How to Master Instagram for Small Maker Businesses | Podcast Episode #129

This post may contain affiliate links. See our Disclosure Policy for more information.

Do you want to increase your engagement or grow your following on Instagram?

Doing so might be the jumping-off point for your crochet or knitting business. No doubt t’s the place many of us hang for the community and inspiration (and we’ve developed “Instagram skills” in the process), using it for business requires a different approach than a casual user. To get the most out of the time and effort you’ll put into it, you’ll need to master some business basics first.

Special Guest

In this episode, you’ll hear from Instagram savvy maker, April from OTH Crochet Nook. She’s been using Instagram to promote and grow her crochet business and blog for years. Today, she shares her best tips for increasing engagement on Instagram so you can up your maker business game!

Episode Transcript

Brittany:
Well, hey there, and welcome to episode 129 of the B.Hooked podcast, the place where we love yarn, we love to learn, and we believe yarn can do more for us than just make pretty things.

Well, today’s episode is just a little different than usual, so if you’re brand new to the show, well, first of all, welcome. I’m really glad that you’re here. You’ll typically hear episodes that will inspire you in some way and help you be a better crocheter.

Well, every now and again, we have an episode like this one that’ll help those with yarn-related businesses or makers in our community. Now, if this is you, I think you’re in for a really big treat.

I’m pretty sure I don’t have to convince you how important Instagram is as a maker business, right? I know it’s been a huge deal for me, but it’s a platform like any other social media with algorithms and lots of noise, so it’s really hard to get your stuff seen.

Well, April from OTH Crochet Nook is here to share her wisdom about Instagram, and I can’t wait for this one. We get into quite a few tactics for increasing engagement, which really is the key to being successful on Instagram. So are you ready? Here she is.

So April, hi there. Welcome to the B.Hooked podcast. Thank you for being here today.

April:
Thank you so much for inviting me. I’m so excited.

Brittany:
I am really excited too, especially about our topic. When you let me know that this was something that you’re really passionate about, I was thinking, yes, this is so needed in our community because Instagram is kind of a big deal and it’s not going away. It’s only getting bigger.

And I know it helps so many makers and then so many crocheters and knitters in general just make connections with one another. So I’m pumped.

April:
Absolutely. Yeah, me too. Let’s get to it.

All right. So before we get to Instagram, I would love to know a little more about you. So can you tell me just how you got into all of this and maybe how you learned how to crochet?

April:
Yeah, sure. So my grandma has been crocheting her whole life. When I got pregnant the first time with my first daughter in 2013, on mat leave, I kind of picked up a crochet hook again, and I started crocheting using just the basic skills that she had taught me when I was like 10 years old.

Then when you learn the magic of YouTube and you kind of get lost in the tunnel of YouTube, you can see that you can learn basically anything and any trade. So I learned all the stitches. I learned how to read patterns. I just got really obsessed with it, and I realized that yarn was… something that I really really love to do and to make things.

So I started pretty basic just doing orders for family and friends and then I started my blog and I started Instagram in 2016 and it just kind of went from there and I have not stopped. My yarn collection is pretty… overflowing and I’m kind of obsessed with it.

But beyond crochet, I’m a mom of two daughters. I work full time for a morning TV show. I’m a producer on a local morning show in Toronto. And that’s what I do during the day. And at night, I crochet.

Brittany:
Oh very cool. I wonder if you’re able to pull some of that knowledge from your day job to help you with the promotional aspect. I know there’s not a ton of video on Instagram, but I’m sure that you know more than the typical person as far as marketing and that sort of thing goes.

April:
Yeah, I’ve been doing live marketing on TV, doing pitches every day, reading through pitches every day. Those qualities definitely helped working through Instagram, working through my blog, working through everything you need to do to help promote yourself and your business. I definitely used skills that I’ve used over those years for sure. Yeah.

Brittany:
Very cool. So you said you started your Instagram in 2016, which is about three years ago as we’re recording this. When did it become a thing? I’m sure you maybe started it just because it was kind of a shiny new object around then. Tell me the story of how it developed into more.

April:
Yeah, so September 2016 is when I started my Instagram. And I would have to say, I think for anyone listening that is just starting Instagram will know that the first six months to a year is quite difficult. Instagram is a black hole. It’s like you want to be noticed. How do you be noticed?

And all of this huge sea of people and influencers and even just for us listening, the maker community is huge all over the world. So it’s a really hard thing to get through.

And I think the first year was very difficult. I mean, when you hit your first thousand is very accomplishing. You feel like it’s amazing. And it really is because just to get your first thousand, I think is a big deal.

It’s hard navigating and it’s hard learning what to do and to find your niche and to really understand. And I hope people get this when they listen, that it is really a lot of work.

If you want to be noticed, if you want to, you know, become, quote unquote, an influencer or to be, you know, something in Instagram, it’s definitely a lot of work. You can’t, you know, sit back and just kind of assume that it will happen and people will see you. You definitely have to get out there.

