SHOW TRANSCRIPT

This transcript is automatically generated by Descript.  Any errors or omissions are unintentional.

[00:00:00] Corey Walker: the 2024 and into 2025 mantra is authenticity. So, you know, I’ve had people say like, Oh, do I still have to have my Instagram feed all perfectly curated with, you know,

[00:00:13] Corey Walker: the.

[00:00:13] Corey Walker: Perfect looking thing. No, people are looking to find out about you, about what makes your company go, what’s important to you.

[00:00:23] Jeff Sieh: Hello folks, welcome to Social Media News Live. I’m Jeff Sieh.

[00:00:26] Jeff Sieh: And you’re not. Have

[00:00:27] Conor Brown: And I’m Connor Brown, and this is the show that keeps you up to date on what’s happening in the world of social media and more.

[00:00:33] Jeff Sieh: you ever wondered how to make the most out of Instagram for your business? Are you eager? Are you eager to learn the strategies that take a brand from simply being present to highly engaging? Or maybe you’re ready to take your Instagram game to a whole new level? If that’s you, then you are gonna get a ton out of today’s episode this week.

[00:00:52] Jeff Sieh: We are excited to welcome. And Instagram expert who’s helped countless brands, Corey Walker, co author of Instagram for Business [00:01:00] for Dummies, will be joining us to share her journey, her strategies, and her best tips for growing a successful Instagram presence. So sit back, clear your schedule, clear your mind, and get ready for this week’s episode of Social Media News Live.

[00:01:12] Jeff Sieh: Corey, how are you doing today?

[00:01:14] Corey Walker: I’m doing great. How are you all?

[00:01:16] Jeff Sieh: We are here. We are here and we are live. so this is going to be amazing, but, Connor, I want you to take some time and introduce our lovely guest.

[00:01:25] Conor Brown: Absolutely, if you don’t know Cori, you should. Cori Walker is the five time best selling co author of Instagram for Dummies and Instagram for Business for Dummies. She’s also president of the Marketing Specialist, a social media marketing agency in El Dorado Hills, California. Corey works with service providers to get more leads and sales through social media and email marketing.

[00:01:50] Conor Brown: We got two dummies here in Jeff and Connor. So we are excited to learn from you. Thanks again for being here, Corey.

[00:01:56] Corey Walker: Oh, thanks for having me.

[00:01:58] Jeff Sieh: And want to thank our [00:02:00] sponsors of the show. Of course, Ecamm, you can find out more about them at ecamm. com forward slash Jeff. Use code jeff15 to save 15 percent on your first purchase. And by the way, folks, something really cool is happening. They are having a giveaway that starts today. I think it runs through the 24th.

[00:02:14] Jeff Sieh: the new Mac mini M4 came out and they are giving one away with a bunch of other cool stuff. So to go enter that drawing and find out all about it, make sure you guys go to ecamm. tv forward slash giveaway. Like I said, it’s been going to be running for most of this month. So go check it out. That M4 Mac mini is

[00:02:32] Conor Brown: Oh, so cool. Five inches, five inches by two. So tiny.

[00:02:37] Jeff Sieh: Yeah. It’s amazing now what they have. So go check that out. maybe you could win an M4. Now I’m really jealous now. I have to get one, but, it’s Rich Graham over watching over YouTube. Hey, we’re back. We are back, Rich. Thank you for tuning in over there on YouTube. So I’m going to go ahead.

[00:02:50] Jeff Sieh: And just like start running with the questions because I’ve got a lot. And Corey, so what edition is this? That just coming out the, the Instagram for [00:03:00] business for dummies. Is it the third?

[00:03:01] Corey Walker: is the third Instagram business for dummies. Yes.

[00:03:04] Jeff Sieh: But you also helped co write just Instagram for dummies. So,

[00:03:09] Corey Walker: So there’s two editions of that one as well.

[00:03:11] Jeff Sieh: okay. Wow. So, you know, this is going to be great.

[00:03:14] Jeff Sieh: Cause like Connor said, we are dummies when it comes to,Instagram. So I want to talk about. Like, what inspired you to write Instagram for Business for Dummies? Because, I mean, this is the third edition, so, I mean, you have to kind of keep diving into this over and over and really be knowledgeable. So what, what inspired you in the first place to write it?

[00:03:30] Jeff Sieh: Mm hmm.

[00:03:31] Corey Walker: Yeah. Well, I had been using Instagram for my business and for my client’s business for several years. And, actually my coauthor, Eric Buteau had been tapped by Wiley. Wiley, publishes all of the dummies books to, to write Instagram for business for dummies. And so, he has written all these.

[00:03:53] Corey Walker: Dummies Books, but needed a subject matter expert. So he had asked me if I wanted to write it with [00:04:00] him. And I said, yes, absolutely. And so kind of a partnership was formed and that’s how it went. So it wasn’t that I had the book in mind to write, it was the book. Miraculously came to me. So, so that was, that was awesome being selected to, write.

