Where’s the party??? That’s the real question when it comes to InstaGram, and the answer is shockingly simple, but you’d be hard-pressed to come up with this without a LOT of research.
They are all around you.
But how do you find them??? You can find them by searching for hashtags that are related to your subject. All the parties going on right now are marked by a hashtag.
That’s right. The parties are attended by anywhere from a few dozen folks with the same strange interest all the way to a star trek media con, where you’ll run into a hundred thousand freaked-out fans in search of a celebrity selfie, all the way to a popular trending hashtag that has already attracted millions or billions of viewers.
Wow. We’ve come a long way from the early cons like the one that attracted exactly 336 people in all — most of whom were writers, editors and publishers — along with a handful of sci-fi fans — who met at the 1956 WorldCon, a Literary Con, where I took my first robot.
In later cons, I attended story conferences in the Green Room with the other pros, and enjoyed the many panels on which I served throughout the decades.
At story conference with Harlan Ellison at MGM Studio, offices of Arena Productions, “Man From Uncle” tv series, for which I was an occasional contributor, along with a salary as Weapons Specialist Technical Advisor, at $700 a week.
Them days is gone forever, but you can still see the result. Man From U.N.C.L.E. is still available in a DVD set, and they’re quite watchable, even against today’s standards, if any yet remain.
So where IS the party???
There are a variety of ways to find out, and many of them are either free or seem to be free — what I mean is, there are ads that come along with the click-through, as you’d expect and hope to place there your own self.
Okay, so now what?
Somehow you get hold of a SHORT list of hashtags that relate to your subject. Now you have to find those that relate AND that are TRENDING NOW. Good luck on this one.
So now you have a short list — and you’ll soon see why we keep this list short — of possible hashtags that you might use.
But Where’s That Particular Party?
Try to visualize your town as a 3D map as seen from a 3/4 overhead view, downish but where the horizon is very visible.
You see in different locations a lighted hashtag. That’s where a party is happening.
All over town there are parties, each represented by a singular hashtag, along with the TOTAL number of guests who have come by the party, most of whom are no longer there, but the numbers attract numbers, so there’s still hope that more will show up at that party and see you in the form of your post.
Your post is posted by YOU. That means that your page or channel has to have a definite personality behind it, and the persona can definitely be a created one, meaning that you create a character and then play it, at least in the postings on that page, get it?
You won’t post anything that the character wouldn’t post, and you would definitely post things that the character would find interesting, which means you have to know the depths of your online character so your character reacts properly to events.
Headline events will generate hashtags almost immediately, if not sooner. You’ll get your post out there, but it will be hidden amongst millions or billions of similar postings.
Your best bet is to locate the parties where people like yourself hang out, and appeal to them there.
What do you say?
First of all, DON’T MARKET when you market, or at least don’t SEEM to market when you market.
That means don’t always be selling. You can hear how absurd it is when someone tells you that they only invite clients to their parties, because it’s all tax-deductible.
That’s like being so filthy rich that you don’t have a second to yourself. Like a doctor, the President is always on call.
Sure, it’s a big ego boost to stand out there in the rain and boast about all the things you’ve done for your country, but face it — you’re standing out there in the rain, talking to paid listeners who are also standing out there in the rain instead of sitting home at comfort and doing whatever the hell they want.
That’s the price you pay for being rich, powerful and famous. Your fans and other relativeds totally own you.
Where’s the profit in that?
Now, it’s important to recognize that your STORY has power only in that it will rise to the top — I’m reminded here of the popular truism, “Shit Floats”.
So your STORY will be easily and instantly visible at the top of the screen of anyone to whom you feed this STORY, and typically you’ll send it out to all your followers.
In order to see any results, you’ll have to do a few more things, the first of which is, you’ll want to BUY AN INFLUENCER.
Yes, Influencers can be had, at the present market rate of $100 per 10,000 names, not too bad, if you get a dozen or more responses from that list, but you probably won’t.
Listen, the Market Mavens and InstaGram Gurus who will sell their followers to you wouldn’t ever do that if those names were in any way commercially useful to them other than as bargaining chips.
You’ll frankly do better to just place outright ads where they might be seen, keeping in mind that everything in this IG World is ephemeral — everything is momentary, flying in the face, remaining onscreen for just a fraction of a second, subject to swiping in any direction.
Speaking of Up Swipes, that’s a form of IG Marketing that you won’t need until you can afford the technical help, so don’t sweat the small stuff, stay on target.
So what’s the advantage of STORIES???
Really, there isn’t any actual advantage, just a perceived advantage. You gain nothing in the long haul by throwing stories out there, but you DO get a SENSE OF IMMEDIACY that might prove useful.
What you could go for here would be a campaign that’s all set up, already in place and ready to run.
Then you wade in with a STORY and send it out to all your followers, keeping in mind that only they will see your STORY, no matter what else you think you can do, and even there, you can bet that only 10% will open it or even glance up at the little circle that says you sent a STORY to them.
