80. What are three things you should know about Instagram?
When it comes to marketing on Instagram, is posting enough? 📸 Spoiler: No. In this one-on-one episode, Phil and Lauren dish on all the latest techniques for improving your Instagram presence—from tools to strategies. If you're feeling uninspired or lost with your own Instagram presence, give this episode a whirl!
This episode is sponsored by savethechildren.org .
Episode Transcription
Phil
This episode is sponsored by savethechildren.org. Save the Children believes every child deserves a future. In the United States and around the world, they work every day to give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. Right now, the Coronavirus is the biggest global health crisis of our lifetime threatening children in every way. COVID-19 has already left many children without caregivers, out of school and exposed to violence and exploitation, child poverty is rising. With your support this organization can help children in unsafe households and help support distance learning in the face of school closures. Even $5 can buy a baby's first book providing comfort and inspiring lifelong love of learning. Go to save the www.savethechildern.org/savekids to LEARN MORE now on to the show.
Phil
Well hello and welcome to Brand Therapy. This is the podcast where we help you position, build and promote your brands. I'm Phil.
Lauren:
And I'm Lauren.
Phil:
And I'm just so happy you're here. I'm happy when you're here for any of our episodes, but I'm especially happy that you're here right now, because we're going to talk all about one of our favorite topics. And in fact, it's one of those topics that we get asked about probably more than anything else. Maybe branding might be number one, but number two is definitely this topic.
Lauren:
Shall I give it away?
Phil:
You can, sure?
Lauren:
It's so funny. I always feel silly in these audio recordings where I say “today we're gonna be talking about this” because aren't the listeners selecting the episode and seeing the episode title? So anyway, grand reveal. We're gonna be talking about Instagram today. Phil, you at the time of this recording, you are working day and night on a new Instagram Mastery course. So you are living and breathing Instagram.
Phil:
I live Instagram. I sleep Instagram. I breathe Instagram. In fact, I woke up at 1am last night with an idea for one of the modules.
Lauren:
Did you really?
Phil:
Yeah, this is what happens like I tell you, we can only do one new course a month, because it takes everything inside of me. I love filming them, and I love all the little bits of putting a course together but the thing that I find challenging is writing them. People might not know if you've taken any of my courses before I script, every word of it. Just because I feel like it helps me deliver a better end product, no arms, no tangents, just the things you need to know. So yeah, that was my tangent about tangents.
Lauren:
Amazing.
Lauren:
So for today's episode, I want us to have a really honest discussion about three things that People underestimate most or should rethink with Instagram. Now, any Instagram course out there is going to say things like, post consistently or figure out your aesthetic and I'm challenging you, Phil to come up with something different. Yeah, because Instagram is so complex. And there are so many different ways to come up with a strategy, but I feel like there are some things that successful people on Instagram do that perhaps our listeners might not be aware of.
Phil:
Mm hmm. And one of the compliments I got recently about the last course I did Email Mastery, was that someone said they learned in 90 minutes a video from me, what would have taken them 100 hours to learn on their own.
Lauren:
Oh my gosh, I love that compliment.
Phil:
And I feel not that I'm inviting that compliment, but I think I'm going to hear that again. Because truly, it's like going to war. I go out there, I research and I try to download things. It's like I am emerging in this topic, this one and only topic. So it's Tuesday, I take a breather. And then tomorrow I'll go back through the stuff that I'm working on, but it's cool. And I have some ideas on where to take this conversation.
Lauren:
Perfect. Okay, so what is the first thing that you wish people would rethink, or do with Instagram?
Phil:
The first thing is to be consistent on your platform. So That was a joke on this recording. That was a prank!
Lauren:
You're always going off script, so I never really know.
Phil:
No, you never know with me. So while I do talk about that, it’s not the sexy part! A better way to answer it would be they give you ways, tangible ways that help you be consistent instead of just saying, be consistent. I hate this high level shit. Do you want to know something else? And actually, do you want to know something else? I read recently about someone who is talking about not being consistent and actually challenged this idea. Because will your social media or will your specifically your Instagram be hurt by you being silent for a week? Potentially? Would it be better if you weren't silent? Would it be better if you were posting every single day? Yes. However, what they brought up that I thought was better. They said, even if your Instagram strategy is hurt, temporarily for a week, your mental health might be improved. And isn't that kind of more important? That was the first time I read something like that. And I took a big, deep breath, because sometimes I will go a week without posting even though that's not what I teach. I think in an ideal world, you should be posting every day and you should set up your brand to be able to facilitate that to help you not hinder.
So from when we think about the fall, do you remember prior to that, I would fuss over every post? I would be retouching it in Photoshop for two hours, just to get it to look consistent with the colors of the posts that I just posted. Then I'd send it over to you for a caption, no, I'd send you over my plan feed and you would say, that one looks bad, that one looks bad. Then back to the drawing board.
Lauren:
Yeah, back to the drawing board after hours.
Phil:
And I would realistically post three times a month on Instagram because I was so worried about the photos looking perfect. And then in January, I made the observation that I'm seeing more text on feeds. And not that that was anything new, but I was starting to notice particularly in the design community, that we were starting to see carousels, really cool. And I thought, god that's so different from what I do, but clearly what I'm doing is not working. What if I was to start to create some templates to be able to get text on feed. And now those are the posts of mine that actually perform the best.
Lauren:
I don't know I feel like I agree with you. If you hadn't taken yourself out of that crazy editing dungeon that you created for yourself, you would have never had the clarity to switch up your strategy. So I know that we said today we're not going to be talking about being consistent, but I guess we are a little bit.
Phil: I ended up talking about that. But, so let's say point number one is set yourself up for success and ease instead of failure and the dungeon that is perfection is how it would sound. Set yourself up for success. Create tools, have your visual brand, decide your fonts, your colors, and experiment with the different types of posts. I talked about this in the course. Experiment with different types of posts that you can be inspired by what other people do and other things you see on platforms like Pinterest.
Lauren:
Okay, makes sense. What's the second thing that someone should know about Instagram?
Phil:
The second thing someone should know about Instagram is that it is effectively for social media platforms. Instagram has been really smart with how they've grown. Right? So they took market share away from Snapchat when they released their version of snapchat Instagram stories. Did you know, this is even a somewhat outdated stat, that over a billion people log into Instagram at least once a month. And 500 million people are active on stories every day.
Lauren:
Really?
Phil:
Over half of all users are active on stories every single day. Not posting necessarily, but watching them consuming this newer vertical of Instagram.
So, Gone are the days where you think of Instagram just being about what you post on your feed, or what you see other people posting. I would argue that Instagram is for social media platforms, your feed, how it started, and how we know it, right? Probably the most curated version of you where you tell your story and show your best visuals and put your best foot forward.
Also stories, is more fleeting, in the moment, behind the scenes type daily, temporary updates, not daily. I actually don't update daily. I updated a story today that was not business related. Sometimes I forget. Does anyone actually care about what I'm thinking about right now? At 6:45 this morning and I was like, wow, look at me doing the same thing I did yesterday, which is the same thing I did the day before. I wake up, I put my slippers on that my grandmother knit, then I go make my coffee with my aeropress which now you use, because I told you to get one. I do the same thing every day.
And to be fair, I said then I unpause my inbox, acting like that is something I do all the time, when actually.
Lauren:
Well, you always do this. But as a side note, this is a perfect example. It was the first time we went to Stockholm. And they have such good coffee in Stockholm. You had been drinking coffee for about five days. And you told everyone how much you love coffee and how you're such an avid coffee drinker and we would drink coffee for maybe 1/200 th of your entire life. And now, look at you. You're into inbox pause, which was my thing that you would frequently tear me apart for because I wasn't checking my email like a freaking Energizer Bunny every two minutes.
Phil:
And I'd be Lauren, let me guess you didn't know that that client paid their invoice because your inbox is paused.
Lauren:
And I'll find out in four hours.
Phil:
This isn't about Instagram, this is another tangent, but it is kind of funny that sometimes I take credit or I razz you about something you use or something you do, and then I go and do it. Oh, this is amazing. Yeah. So this was my Instagram story today.
Lauren:
Maybe we'll have a podcast episode talking about inbox pause.
Phil:
We could, actually, and I'm using it a bit differently than you so you have your setup on a schedule. I'm still using inbox pause for free for the very simple mechanism of turning inbox pause on when I need to work on a task and focus and then off when I get five minutes of break. And then what happens is, basically, it's cool too, because you just set it up on the browser, or direct as an extension, I use mine in Firefox or Google Chrome.
Basically, you just pop it and create a button in your interface when it's installed. You just pause it, and no emails come in while you're focused until you unpause it. And I get between 10,15, 20,25 emails. Amazing the emails I get per day, and those all roll in at once, which means instead of spending one separate time block on one particular email, which by the way, I've actually started timing myself with each email. Do you know that it's rare that I spend less than five minutes on one email, if I'm dealing with it one to one. Whereas with inbox pause when 20 emails come in, it takes me a fraction of the time to sort them all out.
Lauren:
Because you're just going through them time right in one go.
Phil:
Yeah, exactly. Rather than stopping what I'm doing, going to my inbox to check then going back to my task and getting called constantly interrupted. This has nothing to do with Instagram, but it is valuable for us. So this is a little bonus that we'll probably talk about in detail later. But this was my Instagram story today. And I have when I opened my Instagram now 10 unread messages of people just interested in what I'm doing, you don't always have to talk about business, right?
So stories is that second vertical I was talking about where it's kind of more fleeting, it's in the moment, and then the other two I'll go through even quicker.
In the course it's quicker as well, Live, which very few people use more people are using at this particular moment in time during self quarantine. But it still is a good way to create content, build confidence, really beneficial for more selfish ways, become comfortable speaking, deliver engaging content, with a few bullet points in the course. It's really cool.
I'm proud of this, I give people a digital download. That's one sheet Instagram Live planning doc, a template like a worksheet. A checklist that allows you to fully prepare, say the right things, know how long you should go on for, even having a guest, which would get you in front of their audience.
Still to this day, there's no other way to notify your audience, when you are creating content, that's free. Right? You could pay for a Facebook ad and get in front of your audience. But actually still, when you go live, your audience gets notified. And that is super cool.
And the final one would be IGTV, which is a vertical video. It could be horizontal, but then you're not really taking advantage of the full real estate available to you. But this was Instagrams answer. So stories were their answer to Snapchat, Instagram IGTV, rather, is their answer to YouTube. So it’s watching longer form content, more serialized types of content. So in fact, my IGTVs are mostly promoting this podcast.
I'll put up a little clip of whoever we chat with, and I'll tell people, this is just a little preview here on IGTV to listen to the full episode, go over to iTunes, Spotify or Spreaker. Right and so grabs people's interest that allows them to engage with video that's longer than one minute, because that's what you're limited to on your feed.
So there you go, four distinct verticals of Instagram. Look at it that way, almost like four different social media platforms.
Lauren:
So when you're saying people should be looking at this in different ways, can you expand on that? What does that mean? For example, if someone has a post, they're gonna be putting on their feed, should they be posting that feed everywhere on the three other verticals? Or should they be thinking about different ways to publish? Expand on that for me?
Phil:
I think they should be thinking about different ways to communicate, what's interesting in your world, to someone who's interested in your world. So if something could be mentioned, casually, then describe it in your stories. If something is a bit more curated, put together informative, then it probably belongs on your feed, or IGTV.
But then you also have the ability to cross promote on this wonderful platform. So if it's a longer form video, for example, throw it on IGTV and then promote a preview of it on your feed. You should do that almost always when you post an IGTV, because you will get far more views and interest by pushing it to your feed as a preview, right. So same thing, go live with a guest, immediately now after their recent update, you have the ability to push that live to your IGTV so that it lives longer. If someone is going to be interested in what you created, but didn't get a chance to catch the live. It doesn't get posted to your story for 24 hours, now. You have the ability to post it to their IGTV. Let's say you post a brand new feed post, go ahead and throw that in your story. Don't assume that just because you created Did it the audience You've worked hard to build? I'm going to see it. They might not. There's all kinds of factors that determine whether or not all of your followers see your content.
Hint, the algorithm. So actually, can we move on to point number three?
Lauren:
Yes please.
Phil:
So point number one was, set yourself up for success. Point number two was, to think of Instagram as four I said five verticals. Let me finish that thought. Move on to point number three.
Lauren:
Mysterious number five.
Phil:
Yes. Mysterious. Number five is not my own idea. But my dear friend, Brian, who's the Instagram Stories guy, thebkh, on Instagram. He describes not as verticals but as neighborhoods. He said there are five neighborhoods on Instagram and the fifth one is DM’s.
So I want to bring in another guest's thoughts, which is my friend Jenny Melrose who says, bloggers (that's her audience )influencers, stop worrying about getting to 10 K. so you get the swipe up feature. The swipe up feature is so overrated. Very few people actually swipe up and want to leave Instagram.
Lauren:
Do they really?
Phil:
I'm lucky if I get 14 swipe ups on a post. People don't care, they don't want to leave Instagram. They're on Instagram because they want to be on Instagram. They don’t want to leave it for whatever you're trying to promote them.
Lauren:
I will say I find swipe up really annoying because you're still in Instagrams interface and then it's really challenging to navigate and explore and shop. If you're browsing a site from within Instagram swipe up, do you know what I mean?
Phil:
I don't think Instagram will actually change that anytime soon because they don't want you swiping up they don't want you leave.
Lauren:
Yeah.
Phil:
So Jenny Melrose says, a better tactic is to have someone vote in a poll, and then you can DM them. So I see, for example, let's give another shout out to my friend Sophia, from Veggies Don't Bite. She put a recipe on her story, and honestly, this recipe looked so freaking good. And she said DM me for the recipe. Sophia has way more than 10,000 followers, but she still even with more than that is telling people to DM her for the recipe. Why? Because it starts a conversation. Then she sent me a message this morning. or late last night,” here you go bitches”, which I thought was hilarious. That’s her brand voice, it kills me. The best, thick vegan smoothie bowl with this amazing photo.
And so this is an example of even if you can swipe up, don't do it because it's a passive interaction. It's much better to start a conversation with someone.
Lauren:
Oh my gosh. And it also makes me think you know how we're seeing all these influencers, It started with Amy Schumer, creating phone numbers that you could text her to, and get texts and daily texts and stuff. It almost seems pointless because in a way Instagrams already offering something very similar to that with DMs, if the Creator is good at responding to DMs?
Phil:
Yes, absolutely. So I just thought I would add that fifth one. I love that thebkh’s five neighborhoods. So those verticals plus the ability to communicate and connect with people is number five.
Lauren:
He's a smart guy.
Phil:
I mentioned point number three, I started telling you point number three and then went back to point number two. Now we're at number three, the algorithm. Having prepared the material for this course, I can finally tell you, I actually understand how the algorithm works, or at least what the best theory about the algorithm is because they don't actually publish any of the intricate details about the algorithm, but it was explained in one of my sources online. It was extremely Really well, do you want me to explain it to you?
Lauren:
Yes, please.
Phil:
So think of it this way you post on Instagram. And that post is shown to a handful of users. Those users specifically, are your followers that are online at that moment. Make sense, right? But not everyone online is going to see it at that exact moment. It depends on lots of factors.
But imagine this. You post on Instagram, it's seen by a handful of people that follow you that are online. What also happens is Instagram shows you that same user, other content by other creators, and it's measuring and noticing and paying attention to how you engage with that content. Do you like it? Or do you more meaningfully engage with it by giving it a comment or a share or a save? Or do you ignore it? And if you're choosing to engage with others, content, besides that one piece of content then Instagram basically assumes that it's not as relevant to you. Whereas when your content is getting a lot of engagement in that small, almost beta group, like a test group, which is your followers that are online, then if it does well, in that initial test, it will be served to more people.
So for example, when you click on the discover tab, on Instagram, you're seeing content solely from people that you're not following yet that Instagram thinks you might want to follow based on your interest and based on your behavior.
So I thought that was interesting, right?
Lauren:
Yeah. And it makes perfect sense. So basically, does a creator use that to their advantage? It's by paying attention to engagement and really paying attention to what your followers want from you, right? Because if they're not giving you your posts attention, they're going to be giving someone else's posts attention and taking away opportunities of exposure for you.
Phil:
Right. And I never thought of it almost as like a bidding system, in a way. It's almost like you're thrown into a bid with a few other competitors. And they're watching to see behavior. And that's how they're determining automatically, what, you know, serving up people, things that they want to see. And we always see this stuff that's like, oh, the algorithm is, you know, awful, change it back to how it used to be, when it was chronological, and all this stuff, but it's so dumb. I really think this is like a you can't beat them join them mentality rather than complaining about the algorithm, why don't you understand it, so that you can behave accordingly and be strategic about getting your content in front of the people that want it.
Lauren:
Completely. I have always been very pro algorithm because to me, algorithms are that platform's way of ensuring that a user isn't being spammed with marketing bullshit, instead they're seeing posts that they really want to see. I think that's a good thing. And I think that sometimes ego as a marketer can get in the way of making decisions based on value. If you're mad that your posts aren't getting a lot of impressions or if you're mad at the algorithm, because your posts aren't getting the engagement that you wanted, pull up a mirror and consider the fact that maybe what you're producing right now isn't appealing to people. And that's on you. That's not on the algorithm.
Phil:
Oh, bossy. You're getting very heated.
Lauren:
I guess I'm very passionate. But don't you agree, though?
Phil:
I do agree. 100%. I think it's very ego driven. I agree. If someone says, well, the algorithms wrong or the algorithm is disappointing. It's like no, you're the problem, not the algorithm. The algorithms help people see more of the types of things that they want, which will make them use the app and make them stick around more, which is obviously what Instagram’s goal is. The problem isn't the algorithm, the problem is you?
Lauren:
Yeah. And if you think about it in terms of TV, when you're watching a TV show, and commercials come on, those commercials have been specifically bought and sold because of the type of person who watches that TV show. And that's a marketers attempt at being relevant and reaching people. But do people actually pay attention to commercials? No, they pay attention to the show itself, because the show is where value comes from. And so with Instagram, for example, I feel it's the responsibility of the creator or the marketer to make sure that you are constantly providing value, entertainment, education, whatever form it is, but something that's a value to users instead of promoting yourself.
Phil:
100%. There's also so much information out there on this topic, that I'm the first to claim in an Instagram course, I'm not going to teach you absolutely every aspect of this platform. But I will attempt to teach you only the most important things you need to know, so that I'm respecting your time. You know, respecting the time you have to work on you, your marketing minutes, your self improvement minutes, or education, minutes, whatever you call them. I'm respecting your time to teach you what I think are only the most important things so that you can go and do.
So some of the themes that we talked about, and this obviously came up in the course. Obviously, this is my third installment of my Mastery course additions, which have done quite well and I've received amazing feedback on those. So if Instagram is a topic you're interested in, you want to learn and you want to have someone else do all the heavy lifting for you so that you just have to learn only the most important things you might want to check it out.
Lauren:
So this episode at the time of recording is scheduled to release on May 28. Where can someone your Instagram course? Should they DM you?
Phil:
Yeah, you can DM me and I'll send you the link, and a special promo code. You can also check our website, philpallen.co. I'm going to be talking about this a lot at the time that this episode is released all across my social platforms. So also, if you have any questions about it, reach out to me. I'm happy to answer any of those and point you in the right direction to see if this is right for you.
Lauren:
Cool.
Phil:
If you learned something new today, which hopefully you did, we would love to hear from you #brandtherapy across social media. I'm @philpallen.
Lauren:
I'm @thelaurenmoore.
Phil:
And one thing we would love and by the way, a few of you have done this since the last podcast episode and know just how much we appreciate that. If you enjoyed this episode or you enjoyed listening to us talk, then go to iTunes and leave us a review. This helps other people discover this podcast that we work very hard to create.
Lauren:
Perfect.
Phil:
You know how it works. We'll be back again with a brand new episode. We will see you then back here on Brand Therapy. Thanks so much for hanging out with us.