[00:04:19] Conor Brown: So how about going back to that, that first time, because I know with each new edition, I would assume how you start is going back to the previous edition, seeing what’s applicable, seeing what you need to add in and going from there. So, so Corey, talk about how is this new edition. Different from the first edition.

[00:04:36] Conor Brown: Like what has changed? What’s the big focus now that people might not have been thinking about on edition one? [00:05:00] everybody.

[00:05:04] Corey Walker: things like that. there’s SEO that Instagram takes into account where they didn’t before.

[00:05:10] Corey Walker: It was just, you know, you could just use hashtags to help, get found in that way. so yeah, there’s, there’s a lot of small incremental things also that they just keep adding more features like, You know, I mean, Reels itself obviously was new, but even between the last version and this version, just a lot of the editing capabilities, things like that, notes is all new, broadcast chance.

[00:05:35] Corey Walker: So there’s a lot that has, they’ve really beefed up everything.

[00:05:40] Jeff Sieh: So since we’re talking about Instagram for business, for dummies, let’s, let’s kind of dive into, you know, I know a lot of businesses who are like visual, let’s say like a flower shop or, you know, some of those boutiques, you know, they’re into Instagram a lot because they, that, you know, their branding.

[00:05:56] Jeff Sieh: And I mean, we have one of, uh, The accounts that I follow here locally [00:06:00] is, Shivers, which is a snow cone place. And they have grown so much. Now they’re being served at the Dallas Cowboys home football games. I mean, and they grew through Instagram and they, and they use it really, really well. But what about other business?

[00:06:11] Jeff Sieh: What are some, like, when people say, I don’t know if business, if it’s right for my business, it seems like too much effort. I’m not really a visual company. What do you tell people when they say that about Instagram for their, their business?

[00:06:23] Corey Walker: Yeah. So, I, I work with a lot of service providers where you might think that this isn’t visual, like a, you know, a real estate agent, for instance, yes, they have the houses that’s visual, but there’s a lot within that business that is not. And I’m going to leave you with that. I hope that you guys enjoyed this video.

[00:06:49] Corey Walker: I’ll see you guys next time. Bye. Lean into their knowledge and having them use [00:07:00] Instagram as a way to teach people about things. So if you’re comfortable being on camera, you know, talking, these are the top three things that you need to get ready, you know, your home to get ready for a fall sale. Or if you’re an attorney, maybe these are the, you know, top tips for going into.

[00:07:21] Corey Walker: Whatever it is their, their, lawsuit is about, you know, just sharing knowledge and being the subject matter expert and talking to your audience about that and being authentic. That’s authentic is kind of the, the two 2024 and into 2025 mantra is authenticity. So, you know, I’ve had people say like, Oh, do I still have to have my Instagram feed all perfectly curated with, you know,

[00:07:49] Corey Walker: the.

[00:07:50] Jeff Sieh: right.

[00:07:50] Corey Walker: Perfect looking thing. No, people are looking to find out about you, about what makes your company go, what makes, what’s important to [00:08:00] you. so just, you know, having your talking head out there is perfectly fine.

[00:08:04] Jeff Sieh: Got it. Got it.

[00:08:05] Conor Brown: Talking head, you hear that Jeff? Just the beard.

[00:08:07] Jeff Sieh: I’m just the talking beard. Yeah.

[00:08:09] Conor Brown: you mentioned in some of the updates from the first edition to now, the importance of, or how it’s grown in Instagram SEO. Talk a little bit about how businesses can go about that, like where they even start with, with Instagram SEO, and then also how do you use that research to then create content that actually sticks with people and, and then is engaging.

[00:08:33] Conor Brown: I feel like SEO can be so technical, but it’s really, really important, especially on Instagram too.

[00:08:39] Corey Walker: Yeah, well, now most things in Instagram are part of how they arrange the algorithm. So SEO is important and a lot of people still think that it’s just based on the hashtag, but it’s really not. so you can incorporate it in your bio. using, you know, your, so you have like on the [00:09:00] screen right now at Corey Seawalker, that’s my username, but then your, your business name on there can be a different, something totally different.

[00:09:08] Corey Walker: So that, could be like for mine, it’s Instagram marketing specialist. So that’s highly searchable because someone might be searching for that. You can put other keywords within your bio, but then more than that, you can put it in your captions. And then even those words, you can be speaking them if you’re doing an Instagram reel and that gets picked up.

[00:09:31] Corey Walker: So I would say when you’re talking about going back to the research, first thing you always have to do is look at your target audience and look at, you know, those keywords that apply to that target audience you’re trying to reach. So really, come up with those words that you want to incorporate and then try and sprinkle them in more in what you’re talking about, your captions.

[00:09:52] Corey Walker: And if you’re interested in learning more about how to use your, um, your bio, all of that, and it doesn’t have to be super complex. you [00:10:00] know, I work with a lot of service based providers and when I go too deep into all of this stuff, it makes their eyes roll back in their head. so one thing I like to emphasize is just really, I work with people where they are.

[00:10:15] Corey Walker: And if, if where they are is I can get out one reel a week, that’s where we start. So yeah,

[00:10:24] Jeff Sieh: So I want to kind of follow up with that. So for example, Connor is a travel agent and a vacation planner. His company is Vacation Kingdoms, and he does a lot of stuff with Disney. So should, in his reels, he make sure that he uses those Keywords like Disney vacation planning, you know, Florida vacations.

[00:10:43] Jeff Sieh: and the algorithm actually picks up the words or does he have to put it in his captions? Is it actually, it actually is finding it in his video and using it that way.

[00:10:52] Jeff Sieh: they’re finding it in his video. It’s Big Brother is alive and well. So Right, exactly.

[00:10:58] Corey Walker: Yeah. I mean, if, if you [00:11:00] think about it, if they can auto transcribe your captions, they already have that, that data. So, I would advise him to also do the auto captions in there just because so many people scroll with sound off, but for it to be picked up in the SEO, it’s not necessary to have it in the captions in the, you know, on

[00:11:20] Conor Brown: I want to first thank Jeff for that free consulting that I got from that. But then I also want to do a follow up for that, Corey. Using the auto generated, subtitles, captions on the video, best practice to have Instagram handle that? Or can you do it in a third party when you’re editing your video and then upload it with captions already

[00:11:42] Corey Walker: mean, you, you definitely, you, you can do it out of Instagram and upload it. I usually tend to think, and I don’t have this as an official thing, You know, thing that I’ve tested, but in general, Instagram likes you to [00:12:00] use their tools. So the more you can use the tools that they have, the more they enjoy that because they’re like, we’re offering this to you and we want to see our, So, you know, is it going to make or break your reach if you use, some other captioning tool outside that might be a little bit, you know, fancier and more designed?

[00:12:22] Corey Walker: Probably not. But in general, the more you can use that Instagram creates, usually they like it better.

[00:12:29] Jeff Sieh: That’s a good point. So just because this SEO thing is really kind of getting the wheels turning. this, this dummy is taking his dunce cap off. The, the question, because you mentioned that they, they’ve scrolling really fast and having the auto captures on because sometimes they’re, they’re scrolling without the sound.

[00:12:46] Jeff Sieh: Should you, should Connor using his, an example, should he go like, Hey, this is Connor Brown from Vacation Kingdoms. Should he have his plug at the beginning? Because of. People may be scrolling fast and that SEO is important or should he wait [00:13:00] till the end? I’m just trying to like I know you you consult with people a lot with with their companies on how to make reels and things I just love to know what your right your thoughts are on that.

[00:13:08] Corey Walker: what he might want to do is do a hook first. so do your hook to get people watching and then say, Hey, I’m Connor. You know, But yeah, I would definitely get that information in towards the start because people tend to trail off and scroll on, but yeah, get them with that hook first and then say who you are.

[00:13:28] Jeff Sieh: gotcha Well, we’re gonna go off the rails totally because I have another question Especially for businesses. So the difference between stories versus reels when she’d use one versus the other

[00:13:40] Corey Walker: So just, to explain the difference between the two, if people aren’t familiar, Reels live on your profile if you put them there and they’re also available in the feed and they stay there. And they don’t go away in 24 hours. Stories go away in 24 hours and they’re [00:14:00] in a different section. Reels also have their own section, but they’re also in the feed.

[00:14:04] Corey Walker: just to get that out there. Reels are like the top of the funnel. So if you want to have as many people as possible seeing your stuff, start with the Reels. And the Instagram algorithm is going to send them out to people as possible and it’s going to send it to people that are not your followers.

[00:14:28] Corey Walker: So stories only go to people that are following you. start with the reels and then I like to move them down the funnel and have some other, information on my main profile that might be carousels. That’s another one in the algorithm that does really well right now. And just some other, regular posts And then you can get them interested and hopefully they’ll follow you and then they’ll start seeing your stories.

[00:14:55] Corey Walker: And your stories, I tend to do more, behind the [00:15:00] scenes, more authentic talking about, you know, what you’re doing in your day. Things like that, that really up that, know, like, and trust factor. And so once you have people really engaged on your stories, if you want to hit them with a live at the end to really sell whatever you’re selling, then that’s a great way to, to close out the funnel.

[00:15:23] Jeff Sieh: Awesome. Conor and I’s friend Julie Voris, she’s big on Instagram. And I think that’s what she’s told us as well before is that, like, reels are that, like you said, the top of the funnel to get people in, but then stories are stuff like she will never show a picture of her kids. On a reel or talk about her family life, but she will in her stories.

[00:15:41] Jeff Sieh: Cause one, it goes away in 24 hours and two, it seems to be like you were saying more behind the scenes, kind of like I’m sharing with my closest friends who are a part of my community already. Is that kind of what you’re saying? Okay. Gotcha. Awesome. So any other questions, Connor, on, on this note? Cause I mean, I’ve, I’ve got you so much consulting with this one.

[00:15:58] Jeff Sieh: I mean, I don’t know what else to [00:16:00] do. I’ve,

[00:16:00] Conor Brown: I know, I love it. I do want to talk about the, the carousel thing. So carousel wise, cause I know that. That is getting picked up by the algorithm a lot right now. Corey, have you seen any rhyme or reason in the, should it be all photos in that carousel? Should it be some videos mixed in? Because you can do that now.

[00:16:20] Conor Brown: You can have a couple photos, couple videos in the entire carousel. should it, you always add music to your, to your carousel now? Because that’s a new feature. Like, what’s the kind of combination that, that you found has, has been successful for those carousels?

[00:16:34] Corey Walker: yeah, so, I mean, it’s great if you can add, some photos and some video to that. Uh, you have to be careful with the adding music and then the video. I don’t know how that, that intermixes. If you’ve got a video that’s got sound, I don’t know that you’d be able to do that. Or it might be weird,

[00:16:52] Jeff Sieh: gotcha.

[00:16:53] Corey Walker: but, I, I really have people use carousels a lot to tell the steps of [00:17:00] something.

[00:17:00] Corey Walker: so, you know, these are the five steps to do this, or these are the top five, You know, for you, you might be, these are the top five rides people like to go on at Disney, you know, something like that. or it’s a great way to tell a story. So that’s a good one to get people hooked in. And you could say, you know, this is the story of when I went here and dot, dot, dot, and then you just keep going.

[00:17:25] Corey Walker: So any of these that, that have, A beginning and end work really well because then people are more intrigued and they want to say, Oh, well, what’s the next step or what’s the next thing in the story? So those are the things that I find work really well is when you have it. Numbered, or it’s just obvious you want to continue going on.

[00:17:46] Corey Walker: another trick, I mean, I see it and I see through it. So I don’t know if other people don’t realize they’re doing this, but a lot of people will say, you know, you want to see the fourth slide cause that’s my favorite. So, you know, [00:18:00] us as marketers, we know these tricks, but realizes.

[00:18:06] Conor Brown: cooksandmike. I’m also

[00:18:08] Jeff Sieh: So real quick to clarify for people who are just getting into this, the difference, the, are, how long can you have reels and how long can you, and the stories be if they’re trying to create these for the first time?

[00:18:18] Corey Walker: So reels, it was up to 90 minutes. Some people now have three minutes. It just kind of depends on if you’ve been rolled out to or not yet. so yeah, reels can be, the three minutes and then stories now are 60 seconds.

[00:18:32] Jeff Sieh: Okay. Okay. So that, I just wanted to clarify for people who are, are, are doing that. And the cool thing is if you’re repurposing stuff, like YouTube has just raised their, it’s to three minutes, I believe now. so. That’s kind of cool. we have a great question from our friend, Chris Stone. And he says, what are some effective strategies on Instagram where you want to eventually get viewers off the platform without IG squashing you to listen to watch full podcast episodes, for instance.

[00:18:59] Jeff Sieh: [00:19:00] So Chris is an amazing video podcaster. He has, he does a really good job editing, but he also does really, really good high engaging shorts. And his question is like, okay, I want to get them. Move to where I want them to watch the full thing. What’s the best way to do that?

[00:19:14] Corey Walker: Yeah. So, I have a client that does, that has a podcast on YouTube and they have their podcasting on their website. So what we do is, we used to use, you know, go to the link in bio, but that’s kind of been. Yeah. I mean, it’s not phased out, but people aren’t using that term as much. And so what I have a lot of people do is use ManyChat to send a link.

[00:19:40] Corey Walker: And so if people aren’t familiar with ManyChat, you’ve probably seen the videos where it says, you know, comment. Podcast. And then they’ll get an auto reply that says send the link and then ManyChat in the DMs will send them the link. So that’s what I usually recommend to people at this point that want to [00:20:00] get, you know, people over to a different platform.

[00:20:02] Jeff Sieh: is ManyChat the, the main one? I know there’s some other places. there’s one, oh gosh, I can’t remember, but, I think there’s a couple of different programs, but is that the one

[00:20:11] Corey Walker: probably, yeah, there probably are. ManyChat’s the only one that I’ve, I’ve used and I really know about, but I’m sure, you know, there’s probably others out there, but they’re like the, the big, the big one that everyone knows about.

[00:20:22] Jeff Sieh: Very cool. So, hope that helped Chris, cause now I have some ideas as well. That’s going to be fun. So I want to jump. Really quick, to our next section, we’re going to talk about some of these new features. We’ve kind of rolled them out, we talked about a little bit. one of the main ones is Instagram had mentioned that shifting a focus towards views as a primary metric.

[00:20:41] Jeff Sieh: so what changes should businesses do with this kind of new, news that has come out that they’re, hey, they’re looking at views is what we’re going to kind of rank everything by. And that’s kind of hard for businesses when they’re first starting out, that they need to have a lot more views.

[00:20:55] Corey Walker: Yeah. I mean, I would say the fundamentals don’t change that [00:21:00] much. You’re still going to want to do a lot of reels. You’re still going to want to do, some of those carousels. So I, I don’t know that most business owners, unless they’re like hardcore on Instagram, have to be overly concerned about this change.

[00:21:18] Corey Walker: if you just know I need to do reels, I need to do reels that, get people engaged, which you should be doing already, have a hook, you know, middle information section, and then a strong call to action. I think that is That’s the main thing that you need to worry about and then having those engaging carousels, like I was talking about before, that, that carry you through, some type of process, and that’s going to encourage more views.

[00:21:49] Corey Walker: they try to act like this is such a different thing. I don’t know that it really changes the way that you have to do things or really changes think [00:22:00] a lot of the stuff that they come out with is a little bit of smoke and mirrors. Like, Oh, look, we’re doing this now. but

[00:22:05] Jeff Sieh: been doing it for a while

[00:22:06] Corey Walker: fundamentals, it’s not a big change.

[00:22:08] Jeff Sieh: Okay.

[00:22:09] Conor Brown: about some of the new editing tools that, that Instagram has, has rolled out? I’ve used them a little bit. I still kind of, default to using a third party and stuff, but have you seen them become effective for creators trying to create with, within the platform itself?

[00:22:26] Corey Walker: I mean, I haven’t noticed a lot of people using them directly. Those, those tools directly in Instagram. Um,So I haven’t noticed a big change. I think a lot of people like myself are still Canva diehards. So, people might start using it more, but a lot of, I, I was kind of going through some of the ones for the posts and, I don’t know, there are some, some cool things.

[00:22:55] Corey Walker: Like I was playing with it last night a little bit more and I could [00:23:00] add. A screenshot of my book on top of the video or on top of the, the photo within Instagram. So that was kind of cool. And yeah, you can draw stuff over it. so there are some things, but I think it’s going to be hard for people to, that are so ingrained in Canva to switch over to that.

[00:23:21] Corey Walker: But, as I mentioned earlier, the more tools you use with them, they really like that, so it, it could be something that you want to try doing more of, just, just checking out the tools and say, okay, could I do this in Instagram, or do I have to do it in Canva? Because there’s still some things, it’s not really a graphics.

[00:23:41] Corey Walker: So, It’s more adding things to your photos. so,

[00:23:45] Conor Brown: Yeah, I always wonder if it’s like a way to get people who don’t edit at all to try and post more content on Instagram, right? Versus the people that are already doing it. We have our Canva. If it’s video, we have our CapCut and [00:24:00] those sorts of things. So we’re maybe less inclined to do that, but maybe someone who wasn’t inclined at all to go download another app and try it.

[00:24:07] Conor Brown: Maybe they’re trying to make it a little easier in Instagram, but I know using those tools for Instagram works. Like you’re saying, Corey, one tool that they’ve, it hasn’t been a recent rollout. It’s been there for a while, but they seem to keep pushing it to use more and more and more that I just don’t know how to use is notes is, is asking those questions and those things.

[00:24:28] Conor Brown: I feel like it’s that old school Facebook status. Connor Brown is, and then you have to. Or that it includes the word is, you know, so how have you seen either people use notes effectively or what are some tips around using notes in general?

[00:24:42] Corey Walker: So I’ll use notes. it’s kind of weird the way they rolled it out because in the beginning it was just more on the DMs, so they’d be like a little bubble over the DM, but now they have notes that you can place on other people’s content and you can place it on your own content, which [00:25:00] It’s kind of weird to me, like a little bit disruptive and yeah, it’s kind of weird.

[00:25:06] Corey Walker: I don’t, I don’t love that part of it, but, I would say like on the DMs one, I have put things like, check out my new, chat GPT free prompt kit. So I’ll, if I have a lead magnet out there, I might put that out there. of course, a lot of people, you know, were like, get out and vote, but it can be a good way to get people engaged if you just want to ask them a question.

[00:25:31] Corey Walker: I have gotten leads when I put out lead magnets, and putting it on notes is just kind of one extra place to sprinkle your information. do I think it’s good? I’m not going to take over the world and be this fabulous thing. No, but again, you know, you, it’s just one more place you can put some information and I do see people using it.

[00:25:52] Corey Walker: so yeah, check it out and just, you could even come up with, in your content planning. You know, these are the 10 [00:26:00] things I’m going to talk about this month and just sprinkle. Those questions or those phrases on your notes, just test it out.

[00:26:09] Jeff Sieh: Gotcha. we’ve got some great questions that I want to bring up from some of our friends watching live. Rich Graham asks, are there certain types of content that do better than others, like behind the scenes, products, how to? What are you, what would you tell Rich on this? What, you know, what kind of content should we put out?

[00:26:26] Corey Walker: well, I always go back to, it depends on your target audience. So some audiences might really like those behind the scenes. Some might want to just see, you know, how your product works. So first. First thing, always go back to your target audience and then test what’s working for your business and then go to, you know, some of your, I hate to say competitors, cause I like to say, you know, community over competition, but look at what they’re doing and see what’s successful to see if there’s things that you [00:27:00] can bring over to your business that might work well.

[00:27:03] Corey Walker: and it could, you know, Even it could be not your competitors. It could be a different, you know, a different product that’s similar to yours or even caters to the same audience. and see how, what they’re doing and see like, okay, what’s resonating, what is seeming to get a lot of comments and engagement, doing it that way.

[00:27:24] Corey Walker: I think instead of me saying a blanket, like you must do behind the scenes because Some people like that. Some people don’t. So it really depends on your target audience. But, anytime you’re doing any type of real, some, some basic fundamentals is trying to get them in with some kind of hook is really great.

[00:27:44] Corey Walker: good lighting. That is really key. Having some good lighting and just decent sound. You don’t have to, I mean, it’s nice to have a little, you know, lavalier mic. That’s great. they’re 13 bucks on Amazon. So that [00:28:00] can help, make things sound a lot crisper and clearer. And mentioning what your product is, where they can find it.

[00:28:07] Corey Walker: Having a strong call to action at the end is definitely going to help. but again, test it out. See, do you know, each of those things you mentioned, try them out and see, see what happened, you know, what happened with each of those videos and which one people are really resonating with, and then make more of that content.

[00:28:25] Jeff Sieh: Yeah, behind the scenes would not work here because I have like a cone of cleanliness that you guys cannot see the the explosion that has gone on.

[00:28:34] Corey Walker: Yeah, I have a messy desk too. So sometimes I’m not even at, in my office because I, I did this upstairs this time, because at this time, my daughter’s like getting out the door to school and it’s crazy, but, um, on my desk, yeah, sometimes I just have to. Literally just sub everything off and

[00:28:53] Jeff Sieh: So the pain

[00:28:55] Corey Walker: so I understand that

[00:28:57] Jeff Sieh: So, I got another great question. Uh, this is from Abby. [00:29:00] She says, Do you think doing a series in Reels is effective? And does that have any impact on the Instagram algorithm or the SEO?

[00:29:08] Corey Walker: that is a great question. Yeah, I think a series is great because, it leaves people anticipating more. The other thing that’s nice about a series is that, you can break up information. So you know, you’re asking about what’s the length of reels? Yeah, you could do, you know, 90 seconds, three minutes. But I’ll tell you with most people’s goldfish brains these days,

[00:29:33] Conor Brown: soon.

[00:29:35] Corey Walker: or the capacity to sit through even a three minute video.

[00:29:40] Corey Walker: So if you have a lot of information that you want to share doing it in a series and chunking it out, is awesome. And I don’t know, You know, whether the algorithm picks that up or not is more based on how they reacted to your first video and if they want to see more. [00:30:00] So that’s going to affect the algorithm more than, more than anything else.

[00:30:05] Corey Walker: but definitely I think a series is great because as long as it’s engaging and it’s information people want to hear, and you can say like, Check out part two tomorrow, then as long as it’s engaging enough, people will go back and check out more. So that’s a great way to get people to watch, you know, say four videos in a row where they might not have done that if you had just, done four separate videos.

[00:30:28] Corey Walker: So I think it’s a great way to hook them in.

[00:30:30] Jeff Sieh: hmm. Are there, do you have any, examples or companies that people could go look at who have done that well that do series? Because I can’t think of any off the top of my head that I have seen.

[00:30:39] Corey Walker: Yeah.

[00:30:40] Jeff Sieh: got some like entertainment ones like Lila the Boxer is one I know Abby and I watch. She’s this, they have these scenes that these two dogs play out and it’s really funny but it’s a series that continues to go but I don’t, I can’t think of any business that I would go yeah you should go watch that one.

[00:30:55] Corey Walker: I know. I can’t, I honestly can’t think of one off the top of

[00:30:58] Jeff Sieh: See, there’s a place [00:31:00] folks watching, like, there you go. There’s, you can disrupt the industry doing that. Connor needs to do some on vacations,

[00:31:05] Conor Brown: Well, I will say about that, the one thing that does drive me crazy is when my, you know, algorithm feeds me one of those, and it might be the part one, or Yeah, maybe the third part. And then I gotta go back and I’m like, oh, well that’s great. This account has posted 2, 000 reels. So I have no idea where it is.

[00:31:26] Corey Walker: So I always think, you know, think about that kind of, there’s going to be attrition probably from part one to part three or, or whatever it’s, it’s going to be. So I would try to like put your best content first. Right. And, and. I hope that that that’s what’s going to happen. that actually applies to carousels as well. If you’re doing a carousel, I mean, you can put up to 20, cards in a carousel at this point. I wouldn’t recommend that because most people are going to fall off. but yeah, put really good content in the first couple. So [00:32:00] people Want to keep going.

[00:32:01] Jeff Sieh: That’s gotcha. We were talking a little bit before about this new feature that Instagram might, is starting to roll out, but it seems maybe not so much in America, and that’s the AI power rated captions and hashtags. Before the show, we, none of us have it, I want to ask the audience, does anyone have this feature?

[00:32:22] Conor Brown: If you do, comment, let us know the AI powered captions and hashtags. But Corey, just, just talk about from what little we know, what do you see the benefit in that being? And, and do you think it’s going to be useful for creators to use when it eventually rolls out to all accounts? It’s the end of

[00:32:42] Corey Walker: Oh, well, okay. So,

[00:32:45] Corey Walker: captions and, and hashtags. I’ve used it you know, in other software and

[00:32:54] Conor Brown: us

[00:32:55] Corey Walker: I, my opinion is it’s a great starting [00:33:00] point. now, So, there’s some, software that really get to know you and you can plug in more of your data, like this is who I am, these are my clients, and they come up with the, with better captions.

[00:33:13] Corey Walker: My fear is that Instagram will not really get your persona right, and I don’t know this, they might come up with something, but if it’s just kind of generically coming up with these captions.

[00:33:28] Jeff Sieh: Hmm.

[00:33:29] Corey Walker: I don’t love that. And then the, the AI hashtags that I’ve been offered on other platforms are very general.

[00:33:37] Corey Walker: And I don’t think they would be effective for Instagram. because, you know, they’re, they’re these big hashtags that millions of people are using. So you’re not really going to get found. So I am curious. I’m a bit of a pessimist on this, I hate to say, and I think it’s one of those things that will [00:34:00] eventually get better and better and better, but I have a feeling that the rollout in the beginning is not going to be great.

[00:34:06] Corey Walker: I’ve been watching, I do a lot on LinkedIn as well, and so I’ve been noticing a lot more of these AI generated captions, and I can spot them a mile away. And it turns me off. I had tried one of them. I’m not going to say any names here, but I’ve tried one of them. And, I just found that the AI really, it, it doesn’t answer things like a human would speak.

[00:34:36] Corey Walker: And so it, it adds all this extra flowery language and it just, It just adds so much more than a normal person might be like, Oh my gosh, yeah, I really love that. You know, that’s what a normal person would say. And this person’s like, well, the breadth of knowledge that

[00:34:52] Corey Walker: you

[00:34:53] Jeff Sieh: Yeah.

[00:34:54] Corey Walker: unleashed and unlocked was, you know, and so,

[00:34:57] Jeff Sieh: It’s a golden nugget as we delve [00:35:00] into. Yeah. It’s, uh, it’s

[00:35:01] Corey Walker: yeah, so, so that’s what I’m seeing a lot of. So that’s why I’m still a little bit hesitant on the, the captions AI. Now I don’t want to say I don’t love AI and other capacities because it’s really helped me with, you know, writing sales pages and, and all sorts of things. But you do have to make sure that you’re doing the work in the beginning of.

[00:35:24] Corey Walker: Getting it personalized to you and the way that you speak and speaking more like a human than just taking it at face value and just saying like, okay, AI said, this is what it should say. So I’m just going to hit, you know, click and post it out there. So, that’s kind of the pessimist in me about what I think it’s going to be like when it first rolls out.

[00:35:45] Jeff Sieh: And I think that when you’re, when you’re trying to engage with people like on LinkedIn. Or it’s to me, it’s almost like a mini email or a mini blog post where you don’t really want to use AI to write it for you and click that easy button because it, like you said, it turns you off. It [00:36:00] turns cold.

[00:36:00] Jeff Sieh: It’s, you can tell it from, you can see it from a mile away. You know, I like using AI for stuff like for show notes, for podcasts, which I hate, I hate to do. So that’s something easy and it’s, it’s done. but I agree, I don’t know if it’s ever gonna be, like it may learn the kind of the way we talk, but I still think we’re always gonna have to make it our own in some way.

[00:36:17] Jeff Sieh: But, we’ve got some great comments from our friends watching live, so I want to go back. Oh, when we were talking about Manny Chat,Chris Stone said Stampede Social. That’s the one, Stampede Social. That’s the one I couldn’t think

[00:36:26] Jeff Sieh: about. Yeah, we need to get him on the show. I’ve met him before. It’s a great program.

[00:36:31] Jeff Sieh: A lot of people really like it. Abby has a follow up to her question about the reels, doing the series of reels. She goes, would you want the hook to be different every time or should you keep it consistent throughout that series of reels that you’re doing?

[00:36:45] Corey Walker: Well, I would say if it’s, if it’s a series. Maybe have a slightly different hook. So, so say you had different information, you had information that you’re chopping up into different ones. Maybe each hook could be a [00:37:00] little different for each piece of information. Just so if, if somebody watches it straight through, so someone might go to your profile and find the first one and be like, Oh, this is really cool.

[00:37:09] Corey Walker: I want to watch the whole series. Boom, boom, boom. It seems a little repetitive if you’re using the same hook. So I would. Mix it up a little bit.

[00:37:18] Jeff Sieh: Gotcha. That’s great advice. So, this is kind of going back to Rich’s questions. But I think we should, we need to dive in and kind of cover it before we move to the next section. How do you recommend like creators and businesses test and track the impact of what they’re doing? Like if they’re trying reels versus stories and you know, how do you have them track their engagement and growth?

[00:37:41] Jeff Sieh: Because, you know, Things change, these new features roll out, we’re trying new things. How do you track that and figure out what’s working as a business and then when to pivot like, okay, we’re not going to do this anymore, we need to try doing behind the scenes, kind of content or whatever. How, what do you tell clients?

[00:37:57] Corey Walker: Yeah, I mean we go into the professional [00:38:00] dashboard and we look at the numbers we look at Okay. Well when we did this reel and you know, there’s this certain call to action Did people take that call to action on that reel? We also look at how many views they’re getting what kind of engagement it’s getting And then we do more of that.

[00:38:18] Corey Walker: So really just going into that professional dashboard, which, you have to have a professional account, which is free, to get that, but it has a wealth of information in there. so we really just dive into the numbers and look at what was, what was the result we wanted for each of those and which one worked and which one didn’t.

[00:38:38] Corey Walker: And using a tool like. ManyChat or that social stampede can be a great way. because you’re, you’re sending them somewhere either to a lead magnet, to your podcasts, wherever. so that can be a great way to, track to see what’s working as well.

[00:38:54] Jeff Sieh: All right, I want to do a really quick shout out again to our folks and friends over at [00:39:00] Ecamm. They are what makes this show possible. You can find out more at ecamm. com forward slash Jeff’s used code JEFF15 to save 15 percent on your first purchase. And don’t forget, they have got a great new drawing coming out.

[00:39:10] Jeff Sieh: they’re doing a contest where you can actually win a Mac Mini M4, the brand new one! And a bunch of other stuff, uh, free year of Ecamm Live, all sorts of cool things. Make sure you guys go to ecamm. tv forward slash giveaway to enter for your chance to win. So, I don’t know if I can win this. I may not be able to because I’m, like, they sponsor the show, probably not, that’s kinda, you hope not.

[00:39:33] Jeff Sieh: Well, that means you can’t either, Connor, so there.

[00:39:36] Jeff Sieh: that’s very true, yeah, exactly,

[00:39:38] Conor Brown: Corey, as we move it into this, talking about trends, Instagram trends to, to take us into 2025, of course, the platform changes daily, right? What’s going on right now is not going to be, what works in six months, even a couple of months from now. But what do you kind of see trend wise?

[00:39:58] Conor Brown: That you think [00:40:00] will be beneficial for businesses to take advantage of. That could be new features that Instagram has. That could be new ways of, of putting content out there. But what are some trends that, that are just really sticking in your mind right now that you think businesses should take advantage of on Instagram?

[00:40:16] Corey Walker: Well, the first two Bits of content are going to be reels and carousels. Those are definitely working the best, but diving down a little bit deeper. Authentic marketing is, what people are latching onto a lot more. So I think before we had people using a lot more of, you know, the CapCut, things like that.

[00:40:41] Corey Walker: Where, you have all the fancy captions and you have emojis flying in and, and different, you know, things like that. And I think people are starting to get turned off by that because it just, they feel a little bit more like. Okay, this is going to sell me something and so I think that [00:41:00] on authenticity, with that people are starting to, go more towards the micro influencers.

[00:41:07] Corey Walker: This has been going on the last couple years. But, as Instagram has said more, we’re, we’re less worried about how many followers someone has. And we’re more looking at the views, which is what we talked about. So a lot of people are, using those micro influencers because they’re getting those views from the people that want them.

[00:41:28] Corey Walker: Those things and the algorithm is serving it more. So if you can use, someone that might have only, you know, 5, 000 followers, but they have that, you know, that audience just is die hard for whatever they say they are going to go with. That is going to be better than, you know, spending 5 million on a Kim Kardashian campaign.

[00:41:50] Corey Walker: The other thing with the views, you know, we’re finding that a lot of the influencers may have bought some of those followers. So, the, the [00:42:00] views is really what’s going to, be your true indicator of, of what people are, are looking at versus, you know, So, so some of those micro influencers are a good way to, to do that and that’s a good trend.

[00:42:14] Corey Walker: we mentioned before SEO search, using more of that SEO in your content, whether it’s on your videos, whether it’s in your caption, your bio, that’s going to be a good thing to incorporate in 2025. let’s see, I wrote some stuff down. oh, user generated content. And, that is a big one

[00:42:33] Jeff Sieh: So can, can you ex can you explain that a little bit? Because it’s kind of changed from what it used to mean to, like, people are actually creating their own user generated content. So can you explain exactly what, what you mean by user generated content?

[00:42:45] Corey Walker: yeah, so say I, I really love this certain shampoo and so I’ve been talking to all of my, you know, followers and saying, you know, this, this shampoo, oh my gosh, my hair is just amazing now that [00:43:00] I’ve used that shampoo. So then say Pantene or whoever, if, if that’s. The shampoo that they’re using, they would say, okay, can we use your video in our marketing and use a clip from, from your video?

[00:43:14] Corey Walker: And it goes back to that authenticity thing. If you’ve got a customer that loves your product so much that they’re willing to talk to their audience about it. Then that’s much stronger than, you know, something that the brand campaign put together because you’ve got someone, a real user that’s saying, I love this product.

[00:43:31] Corey Walker: It’s made my hair great and you must use it too.

[00:43:35] