Hello students, welcome to the course and myself Professor Sandeep Kumar from Department of Energy Science and Engineering IIT Bombay. So I will be taking this particular module where we discuss about the hydrogen production and hydrogen energy from biomass and coal. So these particular two areas which are also prominent potential sort of source where we can generate hydrogen through it and we will discuss about the overall chemistry and overall process of the hydrogen generation using biomass and coal as a feedstock. So welcome to the course and we will start with the introduction part like when we say about biomass energy biomass is another form of solar energy stored in the chemical bonds. So and it is not about only the biomass energy when we go and discuss about the coal and all of you also know that the coal has also has the origin from the biomass. So lot of things are common when we discuss about the biomass and the coal and also when we discuss about the process there will be lot of commonalities and that is why I want to start with biomass because coal is a refined form of your biomass. So when we say about biomass it is also a indirect form of your solar energy so which is stored in your chemical bonds. So plants typically exhibit 2 to 6 percent radiation to chemical energy efficiency and biomass converts typically means converts hydrogen in the water and takes CO2 from the atmosphere and makes the higher hydrocarbons. And that is a typical photosynthesis process that all of us know about. So biomass typically contains 55 to 65 grams of hydrogen per kg of tri biomass. So this 55 to 65 grams is the bio hydrogen that is contained in the chemical bonds with carbon and the oxygen and other organic molecules. This does not include the moisture and the wet part of the biomass that is in the bounded H2O but not in the chemical bonds. So these are found in the water like we know 90 percent of our body weight is water and lot of biomass that you find in the nature it has lot of water. But when we dry it and when we look only into the chemical sort of formula wise how much is the hydrogen contained in the dry biomass that is around 55 to 65 grams of hydrogen. And this is typically what we are trying to recover and we will see that how we can even get more than that. So now when we come to the biomass potential. So biomass potential typically when we look into they are two different aspects. One is the energy cultivation or what we called as the energy crops like as you might be knowing that Brazil is actually sort of growing sugarcane to harness bioethanol. US they are in the US they are growing sweet corn to harness bioethanol. So bioethanol from sugarcane in Brazil or from sweet corn in US they are actually examples of energy or energy crops or the energy cultivation. So this is one particular aspect other aspect is when we look into the waste. So when we look into the waste we have this forest waste which is the age old practice. These are the logs, chips, barks leaves means if you look into the rural sort of lifestyle they also use these forest waste or the tree waste that falls they do not cut the trees but they collect this waste and this is what forms their cooking fuel for the majority of the rural households this is the sort of fuel for the cooking not on in India but throughout the world this is the still the major cooking fuel comes from this forest waste. So when we look into other waste these are municipal solid waste your agriculture waste and your agro industrial waste. So when we look into the agro industrial waste then it is the waste from the paper mills molasses from sugar refineries means you have biscuit ketchup chips industry and also when they are using any biomass they are not using 100% of that thing to convert it into their desired product but there is a lot of waste generated into it. So just for example molasses from sugar so sugar cane juice is converted into sugar but there is a lot of byproduct and that is molasses and that molasses is predominantly used for your bio ethanol production. So these are some of the things where your waste from industry which is using the agro product or similar things and those waste or byproducts can also be used for some sort of useful purpose or some energy recovery or some chemical recovery and our this particular module of the course will discuss about how we can recover hydrogen from this waste biomass. So another is your agriculture waste. So agriculture waste is typically lot of like these are something which all of us know when we have wheat, when we have paddy, when we have corn the only the fruit part or the seed part is actually desired product or the useful product and rest of the stock of the plant goes as a waste and we all know in the past couple of years the burning of these paddy straw or the agricultural waste in the fields has been a big concern specially in the northern part of the India where it is one of the major reason for the smog or the particulate matter pollutant in the northern part of the India during the winter season. So but yeah this also has a very great potential where we can harness hydrogen from it. And another one is your municipal solid waste. So municipal solid waste is actually all the carbonaceous product, carbonaceous product which has similar sort of you say chemical properties where we have carbon as a source which we can use to harness hydrogen. So when we discuss about the overall chemistry we will be able to appreciate then that whatever the waste