes back.

Robert: Okay.

Jonathan: Oh dear. I don’t know what he’s doing but there we go.

Robert: I cleared my voice. Trying to be clear.

Jonathan: Now you’ve gone Dalek again. It’s your USB connection. I think you’re going to have to put it back in again.

Robert: Okay. How’s this?

Jonathan: Oh, it’s come back. It’s notorious folks. When people and Robert’s been doing a lot of calling, if you’re on using a USB and it’s in so many hours, this is what happens folks. You go a bit Dalek but he’s come back again. Shall we just quickly wrap it?

Robert: There’s one big important thing that I really didn’t to discuss the mobile first or the thing that we talked about. That was actually my most important topic. Do we have time for it today or should we schedule it another time?

Jonathan: I think we better schedule it another time because I want to keep it to 30 minutes Robert and we’re around about 28.

Robert: Okay.

Jonathan: So, we’re going to continue this discussion in another episode folks. I love your feedback about Instagram. Like I say, I went on a big binge in the first half because I wanted to throw a lot of value to you but don’t worry. All the links to everything I discussed will be in the show notes. It’ll be at the top. I’ll make sure the links are at the top so that it will be convenient for you listeners and viewers. Robert, how can people find out more about you?

Robert: As always, just go to my website, click on inboundrem.com and hey, if you want to meet with me about something, I’ve got a calendar on the homepage, you can always go ahead and click that and schedule a free hour with me.

Jonathan: Which is amazing value folks. I think you should take up. Obviously, don’t waste Robert’s time but if you’re in the market for somebody about SEO, I cannot more strongly recommend Robert. He knows his stuff. If you want to find out more about Mail-Right and our services, just go to the Mail-Right website, mail-right.com folks. We’ve got a couple of new posts about Facebook that I wrote recently up on the website and we’ve got some great videos from some real great experts and we’ll be back next week folks where we’re going to have another show about Real Estate, getting better leads for you and how to use technology to achieve that. We’ll be back next week folks. Bye.

1 – Instagram IGTV

 Instagram IGTV ( Instagram launches IGTV where you can upload 10 minute up to 1 hour of video. When using the IGTV app you be able to watch the videos in vertical mode.

2 – Making Video on Your Desktop For Instagram

EcammLive Mac only $79

http://ileane.link/ecammlive

Screencast O Matic: PC & Mac Solo Deluxe $20 per month

https://screencast-o-matic.com/

ScreenFlow Mac Only $129

https://www.telestream.net/screenflow/

Camtasia Studio Pc & Mac $249

https://www.techsmith.com/store/camtasia

3 -Managing your Instagram on your Tablet or desktop

Flume

Free or $10 (Mac)

https://flumeapp.com/

Instagram App For PC Free

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/instagram/

4 -Auto Publishing Services to Instagram

Hootsuite

https://signup.hootsuite.com/

Later

Free or $9 per month

https://later.com/pricing/

Linktree: Free or $6 per month

https://linktr.ee/

5 – General Resources

Instagram Influencer Marketing Is A 1 Billion Dollar Industry

http://mediakix.com/2017/03/instagram-influencer-marketing-industry-size-how-big/#gs.gz40UYc

10 Instagram Tools to Help You Build Your Following in 201

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/306808

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