So the first year, I think, is definitely the hardest. And then as it picks up from there, you kind of understand that how it works and how it works for you in your life. Because I think that’s really important to balance it if you have other things going on in your life other than Instagram, right?

Brittany:
Yes, that is so true. I know when I first started my Instagram, I did it specifically for the things that I was making. So I didn’t bombard my family members who are following my personal account. But I quickly abandoned my personal account. I haven’t used that. And gosh, I think the last post was in 2015 or 16. I could have the dates wrong there, but it’s been a long time because like you said, it’s a lot of work to manage a profile that’s interesting that people want to see and to interact with.

April:
Definitely. I think what helped me the most is I kind of turned to I want to call them quote unquote social media experts, like people who do marketing and and they, you know, kind of go through. I listen to a ton of podcasts and watched a ton of YouTube videos on influencers and just kind of together things that worked for me because I think it’s important for anyone to kind of figure out what works for them because everyone’s doing something different on Instagram even you as a maker you might crochet but me and you don’t do this exact same things we don’t like maybe the same hook or we don’t like the same yarn and that’s okay we need to figure out kind of what your thing is and I think that’s what helped me the most I kind of grabbed you know a little bit from here a little bit from there and I was like you know what this that I have collated Yeah, let’s, let’s

Brittany:
dive into that a little bit that aspect of it because I don’t know if I’m just prone to overthinking things. I think it’s part of my personality style. But I tend to really question myself and question, well, just question everything in general. Not necessarily bad or good. But the bad that comes from that is questioning my own style. Like, how do you know… what your own style is. How do you know where your place is on Instagram and what you have to offer? Do you have any advice on how you figured that out?

April:
Yeah. So I think one of the key points that I really put together when I started my Instagram was I read a blog that was talking about finding a theme for yourself, not a theme for your page, but a theme for yourself.

And that’s writing down, you know, five to eight different things that that you would want to post? What would you want to post? Like one, your dog, two, your kids, three, your crochet, four, your yarn pile, like whatever it is, you write kind of a list of things that kind of define you that you are interested in people learning about you.

I think it’s really important to to break Instagram in a sense that people want to see who you are. They don’t just want to see your projects. They want to see you. They want to see, you know, where are you going today? What are you doing? What did you make your kids for lunch? What, you know, you’re not just a person that’s a maker. You’re a person that has a life and people like that.

It’s personal and it connects them to you. So that was definitely a key thing that I did. I kind of wrote down things that mattered to me that I wanted to share with Instagram that I was like, you know, this defines me and I want to share these things.

And I kind of stuck to those things. And once you do that, that will kind of give you your own theme for your feed, it will essentially just kind of go there, because your feed will consist of only those things.

And it will kind of help you, you know, work towards getting that, that perfect feed, right on Instagram. So I think that really helped me a lot.

Brittany:
Okay. Yeah, that’s really great advice. If that blog post is still around, I would love to maybe include that in the show notes.

What if somebody already has an Instagram account started and they don’t feel like they really have that narrowed down yet? Is it okay to evolve your Instagram page or is that sort of a bad idea if you already have some followers and then all of a sudden you do something a little bit different?

April:
I love seeing, and I’ve done this before, going on Instagram and kind of scrolling and seeing where people started. I feel like that is so inspiring to me.

I don’t think anyone should delete things. I know you can archive posts. Maybe those are pictures maybe you don’t like or the lighting was bad or, you know, things like that.

But I really feel like seeing somebody, how they started and how they became famous you know, something like, for instance, yourself, you have a huge following.

And for me to see if I went all the way back to your feed, just to see like your initial post, just see how you how you evolve, I think is really cool, because it shows new makers and new people that are coming into the industry and into Instagram kind of where they can become it’s almost like really inspiring.

I feel like we should not delete posts.

Brittany:
I agree with that too. And I have done that a few times on my own account, just because it’s sort of like a timeline of my entire journey with BeHooked.

It started very different. And you can see that in those first couple of posts, I wanted to sell finished goods. And then I realized over time that that wasn’t really my thing. And over time figured out what was my thing.

And you could sort of see this whole journey. And even now, I would say this year, I feel like I’m making some more changes, not necessarily in what I post or how frequently I post, but I guess sort of an underlying theme.

And honestly, what sparked this is my husband and I moved to a new house late last year. And so we’re still going through the motions of making it our own, right? Doing some personalization, decorating, and that sort of thing.

And I have been working on my office or my studio area for a couple of months and I am so indecisive or have been so indecisive about how I want to do it. So I’m afraid to put things on the wall because I know that I’ll change my mind.

But something happened in the past couple of months, I would say, where I just figured it out and I can’t really describe it. I’ve got a color that I absolutely love and I’ve developed this really weird obsession for like champagne color and more like warm neutrals, which is out of character for me, and blush pink and rose gold, just completely out of left field for me.