that is carbonaceous in nature can be used to sort of harvest the hydrogen from it. There is a matter hydrogen is there in on there is in the feedstock or the waste or not. So it includes this municipal solid waste includes your biodegradable waste in paper paper and inert place like fabrics, cloths and all and even the plastics. Plastics which are carbonaceous in nature can also be used but yeah it is not a biomass but yes it has a potential to get the hydrogen from it. So another aspect when we discuss about biomass as a source for hydrogen or energy or as a renewable energy source then there is a lot of debate there is a lot of debate and we need to understand when we call biomass as a source of energy or as a any useful chemical like hydrogen whether it is carbon neutral or it will be classified as carbon emitter. So there are actually different aspect there is a lot of debate but we need to understand the basic. When we say biomass waste when we use it is carbon neutral then what does it actually mean.  So this leaf through natural process through natural process what will happen it will get decompose some insects or some microbes will work on it and they will recover energy because they are ET these waste or the dry leaf for getting the energy and but it will also release CO2 plus H2O as a byproduct.  So when we say that our energy harnessing process when we say artificial waste then harness energy or chemicals and your CO2 gets released to atmosphere. So the basic crust of this philosophy is of when we say it is something is carbon neutral is does not matter we take whatever the waste through multiple pathway multiple pathway your CO2 will get emitted. One thing is when we burn directly or cut the trees doing the deforestation and all those things doing the CO2 emission then yes we are into the CO2 emission when we say energy plantation. So like we discussed in the previous slide the energy crops it can be classified not a green source we may have deforested we may have cut down the trees or jungle to make the pathway for the growing some sort of energy plant and same thing is been debated like when we say in Brazil there is a debate like when we say that there is a lot of potential in the biomass energy harvest station so but while growing the sugar canes in Brazil they are also absorbing the CO2 in the same way as jungles but there is a lot of concern that when we destroy a jungle it is a complete ecosystem it is a complete ecosystem deforestation and planting a selective trees or a crop does not replace the overall similar carbon potential or carbon potential to absorb the CO2 by a forest ecosystem is much much higher compared to a selective crop sort of cultivation whether it is a sugarcane or a sweet corn or any other sort of biomass especially if we are looking into energy plantation. So then we can say definitely it may not be a carbon neutral system but when we look into any sort of waste whenever we have products recycling anything which comes out of factory agro waste or something as a waste and definitely this artificial waste becomes your carbon neutral. So this is a philosophy about the carbon neutral and we will be in this particular module of the course we will be discussing about harnessing or extracting hydrogen from the biomass but always keep in your back of your mind that yes this source of the biomass should be green source should be coming from waste or if it is from the energy plantation how sustainability should be the question okay. So with that philosophy now we move to the different ways of harnessing energy from the biomass. So this particular slide typically I keep whenever I take any lecture on biomass or bioenergy one of the basic reason that is that I just want to convey that in our society majority of the people they associate bioenergy with this biogas generation. So all of us in our school days in our school days we have studied about the biogas biomethanation and we associated that part as a bioenergy source but that is not the only thing we need to look into the multiple pathways of harvesting the biomass as a source of energy and if we classify it into broader verticals then we have this biological thermo chemical and the chemical. So biological also biogas is not the newest technology that we as a human civilization we know the oldest one is the bioethanol and the combustion process. So bioethanol we all know it is a thousand years ago thousands of years ago human civilization has mastered the way how to have a controlled biomethanation process though it was not used for energy but as a beverage but alcohol is an example of the very good pathway of converting your waste it may be waste or typically when we look into the beverages and all definitely it is not the waste that is being used but as a crop which is being harnessed and converted to alcohol but when we look into the commercial practices getting sort of renewed nowadays especially in India we have a policy the government policy we have the sugar mills cannot throw your bioproduct molasses of the sugar mills in the open they cannot throw it it has to be used and molasses is a very good source or good feedstock for your microbes who generate bioethanol. So the molasses is being diverted for bioethanol production and throughout India minimum 5 percent of that bioethanol is coming in the petrol as a mix. So minimum 5 percent ethanol mix is there in the Indian all the petrol bombs so if you are running your vehicle some part of that petrol that you see is