In short, be prepared to do a lot to see very small results. That’s only at first, but the results do vary on the way up, so you might run into dry periods of responses to your marketing.
Your results will vary.
For one thing, it may not be the season to sell that thing. As they say, to every thing there is, indeed, a season, and that’s a lesson best learned by experience.
You’d never believe that the whole diamond industry goes down for two months in the summer, but it does, along with the textile and fashion trade and a whole lot more.
When you do manage to locate a party that seems right, it will be a combination of size of party — shouldn’t be too small, nor too large, somewhere in the 600 to 100,000 range, depending on the popularity of the specific subject matter at hand.
You’ll also take note of the probable character of the partygoers by their distinctive flavor, indicated by the NATURE of the Hashtag Name of the party they’re attending or have attended.
Again keep in mind that ALL of the participants you’re seeing numbered at the party have already BEEN THERE and gone by the time you arrive.
There is a dim and slim hope that nevertheless, they’ll somehow see your post — that at any rate is the expectation of billions of hopeful gold-panners, and that’s why I recommend being an online marketing specialist rather than being an end-user who only knows what they want you to know.
By the way, you can get a whole set of hot sauces plus popcorn spice to sell at your booth or online, 40 UNITS for only $200, in our special priced summer sale, but hurry, the season is almost over!
Normally, you’d pay $7 to $9 a bottle, so get them while they last! You can sell them for $9 retail at this price!!! — You pay postage, I’m already losing money on this deal, but it will get you started, and that’s what it’s all about!
Now, what about those hashtag parties?
How can we get ourselves invited early enough to catch most of the folks BEFORE they arrive? The answer is surprisingly simple.
What’s Trending Now???
It LOOKS easy to find out, and it seems to be so, but beware — that’s not the real story. In order to be there early on, you have to catch the trend before it gets away, and that’s an art and a skill, not something to be learned in a textbook.
In fact, what you want to do is to employ a robot to search out the most likely hashtags and spot them before they get a head of steam.
You can’t afford it, but that’s the technical solution. You need to see things before it’s humanly possible, and that spells “robot”.
The bots and spiders can see things far off, and give you some lead time to get in there before everyone else arrives.
Problem there is, your posting will vanish almost instantly no matter what precautions you take.
Poof! Your Story is Gone!
Regardless of how you approach this, it’s largely a crap-shoot whether you actually get anyone’s attention or not, and only statistically can this possibly matter.
The actual cash customers will be among the wandering stream of casual shoppers and strollers, and you can’t predict how exactly they will come to you and come to a decision to buy or not to buy.
You can start them off by inviting them to subscribe, or getting on your email list or any other interaction you have up your sleeve, such as a poll or quiz or free offer on your website.
Try to get this — you’ll never get the traffic to come to you. You have to find the traffic and plant yourself right in the middle of it, and deal with the fast-flow going past you like the very lightning.
So find the HASHTAG PARTIES and get yourself on over there with your message, and do try to get there early.
In order to keep yourself alive on social media, you will at some point have to accept the fact that you can’t do ANYTHING on InstaGram until you have at least 10,000 followers, so you can direct them to where you want them to go, and that means bots.
There is no other way to build your page past a few dozen followers, and you’ll soon realize this truth.
You know how many hours you put into social media already. Imagine compounding that by the tens of thousands?
Even with a slew of work stations populated by very experienced and excited volunteers, you won’t be able to keep up with the stream of verbal traffic coming from all directions, so you’ll have to hire a team of bots to do all that for you, and that means money.
Oh, don’t worry. You won’t be able to even use the results of a commercial bot campaign until you have the money to be able to afford it.
A great campaign has to have a basis in fact, and if you don’t have your ducks all in a row, the additional publicity will get you nowhere.
What ducks do you actually need placed in the aforementioned “row”???
Well, first of all, you need a backup website that says it all, everything from FAQs to CONTACT, plus all the background they need to get ENGAGED, involved in your action.
The whole idea, no matter what else seems to be happening, is ENGAGEMENT. It doesn’t matter if that engagement is a sale, or it’s joining a Bardo Safari Party, or it’s just a decision to be on the mailing list.
ANY and ALL interactions are encouraged because the takeaway going forward at the end of the day is always about ENGAGEMENT, and that can take a wide variety of forms.
Don’t have sales as the only engagement. There are more levels involved, and you’ll have to handle all of them.
The Pet Collar Tag contains “Heal My Pet” Orb, “Keep My Pet Healthy” Orb and more, all to protect your little friend and keep them in total contact with YOU all the time!
You want to spur the viewer to some sort of response, hopefully the CTA or Call To Action button, which will bring them to your website landing page, right???
Keep in mind here that this action does NOT require that you physically meet with, or contact anyone, and in fact, most of the contacts will be online only, if not all of them.
