BAM! Hello. We are live! Not really. Not really.
Where are we, Mr. Moore? I have no idea. Where are we right now?
We're lost in the lands. We are at Lost Lands at this very moment. Technically, it is September 12th, Thursday, September 12th at...
4.40. We probably look like this. Yeah, we probably look like that.
We probably look like this. We will probably look like that. But we figure that we don't want to leave you guys hanging for two whole weeks without the Friday Bean. Today, we are at Lost Lands. And then next week, I am going to be in Latvia speaking live at Amplified, which if you haven't gotten your tickets to that, make sure that you go down to the link in the video description.
Check it out. You can use the code AM. P Starla to get in completely free.
Normally you got to pay $5 for the community pass, which is what you want. You want the community pass because you get access to chats and Q and A's and all the giveaways. They're doing giveaways from like Wix and Adobe and I'm giving away three E-rank expert plans valued at $360 each.
So again, all good stuff that you're going to want, but that'll be on the 26th. So two weeks without the Friday bean would have been way too long. Now, granted. Me and Mark are going to be miserable over the next few days because I just did Thursday Q&A for E-Rank.
I've pre-recorded four YouTube videos. Today we're pre-recording this Friday Bean. We have the Friday Bean tomorrow. We have to pre-record another Friday Bean. And we have our live stream for our boot camp.
So boot camp attendees, make sure you mark Sunday on your calendar. It'll be the same time. Oh wait, no.
They can't because it's already passed. Yeah, you're thinking this is this week and this is next week. Right.
That would have already happened. You're right. I hope that you guys enjoyed the boot camp live stream, that nothing bad happened during and everything went perfect. Oh, everything was great.
It was fantastic. We had so much fun talking about stuff and things. So today I went into our new boot camp.
Facebook group because I thought that, you know, everybody's kind of working on their marketing together. And we had the boot camp. It would have been last week that we would have held that.
We are, you know, working together on things like prepping for the holiday season, getting your marketing all together, getting your Etsy shop prepped. And I thought that it would be a cool idea to ask the boot camp attendees this year to submit their Instagram account since marketing is a big part of it. So we did have a lot of people submit accounts.
Some of them I didn't select because they were really, really good. Some of them I didn't select simply because, well, there were quite a few that had copyright and trademark material being sold, which, you know, we can't feature things like that because showing your account where you're kind of breaking the law to, you know, and showing that to thousands of people during a live stream probably isn't good for you. Or us.
Or us. So I didn't pick any of those. And some of them, how do I put this?
Some of them, there was so much going on that I feel like it would be better for those attendees to watch this live stream and kind of get an idea of how I critique these accounts so that they can make those improvements. And then maybe next time. those individuals could submit their accounts when we do another round of Instagram critiques, if that makes sense.
It's just, they felt like they were so new and I feel like I would spend more time explaining to them like how to, you know what I mean? So it's almost like, I don't critique Etsy shops that just started yesterday and only have like one listing in them because the obvious answer is you just need to spend a little bit more time learning about Etsy. And this was kind of the case for those individuals. Not all of them. I just couldn't pick everybody.
I had to pick a handful. So just don't assume that I didn't pick you because your Instagram account is awful or something. That's not the case. We've got limited time to be able to go through them.
So, Mr. Moore, I need to grab the card where we have... These accounts? Yep.
Yep. This will be our first one. Do you...
I need to move this. That way I can see what's happening. Sure, sure. All right. Look, it's just like it's live.
I hope you guys are enjoying the live chat and behaving yourselves. You guys are unattended. You're like... It is like Lord of the Flies in the chat right now. So I hope you're all behaving.
By the way... That video doesn't post properly because of technology and we're just... I haven't had any issues. It's usually just fine.
It'll be all right. It'll be fine. Let's do it.
I did take the Bean logo off. I guess I could put that back. Oh, don't worry about it.
All right. So I selected this account from our group because there is a lot here that is awesome. In fact, I think I selected this one because I felt like it was such a... great account.
There are just a couple little tiny things that I would try to work on. So the first thing is... I like your logo. Yeah, it's a very aesthetic account, like when you take a scroll through.
But let's start up here. So on Instagram, when you're filling out your bio and your actual account details, you have what's called a name. Some people call it a name plate.
I just, it says name, where if you had a personal account, you'd probably put like your first and last name. Or if you had a business account, you would put your business name. But what a lot of people don't realize is that this area can actually be keyword optimized.
So telling the Instagram algorithm what your business is all about, which you do have one keyword in here, jewelry. But I dare say that you could probably get some keywords in here related to the style of your jewelry, because we already know your name here, name here, and name here. If you could maybe try to get some of these good keywords like the polymer clay, earrings, bridal jewelry, bracelets, necklaces, or even the ideal type of customer, I feel like that would just help to kind of tighten things up a bit. Now, scrolling through.
One thing that I really liked is that everything, there's just a very specific aesthetic to your reels and your images. I feel like everything is very, very clean and cohesive. I have no complaints.
I especially love these where you've got very intentional covers on your reels. These are okay. I feel like...
