1st Ever Instagram Live: The Story

You guys I did something big this week! I did my first ever IG Live! And I was so nervous, but it turned out ok and I have had good feedback, I most certain ticked my “do something every day that scares you” box for Monday. But I thought I would do a little blog post about it and what helped me to prepare and give you a bit behind the scenes along with the actual video and transcript… so here we go…

Who it was with & how I connected with her:

I connected with Laure from @unitoshine through the wonderful Eco Community and the meet-ups on Instagram, which ended up being the subject of our talk too. Laure does regular lives on her wonderful Instagram profile with a wide range of ecopreneurs to give people tangible of business and entrepreneurial advice whilst looking after self care too – I just love her approach in this space and I was delighted when she agreed to feature me.

What I learnt along the way:

My goodness a lot of work goes into a 20 minute live – Laure was so thorough, we had two video calls which latest way longer than the actual live, to get to know each other and to discuss what what we wanted to talk about in the 20 minutes. It was wonderful to bounce off and work with each other and brainstorm it all. Laure has a great system of sharing a google doc template with her guests to provide them with notes and bullet points on each agreed discussion point to refer back to on the day. I felt so much better knowing we had a plan and we both knew what we were going to talk about before we did and it was a great opportunity to get to know Laure too. Then in the days leading up to the event we both posted a bunch of stories to promote it and engage the audience.

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On the day

I set the boys up with my tablet in the nursery, whilst their Dad finished his work day so I could get my head straight and go over my notes. I was glad of this. I also “danced it out” Meredith and Christina style (if you know you know) to Demi Lavato Confident…

& then did some Amy Cuddy esk super hero poses… and was surprised by how this combo did seem to change my energy:

{You need to watch this TED TALK if you haven’t}

And it was time to do it!

Here is the video and below the transcript, I hope you find the content of useful along with the story behind how we got there. I am loving growing my brand in this way and getting to know and work with such interesting and like-minded from all over the world, it really does bring me so much joy, and I look forward to collaborating with Laure again in the future.

As ever if you like what you see and hear, please do give us a like/follow/share/subscribe (both our profiles are linked below and any support in us growing our brands is so so appreciated) – equally please do join me on instagram for my Wellness Wednesday and Sustainability Sunday Meet-ups which run all day, I would love to see you there <3

Laure from @unitoshine 0:00
How online communities can work for you to build your brand, organically. So tonight, we are going to talk about communities and how to reach this community. And also create your own network. First of all, to understand it to be more yourself and who you are and who what you like, but also to start connecting with your peers, and trying also with disconnection. Because within these communities, essentially, there was people on that challenge, assemble, you guys use a similar interest. They are your potential customers. So to talk about all of that, and I invited Jean bekins, who is the founder of jam dodgy.com. Hi, Gill. Nice having you. So, um, can you please let us know a little bit more about how we use this community and how we find our niche.

JamJarGill 1:15
Absolutely. And so the first point I really want to make is around the first step to building a community is the need to find your Nisha, she say, but how do you go about doing that. And I think the first thing you need to do is find people who inspire you. And so have a look on Instagram, Instagram is great, and community to build a community within. And it’s just a case of finding people who inspire you, and the more people like that, that you follow, then you you will start to work out what you want to do and what niche you want to be in. And so that’s kind of the key sort of start to it really. And then once you find that within your niche, and it’s all about finding your, what I refer to as your general your primary identity. So for example, for me, that’s being an eco blogger, which covers quite a wide range of things. And but then you have like a secondary identity. So there are groups which you can connect with, etc, which will, you’ll find people who you have something in common with, but you don’t necessarily have everything in common words. So for example, with me, that would be moms or twin moms or something like that, and so that you might not connect with everyone in there on everything, but it’s still a worthwhile group for you to join, really. And so sorry, I’m just checking my notes as I go. So yeah, so that’s the thing is finding like your overall identity, and then secondary identity, secondary groups, which you can join. And then as you sort of gain confidence, then, and you’ll understand more and more about your own niche. And you’ll be able to sort of filter out the people who you don’t necessarily have a lot in common with anymore. And, and focusing on the people who are likely to be people who you want to collaborate with going forward training. Yeah,