And I just love it. I absolutely love it. And I’m seeing now that my Instagram is sort of changing in that direction. The colors that I’m using are more neutral in that sense. And I think it’s okay.

I haven’t had anybody post or say anything about it. So I think it’s… completely safe for somebody to, like you said, figure out what their style is, and let it evolve over time. Definitely.

April:
Yeah, no, I think it’s really important to kind of to show that journey, because I feel like people are very inspired by it.

And I know I know a ton of people that do that, that kind of see where that successful maker kind of started.

I know people that have done that and I think it is really, truly inspiring.

Brittany: 13:50
Yeah. Now you’ve used a term a couple of times and I’m sure many of us have heard it, the term influencer. But for somebody who’s just new to that term, can you tell me just what that means exactly?

April: 14:02
Yeah. So it’s kind of funny that you asked that because when I think about myself. The first time I actually have ever been called an influencer was just recently, and I did not see myself as an influencer.

I’m proud to say that I work with Yarnspirations very closely, and I’ve been working with them for this entire year. And when they were talking in like a kind of a conference call we had, and they were introducing me to somebody, they said, April is our influencer, and she is, you know, blah, blah, blah.

And it was—it kind of hit me and I was like, I’m an influencer. It’s interesting because I don’t see myself that way, but I see myself looking to other people as influencing me and kind of giving me direction and showing me what’s cool and what’s not cool.

But I think in our maker community, as opposed to like fashion bloggers and beauty bloggers as influencers for products, I feel like our maker community is more… influencing creativity and influencing like how we see our projects and we see the things that we make and yarn in general.

I feel like that we influence how we can take something and make it to something amazing and it’s not about copycatting. It’s not about saying, well, that person made that and I’m influenced to make that because they’re an influencer.

It’s more like I look up to that person and that was so inspiring to me that I am feeling really creative today. And I’m going to be making an awesome project. And this is what I want to make.

So I feel like our maker community kind of has their own really cool definition of influencer. And I feel very grateful and very proud to say that I am one, I guess.

Brittany: 15:45
Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s interesting. Somebody who usually is an influencer, they don’t really think of themselves as one either. You’re not the first person I have heard and I didn’t really feel that way either. I was just doing what I love to do.

It seems like the term came about and is used often by brands. So, I don’t know if that’s just an observation, but it seems like brands use that as a way to describe people that they’re working with and, you know, supporting and that sort of thing to help inspire that community.

April: 16:24
Yeah, yes exactly. Well, we’re helping them market their products and doing things for them, so we are definitely influencing. I just feel amazing to be part of a maker community that kind of has influencers that are just more than brands. I think it’s really cool.

Brittany: 16:39
Yeah. Now, do you think the end goal for anybody trying to increase their engagement on Instagram is to become an influencer or is there another way that somebody could use Instagram?

April: 16:53
Yeah, I think when you’re starting Instagram, I feel like different people have different goals. Either the goal is to get a lot of followers or to get a lot of likes on pictures, to get reposted by celebrities, to get verified.

I feel like people have different goals depending on what they want their Instagram to be. I feel like the platform of Instagram kind of gives you that access to everything else. It kind of branches everything open to all other social platforms and kind of leverages you to help kind of understand what your main goal is.

I don’t know if you had the goal to gain the following that you had. I don’t know if that might be interesting to talk about, but I feel like that is a really big accomplishment. I think it’s very successful and it’s something that I think people will definitely look up to.

And I don’t know if that was the most important thing to you, but you definitely accomplished it.

Brittany: 17:50
Well, thank you. Yeah, it’s an interesting story because I never set out to be an influencer. I didn’t even know that that was a thing or that that existed. I just really loved the platform and I understood it.

I’ve gotten on Facebook before and I try to sort of do similar things and I’ve tried Twitter. I’m still trying Twitter. I’m not giving up on that one. But those platforms, they just don’t click for me. And Instagram did.

And I just started seeing success and it just kept going. And then it became just a fun challenge to see those numbers grow based on what I was doing in order to increase that engagement.

But it was nothing more than a challenge with myself. I didn’t want to necessarily influence anybody in one direction or another. I just wanted to share what I was doing because I wanted to have somebody to talk with about it.

I wanted to have somebody be as excited about crochet as I was and still am at the time. I really was there for the community. And like I said, the growth happened just from me trying things and seeing what worked and continuing to do what worked.

April: 19:07
Yeah, I think exactly what you’re saying and sharing and talking to people about your passion, I think is the key to engagement.

And I know we were going to talk about a few tricks about engagement. And I think the main thing and you just nailed it right on the head was showing up is the biggest way to increase your engagement: showing up.

If you want likes, you got to like other people’s posts. If you want comments, you got to comment on other people’s posts.

You know, kind of posting and just kind of checking your Instagram four hours later is not something that will increase your engagement. So I think that that’s so important that you said that because sharing is also you want to share other people’s experiences.

