Strategies for Mastering Instagram for Business & Personal Branding

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Welcome to today's episode.

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Our guest today is Corey.

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She is the author of two books Instagram for Dummies and Instagram for Business for Dummies.

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So she has co-authored both of these books and she runs her own marketing agency called the Marketing Specialist.

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Welcome to the show, thank you.

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Thanks for having me.

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Specialists.

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Welcome to the show, thank you, thanks for having me.

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So why don't you give us a little bit more about who you are and what you do?

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Sure, I'm really an agency owner first, so I've had my marketing agency for gosh like 18 years before it was.

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Now it's a digital marketing agency.

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It wasn't digital before because it didn't exist.

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So, yeah, I've been working with several clients, both some larger corporate clients, but I really love working with those small businesses because I feel like I can make a bigger impact working one-on-one with them.

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So I've been doing that for years and my main area of focus is social media marketing and email marketing.

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Awesome.

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You should know that I am also very old.

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I am older than digital marketing, I am older than Instagram, older than the internet, but just means that we're very wise and it's been a fun, fun journey indeed.

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Yes, yes.

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So why don't you share with us a story about some of the best marketing you've done on this journey that you're the most proud of?

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Okay, one story that came to mind one of my clients I still work with.

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I've been working with them for over 15 years.

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It's a large healthcare company and I work with their hospitals, and so one of the marketing campaigns that I suggested and we ended up doing was an employee spotlight campaign.

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A lot of times what happens with medical groups and hospitals as the doctors get all the big stories, they might be at the media coverage for some new type of surgery, they're doing things like that, but some of the people that are the backbone of hospitals don't get that recognition day to day.

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So I said why don't we do an employee spotlight, that's on the nurses, the facility staff, the people in the kitchen?

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And so what we did is we put together a list of questions, and it was probably about 10 questions, and some of them were what is your job?

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What do you love about your job?

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All that type of focus.

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But then some of it was fun Just what was the first concert you ever went to?

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What's the best thing that you're working on at home?

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What's your favorite series on TV?

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Things like that, yeah.

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So we had them fill those out and then I went to the hospital and just took photos of all these people.

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So I spent a couple different days and this hospital network there are six different hospitals.

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I had to go around to each of the hospitals and take these photos and we would post them probably two or three times a month with their story.

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And that got just amazing response from the employee side because they felt like, oh, people really do recognize what I do every day.

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And then just so many patients and their co-workers left all these amazing comments and so it made that person feel good.

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But then it also from a marketer standpoint, the engagement was just insane.

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So that was one of my favorites and it turned out really well.

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And so I do with several of my clients.

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I will do kind of employee spotlights because they know that they work so well.

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I love that, because people don't really buy from organizations, they buy from other people.

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In the case of your example of being a hospital, they don't really get treated by the hospital.

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They get treated by the people who work at the hospital.

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So I think that's a great social campaign to bring people closer to the people that would take care of them.

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And I think that concept more widely for businesses can really be helpful in helping grow the business, because people buy from other people, not really from restaurants that I work with and we've done a similar campaign with everyone from the waiters to the hosts and the back kitchen area and the bussers, and it always goes well, because you have those people that come in once a month, once a week even, and they just say oh, I love Sonia or whoever it is.

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So it always is a hit.

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Yeah, I think also, another key that you mentioned is employee recognition is something there's never enough of in any organization, and I think back to the pretty historic days when they just had the poster on the wall, like in the break room employee of the month, and that didn't really give that much recognition really, when you think about it.

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But it was something, but it was something.

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But I think this is a much more modern version of that.

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That is powerful because it allows people to engage with it, it puts it out there broadly in front of the customers as well as their colleagues, and it's just a great way to, I think, build loyalty on all sides, like you said.

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So that's awesome.

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Question for you about the two books that you co-authored.

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I'm curious why did you pick to focus on Instagram?

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It came to me.

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So I, as a social media agency owner, I was already working with Instagram, both for promoting my business and my clients' businesses.

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One of the co-authors, Eric Buteau, was already working on several dummies books and they had approached him about doing an Instagram for dummies.

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Actually, the first one was Instagram for business for dummies and he said I can.

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He knows, there's a template when it comes to dummies, but there's a certain voice, there's a certain he knows how to put the book together from that standpoint, but he wasn't an Instagram expert.

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So he said I need to find someone to co-write this with me that can really lend that expertise.

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We've known each other for a long time, so he approached me about it and I said, absolutely, and so that's how it started.

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And then we are currently working on our third edition of Instagram Business for Demi.

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So, in fact, this afternoon I have to write a chapter and then we've already completed two versions of Instagram for Demis, which is more for just anyone.

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It's right back there Anyone that's learning more about Instagram for personal use.

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And I have to share with everyone listening that I did ask Corey for some advice about the most important job I have, which is being the social media manager for my French bulldog puppy, princess and her Instagram page.

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Actually, the whole point of this podcast is to get followers for my puppy's Instagram page, which is Keeping Up with Lexi Eden.

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Please go follow it now.

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Like all of her reels.

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She's doing pretty well, but Cora's giving me some good tips on how to take it to the next level and I feel like that's my most important job is being her social media manager.

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Outside of all my other jobs, I think this is the one that I'm most passionate about because she's so adorable.

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But sorry, plug aside.

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In all seriousness, what do people need to know about Instagram for business?

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First of all, they should get the book.

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But assuming they're going to get the book, what's a teaser of what people should know about Instagram for business?

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One of the big things is consistency, and this is on any platform.

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You really need to be consistently out there.

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So a lot of times a business will say, oh, we just want to do a post a month and like, you can do that, but you might as well do zero because it's not really going to do anything for you.

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Instagram really likes that regular content coming.

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The algorithm likes that regular content coming.

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The algorithm likes that regular content coming.

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It's going to get people coming back to your page and it's going to get Instagram to really suggest your page to others.

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So the more information you can put out there that either helps people, amuses people or really gives people a story to follow, that's going to help your page grow.

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The other thing Instagram just came out with was they are updating the algorithm once again, and this time it is to help some of those smaller creators.

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I don't know if you've noticed.

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If you're on Instagram a lot, you're probably getting recommendations for some of these bigger accounts and a lot of times they're just aggregating other people's reels and so they're not creating any content that's their own.

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They're just copying someone else's reel like directly, not even trying to remake it into their own and putting it out there.

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So they're shoving those lower in the algorithm.

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But any original content that you can do is going to be best, and still focusing on Reels is going to help you more than probably anything else.

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So I think Reels is at the top of the algorithm.

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They really are still pushing those not as much as in the beginning, but they are still pushing them.

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They're constantly fighting TikTok for those short form video views and what happens with TikTok, who knows.

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But yeah, so they're always fighting against that.

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So Reels is always going to be a good bang for your buck.

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It takes a little bit more work probably than a regular post, but it is going to perform better.

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Typically, carousels do well and I like carousels because you can tell a whole story in a carousel.

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So a carousel would be maybe five images and you just have to scroll through them.

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Those are nice for sharing.

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If you said I've got five tips and each of the pages could be one of those tips, like I said, it's positively reinforcing.

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That is content that people are interested in because they're willing to stick with it.

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The other nice thing about carousels is if someone views your carousel on the first page and then say, an hour later they go back on Instagram and they're scrolling through.

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They will automatically see your second page, so it's going to keep going through.

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If they keep seeing your post, it's going to be almost like a little mini drip campaign and keep going.

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Those are cool.

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And then sharing stories just about your day, about what's going on behind the scenes, is also really helpful.

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That's interesting.

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I didn't realize some of those dynamics about carousels and I had uncovered that Reels is probably the best way to get more bang for your buck or more distribution, but it's a little bit more work, is one of the coolest, easiest video editors to use.

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If you shoot a video with your iPhone, it's darn easy to edit it and put music to it or a meme to it or whatever.

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Right, I think it's pretty easy.

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For sure, and a lot of times people now what's more popular is just doing B-roll.

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It could just be you at your desk doing something and then you've got some tips that are over it.

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Or, like for you with your dog, just taking a video of your dog running across a field and then sharing some information above that, and those can be super easy.

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They could be 10 seconds long, so that B-roll can come in handy.

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Yeah, one of the things.

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I don't know if you recommend this, but you can tell me if I'm following your best practices.

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I'll watch all the other Frenchie reels and you can click on.

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If one has a great meme soundtrack that 10,000 people have used, you can click on that, save it and then shoot a video that matches your version of that and play that sound and that gets a lot of people to view the reel who are just going through and listening, looking at all the reels for people who have used that sound.

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Is that something that?

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Is that really a thing or is that just a tangent?

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I'm off on.

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No, it can be.

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Yeah, definitely, using trending audio can be a help.

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If you can get it in its early stage, when it's on the way up, you're going to do better than if it's already got a million people using that audio, then it's done its thing and it's not going to be that helpful to you, but it is true, if you can use that trending audio and then if it gets on that trending audio on the audio page, I'll do that.

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Sometimes I'll find an audio I like and then I see what other people are doing with it and so I can put my own spin on it.

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So that is a way that you could possibly get more followers, as if it is, if it does land on that audio page and people start reviewing it for ideas.

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What are some of the most successful Instagram business successes you've seen?

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I work with some realtors.

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I've seen them get really creative with what they're doing with Reels.

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A lot of people are just really jumping on the Reels wagon and being creative with it.

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So I can't think of like a specific one off the top of my head, but yeah, I'm finding a lot of realtors are using them, even businesses that you wouldn't think would have a good presence, like the TSA.

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Have you ever looked at the TSA's Instagram?

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presence.

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No, like you would think, oh, that seems really boring, but it's not.

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It's just some fun things and some of it's like some other really weird stuff that goes through the x-ray machine and things like that, yeah.

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But I think the biggest thing is if you can be humorous, if you can really share something that other people aren't sharing.

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Some kind of top tips or information seem to be really popular, and then also showing a process from beginning to end.

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So I've seen a lot of people that refinish furniture say and they'll say, oh, I got this on the side of the road and watch what I do with it.

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So those can be, those can do really well, because people have this natural desire to see something completed.

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So you see something junky and you want to say, oh, what are they going to do with it?

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So you'll sit through it.

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All of that sitting through is watch time, and all of that watch time is going to help your reels get further in the algorithm, because Instagram thinks people love it and people do, because that's the nature of wanting to see some completion makes sense.

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So do you think that all of this drama with tiktok is going to be a win for instagram?

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More people using instagram because they think it's going to be around instead?

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yeah, personally I'm not big on tiktok.

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Sometimes I'll put some of my reels out there.

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But I do know if I was a TikTok influencer, I would definitely be starting to port some of my content over to Instagram as a safety measure, or YouTube shorts, things like that.

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So a lot of them were doing that anyway, but a lot of them were really like TikTok first and Instagram.

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Yeah, I'll just repurpose stuff over here, but I think people will start really putting a bigger concentration on Instagram because we don't know what's going to happen with TikTok.

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I would think that they would get a buyer, but then I think I just saw a newsflash that ByteDance might be trying to sue, saying they can't be forced to sell.

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So I don't really know what's going to happen.

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But I do know if I was a TikTok influencer, I would be beefing up my Instagram account right now.

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Yeah, I think it's got to be a win for Instagram and Meta.

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Just the uncertainty of it.

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I think they're definitely going to sue O'Leary for Shark Tank, who has all these videos talking about how he's getting together 7 million people to crowdfund buying it.

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And even he, when he's talking about this, has this thing that I don't know if I can buy the logarithm.

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I don't know if I can buy all the old videos.

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There's still a lot of questions.

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Even if someone buys it, I was like, oh yeah, what do you get?

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I don't know if I can buy all the old videos.

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There's still a lot of questions.

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Even if someone buys it, I was like, oh yeah, what do you get?

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I don't know.

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Yeah, those are good sort of points, but I think the uncertainty drives people to use other platforms.

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Why would you invest in something that might go away?

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I mean, I felt the panic from influencers on TikTok when Trump threatened to ban it years ago.

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They just completely flipped out.

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So I haven't seen the same level of flip out.

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But I think a lot of people are like okay, we've been through this before.

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Now we have to make sure we're replicating things on Instagram and we're building up things to other channels.

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So I think it's interesting.

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We've been interesting times.

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Final thoughts what should people know about Instagram, or social media marketing more broadly, to be successful here in 2024?

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Yeah, One more big thing that I didn't touch on is engaging.

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Big thing that I didn't touch on is engaging, One of the best things that you can do.

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Not only is it important to get your content out there on a regular basis, but engage with some of those other accounts.

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And by engaging I don't mean just liking something.

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I mean leaving a meaningful comment that shows that read what the caption says, or reacting to the video.

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That can be a great way to build up your following.

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If someone puts out some information and you put some thoughtful comment that talks about why you agree with it, then people might start visiting your page and also the person that posted the video is more likely to engage back with you if you leave a comment versus just liking something.

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What would you say is the hardest thing about people being really successful on Instagram?

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When I talk to especially small business owners, the biggest thing is finding the time to do it, and even I struggle with that.

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So, yeah, finding the time to do it.

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If they're not creative, if they feel like, oh, I can't do it real, like I'm not funny or things like that, so it's time, it's creativity and then just feeling, is this all worth it?

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And it is worth it if you do it the right way.

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But that's something that I really help them with is giving them back that time and giving them that guidance and giving them that cheerleading pep talk of yes, you can do it and yes, you look great on camera.

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They can get help from experts like you.

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I'm going to link to your website and in your books in the show notes, so people can go there, check it out, get in touch and learn more.

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You know what else people can do.

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They can get a French bulldog puppy.

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No, I'm kidding, but I'm also going to link to her page in the show notes so everyone can follow her.

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Why not?

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Why not?

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The podcast?

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Police won't come after us.

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But, seriously.

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Thank you, corey, for being with us today.

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Thank you for sharing your story and all these great tips and insights.

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We appreciate it.

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Thank you for being on the show.

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Yeah, thanks for having me.