Laure from @unitoshine 3:40
I mean, yeah, it’s so important joining one of these community when you start or even before when you start, and it’s something that for many years, I’ve been interested into sustainability nutrition. And I found following these people and connecting with people and and he opened so much kind of doors in terms of, you know, understanding about, you know, what was dissent, history and bond, who, you know, was in, in this industry I could connect to and an after, when also, I designed it for me to sell my business. It was so much easier, because all of this research in the way was already done on this part of it. And after it was just just kind of after Richard out of them and saying, Hey, I’m alone. I have a business. Do you want to collaborate? So? Yeah, and I think it’s great. You’re saying that?

JamJarGill 4:41
Yeah, I think I think this is the thing is why and it’s just wonderful to have a community and build community as part of whatever branch you’re trying to build. And because it basically gives you a safety net, and it also so you have peace Who who are working in the same space who are interested in the same things. And so when it comes time that you need to, say, do interviews with people or you want to product test something, then you already have a network there. And so it’s just, whereas if you want to build that first, then you’d kind of be going into it just on your own. And you I think, being an entrepreneur, or trying to be an entrepreneur, can potentially be quite lonely if you don’t make the effort to build the community first.

Laure from @unitoshine 5:36
Yeah, what what I wanted to add what, every time when I join a meetup, like yours, for example, you’re sending me or I discover new people online, and a lot of them started as a reference or kind of just sharing the journey, and learning about eco friendly product and stuff like that, at the same time being ambassador for someone’s a brand. And after you can see this kind of influence moving from influencers after owning their own brand, because for so long, they burned, they they network day follow us then and so much about brand, and you know how people aren’t which product people like they’ve been testing with this product themselves. And after sometimes either they create their own product, or they have the platform when they send the product denied. So I think it’s so important, like joining a community at the beginning, and but what I would like to know now is how do we find this community then?

JamJarGill 6:34
Right, so I the concept of meetups on Instagram is something which I only came about on Instagram less than a year ago myself, and but it really did transform my whole experience of Instagram. And it isn’t leaping, which is something I just briefly say it’s something which is like the dark side of Instagram really is how I see it. And is basically these things where you end up following a large group of people. But you have no real connection with it, it’s very much numbers over quality, it’s quantity over quality. And meetups are quite different. And they’re basically a post in someone’s individual feed, where they asked people who are interested in a certain subject to comment below and introduce themselves. And there’s no rules around or there shouldn’t be any rules around you must follow it. Like all these people or anything like that. It’s literally a case that you use those BIOS that people write, and to go, oh, that person interest me or who I like what they’re doing. And and then you go from them. And you use that as like a notice board of people who you might be interested in talking to further. So it’s then for you to take that as your sort of basis to then do that and communicate with them further. And so, yeah. Um, yeah, that’s basically why meetup is Yeah.

Laure from @unitoshine 8:13
I mean, if I can add on this point, I mean, I find joining quite recently. I feel like Oh, I should have find this all of this method, like years ago. But anyway, I find this meetup. And I think it’s high fun. You Yeah, I think it’s hard for you. And I just know that. I mean, it’s so just, it seemed that you know, everyone is there. Not everyone, but at least a good group of people when you can connect, instead of searching online to find that it’s so much easier. And as you said, I mean, for me, for you on bond is where almost all of the guests I interview is when I found them in meetup. And it’s great because you start having this conversation instead of you know, sending a direct message and you know, in my going into folder, when it’s going into spammy folders on your guests might not even see it, then hear this, you know, it’s kind of a safe place, which usually, yeah, as you said, you introduce yourself and if people are so interested about you know, you and what you do, then that would follow up if they are not fine and just carry on. But for me, I find probably all of my guests and new brand. Just interesting people who show education around sustainability and stuff and I think it’s just, it’s just brilliant.