actually bioethanol and that part of bioethanol is actually coming from your biomass waste through this biological pathway of bioethanol generation and second major process is your thermochemical and here also combustion combustion basically nothing but this is your fire we burn the dry wood and we get heat and light and getting the control fire for heating and lighting purpose that is actually the oldest and the biggest achievement of the human civilization or the you can say invention or the innovation that human civilization has got was the having the control fire for the light and the heat. So this has been for thousands of years we have mastered this combustion and bioethanol process but what we are looking into hydrogen they are coming from these two pathway of gasification and paralysis your combustion directly gives you energy gasification and paralysis gives you intermediate fuel intermediate fuel just like your biological process is giving you methane here and giving you alcohol here C2H5OH so these are intermediate you can use it as source of energy and here producer gas which will be having carbon monoxide hydrogen and methane and bio also will be mixture of hydrogen and many higher hydrocarbon. So there will be lot of thing we will discuss in detail about this gasification and paralysis process which gives us this hydrogen which we can harness. Another vertical is your chemical process and the prominent popular pathway that many of you must be knowing is the biodiesel. So biodiesel harnessing from the high fatty acids content of the waste oil or the some seeds like jatropa seed which can be grown in the grown in the arid section and all they are converted to biodiesel using a chemical pathway. So they do not use the biological microbes and all to convert but a standard chemical practice using cattle it is a catalytic conversion process where we convert the fat and the fatty acids in the biomass to the biodiesel. So but our course or this particular module will be focused on these two part gasification and the paralysis and then when we go to the coal we will see that this coal gasification is the pathway for the getting this hydrogen. So moving next into the looking into the biomass composition which can give us a different form of energy. So this we have to look into the perspective that not all the type of biomass can be used in all the process that we discussed in this last slide. So when we also know that for bio gas generation our main is your animal excreta. Animal excreta is the major source or feedstock for your bio gas generation but why why do not you put or what will happen if you put wood pieces or the forest waste dry leaves broken branches coconut shells which are all waste and biomass put it into a bio gas plant what will happen will you get gas maybe no. So many of this process are actually very selective in nature and when we look into typical biomass or woody biomass then our cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin are major component major component of the Buddha biomass and rest other makes around 5 to 13 percent. So there are many other things like when we will talk about fats and proteins they also make the major thing but very specific like if you have seeds like say mustard seed or peanuts they will have very high content of fat some fruits will have a high content of protein or the fats or the sugars but if you look into the total totality of a plant totality of the plant your major component will be this cellulose hemicellulose and the lignin part and this cellulose is basically for your bio gas generation and the simple part of that like simple sugars are used for bio ethanol generation. So typically cellulose which we as a higher animals higher animals cannot digest cellulose. So these tough molecules we do not have enzymes to digest it. So our excreta our byproduct of our digestive system are very rich in cellulose and that is being used for bio gas but when we look into the bio ethanol they need very simple sugars they when they would not be able to digest cellulose and simple sugars are the broken down product of your cellulose. So even if you feed agriculture waste into your bio ethanol plant they will not be able to digest it unless you have this second generation bio ethanol refined reason all but yeah we will not go into the details of that but typically I just want to stress on the point that when we look into these pathways the different pathways are very much selective in the nature of your what type of biomass material can be fed into your for this particular system. So this one bio gas this is cellulose and we look into the bio ethanol it is mainly the simple sugars. When we look into this chemical pathway so this is fats so it will be the fats which will be converted to bio diesel using the chemical pathway. The limitation of the thermo chemical is only it should be dry it should be dry as we know does not matter how much cellulose, semi cellulose or lignin it has you know that if it is a dry wood you can burn it but if it is very much having very high content of your water just say that you have cow dung. Cow dung is a good source for your bio gas generation but it has almost 70 80 percent water content will you be able to fire it no until and unless you dry it to a reasonable moisture level. So you have this dried dung cakes dry dung cakes that is also used as a fuel in many of the rural kitchens the kitchen the dried cow dung cakes which will have a moisture level of less than 20 percent