You want to show your love for them as much as you want them to show love for your posts. So I think it’s really important for people to understand that.

And from what I said from the beginning of this podcast is that it’s really a lot of work. And if you want to get noticed, if you want to increase your engagement, it’s important for you to do the same. Right.

Brittany: 20:05
Exactly. I have spent an embarrassing amount of time on Instagram. Pockets of time here and there throughout the day where I could hop on Instagram for five minutes. And I don’t seem to have that or schedule that for myself nowadays.

But because I’m not spreading out those smaller interactions, I usually will set up like one time block for maybe like 30 or 45 minutes to just be on Instagram, just be social and I don’t really have a goal in mind. Sometimes I post something new. Sometimes I don’t and I just engage with others.

But I think that has been a really big help just scheduling the time for it because I know we’re busy and it is a big part of being successful on Instagram.

And for me personally, I need to have a schedule or a little bit of structure. That’s just how I am the most efficient. So for me, if it doesn’t get scheduled, it doesn’t get done.

April: 21:31
Right. Yeah, that’s definitely something to keep in mind if you’re not as organized, you know, to keep reminding yourself to do that.

I think I do want to point out that I feel like in the beginning of Instagram, when you’re first starting out, it’s really important to be very strict on yourself if you want to increase the engagement and get the followers and get noticed.

That you need to be very organized: post the same time every day or, you know, do two posts a day or make sure you’re doing posts on Monday, Wednesday, Friday or, you know.

I think once you kind of hit that platform or you hit the over 10k or whatever it is your goal is, you don’t have to lean on it as much but people will expect you maybe to be doing them at the same time.

But again, in the beginning, I feel like you need to be strict on yourself with that if you do want that because it is work. And I think it’s important to get there. Like we do an extreme example like Kim Kardashian — it doesn’t matter when she posts she’ll get five million likes on anything.

So yeah, she doesn’t have a schedule, right? So once you kind of hit that celebrity status you may not have to work as hard but in the beginning it is extremely important if that’s your goal.

Brittany: 22:43
Yeah, I completely agree. If you think about it Instagram wants you to use their platform — that is their number one goal.

And they have people whose job it literally is to figure out ways to keep you there. So when you’re on Instagram, if you’re trying to grow, they’re going to reward you for being there. It’s in their best interest.

April: 23:05
Oh, for sure. It’s a business. At the end of the day, it’s a business. And I’m always thinking, if one day Instagram disappears, what would we all do?

Brittany: 23:13
Right? Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know what I would do. I would have to find something else that’s like my fun place. You know, that’s the place where I go when I’m checking out of work. I don’t really consider it work. I consider it a place where all my friends hang out.

April: 23:29
Yep. Yeah, you’re so right. I feel like it’s kind of like the hub where everyone kind of is and then they veer off to different things, you know, from there.

I feel like Instagram is like the beginning and the start. Like you wake up in the morning, you might check your email and you check Instagram.

Brittany: 23:43
Right? Uh-huh. For sure. Yes. So let’s get into some of those tactics because there are a lot of things that you can do to increase your engagement on Instagram.

So for somebody listening who has a pencil in hand and ready to write, give it to me? What are some ways, some things that they can do in order to increase their engagement or just overall to help them achieve that goal that they’ve set out for themselves?

April: 24:07
Yeah. So I’m going to be a little repetitive, but the first one for sure is showing up, making sure you are there.

You want likes, you like other people’s posts. You need to follow other people. If you want followers, you need to comment on other posts. If you want comments as well, using hashtags is a big thing.

I think it’s 32 hashtags you can use. You should be using all of them in the beginning because that is how people will find you.

I don’t know, as a maker, sometimes I’m thinking of things and I do hashtag crochet top or something that’s so random, but you just kind of, I use hashtags to look at others, to find inspiration and to find creativity.

And how else will people find you if you don’t use hashtags? You’re just kind of in the sea of nothing. So hashtags is really important.

A theme is really important. I think your feed is—you want people to, you have to think about yourself as not just the picture that you’re posting, but as kind of your profile as a whole.

Because if someone wants to follow you, they physically have to go to your profile and click follow. So when they go to your profile, you want them to be like, wow, this is a really nice feed or wow, these are great pictures.

And you want them to hit that follow button. So I think it’s important for you to look at your profile as one thing instead of just looking at one post.

So that kind of branches off of planning your posts. In the beginning, when I started making projects—and I don’t know if you felt the same way, Brittany—but I’d make something and then I’d be like, oh, I should have took a picture of me doing this or, you know, progress pictures, right?

It happens all the time or you finish a project and you’re so excited and then you realize you didn’t even take a picture of, you know, halfway through and it would have been cute if I put a little coffee in it and took a picture of it for Instagram for tomorrow and I didn’t.

So yeah, it’s important to plan stuff and to take pictures of everything if that’s what you want to do and you want to show progress of your top or your sweater that you’re making.

