The New Rules of Instagram Marketing

0:00Hey, business besties. Welcome back to the Female Founder World Podcast. It's Jasmine. I'm the host of the show and the creator of the female founder world universe. Before I jump into today's episode, I want to give you another podcast recommendation. This podcast is a new one that I came across. It's called Marketing ATM and I have loved it. It's by two experienced founders and it's all about marketing trends and insights. And if that's your world, I think you are going to absolutely love it. I'll put a link in the show notes or search Marketing ATM wherever you listen to pods. Today we have a solo episode on the pod.

0:39It's just me and I'm talking you through something that we've been thinking about a lot in the Female Founder World team recently and chatting about all the time. It is Instagram. And I know that sounds like, oh yeah, Jasmine, we know all about Instagram, obviously. No, I feel like we have really shifted to focusing on TikTok, which we absolutely love TikTok. It is an amazing channel that has democratized entrepreneurship and audience building for so many people. And it has this like real potential to convert people quickly. But we've just found recently that Instagram is converting a lot better.

1:17And I feel like we've unlocked this way of really building not a huge audience. We don't have hundreds of thousands of followers, but it's still a very, very significant sales channel for female founder world. And that's because we have created truly a deeply engaged niche audience that clicks what we give them, that shops when we offer them something. And that is genuinely a community and not just an audience. And I want to tell you about how we've been doing that because we're an Instagram account that's only been around a couple of years. So it's not like we built this big following in 2017 or 2018 when you know there weren't wasn't that much content on Instagram and it was kind of easier to build following this has all happened really recently and I want to tell you exactly what's working right now and the lessons for you as a consumer brand builder an entrepreneur somebody in the marketing space because these hard want insights and I think they're going to really really help the first one I want to talk about the buckets of content I think about content under two kind of categories.

2:27And this is about the perceived value from the person who is seeing your content. The first bucket is Me Too content. And this isn't Me Too in terms of the feminist movement. This is Me Too in terms of content that makes people feel seen. And I'm going to talk about that in more detail in a second. And then the next bucket is helpful. It's kind of, it makes people think, helpful, thank you. And that is another kind of way that we organize and the lens that we want to create our content through. And I'll talk about that and give some examples in a second as well. But first of all, me too. It's kind of your emotional entry point to connect with people.

3:12What you can do is sit down and write out a bunch of different things, attributes, interests that are very specific to your target customer or your audience. And we did this in a Google document during a Zoom call with our team. And we just wrote down all of these things. So for example, for the Female Founder World community, for you guys, you're probably working from different cafes and different places all the time. You might not have a dedicated office. A lot of you will, but a lot of you won't. You'll be going between co-working spaces, cafes, working from home. You also are likely somebody who is mostly bootstrapped.

3:54We do have a bunch of people on the pod and in our community who are venture backed, but the majority of folks in our community are building businesses that are profitable. And that is a very unique experience in the world. And there are obviously lots of other things as well, but that's an example of the kind of experiences, maybe the point of view that a lot of people that are our target audience, our target customer that they hold. And then once you have this idea about kind of like what is the through line about the personality traits, the experiences, the worldview and the opinion of the people you want to reach and connect with, then you can create this other column in your table or, you know, this other page in your document, which is content ideas based on that.

4:39So for example, we create some content that's gone quite viral that is specifically about trying to get your brand into independent stores, about working from cafes, funny stuff that is just not, and not even funny, just so niche that when somebody sees it, they're like, this is so specific to my personal experience and they are going to like it. but they're probably also going to share it with somebody who is there, you know, we call them business besties, but somebody else who they know has that similar experience as well, just to be like, it's a, it's a way to trade intimacy on the internet.

5:18You're kind of sharing someone and being like, Oh, this is us. And we've all done it. And it's something that's really hard to quantify, but as a content creator and a brand creating content on the internet, that's kind of the way that you should think about it to do that. And truly that is the way that you create content that is going to perform really well all the time. That's one of the ways to kind of build trust and build connection with these people. But then you also have to just like establish yourself as somebody who is adding a lot of value, particularly in our space. Female Founder World is not the only community for business owners, but we have a really clear point of view about this very specific kind of entrepreneur who has just been left out of the conversation.

6:04Our businesses are not getting profiled in Business Insider and TechCrunch. We are probably not raising millions of dollars. The big conversation for us isn't, oh, how do we get more venture capital funding? No, it's how do we retain most of the equity in our company? How do we take an idea and create something that we love out into the world? And we want to add value for those people as well. And we do that a lot through carousel posts. These perform really well. And I think about something that is a very specific niche question that somebody in our community will have. That question might be, how do I slide into an influencer or a celebrity's DMs?

6:47Because I'm not paying for an agency. I'm not paying$10 ,000 a month to work with a big PR agency. I want to do this myself or with my small team. How do I do that? And so we'll create an Instagram carousel about that. We have our own way of kind of harvesting the expertise from across the community to make sure that is excellent, excellent quality content. And you go, if you think it's good, you need to go one step further. You are competing, not just with other people in your category, you're competing on Instagram with world-class professional full-time media companies and content creators who are spending their entire days literally thinking, how do I make this piece of content go viral?

7:33So nothing can be an afterthought. If you've got that gut feeling of like, oh, this isn't quite there, do not post it. Keep working on it until you are sure that that piece of content is adding so much value. When you're creating these Instagram carousel posts, I want you to forget about this really beautiful post. Yes, it needs to like align with your brand and all those things. But the number one thing truly is have you used an image that will stop people from scrolling? And is the text big enough for people to read on your carousel? and not just read, but to skim. Like they are spending seconds and then they're saving or sending it to someone.

8:17So you want to make sure that that is really, really clear. Go and have a look at the Female Founder World Instagram. You'll see that our carousels perform really, really well. And that's because we prioritize these things, adding value, so, so much value to a very, very specific person and making sure that it is a thumb stopping, you know scroll stopping image and a a great headline in large text and it sounds like really simplistic but so many people aren't doing this and you're kind of you know if you work with a graphic designer to create templates for Instagram they're always going to come back with a lot of white space and small font that you can't read and I work with graphic designers all the time we love them but I'm constantly going back to them and saying you need bigger font you need bigger font, it needs to be clear.

9:07This isn't your website where you have an opportunity for lots of storytelling. You need to grab people in a fraction of a second and you need to make it easy for them to know what it is that you're trying to tell them and a real no-brainer. Okay, business besties, let's switch gears for a second. Real quick, I want to talk to you about this season presenting sponsor, Vistaprint. They are sponsoring this entire season of the Female Founder World podcast and we love a supportive sponsor. So much so that we're actually working with Vistaprint ourselves to create the merch and all of those beautiful event perks that you know and love from our in real life female founder world events.

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10:31Use the code FFW25 at checkout and step up your branding game. We put a link in the show notes if you want to learn more. Then there are some things that you should be doing to optimize your content. And the first thing is optimizing to share on direct message. And we are finding that increasingly Instagram is becoming a more kind of like private messaging space. We're not seeing as many, as much conversation in the comments as maybe five years ago, but we're seeing that people are sharing and having these private conversations about our Instagram content in their DMs. And the way that you do this is of course, you know, creating that me too kind of content, those buckets and creating the educational content that makes people think helpful.

11:21Thank you. But it's also about explicitly telling people to share your content. You'd be surprised how well this does. With an Instagram carousel, a save is also something that is a really intuitive action. So we often will just say right at the beginning, save this or share this with X. What person would somebody share this with? And it's not spammy. It's not, you know, explicitly asking for that. It's just a reminder. It makes people think, yeah, actually so-and-so would love this or like, actually, yes, I do want to revisit this later or send it to my team or whatever it is. So explicitly call that out and ask for it and really, really optimize for that, that direct message as your ultimate engagement metric.

12:06So as an example, you know, we, we dropped a video a little while ago with Lindsay Carter. You heard her on the podcast. She's the founder of this incredible activewear brand called Set Active. And from that podcast interview, we created a bunch of clips. And one of them was where Lindsay was really talking about just this shitty time that she's had in her business recently and how she's come out of that. And that conversation has already had nearly a hundred thousand views across our platform. And that's because people are sharing it. They're sharing it with people who they know are having a hard time in their business.

12:42They're sharing it with people that they're having these conversations privately with. And that just helps you connect with more people. It helps you, yes, go viral, but really create deeper resonance with the people who are already following you. I also want you to optimize by creating your content for Instagram first. We could very easily create a top level kind of, you know, interesting things about a podcast episode, whatever. No, we take the information and then send people to listen to the podcast, but no, we take the information from the podcast and we turn it into something that works for Instagram first.

13:21We're not trying to get people necessarily to listen to the podcast. We want them to get the complete story and all the value on the platform that they're on. So that's another thing that you need to think about and something that I think people are getting wrong still on Instagram. Another tip is Instagram stories. This should not be an afterthought. Instagram stories is one of our top converting channels. It is one of the few places on Instagram where you can easily and freely link to anywhere on the web where you can tag multiple people, have them share. It is, and it is still just this afterthought for so many people.

13:58I think when Instagram stories was added, It was kind of like to share what's on your feed or, you know, post some quick things. No, I want you to think about your Instagram stories in the same way that you think about anything that you're posting to your feed. Because also Instagram stories, like it's easy to stand out there because people are not doing a good job. And if some, if the user behavior for a lot of people, it truly is swiping through their Instagram stories because they are accounts that they already like, that they already trust. And so you can just continue this like deep conversation with people who have already discovered you through your feed.

14:36And if you just pay attention to that channel, I think that there is a huge opportunity there that a lot of people are missing and really disregarding. So don't sleep on Instagram stories. Think of it in the same way that you think about any of your other kind of in feed channels like reels or still images or carousels. There is just so much value there. Another point I want to bring up is collab posts. Too many of you are sleeping on collaboration posts on Instagram. These are just the most incredible way to tap another person's community, whether it is co-creating content with them, finding people who have bigger audiences and might want your type of expertise on their channels.

15:22I want you to really be going out and intentionally finding these distribution partners for your Instagram content and collaborating with them. It is a very simple feature. When you post on Instagram, instead of tagging someone, you invite them to collaborate. They accept it and then it's shared to both of your followers. This has been something that we've done that's helped us rack up over 11 million views on Instagram in the last year. And it's because we've really figured it out. We've identified find some great collaboration partners and it's really helping with our reach. And so I definitely recommend that you do that.

15:59It doesn't necessarily have to be somewhere with a huge audience or, you know, a huge following. It could be somewhere or someone that has a really engaged following, but make sure you're thinking when you create the content, who could be a distribution partner for this specific piece of content or for a series of content, and then go out there and reach those people. And I actually cannot believe that I'm giving away all of this stuff because this has been really hard-won knowledge. And so please, if you're enjoying this, like I'm actually getting a bit nervous about giving away all of this advice.

16:30Can you please drop a review of the podcast if you're enjoying it? And maybe I'll tell you about our newsletter strategy next. I have one last super actionable recommendation for you, and that is to sign up for a tool called ManyChat, chat or kind of hack your way to replicate its process yourself manually. And I'll tell you how now. So ManyChat is a tool. You can use it on app. You can use it on desktop. I find it way easier to use it on the computer, but it does work on an app too. And it's essentially you've seen people use it. So when a lot of educators, course creators, content creators, when they ask you to comment a keyword to send you a free download or course or RSVP to a webinar or something like that.

17:26If they ask you to comment on a post with that, they're probably using ManyChat to then automatically send you a direct message with the link to enter your email address and get whatever that thing is that they've promised you. This is such a good feature. If you want to sign up for ManyChat. It's not super expensive. I think it's like$20 a month, but you can of course test this yourself without figuring out the platform. You can simply manually send those DMs to people. But the reason why ManyChat is great is because you can enter people into a flow of DMs. So you can send a follow-up direct message.

18:03You can tag them in your email list according to what they downloaded through Instagram DM. Like it is an amazing automation tool that a lot of people in the CPG and consumer brand and product-based business space just aren't using. I don't know why that is, if it's just still within like this course creator realm and they haven't moved into this new category yet, but I really recommend trying it out. And the use case where I think this would be super helpful for a lot of you is when you are launching a new product launching a new brand and you're building your waitlist. I would create a very specific offer, something like 20 % off for 24 hours.

18:46When we drop this product, you'll be the first to hear about it. Plus you'll get this discount that you can't get anywhere else. It's only for people on our waitlist, comment, waitlist, and we'll direct message you the link to sign up. People seem to do that action much more regularly than they do clicking on a link on Instagram stories, even though stories are still great. The comment to DM feature just generates a lot more email conversions. And so I highly recommend, I feel like you'll be one of the few consumer brands doing it. So go and try this out while it's not super, super saturated in your category.

19:26it's such a powerful marketing tool and god knows when instagram is going to shut this down i don't know for now it seems like they're all integrated there are no issues it's very much allowed we haven't been you know shadow banned or anything like that instagram seems totally cool with it go and do this now get the email addresses of the people that are following you because you know how it goes a little algorithm shift losing access to your account and all of a sudden all of that hard work that you've done in building Instagram, you've lost that relationship with all of those people. So that's just a great way to make sure you're getting the email addresses and kind of moving people off the platform or having another way to communicate with them so that all of your, all of your ducks are in a row and you've got a wet weather plan in case something happens to your Instagram account.

20:16Okay. I hope you guys enjoyed the show. If you did, like I said, please leave us a review if you share it on Instagram stories, tag at female founder world. So we can repost this or at Jasmine Garnsworthy, I will repost it and give you a little visibility as well to our super engaged community of folks on Instagram stories. Thanks everyone. Chat to you next week. I just wanted to jump in and end the show with a quick thank you and shout out to all of our paid Business Besties subscribers. For$9 a month, Business Besties bypass literally years of networking by getting access to all of the people that you need to build your dream business.

20:56Besties get access to exclusive in-person meetups in cities all across the US, Australia, and the UK. You get access to our group chat and you get to bypass the waitlist. You also get invited to exclusive monthly group business coaching call sessions where you can speak to experts and founders and ask them all of those questions that you just can't google it's nine dollars a month you can cancel anytime head to bestie.femalefounderworld.com or click the link in the show notes for more