or so you will be able to burn it easily. So that is the limitation of your thermo chemical process but rest of the process they have a very selective nature of what type of fuel you can get and you always keep in mind about this lignin the cellulose and hemicellulose this lignin again we will come back when we discuss about the origin of coal and and that will be a sort of very interesting thing but what was the purpose of lignin and how our coal is mostly derived from your lignin part. But anyway we will continue with that and with this classification so I will just end this particular first module. So what we have understood in this particular first module is the source of biomass how we classify it as green source or the sustainable source or the carbon neutral source. So this is very important when we look into this we are not only concerned about the process but also the origin of the feedstock from where we can get potential hydrogen. So when we look into the biomass and the coal these two are quite separate biomass we see it as a green source or the renewable source but we have to be little bit careful energy plantation and your waste. So these two are two different verticals. So if we are looking into waste waste to any hydrogen production then yes it is carbon neutral it is green it is renewable it is sustainable. But when we look into energy plantation that yes we have to ask 100 questions before we say yes it is sustainable. So we will we have to have this perspective then we look into the different verticals of the biomass conversion process and among that process we have this thermo chemical process gasification and pyrolysis which we are targeting to understand which gives us hydrogen. And then this composition wise what is the typical composition and this is important to understand that our gasification and pyrolysis which are thermo chemical process are independent of these but they have a limitation of the moisture level. The moisture level should be less it should be reasonably dry so that it can be used effectively and efficiently. So with this part I will try to conclude this first module and we will continue with the next module in understanding the thermo chemical conversion process gasification and pyrolysis. Thank you.


Now, for those that don't know what influencers are, these are the people that can influence the decision of purchasing with their followers. Okay, typically speaking, this type of people, they have some following on their account for a specific topic. People follow them because they enjoy what they talk about in their lives, in the brand or whatever niche that they're in. Now collaborating with these people allows your brand to be exposed to their following. And typically what happens is that you're going to provide a free product to these influencers. And in turn, they share their experience with their followers. And if their followers enjoy it and actually were convinced by the influencers, then they would come back to you and purchase from you. So that's what influencer marketing is all about. Now, depending on the size of the their following, they would either charge you a fee to promote for them from anywhere from hundreds of dollars to thousands of dollars. Now, typically this is going to be like a very, very high scale influencer. Okay, and that's not the type of influencers that we're going to be reaching out to. Others would just ask for free products for their followers. So for example, they would be like, Hey, you know what, I want three or four different products. So then that way I can conduct a giveaway to my followers. So then that way they can provide even more value to people that follow them. Or they simply just want to promote for you. So then that way they can create value to their customers and followers as well. Now the three reasons why promoting with influencers are so important and effective. Number one, because they are credible and trustworthy with their own followers. Second, because now we can actually leverage off their exposure exposures that they have spent years building this following and we can get exposed to them real fast. We don't need to create our 10,000 followers, right? Because that takes a lot of time to create. Now, lastly, it also increases your brand value when you work with all these cool kids are on the block. Now let's dive into the reason why specifically. Okay, credibility and trustworthiness. Okay, consumers trust influencers more than advertisements of your specific brand. So when you are telling people how great your product is, it carries no weight at all because everyone toots their own horn, everyone talks about how great their stuff is. No one would be like, yo, my stuff is not that great. Whereas an influencer's reputation is on the line. So for example, if they're willing to promote your brand, if they say that your stuff is good to their followers, it creates 10 times more credibility to the audience. And on top of that, these influencers spend years gaining the trust of their followers, and which is the reason why you can leverage off their credibility and their trust with their following as they promote you. And trust, once again, I always say this, trust is the only reason why anyone will be buying anything from you. Mix up high exposure and be able to leverage off their high exposure. Influencers all have their niche market, whether it be in yoga, whether it be in health or in just motivation, inspiration, because that's how they grow their subscription