It’s important to take the pictures and to be consistent.

A really interesting thing that I never forgot that I read in a blog post a while back was when someone looks at your picture, they should already know, oh, that’s April from OTH or that’s Brittany from BeHook.

They shouldn’t even need to look at your name. And that is huge because that means you are either showing something consistently, whether it’s a ring on your hand, whether it’s the same coffee cup, whether it’s the same backyard that they see all the time.

Those are the followers that are loyal and will be engaged and will keep coming back because you are consistent with your posts.

Brittany: 26:46
And they know exactly what they’re looking for or what to expect when they go to your profile. That’s right. Yeah.

Okay. So those are some really good entry-level tactics, I would say. Just, like you said, being consistent, posting all the time, liking, commenting. Those are things that you should be doing regardless of what your goal is.

Another thing I would add to that too, I think the image quality on Instagram is evolving too. I would say put your best photo on Instagram. Give yourself a situation where you have some either bright light or natural light. Natural light’s best. Photography is a skill that you just have to learn over time. And I really have learned a lot of it the hard way.

But you can see that evolve through my feed as well. Not just… how I was changing and the things that I was doing and caring about. But my skills as a photographer and the composition of the photo, those are things that are sort of next level.

I would say to set the bar really, really high, to get people to want to follow you and continue to engage with you. I tend to see… better results if I have a better photo, something that has something else in it.

There’s an interesting experiment. It wasn’t really an experiment when I was doing it, but I’m thinking of it as one now. I posted a photo of just a little swatch that I was working on—I was doing a stitch tutorial, and it was pretty basic.

A lot of my backgrounds are white, and that’s just what I like because I really want the project to stand out, and that’s sort of just been my style over time.

Well, I had this, I think it was a gray yarn on a white background, and it was really plain and simple. It was just, I think it was even knitting, a knitting needle and the stitch pattern swatch.

And that got pretty low engagement because there wasn’t a whole lot going on with it. It was just a swatch and it wasn’t thought-provoking or it didn’t catch anybody’s eye. It was just there.

But then I made a later post where it was the same stitch pattern but I had different stuff in the background and that post got a lot more engagement.

So I think a tip that I would add is just to think about the photo composition and make it interesting. If you’re taking a photo of a project you’re working on and it’s not super interesting, right? Because some of them, they start out pretty basic and then they get better as you get more to the project.

But maybe in those early stages when it’s not quite so interesting, add some parts of your life, what you see as you’re sitting there working on that. And I think you’ll get more engagement.

April: 29:37
Yeah, I definitely agree. That is a huge point. It’s pictures. And I have definitely gotten better. And that is very true that you will get better as time goes on.

But pictures is huge. Picture quality is huge. And there’s so many… I encourage everyone listening to go on YouTube, go read blogs of how to take better pictures on Instagram. There are millions of posts and they give you really amazing tips on what to do and how to do it. And they’re really simple.

You don’t need all of our phones these days. It’s 2019. All of our phones have amazing cameras. I just use a Pixel. I do not use a professional camera or SLR or anything.

And I always get comments of, “What camera are you using? Is that a Canon?” Blah, blah, blah. And I’m always like, no, it’s just a phone.

So it’s about, you know, yeah, getting the right lighting. You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars getting a studio or, you know, use your window and use your phone.

Brittany: 30:38
Yeah. Honestly, I do have some lighting that I use for when I’m filming different tutorials. And I hate taking photos under that light.

April: 30:48
Yeah.

Brittany: 30:49
It looks so much better with the window.

April: 30:51
Yeah. And there’s a lot of shadow and it’s really bright. I agree. I know natural light. When it’s raining, like today in Toronto, when we’re talking right now, it’s pouring rain and there’s no natural light. So there’s no crochet pictures happening in my house today.

Brittany: 31:05
Right. It’s actually raining here for the first time in three weeks too, which is pretty nice. But it just so happened to fall in a day where I needed to take some photos and now that will be pushed off until tomorrow.

April: 31:15
Which is actually a good point—like I try to do as much as I can if I have really awesome natural light on a day and I have time, like if my kids are at school or if they’re napping or they’re playing and I have an opportunity, I kind of grab as many things as I can and try to bank photos.

I think that’s a huge tip to save you time. And like you said, to schedule posts, there are tons of apps that can do that for you and that kind of leaves the work out for you, right?

Brittany: 31:42
Yeah, it does. Now, since you do a lot of batching with your photos, too, and you mentioned scheduling or just having a plan in general, do you use any tools or anything to help you keep track of what you’re going to post and what you have pictures of and what you need pictures of?

April: 31:58
Yeah, so I kind of have this way of organizing my pictures. I do a ton in advance. Like right now I’m working on my September project pattern, which is well in advance, but I’m taking all the pictures.

And what I do to help myself organize them is I email them to myself with the subject line of what it is, and what day I’m going to post it.