When you're posting reels of your work in progress, just for the sake of making your actual feed look nice, you can actually upload your own reel covers and then position them how you want them. And it looks like you might have kind of positioned this one, but I would consider trying to get some more aesthetic shots, keeping your actual feed in mind when it comes to these reels. Or taking a photo of the completed product and then just setting that as the thumbnail for your reel so that it looks a little bit more cohesive with the rest of what you have here. Yeah, because the action shots don't quite...
They don't translate. Yeah, they don't translate well. So scrolling through again, just really, really nice cohesion.
Love the lemons. Cute lemons. And I love...
Baby. Little baby. I love that you've got some...
Like good trust building elements. That's what I think that family photos are. Aesthetic family photos. Exactly. It shows that when I'm a shopper and I'm trying to, you know, select a brand to buy from, I want to know not only what they make and, you know, if their brand is for me, but I want to know, can I support this person as a person?
Do I like their vibe? Do I connect with them? And by showing these little glimpses into your life and your family, and even if you're not comfortable showing, you know, a picture of yourself, you can...
show a photo of your cat or your dog or, you know, how you've got your space decorated or your workshop. There are a lot of ways to connect with your audience. Overall, I really like these photos.
I think that these are very nice, very exposed, but it kind of works. Yeah, very, very nice photos. In fact, as I get down further.
Like from here down, I'm actually enjoying your feed more. And I go through that with my own feed where I will scroll through my feed and find like... What images fill up the screen that I feel look the best?
So I'll scroll through until I find a point, you know, and sometimes it's months and months ago where I feel like if I stopped right here, this is the perfect aesthetic. And I do that quite frequently because it helps me to narrow down the type of posts that I don't feel are contributing to my aesthetic, where I'm just like, you know, let's go in a time machine and look at my Instagram feed when I would consider it perfect. Okay, why don't I think that it's perfect now? And what...
what type of posts am I putting there that are making it look a little less perfect? What did I change? Exactly. What did I change?
And you can audit your Instagram account. You can go through. And if you got a post from, you know, a month ago, two months ago, and you look at it in the grand scheme of your account and you think, yeah, it's like it doesn't fit.
Don't be afraid to delete that. But yeah, I think that you had a beautiful aesthetic, and I would love to see you maintain it. Especially, I love that...
you know, these real covers, they fit in seamlessly. You know, at a glance, I wouldn't have even realized that this was real. I would have just thought it was another photo because it fits the overall style. I think that you have a very good thing going and it just kind of, it just kind of got lost up here a little bit.
You know what I mean? But it's easy to bounce back and we all do it. So this is kind of a lesson to everybody.
Audit your Instagram account frequently. Do a big scroll through. It's even better on phone because you can see like, I think you can see about 12 blocks, you know, on your long phone screen, where here you're only really able to see six.
But, you know, get on there, scroll through, find a point where you think, man, it's just perfect. That's the hotness. Right.
This looks great. Or this little block of six images looks great. Or this block of six images looks great.
The reason that I'm stopping here is because I don't think that these two fit as well. So if you noticed, I was like, these look great. And then I skipped that line. These look great.
This one I feel like could have used a better cover, if that makes sense. Nice. All right. So let's go ahead. Pull up the next one.
But overall, that's a really, really nice one. I actually chose that one because I thought it was good. And it's like I almost wanted to be hard on you. So, Kelly.
All right. Super cute. I picked this one because I knew Mark would like it. So a couple things, Kelly. Keyword optimization here is you're missing some opportunities.
I would put Kelly. If you want people to know your name is Kelly, which is fine. Kelly.
And you could even say Kelly crochets cute, you know, whimsical creatures, whimsical animals, cute, you know, whatever words you would want to use to describe your critters or your animals. That way you can try to get some buzzwords in there. You could say crochets. You could even put Kelly down here instead and try to get some of these keywords, the cute crochet handmade in Wisconsin.
You could try to get those up here. But really, we want to keyword optimize where it's bold. Pickles. Little pickles.
I love that you have actual photos. Again, there's a couple things like this where I would... definitely work on it. Yeah.
Or just avoid posting them without the covers in the future. You don't have to go back and revise things from the past if you don't want to. But I would work towards trying to, you know, get more aesthetic covers in there.
But your photos are great. They're super cute. I love how your backgrounds are very similar with the greenery. Like when you look here again, photos are very well done.
It's just those covers on the on the reels. Yeah, I love the photos. I love that you've incorporated a bit of nature into the photos.
I love the greenery in the background. And I feel like it really makes the colors of your products pop. Cute.
You've gotten, looks like where you were selling at a craft fair. I would love more photos of you. It looks like, oh. That little guy.
Yeah, Mr. Mark loves all the little cute guys. The dumber and cuter they look, the better. Yep. Just little derpy faces. He loves cute little derpy stuffed animals.
We've got a huge collection of them. I would love to see more pictures of you making these. That way, you know, again, connecting to you as the artist.
Overall, so cute. I think that you could probably get some more reels incorporated in as well. It doesn't look like you've got a lot of reels. Your pictures are nice and crispy.
