Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Instagram has more than 2 billion active users worldwide. So when you're talking about social media marketing, it's only natural that Instagram comes up. So today we're going to talk about how agents and advisors can get the most out of the platform. What should they be posting and what role it plays in their overall marketing strategy. I'm David Belleville.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: And I'm Jo Barker.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: And this is the Amerilife Marketing Mentors podcast.
All right, Jo. We are continuing our discussions on social media marketing. Instagram is one of those legacy platforms that have been with us for quite a while now. It's a part of the meta umbrella. It's a close cousin to Facebook.
How let's just level set really quickly for our audience. How should agents and advisors be looking at Instagram for their strategy?
[00:00:54] Speaker B: I've always said that Instagram's kind of a no brainer if you have Facebook. So we know Facebook, especially if you're in the Medicare industry, is the top platform to be on if you're trying to reach that target.
And so if you're on Facebook, you might as well be on Instagram also because they're connected and you can post one time and it can roll over into the other platform which is, it's just a no brainer to do that. And then it gives you the opportunity to reach people on both platforms.
So in my opinion, if you're just getting started, start on Facebook and then as you get more comfortable with Instagram, then you can go over to Instagram and really start to understand the difference between Instagram and Facebook and, and the different opportunities it has available for the different types of posts because it does have more opportunity, I think, than Facebook does overall.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: I would agree. And you're right, if you're on Facebook, sometimes it's as easy as a single button click to also be posting on Instagram. So you're right, it is a bit of a no brainer. But the strategy and types of content that you might want to post on Instagram may not work on Facebook and vice versa. So today we'll get into how you can strategically leverage Instagram and what it offers. And Jo, right off the bat I think that we should talk about short form video. And because of TikTok, we now have reels. And at this point in time, Instagram has made itself a legitimate contender or opponent when it comes to TikToks. Do you watch reels? Are you a consumer? And if our audience is out there thinking about starting today, do you think that they should?
[00:02:27] Speaker B: So I Absolutely think that they should. I personally, out of all of those social media platforms, Instagram is probably the one that I personally spend the least amount of time on just because of my behavior. And I've always kind of veered towards LinkedIn and Facebook a bit more. But if I was trying to be very active on Instagram, I absolutely would be utilizing Reels. So for those that aren't familiar with the platform, they have reels which you kind of need to treat as like your video billboard that everybody gets to see. And so those aren't private. Those are the ones that are out there. Anybody has access to them, then you have your actual Instagram with your Instagram Stories. The stories is more of like your private living room, we'll call it, to where that's just for your friends and families to see it. So if you're not familiar with it, it has quite a few little opportunities there to where you utilize the reels to garner the attention, get them over to follow you, and then from there, that's where you can connect with them on a different level of giving them more of those stories and items that you don't want out there in the public forum.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: I love how you described both of those.
Right. Reels has become a visibility engine, and it's such a great way for people to discover you, your brand and your content, as opposed to stories. But you also can still post to your feed, and although that's not as much of a utilized portion of the platform as it has been, it's still relevant, especially if you have a brand or business account. This is a great window for consumers to be able to look through to get a better understanding of who you are, what your brand is about, and what solutions that you or your brand solve. So feed posts, while they're becoming less and less relevant, are still important for branding purposes.
But I want to talk a little bit more about stories because these are often the most utilized part of the platform.
They last for 24 hours. And this is a great place for you to share helpful tips. And there's also ways that you can engage with your audience through stickers and quizzes. So stories is a great place to post as well. And Jo, we mentioned it. Whether you're posting reels, feed posts, or to your story, it's often as easy as one click to post natively to Facebook and Instagram.
[00:04:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I think if I was starting out tomorrow and somebody told me, jo, you have to post tomorrow and you have to utilize all of the features on Instagram and get to Work, go do it.
The way I would approach it is I would pick my topic. So if I was a life insurance agent, I would say, okay, I am going to create a reel that is going to go out to the general public about something about life insurance, maybe something they didn't know. What's really important with the reels is you only have about two seconds to capture that attention. And so you've got to start with something strong and like a really, really good hook to get them over. Now, if you can garner that attention and you can get them to come over, I would do a post, so I would probably do like a carousel of, like, the five things you didn't know about life insurance that is critical to, you know, to your buying decision.
And then graphically, you would make that really, really appealing. And then maybe in the story, I would do like a real quick video of a day in the life of whatever I'm doing that day that has also do with life insurance. So that's kind of how I would approach it of here's my billboard, here's my feed. And at the same time, here's a story that's relevant for today.
[00:05:50] Speaker A: You mentioned carousels. I do believe that that's something that we should highlight because it's one of the most popular formats. As of this recording, Instagram appears to be pushing out carousels.
I'm seeing them on LinkedIn and even on Facebook. We'll get into threads a little bit, which is Instagram's answer to Twitter, or as it's known now as X. But carousels are rising in popularity, and there's a few reasons for that, but one is it has the ability to keep the user on the platform longer because as you swipe, you're again, you're staying on the platform. Each swipe is a signal to the algorithm that you're engaging with the content. And then you have a way to keep them through the caption that you coupled with that carousel. So carousels are a great way to engage your audience and keep them on the platform. And as we know, the longer they'll stay on the platform, the more that the algorithm will distribute that content. Is there anything else that you might want to add to that with the carousels?