base, people go to them for a very specific reason. So the followers in the market that you probably don't have access to or that you don't want to spend the time building, now that you get to tap into hundreds and thousands of real life potential customers in a real short period of time, because of this collaboration, you get to get your brand exposed to their followers. And that's what leverage is all about, you leveraging off their customers. And they're basically what they have spent years creating. Now a pro tip to this is that in module one and lesson four, we didn't exercise to find out who your client avatar is, right? So for us, it's Michelle. Now it's a good time to actually check out their Instagram of influencers that they follow. So then that way, for example, if you're selling a vegan protein bar and you check out who Michelle follows, and it just so happens that Michelle follows a yoga influencer, then that is a very good influencer to reach out to because it really matches the value that your client avatar has with their brands and also their consumptions. Now, the last reason why influencers are so important is because it also helps create brand value for your specific product. Why is that the case? Because you are basically associating yourself with people who are the cool kids around the block. I always say this, right? It's like being friends in high school around the cool kids influencers. Nowadays, they are the cool kids, right? So being friends with them and having them promote for you is a really great way to elevate your brand and bring it to light as well when you're first launching. Now, four ways to reach out to your influencers and to create a collaboration deal. First up is to research them. How do you know of influencers locally around where you live? Second, create a list of all these research that you've created, and then now it is time to reach out. How do you cut through the noise and reach out to them? And lastly, how do you maintain that relationship with them? So researching local influencers. Examples, it could be bloggers, photographers, stylists, and use the rabbit hole method to locate these influencers. How do you do that? We're going to dive right in. But if you want additional training on influencer partnership and collaboration, definitely go to the bonuses, right? Go back out into the portal and find one of the bonuses that talks about influencers. And we go in depth about that as well, very similar to what we're talking about in this lesson. Yeah. So what is the rabbit hole method? First up, in your search bar on Instagram, search for locational based hashtags. Okay. And as you can see right here in red, you can just type in your location, whether you're in Vancouver or whether you're in LA, New York, and then add a food related keyword at the end. Majority of the time I would just put in foodie. So for example, I live in Vancouver, which is the reason why I would put in YVR foodie or YVR food influencer, something like that. And the top result is what I would click into. Once I click into the top hashtag results, as you can see YVR foodie, I'll click into it. And then I would see a ton of pictures. And within those pictures, I would choose the ones that has the highest quality. Why is that the case? It is because normal people like you and I, we take good pictures, that's okay. But influencers, it is their job to take great photos. And that's the reason why it is very easy to be able to locate who the influencers are just by looking at the image themselves. And typically speaking, that's how I, that's my frame of mind when I'm choosing which picture to click into. So for example, these ones, I'll click into it because they look nice. Once I click into them, check their profile to see if they're influencers.  So for example, as you can see in the red rectangle box, it says Vancouver foodie right there. And then and on top of that, look at their accounts to see how many followers they have. Typically speaking, I want to be able to locate influencers with at least 2000 followers. Once again, 2000 followers is my threshold, mainly because anything lower, I don't think is substantial enough. And that's the reason why I want them to be able to build a solid foundation before I reach out to them before I know for a fact that they would be able to create results for us. And then once you click into who they follow as well, you're going to be able to see that they follow a lot of influencers as well. As well. So for example, once I click into who they following, who's following them, you can click into following and you can see all these different people and they're all influencers as well, mainly because in the influencer network, they really are a very tight knitted community. So it is really easy for you to be able to uncover more and more influencers just by seeing who they follow. And I have already highlighted to you that these are already all influencers in town. Now, another method is to look at their posts and see who liked and commented on their posts. On top of that, additional hashtags, for example, we started off with YVR foodie. Now, if we want to be able to go into that rabbit hole, we look at different hashtags that they have put in their whole group. Once you can see here, YVR foodie is one of them. YVR food, YVR eats, and those are all additional hashtags that you can do your rabbit hole digging and diving into. Once you click into that hashtag, then you uncover even more photos that you can click into and then even more influencers would show up. And as you continue on this process, you're going to be able to find a lot of different influencers, different accounts and different types of following. Once again, look for the ones that have locational based hashtags because I don't want an influencer all the way across the world to promote for me. I don't want someone to work that is located in New York to promote for me because our customers just don't align, right? We want to be able to find someone who is local. And so by using this technique, you're going to be able to find different influencers who are local and on top of that different hashtags that you can continue this rabbit hole method. Another bonus is that restaurant accounts will often repost photos from influencers. So if there are any accounts and food establishments that you follow, simply look at the tagged posts. As you can see here, the rectangles, once you click onto the little icon on the left lower hand, then it would pop up food influencers that you can click into that has taken that picture for them. And that is another great way for you to find influencers as well. Now that you have understood the rabbit hole method, you can actually go into the link below, download the list that you can start compiling all these influencers for you. So organize these influencers by the number of followers, the type of influencer they are and their contact info. And a lot of times their contact info is located on their Instagram profile. And as you can see here, this is the list of influencers that we have created from this whole rabbit hole method that we have done. You want to be able to have a mix of influencers from different amount of followers. And the reason why is because the following, the follower accounts really dictate what type of influencers that they are. A great starting point of influencers that you should reach out to are people that have around five to 10,000 followers. And the reason is because this type of influencers are keen in finding new products to promote to their followers because they need to create content on the daily. And that's why there's so much more incentivized to promote a brand like yours. They usually only require you to give them free products and they'll be happy to promote for you. Now, from 10 to 20 K is also a great starting point. This group of influencers has now gained some traction and regularly, but different brands would reach out to them and for them to help promote. So they are getting used to getting free products all the time. So you don't, you stop having as much leverage with this type of influencers. They might only still require you to give free products and they'll be more than happy to promote for you. But at this point in time, I have seen influencers ask for $50 to $100 to promote for them. And typically speaking, I don't work with those people because I would love to be able to grow a long-term relationship with my influencers. I like to be able to invest in them from five to 10 K because as you go on and creating these collaborations, they will continue to grow. They would grow from five to 10 K to 10 to 15 K to 15 to 20 K followers. So as they grow and if you already have a relationship with them, many times they don't want to be able to charge you money because they're like, you know what, these guys know what they're doing. These guys are pleasant to work with. And I'll talk a little bit more about how to maintain that relationship later on in this lesson as well. Now, when it comes to followers with 20 to 50 K followers, they have some success and they have been doing influencer marketing for a while now. And these are accounts that you should look into as well because they have a lot of pull. Now this group of influencers are going to be much more selective with the people and brands that they work with because they have found their voice. They have found that niche and they're doubling down on that. And that's the only reason why they're able to grow to this amount of followers because their voice is super important. Their brand is much more defined now. So if they're very, they're much more vocal about the brands that they support, whether it's vegan only, right?  That's how they're able to grow their followers. So at this point in time, they'll most likely work with you if and only your items are aligned with their voice and their brand. And on top of that, once again, they might be asking for a small fee, which is very, very acceptable because if you get your product promoted with their followers, you're going to be able to see quite a bit of return. Now 50 K to 100 K people, these guys have made it, okay? They have found their voice and they found their cult following. And this group of influencers usually typically charge you $100 or more if they really like what you have to offer, okay? They might be able to do it for free. But nonetheless, we don't want to tap into this group of influencers at this point in the game. Now it is time for you to reach out. Why would they want to work with you? Identify these things first.  Identifying those allows you to find commonality when you're reaching out to them. You need to understand what's in it for them. They are always thinking about what's in it for them because it's never about you. Once again, it's never about you. This whole process is about the influencer. It's not about how great your stuff is. It's not about the fact that you are the first vegan cookie. I dive deep into this as well in the bonus. Once you come out of the portal in the membership area, click into the bonus area for the influencer bonus module and you're going to be able to see a little bit more about what I'm talking about. Now, how do you reach out? Ask influencers to conduct food reviews of your product. When you're reaching out, either an Instagram DM or email is completely fine. Now, when you're writing, you're going to be asking, Hey, so I understand where to reach out now. What do I write? What should I say? Use the ADA framework. What is the ADA framework? It means initially your first message should grab their attention. What will grab the influencers attention? Majority of time, once again, I'm telling you, this is all about the influencer. It's not really about you. So anything that complements your influencer is a great way to grab their attention. And then what would interest the influencers interest to keep reading? Now that you have grabbed their attention, you can actually put in different topics that would interest your influencer. And usually at this point is when I bring up my own brand that has that commonality with them and that would peak their interest. So for example, if they're focusing on, let's say a vegan fried chicken sandwich, oh, it just so happens that I run a vegan vegan fish and chip shop as well. Okay, you know, that's interesting. My wheels start spinning as an influencer because I'm like, hmm, if I'm already doing vegan and promoting for this vegan chicken place, hey, my followers might like the vegan fish place, brand new, first of its kind in Vancouver. Cool. That's interesting. Now it is time to present the desire, what's in it for them, whether it's a collaboration, whether it is a paid gig, whatever the case may be, what's in it for them. And lastly, what do you want them to do, right? That's the data format when it comes to reaching out and you should definitely follow this template when reaching out because they get bombarded with messages almost every day. And if your message is not clear and if your message doesn't follow this specific framework and you're just always talking about me, me, me, me, me, you're gonna lose them. That's why you need to follow this format. And once again, this whole template is in the link below. Feel free to download it and use it to your liking. This is what we use to reach out to our influencer. So I'm sharing with you what works today. Now as a bonus pro tip, as you can see here, how do you get noticed on Instagram? Now, keep in mind that your influencers are always getting flooded with hundreds of message. So how do you increase your chance of being seen? First up, comment on their captions regularly, guys. Make sure you comment on them so then that way they can get familiarized with your brand and just basically what your handle is. Now, and on that note, always leave a genuine response. Don't just send an emoji because that's just a lack of effort. Okay. And when you're ready to reach out, when you're ready to be like, oh, I want to do a collaboration with them, like five to 10 of their most recent posts. As you can see on the left, this whole GIF, when you like five to 10 of their most recent posts, this is what my feed looks like. This captures my attention. Some guy in Vancouver just keeps liking and commenting my stuff. And I'm just like, oh my goodness, this guy is like, I know this guy now because they keep popping up on my feed. Follow them, comment on their latest posts for them to check their DM. And then you reach out through the DM. DM, it stands for direct message by the way, or email. Okay. As a bonus to hack sometimes, if I really, really want to work with that influencer, I will go on their Facebook platform as well to like and comment their posts as well and do the same method that I'm sharing with you. Now, how do you maintain a relationship? If they reject you guys, don't take it personally. Majority of the time it is always because of timing, because they're either very swamped or it might just not be the right timing. When you're giving them free stuff, they will want to promote for you. Okay. So don't take it personally if they say no, thank them because like I said, it's always a timing issue.  Hey, you know what? Thank you so much for for entertaining this. But you know what? I know timing is not right right now. Is it okay if I reach out in three months time? And if you have that consistency, they will appreciate that, they will respect that, and they will most likely work with you a few months down the road when timing is not an issue no more. But if they say yes, make sure that you're responsive, make sure that you're not leaving them hanging. Okay. Be organized with this whole process. The more organized you are, the more professional you may seem. And the more likely they're going to be working with you. And on top of that, be thankful. They don't have to do this for you. They're doing it for you. It's out of basically their own goodness and their goodwill. So make sure that you are being thankful for them. Now it is your turn. Create a list of minimum 20 influencers from the template below. Use the rabbit hole format. Okay. Now craft out your message by using the data format. With each influencer, you need to cater that message a little bit to make sure that you grab their attention. Okay. And personalize the message to each of these influencers. At least get three influencers to try out your product and share their experience with their followers.