So that way, one, if my phone gets lost, I’ll still have the picture. That’s good. And then second, I’ll just find it very easily to search through my email when I know what pattern I’m going to be promoting more, or what pattern I’m going to be posting about for the next… like, you know, I’ll just go in my email and kind of search it.

That’s kind of how I organize it. I don’t use a scheduler, but I just find that I’m able to remind myself and I kind of know when I post things. But I would definitely encourage it if you need it and you feel like you might forget or might not be as organized, but that’s kind of how I organize my posts, my patterns, and my posts.

Brittany: 32:56
Yeah. My downtime from work, I didn’t want to make it work. But what I found is that in the rush of fixing dinner and straightening up and doing all the things, that it would be eight o’clock and I would say, “Oh no, I didn’t post that photo on Instagram that I was supposed to post.”

And so now I’m using that to remind me. So the way it works is there’s an app on your phone and there’s, of course, the software that you use on your computer.

You schedule it using the computer version. So I’ll upload my photo. I typically like to use Google Drive, so I’ll snap a photo—I use a Pixel as well with my phone—and I’ll upload that to Google Drive.

And then I’ll dump it in my CoSchedule account. And from there, I will just set the day that I want it to go up.

And this thing, this feature… well, one of the features that this has is it will allow you to post at the most optimal time. So I’ll let it tell me what’s the best time to publish.

And that’s basically just based off of my followers and when they’re typically active. So I think that’s a sort of a hidden tip for increased engagement there if you’re using a scheduler.

But I will get a notification on my phone that says, “Hey, it’s time for you to schedule this Instagram post.”

And because I don’t like to… make it seem scheduled or structured. I like to be very in the moment with Instagram. I won’t include any text or anything like that.

So what I’ll do is just schedule a blank post and it’ll send it to my phone and say, “Hey, like it’s time to post this.” And so I’ll sit down for a few minutes and write my description and share it out.

And that’s been working really well for me.

April: 35:10
Yeah, I like that because that still makes it personal of what’s going on in the moment—like you might say, “Oh, I’ve warmed up my coffee four times today,” and that’s real.

Like you might be writing that and then saying, “I’m working on this project.” I do like that of writing your own instead of pre-writing it.

I love the idea of doing it in real time as well and I think that’s why I don’t schedule my posts. I have that in common with you.

But that app sounds cool because it sounds like you can still personalize it. It’s just kind of like a reminder, like a little poke, like, “Hey.”

Brittany: 35:39
Yeah, it’s a great tool. I speak very highly of it here in several episodes, mainly the ones that are related to makers and businesses because that’s, I mean, you don’t really have a use for it if you don’t have one of those, but it is amazing.

It’s really been a game changer.

But another thing that comes to mind when being in the moment is Instagram stories. And since that’s a big part of Instagram and that has changed even just in the last probably year or so…

Well, has it even been out for a full year? I think so. Yeah. I could remember when they started it.

I think I really started using it last year, which is why it’s a little bit fuzzy in my mind, but how do you use Instagram stories?

Do you think that that is a key to increasing your engagement or is that just something that’s to share some of those more personal moments or things like that?

April: 36:35
I think it absolutely does increase engagement. I think that it shows a side of you that may not be polished, which I think people really like to see sometimes.

I know we can use like cute filters and stuff like that, but we’re still doing our day-to-day things. Like if I’m playing with my kids or, you know, something that’s not crochet related—I’m at an amusement park with them or I’m grocery shopping or…

That just goes back to the point where people like to see you as you. Like, who are you? You’re not just Be Hooked. You are, you know, moving or you’re decorating or you’re buying a new house or, you know, that’s part of you.

So I think people love to know about, you know, who you are. And I think Instagram stories is an amazing way to show that.

And it kind of shows the raw version of you and yourself. Once I passed 10K and we had that swipe up feature, I think that definitely benefited one—that directs your followers to your blog or to whatever link you’re doing.

Also sharing in your stories your post where they just have to click on the post—that I think is huge. And you can do that with any amount of followers. You just add it to your story.

Add a little like emoji that’ll say like “tap here” and it’ll take them right to the picture.

I think Instagram stories is huge and you have to take advantage of it. When I see that little plus sign, like my stories have all expired—I don’t like that. I need to put something in there because I feel like it’s a constant, constant, like even if it’s just something small, like sharing a picture of another maker.

I love doing that. And I love if people share your mind, I think it’s great to do that because there’s amazing makers out there and they’re doing amazing things and they need to get noticed just like you should feel like, you want people to notice your things too, right?

Brittany: 38:25
Yes, I agree 100%. I wish that I had started using Instagram stories sooner because it provides a way to send people to your website or your post.

And for somebody like us who are sharing patterns and tutorials, that makes sense because it was so frustrating. Remember in the early days, you would make a post and you had like a new pattern that would come out and you would share about it but you couldn’t put a link anywhere—you could only put it in your profile.