JamJarGill 9:33
Yeah, it sounds fantastic. And it’s just, it’s so great because I think because there are like all these rules listed at the top like literally the only things which are put at the top of the post I’ve now gone on to as she said, I’ve been to meetups myself on my own profile. So I do sustainability Sunday and I also do wellness Wednesday because I didn’t seem to be a lot of meetups in the wellness space in the holistic space which Something else which I’m interested in. And but all I put in terms of rules is that, that, try and get people to tag other people who might be interested in the meetup, and also to share on their stories to just get the word out. So it’s not about people like forcing upon people to follow people who they don’t want to follow. So I think that attracts a certain type of person, therefore to the meetup. And they end up just being genuine people who are genuinely interested in that subject and genuinely want to connect with people, whether that is being a mom, whether that is being into eco staff or being into I don’t know, holistic staff. I mean, I’m just using examples I have. But there’s one to all different categories out there. Like if you’re into food, if you’re into cooking, if you’re into interiors, and there’s so much opportunity to create a community through meetups.

Laure from @unitoshine 11:04
And so one, one, so we find out on the meetup How do you establish kind of your set within this community.

JamJarGill 11:16
So and basically, what I do is I’ve created myself a brief bio, which is like, probably that big. And which just introduce it says who I am by name, it says what my brand is, it says what I’m about. And it says something along the lines of check the links in my bio For more information, or please drop me a line to connect. And basically, I’ve copied that into my phone, so that you can paste that in the feed on the metre. And so that’s just makes it so much easier. And then as you said, people can read that and if you’re of interest to them, then they’ll message you or and say do you want to connect, and they can either do that by actually commenting on the thread itself, or they can private message you to do that. And, and and that’s how you kind of end up connecting with people.

Laure from @unitoshine 12:16
I mean, for me, I’m doing the same, I have a bio that sometimes I do update Friday, but it’s always kind of the same biome because I mean, what I do doesn’t change anyway. Nothing after maybe what people need to consider is just posting your body, of course, is great, but you will need to try also to interact with other people. And, you know, be really genuinely interested about you know, what they do, if you are and write a nice comment and you know, check the profile and try to engage with them. So, I mean, it’s what I’ve done, and people were interested in what I was doing, then, you know, we connected and if they were not we haven’t done it on its own fine is better anyway. Because as you send this phone Oh, no follow up. Follow everyone is I mean, it’s a topic that in the future we talk about with another guest but yeah, so it’s it’s one of volunteers winning Yeah. And get engaged. I keep going the physical metre when you talk to people and you know, get interested ask question and surprised at some. Yeah. So yeah, thanks. Thanks for that I will miss any any point about…

JamJarGill 13:33
Let me just double check. I’m just gonna double check. And yeah, so I mean, just leading on from so once you’ve posted your own bio, and then as you rightly say, try and start conversations, go back to the feed and see if anyone takes you on interest and be proactive with that. And just try and comment and like if anyone likes your profile equally, then click into their profile and see if it’s something of your interest. And just use that as a feed, use that as a lead to use a sales term to connect with people and just try and be proactive as possible and make use of it because even in the ones we try and run myself sometimes I get bogged down in the admin of resharing people’s posts and I I forget to get involved in the conversation. So I’m now making sure that each week I go through the feed myself and I connect with people myself who I want to connect with for for my Ico brand. And in addition to the aspect of hosting it in and having the community there so so yeah.

Laure from @unitoshine 14:47
Yeah, no, I think is great. I mean, what people need to remember on so as most of people like yourself and organise this meetup on a weekly basis, so you have the one on Sunday, the system staining bone one and two on Wednesday and bond. Second, right. When being Yeah,

JamJarGill 15:05
it’s like holistic health care, self care and yoga, massage therapy, all that sort of piece. Yeah,

Laure from @unitoshine 15:12
I need to join this one. I haven’t done this one yet. But because I love that I’m doing this self care Friday. What are so some people need to kind of understand it’s not because you don’t want to admit that, you know, you’re going to build your brand organically. So it’s something that you have to do. If it’s not a weakness is trying to do it, you know, as often as you can. Yes.

