Making Instagram Reels Easier, Faster & Scalable

0:00Elizabeth Marberry: I'm Mari Smith, known as the premier Facebook marketing expert, aka queen of Facebook, and this is actually my 14th time because I have been at every single social media marketing world. There is no amount of sophisticated technology that can ever take the place of live, in person, IRL, heart to heart, face to face. You could very well meet some of your best friends, clients, joint venture partners, alliances, have opportunities, podcasts, speaking engagements, it's extraordinary. So come on in for this beautiful, in-person experience. Get tickets at socialmediamarketingworld.info.

0:37Elizabeth Marberry: Welcome to the Social Media Marketing Podcast, helping you navigate the social media jungle. And now, here is your host, Michael Stelzner. Hello, hello, hello. Thank you so much for joining me for the Social Media Marketing Podcast brought to you by Social Media Examiner. I'm your host Michael Stelzner and this is the podcast for marketers and business owners who want more exposure, more leads and more sales. Today, Jerry Potter and I are exploring important updates from Instagram with our special guest, Elizabeth Marbury. Take it away, Jerry. Thanks, Mike. Always great to be here. Instagram is making it easier and faster for businesses to create reels.

1:17Elizabeth Marberry: Yeah, some of it is AI tools, but some of it is about keeping them human, which is nice. And right now we're going to dive into how you can improve creating reels, scaling them to new audiences and measuring what works. We're excited to be joined by Elizabeth Marbury. Elizabeth's an Instagram marketing strategist who helps small businesses drive more organic leads and sales. And she hosts the Struttet Build Visibility Through Instagram Marketing podcast. Today, Elizabeth, Mike and I are going to explore what these latest updates from Instagram mean for small business marketers and owners like you.

1:47Elizabeth Marberry: Elizabeth, welcome back to the show.

1:49Michael Stelzner: Thank you for having me. As always, I am pumped. Let's do it.

1:53Elizabeth Marberry: I have to admit, I have ignored the edits app until I saw this update. Instagram is doing incredible things with editing. And this is even the native app. They're launching what they call First Draft, which is a new one tap auto editing tool for Reels that generates an initial video in 10 seconds. Happens right in Instagram, so you don't have to go to edits for this. And you select your clips. And with one tap, it cuts the pauses, trims down your clips. So you have a starting point to build from, which is really, really impressive. So I guess this is a game changer, right? Have you tested this yet, Elizabeth?

2:28Michael Stelzner: I have. I have so many thoughts about first draft. And I, you know, so first of all, I love that Instagram is always on a mission to make content creation easier for us as busy marketers and small business owners. Thank you, Instagram. I also think they appropriately titled this feature First Draft. It's a perfect name because that's exactly what it is. It's just a starting point. It's not a finished reel. So that is so important, Jerry, because I know when these features come out, we get really excited. We're like, one tap or we got our reel, boom. But unfortunately, we're not there yet. I was testing this yesterday.

3:11Michael Stelzner: I was doing a direct to camera video or one of those yapping videos. And when I had a script, so it's not like I was completely off cuff, but when I'm recording, I tend to repeat myself if I want to say it in a more enthusiastic way or a more grounded way in my voice or whatever. And as it would edit my video down, it didn't understand those dynamics of, oh, Elizabeth just said this the same line again. It didn't edit out one of my lines. Right. So I would say if you're really awesome at like having long pauses, never, you know, rubbing your nose or clearing your throat, like it literally cut, it cut my video down where I was like coughing and rubbing my nose.

3:54Michael Stelzner: It thought that was part of it. So all of this to say, it's a great way to let's get to that first draft sooner. But Jerry, there is a lot you still got to do after that first draft.

4:03Elizabeth Marberry: You know, when I first saw this, because I am a huge Instagram edits app, and I love the cut silences feature. It is my favorite friend. The only challenge is that you have to do each sequence one at a time. I figured, okay, how is this any different than cut silences? I guess it's really not that different than cut silences. It's just across a bunch of clips. I wish they brought this to the edits app. Don't you agree? because if I could cut all my silences and then decide which variations, because I do like seven or eight hooks, you know what I mean? And I have to wash them back and decide which one I want, right?

4:39Michael Stelzner: So I agree with you. I also love cut silences. Even when you're using that in the edits app, you still have to trim it down just a little hair, right? Which I'm sure you've experienced. But what's different, Mike, about first draft is you can also use it for B-roll clips. So it's not just for direct to camera yapping videos. I tested this again with some B-roll content. I went to an open house just for fun with my family. And of course, what do I do? I tell my husband, you have to start filming me in this house. That's not my own. It's so fancy. Let's pretend like I live here.

5:12Elizabeth Marberry: It's clean, right? There's no clutter. It's clean.

5:15Michael Stelzner: Like I'm like, let's capture this content, baby. My kids are like, mom, when do you turn this off? I'm never, But anyways, and so I put that clip in and I tested this, you know, first draft. I did like some of the shots it captured, but it was very lackluster. The edits were not, they were way too long. Like a B-roll video like that, you want to have edits every two seconds.

5:40Elizabeth Marberry: But it threw your, it threw your random shots of like panning around the house above your voice. It did it for you automatically as a B-roll shot?

5:47Michael Stelzner: No, this was a B-roll video of me like walking through the house. Like I wasn't planning on using my voice at all. So it's not, it's editing the video itself, not just like the voice, right?

5:59Elizabeth Marberry: Yeah, because I was thinking, you know, how like when you make a video and then you might shoot some B-roll that's going to go over the top of your talking voice. You don't think this is intelligent enough to be able to handle that right now, do you?

6:10Michael Stelzner: I haven't tested the voiceover. I don't think for that to happen, because how it works is when it's native inside the Instagram app, right? It's not in edits. So you have to upload your video like you would in Instagram Reels. And so I guess if you had saved a voiceover video of yourself in edits, and then you uploaded it to Reels, you could test that with first draft and see if it would cut down on your voiceover. I'm not sure. I haven't tested that yet. But it is definitely appropriately named. Thank you, Instagram. We're not confused. It is a first draft.

6:44Elizabeth Marberry: Okay. Because they could have called it magic edit or something like that. And so if I'm a busy business owner, I can't just be a talking head, hit first draft, add captions and call it done. Like it's just, it won't do it yet.

6:57Michael Stelzner: We're not there yet. I'm sure soon. I hope soon.

7:02Elizabeth Marberry: Yeah. I mean, I do AI editing with like with other tools. And when you can give instructions, you can tell it, you know, in some cases, like Mike, Like if you're doing five different hooks and seeing which one you like, that takes some judgment, right? But usually when I'm cutting videos, I just keep going until I'm done screwing it up, screwing the lineup, and then that's the one. So I just tell it to use the last one, but there is no prompt box. It is literally one tap. That's the whole thing, okay? If we do get faster at making reels, because even if you're doing other things and you at least get the one tap through the first draft to start, would you recommend that we spend more time like making more reels or spend more time making better reels?

7:45Elizabeth Marberry: Does that make sense?

7:46Michael Stelzner: It does. I love this question because it, there's a lot of nuance here that I'd like to bring into this conversation. So it's not quantity of reels versus quality of reels because it's both and, and I'm going to explain what I mean. I know, hang with me. Um, so you need enough quantity of reels content to build your skill as a content creator, right. And as a marketer, um, I wish we could just hit, you know, hit it out of the park, you know, the first time, but we all know that that's not how marketing works. Right. So you do need quantity to build the skill and of course, collect enough data, you know, to see if things are working and, um, you need to have that intention as a marketer, as a small business owner, that you are going to keep paying attention to what is working.

8:42Michael Stelzner: And ideally, over time, as you're putting in these reps, the quality of the content improves. Now, what I want everyone to hear, though, is that where it can get a little bit sticky is if you're in that goal of like high volume content, but you know it's very like mediocre content, like a race to the middle. I would not recommend that because that will start to kind of hurt you over time with the algorithm because it'll start to kind of see like no one is interested in this. Right. So the goal is those consistent reps, but you have to be constantly refining as you go. So gone are the days of like pumping out the high volume.

9:24Michael Stelzner: Like my, my 13 year old would say it's, it's mid mom. Like that's just so mid, like mid content just for quantity. Um, you really want to post enough that you are consistent as a brand. Um, and you have that consistency and you learn as you go. And then you have enough data also to determine what is working. Because the other thing that I find is that let's say you're like, okay, I really want to focus on three reels a week and I want them to be high quality for my brand. But a lot of people will do that for 20, 20 days or something. And they'll say, oh, it's not working. And so you also have to have enough data, big enough data set to gain proper information as to what is working.

10:10Michael Stelzner: So it's a both and quantity matters, but quality matters. It has to be high quality video. Now on Instagram, I stopped using filters in my videos earlier in this year. I wish I could say I did it because I wanted to be more authentic. But truly, as a woman over 40, I was like, this filter is impacting my reach because the video quality was so low. And I knew I needed to start filming in 4K. Right. And so that's what I mean about the quality of the video itself, the quality, of course, of the messaging of the target audience of, you know, the entertainment factor, all these different pieces that we have to think about as marketers, that's always going to be important.

10:53Michael Stelzner: So it's a both and answer. And I hope I properly explained the nuance of that.

10:58Elizabeth Marberry: Yeah. And just to confirm though, you're saying that higher quality footage, even if everything else is equal, you're seeing get more reach. So in other words, if somebody has set their phone to record in 1080p instead of 4k, because they wanted to, because they don't have a big enough, you know, like drive on their phone, they should go back to 4k for Instagram or film it natively there?

11:18Michael Stelzner: So I haven't noticed a huge difference between 1080p and 4k, but with any social media platform, right, we're always studying the culture of the platform. And there was a time in like 2021, 2022, where it was pretty standard, where a lot of people were using just like a light beauty filter or something so they could get on camera and boost their confidence. Now, if you go on Instagram and you see filters like that, it feels really outdated. And so what I'm saying is it doesn't necessarily have to be 4K, but definitely try to film in the highest, you know, video quality that you have access to on your phone that that does matter.

11:56Michael Stelzner: And Instagram has said for a long time that that if the video quality is grainy or not clear, it's going to negatively impact your reach.

12:04Elizabeth Marberry: Yeah. No repurposing Zoom calls. So if there are any marketers who are like still craving the old days of Instagram where it was image based, Reels are definitely not going anywhere. Back over in the edits app, they've added folders so you can keep your drafts and editing workflows organized. So they're really trying to make it easier for marketers and business owners to do this. There's a new feature that uses AI to turn still photos into moving clips. You can basically describe the motion you want. So unlike the, you know, the one tap first draft, you can actually tell it what you want and turn it into a video clip.

12:35Elizabeth Marberry: So that there's an option if you, you know, don't want to film video, one tap color correction, you know, all of these different things that are coming to the edits app. And if, you know, some of these features are being tested, there's a new thing in the edits app, just to mention for people where you can opt into the beta tests and get early access to them and then give Instagram feedback with them. And some of those, we know if you're an early adopter with a new feature, sometimes that does seem to lead to more reach, but I would like to know from you, I mean, Mike mentioned, he is a big fan of the edits app with so much editing that can be done directly in the main Instagram app.

13:06Elizabeth Marberry: Why do you think they keep pushing the separate edits app? Is that where we need to be?

13:10Michael Stelzner: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So how I approach it is Instagram is where we publish our content, right? And there's a lot of simple ways to edit your content within the Instagram app. And edits is really birthed to become a creative workplace for people who are creating more content, like everyone listening to the show, right? Marketers. So yes, I 100 % would recommend that you check out the edits app, especially while it's still free. I'm sure at some point they will start to charge similar to CapCut where there's a free version and then there's a version where you pay for added features. I don't know for sure, but I would imagine that's where that business model is going.

13:54Michael Stelzner: But edits clearly is Instagram's attempt to compete with CapCut and get that market share. right? When we saw what happened with TikTok and all these people were panicking and leaving TikTok and CapCut, Instagram was like, okay, they definitely saw opportunity there. And I think why edits is so powerful is what you described is that it's that workplace. There's folders, there's projects, there's templates in the edits app. So, you know, when we're talking about, you know, first draft and making it easy for marketers to create content, I would say check out the templates inside of the edits app.

14:36Michael Stelzner: Those are really awesome. Those are made by other creators in Instagram that essentially toggle on. Yes, you can use my reel as a template. And if you find one you really liked, all of these clips are perfectly timed to the music, which is awesome. And then you're just, you know, tapping, adding your videos, You still have to do some editing, of course. You still have to select what, you know, if it's like 10 one second clips back to back, you still have to find the one second of the video that you uploaded that you want to showcase. Of course, you need to edit the text and things like that. But I really appreciate edits and I love that they're trying to support those of us who are just creating a higher volume of content.

15:18Michael Stelzner: And I also really appreciate the analytics inside of edits. It's just a more in-depth look at the analytics inside of the platform, which is helpful. And now you can like export reports. So for people on marketing teams that need to show data and things like that, that could be really helpful as well.

15:36Elizabeth Marberry: Wait, are you telling me that you can get analytics to the edits app? Because I'm only using it to edit and export.

15:42Michael Stelzner: It's called insights. It's called insights inside of the edits app. And I believe it looks like a little graph icon on the lower right-hand corner inside the app. Is that how it is for you, Mike?

15:54Elizabeth Marberry: Yeah, it looks like a little tiny graph on the bottom.

15:56Michael Stelzner: Exactly. And if you look in that upper right-hand corner, it's super cool. You can change that view to the past 90 days, which whenever I look at my analytics, y 'all, I look at the last 90 days. I like to see the biggest data set possible. That gives me the most information. And then you can filter it out by the most shares, the most likes, the most follows, the most saves. And so it's really cool. It sorts your content really quickly so you can see your top performers and all that, which is pretty, pretty cool.

16:27Elizabeth Marberry: So you mentioned that, yeah, you can export reports as PDFs, which seems crazy that Instagram has PDF exports. You can share them with, you know, partners. You could also import them into one of your favorite AI tools and get help with analysis with that. And then the other thing that they have rolled out is this ability to compare three reels side by side. So you can identify high performing content and kind of see a little bit more there instead of having to kind of like switch back and forth. But if you're looking at three reels like side by side, like how would you even approach that? Because to me, I imagine, you know, we just recently had to buy a new refrigerator and I was going on and I'm like, compare these three models.

17:05Elizabeth Marberry: You know, I do it with Apple products, but how would you do that with reels? Like, what would you be looking for?

17:08Michael Stelzner: Yeah, such a great question because this is where strategy comes in, right? So we're talking to marketers and small business owners who I assume are posting content because they have very clear and specific business goals. Yes. So if I am comparing three of your reels, I would always start with, well, what are you doing here? Like, what are you trying to do on Instagram, right? Because everybody has different goals or they might have, let's say I created three different reels to try to funnel people into my freebie, which is my lead magnet. So I created these three different pieces of attraction style reels.

17:47Michael Stelzner: Everybody, my call to action is the same comment guide and I will DM you my free monetize your IG guide, right? Like let's say that is my funnel. That's my goal. If that is true, then if I'm looking at the data set of three different reels, I'm not as concerned about views. What I'm going to measure is how many people commented my keyword and got my lead magnet, right? Now, I feel like this is where a lot of people, when it comes to Instagram marketing, we get so distracted by views and followers. And I don't ever want to say views and followers aren't important. But you always have to come back to, you have to be clear on your goal of your content.

18:29Michael Stelzner: Otherwise, you can't measure if it's working. Now, I want to give you another example of like, if I was looking at three different reels. And let's say I was, okay, I'm looking at your top three reels, your top performers. What am I looking for from a strategic lens? Here's what I'm looking for. I am looking at your video. What is the background of your video? Where are you? You know, the whole landscape design, visual aspect of your video, right? I'm looking at your text on the screen. I'm looking at the words that you're choosing, the hooks that were most effective. I'm looking at the speed and of the edits, right?

19:12Michael Stelzner: Like, was it a seven second B-roll video or was it edited every two seconds with three different clips in different places, right? I'm looking at all of those elements. I'm also looking at the length of it. So how interesting. Wow. I just looked at your top three performers. They're all yapping videos that are 60 seconds long. wow, this is clearly your sweet spot. Or your top three performers were all B-roll of you talking about how you're using Claude this month in your business. Interesting. Now you know to do more content where you're talking about Claude in your kitchen, right? So essentially what I do, Jerry, is I look for patterns and then I am analyzing them like a little scientist, of course, in alignment with my goals.

19:57Michael Stelzner: And then that will inform me on my next steps.

20:00Elizabeth Marberry: So if I'm hearing you correctly, like before this, not that you couldn't do it because the numbers were there, but before this, you'd see a video, a reel do really well. And you'd be like, wow, cool. I got to make more like that. But it's like, which part? And so this, you feel like a lot because you can see them side by side, you can compare length and style and things a little bit more easily than you could before.

20:22Michael Stelzner: I saw the comparison option in the edits app that you're talking about. I actually have not seen what populates when you do that. So what I'm talking about is if I were to compare three reels and get that data, what I was looking for. What I will tell you in the edits app is that little like how to compare your reels is that it's a very hidden button. So you, I would say Google, I get a screenshot of it, but it's, they kind of buried it. And like a lot of things, you mentioned the beta program for edits. For me, the word is labs. So I wanted to make sure I shared that with the audience in case they see that in their edit app.

21:09Michael Stelzner: And I want to show how to get there because this is a hack that I just discovered this last week and it is so cool. Can I share it with you guys?

21:18Elizabeth Marberry: Yeah.

21:19Michael Stelzner: So when you're in the edits app, you click on your profile photo in the right corner and it'll come to like a menu. And then you'll see labs at the bottom. If you click on labs, you can toggle on carousel editor. And now you can edit your carousels in the edits app and export them over to Instagram.

21:41Elizabeth Marberry: It's like a secret menu at a restaurant.

21:44Michael Stelzner: Seriously. It's so new and secret. And I don't know, again, it's like, I'm sure everyone might have access to different things in labs or I know Mike, your community has, you guys had the beta program. So I'm not sure if that, if that's different, but what we, what we do know is that edits is testing out these different features. And I wanted to make sure I brought that to your audience because I just did a carousel post about my experience living in New York city during nine 11. And I did it in the edits app and it was so seamless. It was so easy. And I loved it because I could pick the fonts that I wanted inside the Instagram app.

22:23Michael Stelzner: The fonts are very limited inside the edits app. So many different font variations. You just have more creative control, which don't we want that as marketers? We just want to have more creative control over what we're doing. So I wanted to make sure I shared that with you. Hi, my name is Mandy Hedrick and I'm here at Social Media Marketing World. My first time attending social media marketing world and I had won my ticket and so I attended online and the impact it had in what I could do for my business immediately it was my goal as a business owner to be able to earmark the dollars this is my second time in person so I just love being in a room full of people that are like-minded it's a big investment but I'm not just investing myself but I'm also investing in my clients and I will be coming back every single year.

23:14Michael Stelzner: I'm already ready to buy my next ticket and book my hotel room.

23:17Elizabeth Marberry: Get tickets at socialmediamarketingworld.info. Two other cool features that are as of the day of this recording under the labs feature, auto adjust, automatically color corrects and lighting your clips with a single tap and also improve audio noise reduction. So if you're in a place where there's a lot of background noise, that's an option as well. So I just went ahead and turned them all on because why not, right?

23:41Michael Stelzner: Mike, I literally did the same like yesterday. I was like, oh my gosh. So that's a marketing life hack, y 'all. Just go into your edits app and just pop in there, turn on all the features. You can test them out.

23:51Elizabeth Marberry: So should we be trying to learn from our reels that bomb? You talked about comparing the top performing ones.

23:58Michael Stelzner: Absolutely, yes. I want to normalize failing forward on Instagram. So I posted a reel every single day for a year with little to no growth. So I just want to normalize that sometimes it takes what it takes on Instagram. And it is so imperative that as marketers, as people who are creating a high volume of content for social media to drive leads and sales, we can't forget the human behind the creator, right? Like the person creating the content. It is a hard job, right? To post content, it flopped. Post content you worked hard on, it flopped. But what I want to tell you is that you post and you post until you have a winner.

24:45Michael Stelzner: And you 100 % will have winners, but you have to stay in the game long, long enough to have those winners, right? So I didn't grow for a whole year. And then in the next 12 months, I gained a combined social following for both of my brands. but over 120 ,000 followers. I'm so glad I didn't give up. That led to a 84 % increase in revenue that year and over 5 ,000 people on my email list. I'm so glad I didn't give up. So yes, you're gonna fail. You're gonna fail forward when your reel flops. Welcome to the club. I literally still post reels every single week that flop. But the key is to try to stay out of the drama and play the mind game that you need.

25:31Michael Stelzner: that's required for success on Instagram, which is I'm going to keep going. I'm going to keep staying in tune with what lights me up as a creator, as a marketer, the things that are within my control. And I'm going to learn from these failed attempts.

25:46Elizabeth Marberry: I love that. And a couple of thoughts on this. I cross post to Instagram and Facebook from Instagram. And this is where looking at the analytics can really, really benefit you because it will combine all the analytics together. And we'll show you what percentage is coming from Instagram and what percentage is coming from Facebook. And I have found, and I don't know if you do this, Elizabeth, but I found sometimes stuff completely takes off on Facebook, but it does not on Instagram, right? So you wouldn't know this if you didn't cross post, right? And when you go into the analytics, it will tell you.

26:21Elizabeth Marberry: That's the first thing. The second thing is that you have to define what a bomb is, right? Because I've had videos that have incredible retention graphs and average view duration is like 30 seconds, you know, on like a one or two minute video, which is really good. But they don't get a lot of views. So it's just a question of like, who's viewing it and what metrics do you care about? And what's great about Instagram is it tells you whether you're outperforming yourself, right? On all the metrics, like the skip and the comments and all that kind of stuff. So those are the things that I'm really looking forward to.

26:54Elizabeth Marberry: Do you have anything to add to that, Elizabeth?

26:55Michael Stelzner: I love that. I've experienced the exact same thing that you described with cross posting with Instagram and Facebook. I find that the Facebook audience is older than the Instagram audience. And I, so I own a brick and mortar dance studio in Denver called Wedding Dance Coach. So we are constantly posting, you know, first dance couples and father, daughter, mother, son content, all of that, which is super fun. And I always cross post over to our, our Facebook page, which I, I frankly, I should look at it more, but I sometimes I forget because I'm just so focused on Instagram. But what I noticed is in looking at the analytics within the Instagram app on each video, it will show you how many views because I would get really confused.

27:38Michael Stelzner: I would see a video get 150 ,000 views on Instagram. I thought it was all on Instagram and I would dig into the analytics And it would be like 10K views on Instagram and 140K views on Facebook. And then I hop on over there and I look at all my comments and it's all like mothers, you know, grandmas and mamas. And I don't want to stereotype on Facebook. I know there's young people hanging out over there too. But so yes, I just want to say very different. And why wouldn't you cross post? Like it's literally like toggle it on, set it like, great. Do that. If you're looking at your analytics and let's say 80 % of your views, your engagement is over on Facebook.

28:18Michael Stelzner: Now you can kind of curate your strategy to focus more on those people, right? And then mentally you're kind of thinking, and I'm posting it to Instagram. But you know that maybe your hottest prospects are actually more with you on Facebook. It's good to know. Like it can inform your strategy moving forward.

28:37Elizabeth Marberry: Is there a point where you stop cross-posting if you notice the audiences are different?

28:41Michael Stelzner: I don't.

28:42Elizabeth Marberry: Okay. Why do you mean you? I just met strategically. Well, there is one advantage to not cross-posting, which is playlists. There are playlists on Facebook for reels that are only available if you do not cross-post. So you wouldn't know this unless you actually go from the edits app directly into Facebook or you actually upload your reel into Facebook. for whatever reason, they don't have the same feature set as Instagram does. So if you're trying to put together a playlist for like a little series or something like that, you will lose that advantage. But I kind of like the idea of having all the aggregated data and I don't mind not having that playlist.

29:18Elizabeth Marberry: Yeah. Another update this year from Instagram, I want to ask you about Elizabeth. Obviously, you know, all of this, we're trying to increase our reach, get more views, you know, get more out of each piece of content that we make. And Instagram has announced the ability to add posts that you're tagged in directly to your main profile grid, as opposed to having it on a separate tab. If you've never seen it, there's a separate tab for the stuff that you get tagged in. And of course, these are the first images someone sees when they visit your profile. So you could get more exposure for your brand via tag content by giving it this prominent placement.

29:53Elizabeth Marberry: Is this something that people were asking for? Because I was kind of surprised when I saw it that, you know, when they made this announcement, because they made kind of a big deal about it.

30:02Michael Stelzner: Yeah, I do think a lot of brands are excited about this, you know, the people who are often tagged in content. And so, yeah, I, you know, I think one of the things that people are always asking for is ensuring that credit goes to where credit is due. And so I think that's another part of this from a creator standpoint is just like, there's a lot, there's been so many times where people are frustrated that, well, I was tagged in this, but that's actually not my company or vice versa. Right. So I think this is a huge moment for, it could be a huge opportunity for brands that are tagged in a lot of customer or client posts or reels.

30:48Michael Stelzner: And the opportunity to showcase that on their feeds is fantastic social proof, right? Like, I think that's a really cool opportunity. And again, if we it's like one less piece of content that the marketer would have to post that day.

31:02Elizabeth Marberry: Well, except is it going to come up in feeds just because you add it to your profile? Yeah.

31:07Michael Stelzner: So my understanding of the update is that when you are tagged in a piece of content, so right now on Instagram, how it was before, and it has been this way forever, is that on Instagram, there is on the far right, there's a little, so you have your grid, you have your reels feed on the far right. There's a little tab that shows all of the posts that you're, that you're tagged in. So my understanding of this update is that now when you are tagged in a piece of content, you have the opportunity to showcase it on your profile grid.

31:43Elizabeth Marberry: Yes, yeah. And I know they've said you can still rearrange your profile, you can remove it from your profile without removing the tag from the original post wherever it came from. But what do you tell your clients about how much effort should be going into how the grid looks? And maybe it's because I don't get a lot of profile visits because I don't focus on Instagram, but I feel like that, is there a return on that effort?

32:06Michael Stelzner: Yes and no. So the days of a perfectly curated grid that essentially looks like your website had a baby on Instagram, those days are over, right? Like it's not in 2018. We gotta get with the program, okay? So thank God, right? Because that was exhausting to have to like, oh, I have to organize on my grid and have it color coded. And note, by the way, I'm being silly. No shade if that's you and your brand and you and you really love the aesthetic look. That's totally OK. But that is a choice, right? It's not a requirement anymore. In terms of what matters on your grid, I'm so happy you asked this question because really what I focus on are the pinned posts, which are I have three pinned posts at the top of my grid.

32:55Michael Stelzner: Now, those are really important, Jerry, because it's all about those first impressions. Right. So ideally, how Instagram works, you created a reel or a carousel. I love it. I pop on over to your profile and hopefully your bio is optimized. I know who it's for, how you can help me, your whole vibe. And then what do I see? I see that grid, right? And it's all within five seconds in my brain. But those three pin posts are super important. And I'm happy to share the strategy that I teach my clients about how to optimize those three pin posts, if that would be helpful. Sure, go ahead. Okay, cool. So pin post number one, and you can do these three pin posts in any order at the top of your feed.

33:36Michael Stelzner: But pin post number one is founder or team brand story. So think about like the heart, the mission behind why you do what you do. And it can be really simple. So for my personal brand, I used to be a professional dancer. So it's kind of an interesting story, right? Like Instagram or professional dancer turned Instagram marketer. Like how did this even happen, right? but in my founder story, there's a video of me, I'm dancing in my kitchen and then I have text coming up on the screen, popping up, telling my story. Hi, I'm Elizabeth, I'm a CEO. I have two kids and I used to be a professional dancer, right?

34:22Michael Stelzner: Like I'm telling the story on the screen. It's a short video, less than 30 seconds, people by people, not products or services. So even if you're not the face of your brand, you can kind of share how your team works or again, your mission, your story, right? So that's number one. That can be a reel, that can be a carousel, however you want to position it. Pin post number two is how I like to describe it is top of funnel next step. So this would be like for me with my Instagram content, I essentially have three possible next steps that people can take with my business. And depending on how what I'm marketing that month.

34:59Michael Stelzner: It depends on my call to action. But I'll give you an example of one thing. So I have a lead magnet called a free Instagram visibility jumpstart kit. And so I could pin a post at the top that's more of an attraction style post. So I don't mean like an ad. Like I don't mean like a Canva graphic that's like grab my free guide, right? Like that doesn't work. So a reel that popped off and is connected into whatever it is that I'm inviting people into. And then they're going to comment my keyword using DM automation. I send them my guide as a goal to grow my email list, right? So that's an example of one of the funnels that I have set up for my business.

35:37Michael Stelzner: So you want to think about your customer journey. Like what is the next step in your business? One of my clients owns a wedding venue in the Hudson Valley. So her customer journey is she wants a couple to book a tour with on her property, right? She tells me that if she can get them on a tour, she's much more likely to close them, which of course that makes total sense. Right. And so we'll design a piece of attraction style content that really Matt acts like a magnet to attract her ideal engaged couple to her wedding venue. They she'll tell them, I would love to give you a private tour of the space comment tour below, and I'll send you a link to my calendar.

36:15Michael Stelzner: They comment tour, and now she's able to track how effective that funnel is, So whatever your funnel is, it could be a lead magnet. It could be hopping on a discovery call. It could be an audio download. There's lots of different customer journeys, but that's something you definitely need to understand. How do we go from Instagram to an ecosystem that you own? So that's your second pin post. The third one is super easy. It's your signature content. So you can think of a piece of content that performed really well for you, that you love, that gives a quick vibe of what people can expect from your feed, that's the third and final pin post.

36:56Elizabeth Marberry: And as you're describing this too, all of a sudden I'm seeing perfect use cases for being able to pin things that people have tagged you in. So for example, we're excited to have you on this show. You know, Mike and his team have built this into a very high profile show, right? So if you get tagged in a post about it, then that might be something that you want on your profile grid, right? Is that kind of what you're envisioning?

37:18Michael Stelzner: Totally. Absolutely. Yes. Yes. I love that use case. I think that would be a great idea.

37:24Elizabeth Marberry: So now that's now you have to do that, of course.

37:25Michael Stelzner: Now I have to do it. If I don't do it, I'm a jerk.

37:30Elizabeth Marberry: They've given us lots of, you know, control over what stays there and what goes away. So should brands and marketers be asking to get tagged in more things? And if so, like, how do we, did you just ask, do you run contests?

37:42Michael Stelzner: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I love this question. So if your goal is to get tagged in more content as a business and that's not happening for you, my support to you is I want you to go off of Instagram, go off of social media and look at the customer journey and see where you can start to weave this in on the back end piece. So instead of posting on Instagram and posting to my story and saying, Hey, if you love our product, tag us, which by the way, you can totally do. But I bake tagging into my onboarding, offboarding systems of my company. And I'll give you an example. In my company, Wedding Dance Coach, we have a follow-up form that is automatically sent to our couples a month after their wedding date, where we ask them for their social handles.

38:34Michael Stelzner: and then we also ask for their Instagram handle. And we also ask them for their vendor handles, right? So photographer, videographer, all of that. That's very intentional, right? So not only are we automating, getting those assets from our customers, but now we're asking for those handles. So that way we can tag or do strategic collaborations on Instagram, right? So if you want to be tagged more, my support is like, just think about the backend of like how you're baking it into your system, right? So that's number one. Number two would totally be to like gamify it, right? Like if you love our coffee, you know, take a selfie and post it to your Instagram story and tag us and you're gonna be eligible to win a$500 gift card to Amazon this month.

39:23Elizabeth Marberry: Generous. Right?

39:25Michael Stelzner: Like I wouldn't do that, but you know, someone out there is like, yeah, I'm gonna do that. I always kind of think about like, if you're going to ask or your intention is to call in more tags to your company or to call in more collaborations, because collaborations are so fantastic. Like when someone invites your brand or you invite their brand to collab with you, now that piece of content is showing up on both grids, right? And so that is like a very under leveraged tool. And I think it's really smart. But when you're thinking about wanting to call more of that in, always think about what's in it for the other person, right?

40:04Michael Stelzner: And so that's why I'm kind of saying like gamify it or like our couples, of course, they want to give credit to all of their vendor team that made their special day happen. Like they're excited to shout it from the rooftops. So like whether that motivation is just a personal connection or you're gamifying it, but yeah, you want to be sure if that's a goal, it's absolutely something you can do. You just have to kind of step back and think about like what would make the most sense.

40:30Elizabeth Marberry: Yeah. And as of today, I don't have the feature yet. The way it was described from Instagram is that you'll be able to do it with posts. I assume it'll be reels as well. And by the time this out, you know, everybody may know this, but just as a heads up with that. And then another way that they're introducing to expand the reach of your reels is they've expanded automatic reel translations to Japanese, Korean, French, German, Italian. Now, if you have products that are for English speakers and all of your marketing is in English, it's hard. And that says, you know, it's obviously doesn't make sense to do that.

41:01Elizabeth Marberry: But I want to ask you just knowing what you know about the ever-changing algorithm, is there a strategy where if you started reaching people in another language, you would potentially get more reach in your native language as well? Because like, sometimes I tell local businesses on YouTube, if you like, they're like, well, I only want local people. I'm like, yeah, but if people, other places like your videos, that will help you reach more local people. Mike, I saw your hand go up. Before you answer this.

41:31Elizabeth Marberry: That's me speaking in Japanese. You'll notice that it actually got my accent and everything down. So I don't know. What do you think about all this, Elizabeth?

41:41Michael Stelzner: Yeah. So, um, translations on reels. So when, when Instagram first launched translations on Reels, I actually tested this out. It was a few months ago. And this newest update is they're, they're essentially releasing more and more languages. Right. And so, okay, here's what I think. Anytime you can make content more accessible to more humans on the planet, I celebrate that. I think that's a good thing. In terms of how it works, it is very trippy. Okay. It's very trippy. So how it works, by the way, is if you, so it's not something that you can turn on after you've posted your reel. Okay. You have to do it like while you're uploading a video and like editing the reel, then you go to more options and you have to tap that.

42:30Michael Stelzner: And then you go down to accessibility and translation, and then you tap that and then you can select the languages you want, turn it on all these things. Okay. So it's, it is multiple steps. Um, and so you have to decide, is that worth your time? I, yeah, I'm always a fan of why not have my content reach more people, Jerry, like I'm with you on that. Like, let's just, let's reach more people. So that's, that's definitely true, but it's very trippy. How it works is that it will, the AI. So I did one where I was doing a direct to camera. The AI changed my mouth. So it looked like I was saying the words in the other language.

43:09Michael Stelzner: So I did it for Hindi and Portuguese and my lips were moving as if I was speaking Portuguese and I was dying. Like I was like, I don't know what's happening. It's cool, but like so weird because that's not my face. Like my mouth is moving saying those words, like it was kind of weird. But what I will tell you is that it translates your words, your spoken words in the video, but it does not from what I saw, it does not translate your caption. And I also had embedded closed captions in my video because, you know, if you don't know this, I'm telling you now, when you do a yapping direct-to-camera video, you want to put your own closed captions on there, right?

43:53Michael Stelzner: Because that's also an accessibility piece. Some people may not be able to access hearing, right? But it's also a lot of people still consume the Instagram app with the sound off. So that's just rule of thumb. Even when I'm in my Instagram stories or whatever, I always put on closed captions. So if someone's hiding out in the bathroom at work, they can still binge my content. You know, I don't want to let them down. And so but what I did notice is with translations, it doesn't like change that text on screen to like, you know, translate to the other language. So I do think that there's, you know, like I said, I think it's a good thing.

44:30Michael Stelzner: Do I think it's worth all the extra time and steps? I typically don't do it. But you also need to think about your target audience. Right. Right. Because a lot of people listening might sell products that could be shipped all over the world. Right.

44:43Elizabeth Marberry: Yeah. It's never been easier to reach other countries for sure without as much additional work. And now I'm thinking that I should get a video of me speaking French and send it to my wife or something. See if if there's something there. Well, this has been a really fascinating dialogue, Elizabeth. Thank you for joining us today. If people want to learn more about you or explore working with you, where do you want to send them?

45:04Michael Stelzner: Thank you so much for having me. I would absolutely love if you're listening to the show or watching it. That means you love podcasts. I am the host of Strutt It, Bold Visibility Through Instagram Marketing. Every Monday, I drop exactly what's working and not working for small businesses and creative entrepreneurs on Instagram. So definitely go follow the show. And if you're not following me on Instagram, what the heck are you doing? Let's connect over there. My handle is Elizabeth Marbury, M-A-R-B-E-R-R-Y. I would love to connect with you. And when you follow me over there, you're going to get my automation about my free Instagram visibility jumpstart kit.

45:42Michael Stelzner: If that floats your boat. And of course, my website is just my name, elizabethmarberry.com.

45:48Elizabeth Marberry: Elizabeth and Jerry, thank you so much for being on the show today. And if you missed anything, we took all the notes for you over at socialmediaexaminer.com slash 740. If you're new to this show, be sure to follow us. If you've been a listener for a little while, we would love a review. Do check out my other show, the AI Explored podcast. This brings us to the end of the Social Media Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner. I was joined today by my co-host, Jerry Potter. I'll be back with you next week. I hope you make the best out of your day and may your marketing keep evolving. The Social Media Marketing Podcast is a production of Social Media Examiner.

46:29Elizabeth Marberry: Hey, before you go, we just announced our first speakers for Social Media Marketing World 2027, two dozen practitioners, every single one personally recruited every session pitch free. Go see the lineup and grab your discounted tickets right now at socialmediamarketingworld.info.