They are. It might be cute for you to show, like, you know, the yarn and then, like, really quick progressions and stages of completing them. Oh, look at the aliens.
Have you guys noticed that we have an alien collection? Probably not. They're covered up by me, usually. Yeah, there's like a whole collection of aliens back behind Mark that we just keep adding to it, hoping that you guys will notice that there's aliens back there.
I like the little brute. Oh, super cute. I think that's what that is. I'm not sure.
Little bush baby. They're all very cute, though. Yeah, again, just some little simple aesthetic changes.
No, no. I just wanted to look at your reels. Okay. Here's the thing, for your product, wow, one play.
For your product, I think that, okay, look at this one. When we're looking at your other reels and their views, and then I'm seeing the turtle and this one, that tells me that there's something going on here that people are enjoying. So this is a reveal.
It's short. This one is about, what, probably seven seconds long. It's showing that it's a fidget toy. Why him shall come up like that? He's a fidget toy.
Oh, got it. Let me see this one. Makes me feel like I'm abusing an animal. I'm just trying to see.
Okay. That's cute. Yeah. No complaints. Nice and short, sweet and to the point.
I'm just looking at the reels that have the most. Oh, look at this one. 5,000.
What did you do here? If you know, you know. It's not crooked.
Oh, okay. So this is an inside joke for crocheters, right? Okay.
See, you can see what's working for you. So I would try to learn from, you know, what works and try to replicate it. So, okay. Super duper cute.
All right. Let's do it. Number three.
On to... The next one. Oh, love this one.
Okay. Ready? Yep. Let's do it. Realms of Color.
I love your products. They're so cute. Again, though, some keywords. This is just your brand name.
I want to know what you make. You've got felt garlands. Who are they good for?
You've got parties, holidays, sports, decor, play, custom orders. When I saw your products, I immediately thought, you know, holidays and nurseries. You've got, oh, you've got holidays in here. I definitely think you could get some keyword optimization and get some little emojis in here.
Have you noticed how most of the bios that we've gone through have like an emoji and then a quick point? Emoji, quick point. This is reading more like a little paragraph.
I think that the emojis and the quick points. They hold your attention longer because you can just glance at it. One of the points you make after an emoji is more likely to catch somebody's eye and try to get them to read the rest of your stuff as why most people will not read sentences.
I know that's kind of silly, but people are on Instagram to go, go, go, go, go. Yeah. So if you can catch their eye with little statements and drag their eyes to that and maybe attempt to get somebody to read your stuff, you might have a higher success rate with that.
Yeah, and how does this emoji connect to what she's trying to tell me as well? Like if I see, you know, maybe there's a rainbow emoji and then you talk about like colorful felt garlands. Maybe there's a party emoji, you know, great for parties. So there's a lot of different ways that you can use those emojis to grab the attention of the correct target audience there. Plus realms of color.
Emojis are so colorful. They add additional pops of color to your account. I would even, you know, add, you know, I try to add a couple into my. into my name tape as well. So let's take a scroll down.
These are beautiful photos. I love that you've got these very aesthetic shelves where you can photograph. I think that you've staged these very well, given great examples of how somebody could use your product. And this is something for bootcamp attendees, if you guys attended, or even if you're just a subscriber of Christina Nicole's YouTube channel, something that she talks about a lot.
is making sure that the props and the settings and things that you're utilizing are relevant to what you're selling. So I remember back when I sold fantasy skeleton key necklaces. I, for some reason, I don't know why I thought this was a good idea, but I held a sale.
I think I had made like a typo or there was something wrong. I can't even remember what it was. Something had been messed up.
I don't know if it was something in the world or... I can't remember the context, but I called it an oh fudge sale. Like it was like, oh, fudge, like I made a mistake.
And I took pictures of my keys and like put fudge, like cut out pictures of fudge all around my keys. And then you think about it and it's like, what the heck does a necklace have to do with fudge? Like fudge is not a relevant prop when it comes to a fantasy themed necklace. And I see it a lot.
It's a common thing that I see where people, they find props that are cool, but they're not relevant to the item. Yeah. And what you've done is you have shown me how I, because I've got one of these floating shelves, this shows me how I might stage my garland if I were to buy it from you, how I could stage it in my own home.
And it gives people a more realistic idea of what it could look like when they actually utilize it. Let's see. Again, you know, with the reels, just be mindful of, because everything is very aesthetic.
And then this one kind of stuck out like a sore thumb. It didn't necessarily match. the rest that you have here. Your photos are fantastic, though.
They are very cute. Great relevant props, the colors, the cohesiveness. It looks fantastic.
Yeah, I don't have a lot of complaints. Once we get about here, there's, I mean, the colors. you know, you're expressing something. I guess the review, that's not too bad. You know what I would prefer to see with your review is, yeah, I would prefer to see you maybe like take a white box, like a white square, put it over top of a product photo and then, you know, kind of fade it out, fade out the opacity of that white square and then take that review and slap it over top so that I can see what she bought.