[00:06:56] Speaker B: It's also the saves, I think. So people. You see people that are hitting save, and then they're saving that for later. So maybe if it is a good educational piece or a good piece that has a bit of information in there over the seven or eight pages of the carousel, that's where and for Instagram, that's a great signal. If people are saving those carousels, that's an incredible signal of like, wow, this is valuable content. People are saving it. So that's another reason of just trying out those different tactics and making. And if you're providing the value, that's what you're trying to ultimately get to, is to people save. They come over, they connect with you, they're saving your content, and you're becoming that thought leader.
[00:07:29] Speaker A: I love that. That's such a great point. If you can get people to save your content, that is such a valuable signal to the algorithm that you are producing that value that the algorithm is looking for. There are a lot of different ways that you can approach carousels as well. You can use it for storytelling purposes. You can use it as a, as like a photo slideshow. You can share one idea per slide.
One of the reasons I do like Instagram so much is because you have these different ways that you can craft content and share it with your audience. And carousels are just one of many.
I also want to talk about Instagram as a bit of a search engine.
We're seeing this trend over the last few years of social media becoming more and more of a way for consumers to look for brands and products and make decisions. Instagram is no different. So looking through that lens, Jo, what type of content do you think agents and advisors out there should be creating in order, you know, to be popping up in those search results?
[00:08:33] Speaker B: I don't think Instagram is any different than the other platforms that we've talked about as far as making sure that you're creating relevant content to your target audience. So you're still creating content that is the frequently asked questions, the value that you can, you know, any content that you believe is going to be of value to your target audience, that's the type of content that you're putting out there. The main difference with Instagram is it's just more visually appealing than some of the other ones where, where you can grab attention pretty easily with the creation of some good visuals. So I love, you know, how we mentioned the carousel. So carousels are a perfect opportunity. Another one that I've seen and I can't remember who it was when I went to their feed, all of their feed photos all came together to create one big photo looking at the entire feed. It's. And they all make sense by themselves, but then seeing it visually on their feed. So there's so many creative ways to, you know, to take that same content and utilize it on Instagram, but you put a different twist to it, and it's a more visual, you know, appeal. And which is why, you know, I think so many people love that platform is because of the photos and because of the great graphics and the infographics and everything that come along with it.
[00:09:43] Speaker A: Right.
A section of Instagram called the Explore tab. And this is a way for those on the platform to discover new content that's not being distributed to them on their feeds. And that's where those visuals can really excel and stand out, because it's put up against many other types of content that the algorithm thinks that user will engage with. So if you're visuals are standing out in a crowd, then that's just giving you an advantage in your content. And advantage as well.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: I think it goes back to the saves and the shares. And so the more saves and the more shares and the more that people are interacting and spending time with your content, then the stronger it becomes, and also the more consistent you can be with posting of the content and being relevant, then the stronger your feed becomes and the more you'll get promoted out there or show up in those areas where you're looking to show up.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great point. As long as you're producing value that resonates with the audience that you're looking to target, you'll show up in those places. Speaking of audience, I want to talk about follower counts. We're seeing this across social media, and Instagram is no exception that what once was such a.
Such an important metric. We're followers. It's not so much anymore because of the way that these algorithms are distributing content.
We recently had a podcast episode talking about Reddit and LinkedIn, and both of those conversations, you brought up the term interest media media instead of social media. Yeah. Can you touch on that as it pertains to this conversation as well? Because I get on my Instagram feed and nobody I'm following is popping up anymore. And that's such a far cry than you know from where it started.
[00:11:35] Speaker B: Yeah. All of these platforms want you to spend more and more time on the platform. And so what it's trying to do is the algorithms are trying to feed you content that it believes truly interests you. And so that's where you may not see as many of your friends or family or people that you're connected with as much anymore as you used to, because you may not have been spending a lot of time. So they're testing and they're showing you a lot of suggested content. Or recommended content. And you're seeing that more and more.
And I think you're going to continue to see it as people are interacting and spending time on those posts. So it's no surprise if you catch yourself spending a bit of time on a post and say you're reading the entire thing and you're swiping and you're looking at it and then you keep going and all of a sudden you start seeing more very similar to that, that pop up. It's the algorithm trying to please you and trying to say, hey, if you liked that, you're probably going to like this too. And you're seeing it more and more. I think Instagram was one of those first ones who started taking away the likes and to where now it doesn't. It used to be, oh well, 5,000 people liked this. Now it just says this person and others liked it. It started to take away all those vanity metrics and started to really just concentrate on the true, you know, metrics that mean something to the platform, which is how long are you spending time on here? What are you spending your time on, what are you saving, what are you clicking on? And then it's building, it's utilizing AI to build the algorithm around you to try to get you to spend more time.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Another big time metric these days is views and view watch time. I should, I should clarify, views are important, but I would argue that watch time is the most important metric because of Instagram's emphasis on reels. If you're keeping someone on the platform for the duration of a reel, or at least, you know, 10 to 30 seconds in that time frame, that's a really positive signal to the algorithm that your content is resonating. But that goes back to ensuring that you're creating content for a specific audience. And because followers are not as relevant anymore, you have to get clear in your head what type of audience that you're going to be targeting. And so on Instagram, we talk about this a lot, Jo, of coming up with a Persona. If you're speaking to everybody on Instagram, you're really speaking to nobody. So we often recommend develop an audience Persona and create content for that one specific person.
[00:13:59] Speaker B: Yep. I think recently I saw that with the reels. It's that sweet spot is between 60 and 90 seconds and the goal is to get people to watch 80% of it. So knowing that and knowing the first three seconds is critical of capturing that attention. That's really the type of metrics that you should be watching for is how many People are staying. Of the people that are staying, are they staying 80% of the time? Because that's what's gonna help build your credibility and your, you know, just, just build to where Instagram is confident that the content you're putting out there is valuable content.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: And with that in mind, be strategic about how long your content is. There are lots of schools of thought out there, but I recommend if you're gonna be publishing reels, experiment with those lengths. Sometimes a nine second reel where there's no voiceover, it's just text on the screen, performs really, really well. And the reason behind that is because people are staying on the video to watch the screen, excuse me, to read the text on the screen. Meanwhile, that video is continuing to loop and loop. So that's one strategy that creators often will deploy. But also keep in mind where your audience is starting to drop off the more and more you do create short form video content, because that will start to define how you should craft your scripts and your short form video content. And this doesn't just apply to reels, this applies to all short form video. Pay attention to how long people are staying on your video and where they're dropping off.
All right, Jo, of course, if we're talking about Instagram, then we need to talk about threads. And if you're not familiar with threads, this is really Instagram's version of X, formerly known as Twitter. And if you aren't familiar with it, this is a really great time to start getting familiar with it. Because Jo, there is just so much opportunity on the horizon. It's really in its infancy compared to the other social media platforms.
[00:15:57] Speaker B: It is. And there's not a lot of people talking about it for some reason. Or maybe there is just not maybe in our industry. But the fact is it's the growth on threads is pretty incredible what's happened there. Especially even when you do compare it to the audience that's on X.
So it's definitely something to pay attention to. And it goes hand in hand with Instagram. So if you have one, you can automatically have the other. Your followers are very, very easy to pull them over to that area also. So again, it's kind of like Facebook and having Instagram with Facebook, you might as well have a threads that go along with your Instagram also. And it really is just that content heavy piece or that content heavy area where it is more content and text based, not necessarily your traditional Instagram, where it's that photo visual appealing based and
[00:16:43] Speaker A: it's that lack of friction for those of you who have an Instagram account, you can easily create a Threads account. That led to Threads becoming the quickest growing social media platform ever. It only took five days for threads to reach 100 million users. And for context, it took ChatGPT two months to reach 100 million users. And it took the World Wide Web years, Seven years. Seven years to reach that. So as you mentioned, Jo, this is a very quick, adopt, quickly adopted platform where there's just nothing but opportunity and it will continue to evolve. Again, as I mentioned, I think that we're seeing it in its infancy. And like many of these platforms that we've talked about, Jo, where it was 10 years ago is drastically different than where it is today. I don't look at Threads any differently.
[00:17:38] Speaker B: No. And I think even if you're on X and you see, you know, every post on there basically has a little Threads icon down there, you know, letting you know it's over on Threads and the conversations are happening over there also.
And I think it's going to become more and more relevant. Especially I think right now it's, it's a bit, leans a bit in the younger generation. So it's at 25 to 35, but there's still over 20% of that 55 plus community is on there right now. So the more that you can get in and get familiar with those platforms and get comfortable in them early, the better. And so that's why it's a perfect time for, you know, for our target audiences, for people to get comfortable and get over there and you might as well be on it. I mean, those three just go hand in hand between Facebook, Instagram and Threads. There's no reason not to.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: Well, and we talk about working smarter, not harder. Meta is starting to make that easier than ever just by being able to post across multiple platforms like that. So that's a great point. One final point that I would like to make on Threads is that if you decide to bring your brand to this platform, you're on the front lines of it and you're kind of laying the bricks along with all of the other users right now and shaping how that platform's culture will evolve, what type of content starts to resonate and what direction the platform as a whole will go. So, you know, I just want you to keep that in mind that this is a time now to experiment with something new and be on the front lines of something new.
[00:19:03] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:19:04] Speaker A: Alrighty, Jo, thank you so much for those of you out there listening. And of course you can follow the Amerilife Marketing Mentors on threads. We're of course, on Instagram, Facebook, and you can subscribe to us on YouTube as well. For the Amerilife Marketing Mentors, that's Jo. I'm David, and we'll catch you later.
[00:19:24] Speaker B: It.