JamJarGill 15:34
In Yeah. When the one your favourite ones happened and keep going back to them.

Laure from @unitoshine 15:41
Yeah, I mean, what is good is what I found is, some of them, you will find the same people, but most of the time, you will always find someone new because there is this, this aspect of us as guests coming to this meetup sharing our story about this meetup. So we let we spread the word to new people the next time we join. So it’s amazing. It’s really amazing.

JamJarGill 16:05
Yeah, it’s so wonderful. How many people are part of the community as well, and you just it really, genuinely gives me hope about the future and that people care about it.

Laure from @unitoshine 16:17
Oh, yes, is such a community growing every single day. It’s just amazing. I love it. So thanks for all of that. Before we finish, I would love for you to share with us your five top tips.

JamJarGill 16:32
Sure, and so um, yeah, just basically to, once you’ve made these connections with people, make sure you keep them up and keep reconnecting with them and follow up on things. And equally, so if people have expressed that in trust to collaborate with you suggest that you communicate then off of Instagram. Because we all know what it’s like when we’re trying to manage Instagram, and that, you know, all the messages that you get so many three days, everything gets lost in there. So what I always would do is if people say yes, yes, I want to collaborate with you, as I did with yourself, I said, let’s talk about this more and email. And then we exchanged emails and and we took that relationship to the next level. So we could then do that and organise that. And so that’s definitely a top tip. And also, this, this thing about having having a bio, I use a app, which actually looked up yesterday and what it was, and I remembered it was called swift key, but it seems it’s actually been bought out by Microsoft. And so it is actually a keyboard on my Android phone, which has a has a clipboard in it. So you can literally just save all your responses. And obviously, as you say, you can then add to them, but at least you have a basis there. So you can just quickly paste that in rather than rewriting it all out. So that’s a real big time saver. Also, it’s well worth creating a media kit within Canva. Which is if you haven’t heard of it, and it’s a great free piece of software in your browser. And they do do a paid one. But to be perfectly honest with you, the free one is excellent. And it has templates. And it’s a basic graphic design programme, and which is very user friendly. And and it’s really great for using to share story posts and everything, design that sort of templates as well. But yeah, have a media kit to hand with all your details and testimonials and brands, which you’ve worked with before. And which you can then send on to people via Instagram or via email sent that would be key. I don’t know if that’s five.

Laure from @unitoshine 19:04
We agreed with two three and nothing is as much as you know. Yeah. Good. Doesn’t matter. But I felt like so yeah, thanks. Thanks so much, Jim for all of that. And so if we want to find you join your meetup on Sunday or Wednesday Where can we find you? Um, so

JamJarGill 19:24
Basically on every platform I am at @JamJarGill, you can find me I spend most of my time on Instagram. And but I am on Facebook as well on Twitter on Pinterest. And I have started my own vlog on YouTube, which I’m trying to grow so any follows on any platforms to be honest, any support much appreciated. And please do drop me a line if you want to collaborate and equally so my website is JamJarGill.com and you can find out everything about me on there. And actually there’s a tab at the top for My latest venture which is being a virtual assistant. And so if you want some help and support in building your business, your small business, from the marketing social media perspective, please click on that and drop me a line on the email on that page.

Laure from @unitoshine 20:20
Thanks, Gill. If anyone wants to connect with you in any way after the slide, everything will be in the comments. So you’ll be able to reach her if you want and if you need if you have any more questions about community and meetup and stuff like that, but hopefully you will join us again next Sunday or next Wednesday. So thanks a lot, Gill, for your time, your knowledge for all of this inside and out to see you again soon on the live.

JamJarGill 20:48
Absolutely. Take care and thank you so much for having me. You’re welcome.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai