The Key To Instagram Success With Jasmine Star

Your Dream Business

English - February 11, 2019 00:35 - 46 minutes - 86 MB - ★★★★★ - 34 ratings
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Previous Episode: 5 Genius Tips For Building A Community In A Digital World

Next Episode: A 7 Step Process To Launching A Product Or Selling A Service Online

Over the last few years I have taken lots of advice from the amazing photographer and business strategist, Jasmine Star. Jasmine’s advice has been valuable to the way I use Instagram and how I grow my account, changing the way in which I see the platform today. This week’s episode will look at exactly how you can do the same, learning as much as we possibly can about smashing one of today’s most difficult social media platforms.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

Even though things are portrayed as very happy go lucky on Instagram, it’s important to know that often that’s not always the case.
Remember that everyone started with zero followers, the important thing is that even when they thought no one was listening, they showed up and invested their time into the platform.'
Do you only post when you remember? Do you only post when you have something to sell? Do you only post when you’re on vacation? This means you’re ON Instagram, not USING it. Using Instagram means you have a strategy, you categorise your photos, your respond to every single comment or DM and you start conversations yourself.
When it comes to IGTV, it’s better to get started when nobody is doing it, rather than when the market is saturated.
If you’re going to be creating IGTV videos, people do not want to turn their phone. This may mean you need to change the way you shoot or edit your video content.
If your content isn’t been seen, it’s not the algorithm, it’s you.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…
It’s important to remember that Instagram isn’t an overnight success, it takes a lot of time and dedication to build a successful account. Social media isn’t something that will bring you quick results and if you’re not in it for the long run, find out what is better suited to your business.

HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

Introducing Jasmine Star – 03:37
Using Instagram As A Tool to Grow Your Business - 11:55
Are You Using Instagram, or Are You on Instagram? - 15:20
IGTV – Is It Worth It? - 24:41
Jasmine’s Top Tip for Instagram Success - 34:20
What’s to Come for Jasmine Star -39:30

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

Jasmine Star Instagram
Jasmine Star Website
Social Curator

Transcript below

Hello and a really warm welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How have you been? I hope that your week has started well, if it's Monday. Obviously, I know people listen on various different days, but obviously this does come out on a Monday. So if you are listening on a Monday, I hope that you're having a great start to your week.

So this week, I'm gonna dive straight in and talk about the interview we've got for this week's episode, because it's so good. And I know I say that every week, but honestly, I wouldn't bring them to you if they weren't good and this one is one of my favourites. Because this is just someone I've been trying to get on the podcast for a little while. She's been really busy. So I am so glad, I can finally tell you that I have Jasmine Star on today's podcast.

And Jasmine is such an amazing person to listen to, to take advice from, to hear her story. I joke during the podcast that Jasmine is an amazing storyteller and she sort of laughs and says, "Okay. No pressure then." But she is and I've watched loads of her things. She does a lot on Instagram TV, she does a lot video-wise and...

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

Jasmine Star Instagram
Jasmine Star Website
Social Curator

Transcript below

So I knew this episode would be good, but also, some of the advice that I have had from Jasmine over the years. I've bought her course, I've watched her live a few times at different events, and the advice I've had from her has been absolutely invaluable, in terms of how I now manage my Instagram account and also how I've grown my Instagram account.

So you'll hear all that in this episode, but it's a really, really good one. And then, talking about Jasmine going forward, she's now doing lots of business strategy stuff. But anyway, I'm jumping ahead. Let me tell you a little bit about Jasmine.

Jasmine Star is a photographer and business strategist from Newport Beach, California. I mean, there are worse places in the world to be, aren't there? She dropped out of law school to pursue her dreams of becoming a photographer and in less than three years, she built an internationally recognised and award-winning business. Later, founding Social Curator, which I'm a member of and I talk about that in the interview and Social Media Marketing Membership for business owners.

She harnesses her hustle power and Jasmine empowers entrepreneurs to build brands, market them on social media and to create a life they love. Jasmine has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, and INC magazine. But most days, you'll find her in her sweat pants scrolling through Instagram and her favourite days are spent with her dog in her high school sweater eating Takis. Jasmine is charming and charismatic and entertaining. So I know you are gonna love today's episode. As well of course, as getting lots of great information about using Instragram for your business.

If you love this episode, then Jasmine and I would love to hear about it. Obviously, we are both full-time on Instagram. So please come and find us over there and tag us in a story and let us know what you thought. But I'm not gonna take up anymore of your time. Here is Jasmine. So I'm so excited this week to welcome to the podcast, Jasmine Star.

Introducing Jasmine Star

Well thank you for having me. I couldn't be more excited. It's been a while. This has been a while in the making but here we are.

Yeah. Oh we have, we've been talking about it for a little while. So it's finally lovely to get you on. And I am so excited to kind of introduce you to my audience because I'm fairly sure, a lot of my audience will know who you are, but I have been following you for ages. I was lucky enough to meet you last year in Santiago.

In fact, you hooked me up a great photographer, Tim King. He's done photos for me a few times. So we'd had a conversation about that. But it's so nice to get you on and hear about how things are going because I know that you've been doing some really exciting things haven't you?