And that still exists today—you still can’t put a link in a post but it was always such a big headache to try to explain how somebody can find that.

And that’s just not a good user experience. So being able to have the Instagram stories where you can say, “Hey, I have the link in my Instagram stories,” it’s so much easier to direct people there because they actually know how to find that.

And I don’t know, it just has made life so much easier for me.

April: 39:23
Yeah, definitely. And I think to add to that highlights is I think great because highlights is a good place for people to see things quickly. I have all my patterns in one highlight. I have all my, you know, maker photos in one highlight. I have all my community pictures, my yarn versus everybody stuff — like all everything about me. You can kind of click. People could put their kids, they could put their dog. And I think it’s a cool place if somebody wants to check out your feed to kind of do a quick — exactly what it means — highlight of a certain thing in your life or something about you. I think highlights work just as well as because it kind of lives there forever. Whereas in your story that expires after 24 hours. So if they’re in your highlight, they’re there forever. So I love highlights. I think those are awesome.

Brittany: 40:08
Oh, yeah. They’re a great way to form collections almost. I use highlights to have all of the information for my patterns. So I’ll have a highlight for my patterns. I’ll have a highlight for the podcast episodes and for the tutorials and that sort of thing that come out. So if you come to my profile and you like what you see, all you have to do is tap on those highlights. And it’s still a work in progress adding some of those older ones, but you can pretty much find everything that you would need.

And now, I honestly, I just learned, I would say within the last month, that you could share a post, like a photo post, to your stories. And I can see this being really beneficial to use for highlights because if you have a post of a finished pattern that you made and you want to put it in your highlight you can just share that post directly to your Instagram stories and if they tap on it they’ll see the original post, they can get more information on it but then in that story they’ll have the swipe up so they can go directly to the pattern.

April: 41:16
Yep, it’s so accessible and makes everything very accessible and keyword easy so that you’re not kind of looking when you had to do link and bio. Some people may be like, well, what is that? I don’t know where you’re like, you know, some or where is that? So, yeah, Instagram stories and highlights makes everything very easy and quick because people want things quickly. That’s just kind of how things are these days, right?

Brittany: 41:40
Yeah, completely. I still answer that question every single week, where’s your profile and how to find it. And gosh, I wish Instagram would just make it a little bit easier for everybody. Right. Right. You’re right. It’s true.

Well, we’ve covered a lot of ground here as far as engagement tactics. Are there any others that possibly we haven’t covered, like any ninja tricks or anything like that?

April: 42:03
I think we’ve done — I think it’s been a lot. I think as long as you don’t ghost and post I think that’s what the summary is. We don’t want to like post something and then leave and not do anything. You have to be engaging to get engagement. I think that’s the key. Yeah.

Brittany: 42:19
Yeah, I agree 100%. There have been times where I have posted and totally forgot that I posted. And then there are days where I remember and I stay active on Instagram. You can see a difference. You really can between those instances where I forgot and ghosted or the ones that I was actually there and interacting with people.

So I think like you said, the bottom line is Instagram wants there to be engagement on their platform and you have to engage to be engaging or to be engaged by others. Yeah, exactly.

All right. Now you mentioned something a moment ago, you said you started Yarn versus Everybody. And I knew that was something that was a result of just the amazing community that’s on Instagram. I think all of us can agree that the maker community on Instagram is an amazing community to be a part of.

So tell me a little bit about this and why you started it.

April: 43:13
So I think I met you actually for the first time at Our Maker Life, which a lot of people know about. And that was a couple of years ago when it was in Toronto. And when I was sitting there at this amazing conference, meeting all these amazing people that you’re only commenting and sending DMs to on Instagram, you’re seeing them face to face. And I was in love with that. And I loved the experience.

And I was kind of sad to think that I’m in this big city of Toronto and I wanted to have something that was there for people that were locally in my area that wanted to get together and kind of make it like a big thing. So that was when I first initially thought of the idea. It didn’t come into play or really like into planning process until like a year later.

But Yarn vs. Everybody is really… exactly how it sounds. No one really understands the love for yarn like us in the maker community. And I feel like it’s kind of like us against everyone else. But it’s something that I really wanted to start so that people in the community that have the same passion and the same likes, we can physically meet together and talk face to face.

And I know there’s like little meetups and sip and stitches and things like that that people do here and there. I kind of wanted to make it a community where people do something all the time. Like it’s kind of like a fun get together where we can, you know, get free stuff, get free yarn, get awesome swag, but also talk to each other, compare needle sizes, hook sizes.

I’ve done five so far. The last one I just did was this past June. It was the biggest one I’ve done. It was a lot of work. But every single second I put into planning it was so much fun for me. I loved it. And the energy and the idea of all of us meeting together was such an amazing time.

And there’s nothing like that meeting someone who just loves something so much exactly like you do. And they just understand like, I don’t know if people are listening now and they’re in their house, you know, with their yarn and talking about their projects to, you know, their family that has no idea what they’re talking about.