I would love to see the item that she's... you know, reviewing, if that makes sense. So it almost feels like you've actually been tightening your brand more and more as you go.
But I love all these props that match everything. So cute. Like wondering if you just have all these props on hand and if you sit and decorate your shelves to match your photo shoots. Let's see. Let's go into your reels.
Okay. So definitely up those reels. And again, those work in progress, the reveals where you kind of reveal like doing your supplies, having all those laid out and then showing the finished product. There's a lot of really fun ways that you can do reels, especially when you're a handmade business because you have the benefit of having that product and the supplies in hand.
If I were you, I might look at some needle felting accounts just to see what they're doing for their reels. And maybe try out some of their strategies as well. Going back to your post, just out of curiosity. Okay, you've got some good captions here. You probably go on a little overkill with the amount of hashtags.
Instagram doesn't really pay attention to them anymore. In fact, Adam Massari, Instagram CEO, said that they really don't help anymore. So I still recommend using them, but I use about five, five to seven.
In fact, I've actually run several experiments on my main account just to see if there's like any difference in using a bunch versus using a little and there's none. So I don't think that they have any. What matters more are keywords in your actual caption, which it looks like you have great captions here that you've written out.
It's not just a couple quick words. You've got, you know, a whole caption. Now, one thing I will say.
This means nothing to me on Instagram, this link. Most people, for one, are going to be on their phones where they're not going to be able to copy this. I know that I can copy it by, you know, highlighting it and right-clicking it, but it's not clickable.
So I would not put a link here just because there's no reason to do that. It's not a clickable asset. Again, and, you know, you really don't need this many hashtags. That's a lot.
And I'm sure it takes you a long time to select that many. Yeah, and the periods, this is an outdated strategy. This was back when you weren't able to space out hashtags from your captions. There was a time on Instagram where you had to put something like per line. Now you can just hit enter.
Yeah, you don't have those there. But black and white ghost garland, Halloween, got some good keywords in here. Yeah. You know, just a couple little outdated strategies.
I guess I could have been doing that for the other accounts as well, you know, deep diving. But now, you know, I wasn't even thinking to do it. All right.
Ready? Yeah. So she gave us a disclaimer that she does her anything that's written is. uh in english i almost said an american an american it's an american yeah nobody can disagree anymore that like british english and american english are two different things because they are they very much are um but she has it in english and she also has it in polish so you know i'll be honest no complaints i actually believe the instagram translates um feel free you know if you guys are watching live you should fact check it and put it in the chat I think that Instagram translates, though, or at least gives the option to, but maybe I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, then I love that you're doing this, assuming that you have a lot of target customers in Poland and in the U.S. Hey, it's a way to double up your SEO, though.
Yeah, possibly. I mean. Possibly. But I do like how you've done it. I think that you've broken it down in a good way where I can tell, you know, my eyes are naturally leaning to the right side.
Because I just kind of know that you seem to have put English on the right side. And it's not offensive. Polish is a pretty written language, so. Looks good, though. Let's take a scroll through.
So one of the things that I noticed right away about your account is that, for one, your photos are very aesthetically pleasing. I really love the whites here. There's just...
Aside from this real cover, I don't like it because it's low res. It almost looks like your camera lens might have been a little foggy or dirty. I think it was just dark outside.
Yeah, this one compared to the others, it's not very crisp. So just being mindful of what you're setting as that real cover. But there is just this cohesion with the white, the white, the white, the products are white.
A little bit of offset with the natural in the middle. The flowers are white. You've got a little bit of overexposure on your hand, but it almost contributes to, you know, just the overall like light aesthetic. It looks really nice. And then we scroll down and we get a little bit of green and then we get a little bit more white.
So these are very pretty, though. Very. I would love to see maybe you already have them, but some reels that show kind of the process of you creating. But these are so nice.
Very beautiful photography. And I know that you had mentioned in the boot camp group that you were afraid that your products, because you have two very different types of products between the wire wrapped pieces and these more floral and resin pieces. The target audience here, in my opinion, is the same. It's that whimsical, outdoorsy, nature loving, fairy loving individual. I think that it all fits very nicely.
Yeah, it's fine. And it's the way that you've staged your product photos. You know, sometimes you can take two products that seem very different and photograph them and stage them and position them in a similar way.
And then they feel like they fit together. Yeah. Overall, these photos are great. I love that you have photos of yourself as well.
I know that that's something that feels a little awkward for a lot of people, but it shows me that I can trust this person, especially since you're wearing. Looks like one of your pieces as well. It shows me that, you know, you make these by hand. You are the artist. I can put my trust, especially if I'm shopping for like Christmas and I want to get something really nice for a family member.
Helps me affirm that you're not just an Alibaba reseller. Exactly. It makes it very clear that you put a lot of work and time and love and skill into what you're doing. So, oh, and I love this showing that you draw out your design ahead of time.
Very cool. So let's go up. Jewelry with natural crystals. Looks like some good keywords there. You've got the little list of emojis like we talked about.
Let's look at your reels. Out of curiosity. Look at this one.
1,327. So that seems to be a clear winner. 1,337. Trying to see if there are any other ones that really... Oh yeah, 1,665.
Trimming flowers. Oh, so these are the flowers that you're using for cute. My only suggestion would be to make the clips just a little shorter.
When you were trimming the flowers, I just thought you were cutting flowers, and I didn't quite get that you were making jewelry out of them, and I almost-Yeah, start with like two seconds of this, and then cut to the flowers. Yeah, like I made these. Attention grabber. Right, like- I made these and then immediately go to you cutting the flowers. And I noticed that a lot with DIY reels that I think everybody could learn from.
Show the finished product super fast. Yes, just enough that they don't quite have enough time to really gather what it is, but they're like, okay, yeah, I want to see that. I want to see that.
Right. And then you get to show more of it at the end. Do you guys see that with really fancy cakes?
Yep. Where people will do like... It's like the spin of the cake. Yeah, like they'll show like this really fancy cake and you're like, wow, but you only get to see a glimpse of it, but then you got to watch the whole video to see how it's made.
and then see the final product. But I wouldn't have been intrigued to watch, to see the final product if I just saw flour and a stand mixer. Yeah. I want to see these pumpkins. Is this just one of you holding them?
Good transitions. Good and snappy. Good and fast.
Very short reel. Looks great. Again, you know, a couple newbie mistakes here.
You don't need to do the dots. You especially don't need to do them underneath. I do like how you've divided out your captions though, how you have the Polish caption and then the English caption underneath. Looks really good.
It's a very, it's a very, um, clean way to position it. It doesn't just look like word spaghetti. I just wanted to see this one. I would show reality first, like start with reality very, very quickly, the finished piece, and then show a real quick one of the, the drawing. and then show the completed piece and you know the process of actually getting there overall very nice though i think that you've done a very good balance all right how many more do we have only two we've got two more and then i've got three just inspiring accounts they're haa students who are just nailing it i shouldn't even say that This account that we're about to show is also nailing it, but she actually submitted to have her critique.
The other three didn't. Either way, it don't matter. The other three, I voluntold them that they're going to watch and be like, oh, crap, I didn't know I was going to be on camera. Ready?
Yeah. All right. Nicole from Mabel the Woodle. She's probably here.
I guarantee she's watching. So she is one of those accounts that when I talk about perfect Instagram, she's just one of them. She's.
I doubt I'm going to find a whole lot to critique. I mean, look at her follower count, 14,000. She has more than me. Like, granted, I may... When did you start your account?
I want to know, Nicole, because I started my account, my Instagram business account, like, I think like a year and a half ago. So I haven't had it active that long. Love this sploot.
Yeah, she's... So she has been on a journey. Nicole started out with... Well, first she started out with products that were POD that like she didn't even care about the the it was the bunco shirts and she never even played bunco.
So, you know, when she joined HAA, it was a challenge of like, what are you most passionate about? And obviously she loves her dog. She loves the doodle breeds. She's gotten a lot of traction with reels related to grooming.
But then, you know, she had all these POD shirts and they just. Her POD designs weren't really doing that well. And, you know, that's the point when a lot of people would start to get discouraged and feel like they should, you know, give up.
She started testing something new, a handmade product, which was little denim vests for dogs. And she started experimenting with those and different patches and things. And that particular item ended up taking off because it was an interesting, unique product.
She found her purple cow. If you guys are in AJA, you know all about it. But if not, just Google Seth Godin purple cow. She found the purple cow for her brand. And now she's doing very well with this new product idea.
So custom denim, dog vests, hoodies, and bandanas. And then she's got the keyword optimization here. She's got her brand name, Mabel the Woodle, but then doggone cute dog apparel.
I love that she's got all the different little emojis. And what I really love is just her color cohesion. She's got fantastic color cohesion.
And you get a lot when it comes to her accounts. You know, you don't just get the product. You really get a taste for her personality.
Her dog steals the show. She gets, look at all the hearts. Because her followers, they don't just follow her to see products. She's built a relationship with.
them so that they're not just following to see products, they're following to see Mabel as well. So she's showing off the hat. Oh, that is so cute.
That is adorable. And look at that, three hashtags, very simple. And then a great caption.
Just absolutely nailing it. Captions matter. So she's got a very even balance of, I dare say, education. Because she does educate people about grooming. Connection.
So showing things like this, where you're connecting with her. You're seeing her as the dog owner and business owner. She's got things that she knows her audience will like, which they follow. It's almost like following like a pet influencer account.
Do you guys have any like, you know, pets that you follow like pet influencer accounts? It's one cool cat. That is a cool cat. I'm assuming that you're utilizing maybe some customer photos, which is fantastic. Overall, really cute.
And you know what I love about this is I don't feel like I'm having products shoved in my face. I don't feel like, you know. your objective is just to like sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. Obviously that's your goal, but you're also creating value. You're making me smile.
You're making me laugh. If I was a doodle, you know, owner, I could see myself following your account just for the relatability factor. And then a by-product of that might be that I, you know, learn some grooming tips.
Maybe I eventually buy a product from you. Let's take a look at your reels. Already good views, thousands, two thousands, thousands, three thousands, four thousand. So this and these are great because these are teaching. So you're helping not only to, you know, build up your followings and hopefully eventually build up, you know, a list of followers who are going to be interested in your products.
But you're also showing them something valuable, which is a great way to keep them coming back for more, especially when it comes to your ideal target customer, which is owners of these dogs who have to be groomed. So again, just hitting all the right points here. Nicole is always fantastic.
And I knew I wasn't going to be able to really critique her. So she's more of just an example. She technically should have gone into my favorite accounts. All right. So do it.
So pen and lens. Now, this is the first time that I think I've ever looked at your account, whereas a lot of the accounts that I looked at today, I think that, you know, I think I might have seen in the past. So I think that this one is a first.
Just a couple, you know, quick things again. Make sure that you keyword optimize here. So trying to figure out what you are. right now is the challenge for me. Because pen and lens, okay, my brain says, maybe you're an artist and you take photos, but your logo looks to be AI generated, which to me kind of takes away from both of those.
You know what I mean? Because it's kind of the photographers and the artists, it's almost like, you know, they are gonna look at this and think, those are very disjointed, but we'll keep going. You've got photographer.
here, but then adding Texas flair and my original photography and designs to unique personalized gift items. Again, like what are unique personalized gift items? Because right now, what I'm not getting is a target customer and a cohesive aesthetic. So this is the reason that I selected your account in particular is because this is what I see most of the time when I look at Instagram accounts.
This is like, And your account is very similar to most of the accounts that were submitted when I requested Instagram accounts to critique. So don't take this as starless picking on you because I don't want you to feel that way. This is such a common problem that you served as just an example that I could use that will cover a lot of different individuals. And I'm sure that there are plenty of them in the chat right now saying like, yes, I also have this problem. So a couple things.
This logo, not optimized for a round shape. I dare say you could cut the camera right out of it because this is a cool font. I like that you have a lens in a different font.
Just center that and put it right in the center. And I feel like that's immediately going to up the overall professionalism. Getting some good keywords in here and really trying to figure out, you know, I hate when I ask somebody what their niche is and they say anything, oh, unique.
gifts, you know, unique gifts, unique personalized gifts, personalized items, personalized keepsakes, unique keepsakes. None of those words mean anything to me. They don't tell me.
They're placeholders. Yeah. They don't tell me who it's for, what type of item it is.
They don't tell me. I kind of got like Texas flair. So I can, I know what that means. Right. I would almost like to see more Texas flair.
But I'm not really getting a lot of Texas either. But I feel like you could really start, if you wanted to appeal to the Texas flair, you could incorporate in more elements that make me think of Texas if that is what you're trying to primarily target. And then, you know, as I start going through here, I'm just...
I have no idea what I'm looking at. Yeah, it just... All right, howdy. Love you more than coffee. It just kind of feels like a lot of things that don't necessarily go together.
And if they do, you know, the howdies, I almost want to see more of what you do connect back to the Texas aesthetic. Because right now, you know what it feels like to me? Do you guys, did you guys ever get Fingerhut catalogs when you, do you guys remember Fingerhut? Is Fingerhut still around?
Or I'm thinking about like when you would get like a catalog around Christmas time and it would have like a bunch of, you know. Throwing darts at a wall hoping to hit something. Well, it's the cat. What I'm thinking about with the catalog is that you're you're positioning your images almost like they should be in a print magazine.
When in reality, the things that do best on Instagram are photos that are natural and aesthetic where you don't need all this. you know shop now arrows links oh time for all the fall things check out this real the winter you know i feel like you could say so much with very little without putting like none of these feels like ads it does i feel like i'm being sold to and the the real like the real balance of marketing well is selling to people while they're consuming it almost like it's entertaining or educational, almost like it's something else, because then you're more likely to build a connection with that brand. Similar to how we talked about Mabel the Woodle, where her account, like I got value there because I was entertained. There was a cute dog.
I was learning. I was learning about grooming and I was looking at her products because I wanted to support her as a person. And what I'm seeing are like mock-up people, mock-ups.
Looks like we've got a photo of you. This is fantastic. Yeah, I don't have any complaints with that. I would love to see more photos of you, Kim.
I mean, do you have any of your products that you could hold them? Again, I think that what I would love to see in any of the mock-ups, give me some backgrounds that tell me the Texas Flair, if that is what your niche is. And I know what... This isn't particularly a shop critique, but I have no idea what you're trying to nail down as a target audience.
Yeah, I'm so zero. It could because everything is so dramatically different. Mm hmm. Yeah, I'm not getting Texas at all.
I'm getting a lot and I'm getting recycled. I recycle, too, but I recycle like once a year. Yeah.
Like I said, it feels like you're trying to replicate what would work for a print advertising and it just doesn't convert well. to the online space, especially with all the text and things. So what I would really work on is, you know, say more with little by putting the most important points, like all the words, into your caption. And even if you're utilizing these mock-ups, focus more on just posting these really aesthetic photos that have the mock-ups or subtracting the background from an image like this and show me where, what type of person uses this backpack. You know, is it a kid?
you know, what's it for? What's the, I don't understand this theme with the ribbons. So what, what does the theme mean? What type of kid is going to use this backpack?
What, what space might I see this backpack naturally, you know, sitting like maybe in a classroom or on a desk, you know, really just focusing on, you know, bringing life to these products by putting them in natural environments where I might see them if I was shopping. Um, because right now it just feels like a whole lot. and I would love to see you really like buckle down on that niche.
and then really focus on trying to aesthetically display those products, which you can go ahead and switch back. The next three accounts that we're going to show you are brilliant examples of this because these three accounts are three of my very favorites. These are students of mine. They are absolute rock stars. They have beautiful Instagram accounts.
They're very aesthetic. And I don't know, I think that they just serve as brilliant examples that everybody could learn from. And you guys have probably already seen them in the past.
I believe that we've shown them in the past. I'm just going to go ahead and open all three. No, that's totally fine.
That's totally fine. In fact, you are good to go ahead and show them off. All right.
So Mirkwood Scribes, this is Miranda. Miranda sells the most beautiful bookmarks. She keeps it very, very simple.
Her aesthetic is cozy watercolor. And... What I love about her is she understands her target audience, which is the same as mine. It's, you know, the bookworms, bookish niche.
And she has been able to create images that I want to jump into and curl up and snuggle and read. Like, in these images that she's created. Which, if you guys took the boot camp during day one, we talked about this.
Creating those cozy and aesthetic images. I mean... Her photos are just so well balanced. She uses lots of little knickknacks and things to stage them.
Her nails, she's always very conscious of what her nails look like in her photos. I mean, her photos are so pretty that, like I said, I just want to curl up and jump into these little worlds. And it's crazy because when you look at an Instagram account, occasionally you'll be like, oh, these are you'll have a stinker of a photo. And I don't really like her stinker photos are still like eight out of 10. Yeah, I don't have any.
There are no bad photos in this account. I see no stinkers. I mean, it's all even the one where she's showing her completed product. Like, look at her bookshelf in the background. And obviously we don't all have like a beautiful aesthetic bookshelf, but all these little props and things.
I mean, this is stuff that you can go to the craft store and buy right now. You can buy little twigs and you can buy little flowers and you can buy little, little dishes and little stones and little elements. There's like, there's, there's different steps to like getting good at photography for Instagram.
And she's to the point where it's like managed perspective. Perspective is the, is the whole thing. Like where even if you don't do a whole lot to organize a photo, as long as the perspective is perfect, it just looks good no matter what.
And she's got that nailed a hundred percent. She has. And she's got some great officially licensed products. I mean, she's just doing, she's taking all the right steps.
I love her account. I love exploring her account. I look at it.
Anytime I see one of her posts, I stop to take a look. I aspire to be more like Miranda with my own bookish brand because her photos are just so good. The next one is Melanie from Drop Dead Candles. She creates the coolest dark and got, you know what? All of our, the shops that I'm showing today have dark and moody photos.
I just realized that wasn't the season. Yeah, it wasn't intentional, but you know, I've got Halloween on the brain. She has the coolest pictures. She brings them to life by inserting herself into these scenes.
You know, you are able to build a connection with her. Candles is a keyword and it's in her name. So she's able to stick that right into her tagline. or her nameplate. I just love how she photographs her products.
Again, she incorporates herself into her photo shoots. It helps me to build a connection. I love how she's utilized her emojis to illustrate, you know, what the different scents are for her candles.
Great carousels and a kitty. Plus five points for using a cat. Love the time lapses showing that she makes her candles. You know, this isn't just someone who is, you know, buying and reselling something or a POD brand. She's showing the process and the skill that goes into doing all this by hand and showing how long, you know, it probably takes her to make all of these.
I love the melted skull. It's so sick. Yeah, those are so cool. I wonder how many she had to burn before she got the perfect one.
It just kind of oozes through the eyes. That's wonderful. I love that. They look super duper cool. That photo doesn't quite fit, but it looks like it's for an event.
So yeah, that's different. Events are a little bit different. Yeah.
Cool. So very, very cool. I guess I could probably peek into, yeah, again, the reels.
They're just very aesthetic. And even looking here, the one that has the most views is the one showing her actually making the thing. So, but anyway, overall, very, very cohesive aesthetic.
She's definitely nailing kind of that gothy vibe. The next one that I want to show, Lauren is just the coolest. I mean, Lauren, look at her followers. 39,000 followers.
She has the coolest brand. She does wax creations and bath alchemy. She doesn't even have any keywords up here.
She just has her name. And you know what? It doesn't even matter because she has built such an authority brand.
She reminds me almost of like, she's got like the Kat Von D house aesthetic. If you've ever seen like pictures of Kat Von D's house. Tons of reels, but then we start scrolling down to her actual photos.
Looks like she's doing a lot of reels. Her photos are just so dark and moody. They hit. They do. There is just such an aesthetic vibe here.
Look how cool that is. Showing, I'm assuming that this is a bird. A bird is somewhere that she is selling her products in person.