You won’t be standing around in a mall passing out cookies or cheese on crackers, if that’s what you’re thinking.
You won’t be out by the local library or health food store busking your heart out for ten bucks a day’s worth of hassle and demoralization from passers-by too busy to smell the roses burning.
Don’t worry about them. Their bread is only half-baked. You’re after bigger fish than the milling throng.
It’s hard to concentrate on this, I know, but you’ll appreciate the need — you must visualize the HASHTAG PARTIES that are constantly going on, in their various locations around the town map you’ve projected around yourself with your home as the center of the circle.
Remember that each party will have a GENERAL character, which is the main part of the hashtag, and it will also carry MODIFIER words that narrow the scope of the search.
Words that have no equal and are not in common or even uncommon use will indicate a very narrow niche. You’ll have to decide whether it’s worth your attention or not.
Do Your Due Diligence!
Before you link to a hashtag, you’d better look at the people already at the party — do you really want to be associate with those folks?
If not, don’t use the hashtag.
If they are copacetic and righteously your peeps, then go ahead and insert the hashtag at the bottom of your posting — use about ten of them for optimum effect.
Feel it out. Use your intuitive skills. At first, when you’re doing all this by hand, keep on the path, stay well within the limits of the search, make it all relevant and real.
Be Authentic.
That’s my main battlecry — be authentic. Don’t bullshit your way up the hill. No need to be mean, no need to exaggerate or hyperbolize. Just be authentic.
Honest, that’s going to get you farther than anything else.
Sure, it’s a dog-eat-dog world, but who wants to eat a dog? Okay, I hear you — I actually calculated that I would have a number of readers from a variety of cultures where dogs are appreciated more on the table than under it.
I’ll probably get howls from that dog comment, but what the heck, it’s true. Some people do eat dogs, and some would never think of it, but reverse them, put them in each other’s place, and see what happens.
Firm beliefs and attitudes are largely caused by local habit.
Would you like to breathe again, get away from all that cloying Earthian crap that busts in on you all day and night?
Jesus, me too. If you ever figure out how, lemme know.
Just kidding. Of course there’s a way to escape the crap, but it takes time, money, effort and skills.
How are you doing?
Okay, let’s go a little further into the subject of InstaGram.
First of all, why are you doing this?
Me, I have an answer to that, and it’s pure and simple. I’m trying to introduce people to the Work.
I make no assumptions about them — I’ve found that the totally unready can suddenly be ready, and I never discount a potential Worker for the Work.
I’m first and foremost a Talent Scout — I’m not the talent, I’m just an Artist’s Agent in a world of pain and suffering.
Got what it takes to help others out of suffering?
I sure hope so.
I’m kind of counting on you to come through this with flying colors, at least six of them plus black and white.
What I mean is, would you like to buy a Seller’s Lot of 10 Bardo Bands???
The graphic above isn’t accurate — the Bardo Band sports the Quatrain “Four Lines” and the Sigil plus the website address. It’s all there, including the insides, which features the 49 Days Orb, the Clear Light Orb, the LRS Orb in which you hear me reading the ABD, and you get the entire American Book of the Dead in readable format, and more!!!
Those things will only cost you $20 a pop which includes the software, of course, at the business end of the slap-band.
Wow, are these things easy to sell, if you’ve got the charisma to carry it off!
I’ve determined by personal experience personally experienced that it’s possible to sell at least ten of these a day, which brings you to a yearly self-salary of around $50K, which ain’t bad if you’re looking at “Homelessness” in the face.
If you can rope others into … ahem, I mean, if you can persuade some folks to help you in your Spirit Path Marketing, you can raise that figure to a lot more, and if you can gain any traction as a Market Maven, you might just end up being a celebrity your own self!
Sure, it’s possible to become a celebrity.
It’s real uncomfortable, and I don’t suggest it, unless you really want the ego boost. It’s a pain in the ass to have people come up to you and demand your autograph and/or shreds of clothing or a lock of hair.
It’s that “lock of hair” thing that convinced Mickey Dolenz to let me and Harry go get the burgers when we recorded at RCA Hollywood Studios, right next to the fabulous five-star Hollywood restaurant, “NORM’S”, which has since been sold as a franchise, is now just about everywhere.
Gosh, I’d like to see that happen with the BardoMania Shops, but that’s unlikely until the Zombie Revolution, which is weeks and weeks away from now, if my calculations, and those contained in an ancient pyramidic scroll I happen to have handy, are accurate — which will be a Historic First.
The results you get will be derived from your ability to spot a good party and contact the folks attending that party.
It’s all about your graphic. Hey, isn’t that a popular song? “It’s all about your graphic. It’s all about your graphic…” I’m sure it is, and if it is popular, it’s highly probably that Randy Rainbow ( #randyrainbow ) will have done a parody with it.
Ah, I have it here. Knew it hadda exist —
Haw, haw!!! Thanks to Randy Rainbow for that!
See You At The Top!!!
gorby