So it’s nice to be around people that know about stitches and hooks and projects. And I want to do it as long as I can because I love doing it. And I think it’s really important in, you know, in our world of social media and even just phone calls. We don’t do that anymore. The only person really I talk to on the phone is like my mom. Right. I don’t like. Right.

So it’s something that we need to do more of. And I think this community is really awesome. And meeting face to face is just such an amazing thing. So that’s really the main reason why I started it.

Brittany: 46:01
Well, that sounds like a lot of fun. Is it mainly there? Like, does it mainly happen there in Toronto?

April: 46:05
Yeah. So this is Toronto based. Like, I mean, of course, I’d love to expand it, but it is just me. I’m just a one woman show here. So I try to do as much as I can, but it’s just Toronto and the surrounding area for right now.

Brittany: 46:19
Yeah. Well, that sounds great. I know I have a lot of listeners who are in Toronto. So if those people want to get in on this, do you have maybe a website or something where they can gather more information? Yeah.

April: 46:30
Do we have an Instagram? It’s at yarn versus everybody. There’s also a website link there as well. If you just go to that page on Instagram and you can also, if you follow me at OTH crochet nook, you’ll find all the information. You’ll see the videos and, and all the stuff that happened in the last Yarn vs. Everybody meetup. So,

Brittany: 46:47
Yeah. Okay, awesome. Now, I know you do other things as well. You said that you are working with Yarnspirations this year. So I know there are other things going on. If somebody wants to connect with you and see some of the other things that maybe you’re teaching or the projects that you’re working on, I know your Instagram is probably a good place to go. Is there anywhere else maybe that you would direct them to?

April: 47:08
Yeah, just my blog, othchristianik.ca. It has all my patterns. All my patterns are free. And they’ve always been like that. And I have many there and I, everything is linked there, my Instagram and yeah, on my blog. So, and there’s a new pattern every single month, sometimes two a month. Awesome. Okay.

Brittany: 47:28
Right, right. It takes a little time to put that stuff together, but it’s totally right. Okay. Well, I will have links to all of that in the show notes page. So if you’re listening and you’re curious about yarn versus everybody and going to one of those meetups, you can find the info there. And the question I didn’t ask here, do you have any idea when the next one might be?

April: 47:48
Well, I think I’m planning on doing them once a year so that I can make them really big. So probably summer of 2020 is going to be the next one.

Brittany: 47:56
Okay. Good to know. And yeah, like I said, I’ll have all that information in the show notes. And April, thank you so much. It has been so much fun. I love talking about Instagram and it’s really great to find somebody who’s just as interested in Instagram to share some of this with our maker community. So thank you.

April: 48:14
Thank you so much. Thank you so much for inviting me. This was awesome. I had so much

Brittany: 48:17
Fun. All right. Was April from OTH Crochet Nook. Now don’t forget to check out Yarn Versus Everybody or her profile at OTH Crochet Nook on Instagram if you’re in the Toronto area and you want to attend the next Yarn Versus Everybody meetup. I’ll also have the information for you on the show notes, which by the way is bhooked.com/129. So if you go there, you can see all of the information there.

One last thing I want to mention before we wrap up today is the sponsor for today’s episode, which is my blueprint course, Tunisian Crochet for Beginners. I turned to Tunisian crochet when my hands and wrists needed a little break from those usual crochet motions. You know that hand and wrist fatigue? Well, it uses a different hook and a different stitching technique, which meant the motions were just different enough too.

So nowadays I pick up a Tunisian crochet project when I’m feeling a little hand and wrist fatigue, but I still need my creative fix. Well, as the name of the course implies, this online class is perfect if you have never tried Tunisian crochet at all, or if you’ve tried and you just couldn’t quite pick it up. I’ll walk you through the basics as well as your first three projects.

So to sign up for the Tunisian Crochet for Beginners online course taught by me, just visit bhooked.com slash tcfb, which will redirect you to the course on Blueprint’s website. And by the way, they’re formally known as Craftsy. And you can sign up for the class there.

All righty, next week, we’ll do another Your Questions Answered episode because so many of you loved it when we did it back in episode 124. So here’s what you need to do to potentially have your question answered in next week’s episode. Well, first, you’ll have to follow me on Instagram if you don’t already. My handle is at bhooked, that’s B-H-O-O-K-E-D.

And then look at my Instagram stories today, August 15th, 2019. If you’re listening to it the day it comes out, as you know, and as you heard from today’s episode, that Instagram stories are only available for 24 hours. So you need to get in today in order to submit your question.

So the way this works is when you tap on my stories, you’ll eventually see one post or one story that’ll ask for your question, and you’ll have a little box for you to type it in, and then you have to hit send. From there, I’ll receive it, I’ll gather all of your questions, and I will answer as many of them as I possibly can in next week’s episode.

Alright, thank you so much for tuning in today. I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and I’ll see you next week.