5 Instagram lessons you have to steal from this accountant đ¸
even if your world has NOTHING to do with $$$
When I teach about Instagram, one of the first things I say is this:
Seriouslyâthe best way to improve your social media game is to look at what others are doing well. Look at the style, the length, the format, the design, and the topics of high-performing content. Then apply those insights to your content.
Note: The people, brands, accounts you look at do not need to be in your industry. In fact, itâs usually better if theyâre not. Thereâs so much to be learned from other niches and business types that are pushing the envelope creatively.
Shall we try doing this exercise together?
Iâve chosen the incredible Rachel Harris from @accountant_she to analyse. Rachel is doing amazing things on Instagram in a niche that many would deem boring.
Letâs take a look at 6 lessons we can all learn from her social media content.
1. Turn everyday moments into educational Reels
Rachel is brilliant at turning everyday momentsâa trip to Joe & The Juice, a countryside run, a branded photoshootâinto educational Reels.
Notice the plays on these Reels: 60k, 83k, 2.9m.
These perform so incredibly well because:
The video is authentic and clearly captured on a phone (vs. highly produced video captured by a professional videographer, which doesnât usually perform as well)
Theyâre short (usually no more than 5 seconds long)
The hooksâthe âtitleâ written in text over the top of the Reelsâare specific and intriguing: â3 things you need to understand to claim food & drink to save taxâ / â6 quick tips to save $16,00 in tax before the end of the monthâ / âThe 6 things HMRC look at when youâre investigatedâ.
The âanswersâ to these hooks/titles are written in the caption. This makes the Reels âstickierâ⌠i.e. rather than just watching the video for a couple of seconds and then scrolling on by, people watch the video, get pulled in by the hook, and then expand the caption to read the answer.
Takeaway: Educational Reels are one of the best ways to grow on the platform. Whether youâre an accountant, an interior designer, a copywriter, a boxed wine brand, [insert niche here!], you will have SO much useful information inside your head that you can turn into helpful video content. Make a list of common questions that your ideal customer has. Now turn these into short Reels with juicy hooks written in text over the top.
2. Re-use the same video clips
Looking through Rachelâs content, I noticed at least one video clip sheâs used for three separate Reels. This is a fantastic reminder that you donât need to be capturing fresh video footage every single day.
Takeaway: Capture video clips when you can during the week and store them all in a dedicated folder on your phone. That way youâll never run out of content for Reels. If you want to re-use a video clip several times, make sure to leave a gap of 2-3 months since you last shared it.
3. Always use a killer hook (+ subtitles)
A hook can make or break a Reel.
But knowing what makes a good or bad hook can feel a little nebulous.
Imagine youâre scrolling through your busy Instagram feed. A Reel pops up. It has one of these two titles written over the top.
Hook #1 = 3 reasons why accountants have to use practice management software
Hook #2 = What is practice management software?
Which do you watch in full?
I bet youâre thinking #1.
Hereâs why:
The first hook is specific. It includes a number. It speaks directly to the target viewer. And even if the viewer doesnât know what practice management software (PMS) is, they can see by the hook that theyâre going to be given an explanation and a rationale for why it matters to them.
Thatâs not the case with the second hook. With this hook, the viewer isnât being given a clear reason as to why they should keep watching. They thinkâhmm so this account is going to tell me what PMS is, but are they going to tell me why I should care?? SHOULD I care?? Iâm not sure. Maybe not. Thereâs not much urgency hereâŚ
Itâs a subtle but hugely important difference.1
Takeaway: Spend some time thinking about the text you will add over the top of a video (what is known as the âhookâ). Try to be as specific as you can. Treat it like an email subject line or a blog title. Tricks like using a number, starting with words like âHowâ, âWhyâ, âThe secret toâŚâ, and speaking to your viewer (âWhy you have to stopâŚâ / âWhen you finallyâŚâ) work very well.
4. Focus on education + behind-the-scenes
The focus of Rachelâs Instagram strategy is to educate. To demystify the world of tax and accounting for business owners who find it mostly very intimidating.
Most of her content centres around tax/expenses tips and tricks. Not only does this position her as a trusted expert in her field, but itâs also a powerful growth driver on Instagram. Some of the biggest accounts today have grown quickly because they share âedu-tainmentâ.
Alongside this kind of content, Rachel gives her audience a sneak peek into her world. She shares photos and Reels from events, almost every day she posts her work schedule on Stories, and sheâs even started a new â7-figure business owner Whatsapp chatsâ series, which is just genius.
âEvery single post has a purpose. Whether thatâs driving a pipeline of new members of staff into the practice. Whether thatâs taking the team on holiday to create content to further grow that waiting list. Whether itâs bringing clients in. Whether itâs selling our online course that teaches people how to start and scale their own [accounting] practice, every single piece of content you see has huge amounts of marketing strategy behind it.â â Rachel Harris
Takeaway: Lead with value but donât be afraid to pull back the curtain on your world, too. Sharing behind-the-scenes posts like your daily/weekly routine, whatâs been going on in your business, and moments from events and days out humanises your account and builds trust with your audience. Itâs also fantastic for engagement.
5. Donât hold back in the captions
Looking back through Rachelâs content, her captions (for photo and carousel posts) have always been great. However, it seems that her approach to video and captions has changed over the last year.
Her Reel captions used to be very short, sometimes only a sentence or two long, with most of the âmeatâ of the post being delivered in the video.
Now, Rachel has optimised her content so that rather than create longer Reels with all her wisdom shared in the video, she creates short videos to hook people in and then delivers the education or the storytelling in the caption.
Takeaway: Donât scrimp on your captions! Captions are your opportunity for connection and engagement, and youâll never get this by writing 1 or 2 sentences and not including a call-to-action.
đĄ What did you think of this account analysis?
Do you have questions?
Would you like more of this in the future?
Iâd love to hear from you in the comments below. Letâs chat!
Incidentally, hook #2 is a hook that Rachel has used before. However, Iâm going to let her off the hook (sorry đŹ) because 99% of her hooks are so, so, good.
loved this Bella, i seriously struggle with this kind of stuff as an artist. Feel that if i do the education bit though that I'll attract fellow artists rather than collectors? I need to keep working on it all kx
This is brilliant, Iâm going to try the first one now!