I have been excited and when I'm excited I do exciting things. So yes. Yes, it's been a good year so far.

Awesome. So just as a kick-off, if you don't mind, in case my audience don't know who you are. It would be great to give them a bit of background of who you are, where you come from. And also, I want you to do this because I've also said in the intro that you are an amazing storyteller. So I know whenever you tell any story, it's just, I can't help to just sit and wanna listen. So if you could do that, that would be awesome.

Oh yeah, there's no pressure in this story at all. I was feeling none and all of a sudden I feel this abundance like I better stand on this stage and deliver and academy-award worth of story right about now. You know, I think that the more we converse throughout this conversation, the story will naturally unfold. But I think it's going to expedite where people or why people see my passion for creating a business and creating freedom, but also using social media as a vehicle for growth in a business.

Yeah.

So in 2005, I earned a full ride law school scholarship and it was the thing I was supposed to do with my life. I thought as a first generation immigrant daughter, first generation college student, first generation post graduate student. That this was thing that would define me and really help expedite my family into a different stratosphere of being American culture and at being American.

When I was there, I just realised how unhappy I really was. It just wasn't the best fit for me, but I thought, well this is what I'm gonna do. This is what I've worked for. And my first year of law school, my mom unfortunately had a relapse of brain cancer and it just really rocked everybody's world. Because it had been an eight year battle at this time and the doctors had said that, "Her time had come and we had to start making funeral arrangements."

I think that, that reprioritized everything in my life. Like it forced you to have hard conversations and really say, "What do I want in life?" So I planned a wedding in three months to my long standing boyfriend. We'd met in high school. And I'm very independent. I was like, "I have to finish law school, this is gonna be the thing. I'm very driven." And he was just waiting. He was like, "Great. I wanna marry you and we're going to get married." I said, "Yes, just give me some time." I had an Excel spreadsheet, colour coded. I was so annoying. It's like who was I back then?

And then all of sudden, I got that Excel spreadsheet and I literally was like, "Bye. This doesn't matter anymore." All your plans don't matter if you're not surrounded by the people who love you and who you love. And so we planned a wedding in three months and against all odds, my mom and my dad walked me down that isle and it was the best day of my life.

I came back from the honeymoon and I had to make the declaration to go back to law school and I did not want to. So my brand new husband asks me the most beautiful question. He said, "If you could do one thing for the rest of your life and be happy, what would it be?" And I said, "Well I think I wanted to be a photographer." To which he replied, "Well you need a camera first right?" And I was like, "Yeah. I probably do. I probably need a camera, that would help."

Details. Details.

So then on January 1, 2006, I opened my very first camera as a gift from him and by 2009 my business was voted one of the top photographers in the world. And the business just unfolded and grew naturally, organically and then also, when social media came around in that 2010, 2011 timeframe. I really learned how to harness that power, create storytelling, conversations. That grew the business and it empowered me to teach and coach and walk other entrepreneurs how they could to the same for their business. That was a little bit of a long story, but we're now up-to-date.

No. No, not at all. And that's perfect and actually, I love your story. Because the fact, that you've had your life planned out and if I can make assumptions about you based on what I've seen, you are very driven. So I should imagine at that time, you were totally like, "This is what's gonna happen." And then I guess it takes something as big and dramatic as obviously your mom being unwell for you to go, "Actually is that what I really what?" That's a hard thing to think about, isn't it?

It's a very difficult to think about, but I think it's a choice. I think we are all given a choice at the way we're going to look at a situation. And back then, I looked at it as a very difficult situation, but I was equally as empowered to look at that situation and think, my god, I've been given a gift.

Yeah.

And it's only years later, over a decade later, that I can look back and think that that moment was like the impetus. That moment was the catalyst that forced me to say, "Who am I and what do I really want?" And so it is a gift. And far greater than anything else, my mom at the time, was my North Star and I'm so happy to say that still to this day, she is my North Star.

Against all odds, she beat cancer and the doctors were amazed and she's a walking miracle and yes, I needed a jolt in the universe to wake me up and say, "What are you gonna do with your one wild and beautiful, precious life?" And I decided, it's not gonna be a lawyer.

Yeah. Yeah. No, that's amazing. I heard you ... I can't remember what I was watching with you on, but you talked about the fact of you thought to yourself, You've got what, maybe 20 years left at that point. If the same thing was gonna go down the same road and then you said something like," We shouldn't ever assume it's even 20 years. We might not even have 20 minutes left."

Oh absolutely. So at the time, my mom was 50 years old when the doctors had said, "She has a couple months to live." And at the time, I was 25 and I thought to myself, If I have 25 years left of my life, I don't wanna die a lawyer. And then the stark realisation struck me as like I'm not guaranteed 25 years, I'm not even guaranteed 25 minutes. None of us are.

So if we were to live under that as if today was like my last day, what kind of legacy do I want to leave? What kind of decisions do I wanna make? What kind of wild and crazy, beautiful, scary, amazing, brilliant life do I wanna live that's not under the shadow of expectations? That was a game changer for me.

And do you know what? From sort of looking in and don't get me wrong. You know we can talk about this, how we project certain things on Instagram and we don't necessarily put the awful times, but it does look like you are having the most phenomenal time, that you are doing the most amazing things.

First off, you live in one of the most amazing parts of the world. Obviously, you live in California and it's stunning and it's warm and it's sunny. But it does genuinely look as if ... You know, I bet you must look back there and think, if I carried on where would I be compared to what I'm doing, what I wake up to every single day now?

Oh my god. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think that I could be living in alternate universe. Where I would be in the top floor of a downtown Los Angeles high rise building being a successful lawyer, because I do believe that success is a forgone conclusion. Not just for myself, but for anybody who puts their mind and effort and soul into whatever they do. And I would be that person and I would be at a place financially, where I could afford paying other people to live my life.

Instead of me making the active decision to live my life. And even if it was as simple as picking up my dry cleaning or spending a two hour lunch in the middle of the day with a friend. It's like I would be in exchange for time and money and somehow taking the risk to build the business that I want to live. I don't have to have those negotiations anymore, because I can still make money and be a wise steward of my time.

Using Instagram As A Tool to Grow Your Business

Yeah. No, that's amazing. It's awesome. So let's get back to Instagram about ... Do you think that your business changed when you really took on Instagram or do you think it was inevitable that it was going to get there? It was just a tool that you happened to be using?

Well, I believe that the caveat was, there isn't a single platform that's going to make or break a single business or a single entrepreneur. I think that my journey on Instagram started around 2011, 2012 and I floundered. Even as a photographer and even as a storyteller, I didn't know how to harness the power. I was just using Instagram as like a box to check. Like, Oh I posted today. This is what I'm doing. And I floundered for far too long.

I mean, I have like examples. I often share examples of my Instagram in 2011 and then I [inaudible 00:12:41] that with my Instagram in 2014 and there looks like there had been no progress. I mean it still looks like a hot mess. Like, you look like you're a junior high ... It looks like you are 12-years-old, trying to be cool on Instagram. Nobody's engaging with you.

And by 2014, I was an internationally recognised photographer with a worldwide brand and nobody looking at that Instagram account would ever think that. They would think I like wine, I like my dog, I like the beach. It looked ridiculous. And then in 2016, I looked around and I got so tired with my lack of hedspa dedication, strategy. Because I saw other people, photographers and non-photographers, using this amazing platform to build their business and I had all the tools to make it happen and yet I wasn't.

Mm-hmm (affirmative)

And so then in 2016, I put a stake in the ground and I said, "I am going to learn how to use this for my business." So today, I often talk about my plans and my strategies and I could say that in retrospect. That yes, in 2016 was when I started my plan and strategy.

But in 2016 when I started doing it, it did not feel like a plan and strategy. It felt like a hot mess. I was just making the stakes every day. I was trying to figure out what worked. I was looking at other people. I literally ... Oh my god, here I go again with my Excel spreadsheet. I kept an Excel spreadsheet. I love me some Excel. You know?

And me. And me.

Okay. I mean who does not love organisation and analytics?

I know. I know.

It just kills me, it makes me excited. Somebody sends me a color-coded spreadsheet and I'm like, "We're getting married next week. This is what's happening." So I made an Excel spreadsheet, I listed the followers on Instagram who I enjoy as just like a personal friend and then I listed Instagramer's who I felt like were doing a really great job at harnessing the powers, specifically for their business.

And I wondered to myself, could I blend the two things? And again and again, I tested and I tried and when I started doing that, I had such a profound change in my business. And it was around that time, 2016, where I really stepped out on the scene as an authority in the field and ironically I didn't feel like an authority. Ironically, I just felt like, hey, I'm just trying to figure this out.

And then I got picked up by major news outlets and interviews and it has grown since there. And I'm still a firm believer that I'm actively refining my plan and strategy as the algorithm changes. But it has been a really great thing to learn from my mistakes and then share what I know with others and then see them be met with equally as amazing results.

Yeah, and I think you're exactly right. With the way these platforms are, they move and change so much that I don't think anybody honestly can sit there and say, "Oh, I've got it. It's all set. It's all done now."

Oh no.

Because obviously tomorrow, they're gonna do an update and everything's going to change again. Obviously, I guess where you've succeeded is you've invested your time and your thought and you considered exactly what you were doing.

Are You Using Instagram, or Are You on Instagram?

You were deliberate, that's what I was trying to think of. Deliberate in doing it. You weren't just, like you said, chucking up a picture thinking, oh that will do. You were really thinking about, okay how can I use this?

So I saw you speak in Social Media Marketing World last year and you gave me the best advice. So prior to coming out I was on ... You have a phrase. "Are you using Instagram or are you on Instagram?" Is that right?

That is.

Oh okay.

Look at you! I love it. Yes, apply that! Yes.

I make all the notes. I listen. I'm very good at doing what I'm told. I tell you. So you had said this and I sat there thinking, oh my god. That is me. I am literally just like posting an odd picture and I used to use the excuse ... I honestly, you would have slapped me. I used to go into like businesses and go, "Well unless you've got a peaceful product, it's not really for you."

And then I came to your session, I sat down and I was like, "What have I...