That is so cool. I love it. And I love that she is just, you know, an active participant in her brand. She's showing people that, you know, I am the face behind my brand. Ooh, I love that she's using the gothy font in there.
You guys can actually Google copy and paste fonts. If you ever want to grab one of these cool fonts. If you're on a phone, there's tons of generators you can download. Yeah. I have a couple on my phone, yeah.
But if we scroll up, look at the views on her reels. This is where those followers are coming from, guys. 10. Thousand views. Let's see. The goth is slapping right now.
Showing her work in progress. Showing that she is the one who is painting and creating her candles. Showing just little bits at a time, layer by layer. I love it.
Any other like real showstoppers? You just want to see the dog. Oh, puppies. Aw.
That is so cute. Is she just showing all the doggies that come into her store? That is so cute.
What a beautiful baby. Here we go. $184,000. Okay, so she's showing the product.
Oh, that was cool. Showing some of the process. Very quick and snappy. Not spending too much time on any one scene. Very satisfying to look at.
And it makes me want to stick around because it makes me want to see what these are going to look like when they're done. That's awesome. Super cool. All right. 32. Is it just her hanging out?
I make this. and this and that and this. Okay, cool.
So it's kind of like a meet the artist and then meet, you know, see what I create type thing, which is a very popular format for Reels and TikToks right now. So again, guys, these were just a couple accounts that, you know, a couple of accounts that I personally really like. I think that they have really nailed the understanding of their ideal target audiences. They know exactly who every single post that they make, they know who it's for.
Because they've established these niches. This is why having a niche is so important. Because when you don't have a niche, your brand isn't marketable. I have a lot of people who say, like, aren't you limiting yourself by having a niche?
Aren't you limiting yourself by only appealing to one very specific type of person? But when you're trying to appeal to everybody and you're shoving all these products into your shop and then you're trying to market them, your marketing is only going to hit sometimes. Master of none.
Exactly. You become the creator of all and the master of none. And really what you want to be is the master of something, the master of one. You want to find one amazing thing that you can absolutely master.
That way your brand is more marketable. You're able to really call to those ideal customers and they follow you, not just because you make cool things, but because they like you and they like the photos that you're posting and the ideas that you have and the products that you're creating and the videos that you're recording. Maybe they like. you know, learning from you if you're teaching like Nicole does.
Maybe they just like watching the process because it's fun or satisfying or interesting to see how you make your product. Similar to, you know, us watching that video with all of, you know, the different like candle pouring and things like that. I'd never, I would never personally make candles. I just don't, I don't have the patience to do that.
But I love watching other people do it. And then like they, they peel it out of the mold and you see that beautiful thing, right? That perfect, just completed piece.
I feel like I got to go along on that adventure with them. But guys, thanks so much for hanging out. We truly appreciate that you guys are willing to sit and watch these pre-recorded beans. Again, next week's episode will also be pre-recorded because...
She'll be getting home. Yes. Oh, will I be getting home that day? Yes, I believe so.
That's the day that you get home, but not till late afternoon. That's right. So I'm not in Latvia during the next Friday Bean, but I'm on the plane ride home.
So anyway, with that in mind, please make sure that if you're interested in attending Amplified this year, that is the world's biggest and only POD event. I'm speaking at that. I'm actually one of the headliners. You can click the link down in the video description or go to printify.com slash amplified.
Sign up with the code A-M-P Starla. Otherwise, you're going to end up paying five bucks. But if you type in that code at checkout, you can bypass the checkout system.
You won't have to enter your credit card. And that'll make sure that you're able to get in free. Also, I did want to thank you guys so much.
I ended up sending 400 more attendees. to Amplified, then I was neck and neck with another individual. And this individual has an audience of over 400,000 YouTube subscribers. And with your guys'help, I was able to send 400 more people than he was. And what's really exciting about that is Amplified upgraded several of my tickets to business class because of it.
Unfortunately, they weren't able to get all of my tickets upgraded because it ended up being too late for them to do so. But they are doing other nice things for us. They got me a better hotel room and they've gotten me some spa treatment, which I don't think I'll even have time to do all that.
We'll figure it out. Regardless, I appreciate you guys who have signed up. And if you're interested in signing up, make sure that you do so. There's still time to. and make sure that when you attend Amplified in the live chat, which will be through Discord this year, make sure that you fill that chat with wolf emojis when you see me.
Yeah, yeah, I've got, I'll give you links. Very strange. Yeah, that's where the community is this year. It's going to be through Discord.
That's where my Q&As are all going to be. I don't know, it's interesting. But, you know, regardless, fill up that chat with wolf emojis.
That way they know that you guys are from the Handmade Alphas. And yeah, guys. I should be there.
I should be there as long as nothing happens. Yeah. Or you sleep in, you know.
Or sleep in. I might sleep in. Yeah. He'll probably be in the Discord chat hanging out with you guys.
But we appreciate you so much. And we will not see you next week. But there will be a pre-recorded episode of the Friday Beam for you.
All right. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. I'm hungry.
I'm starving.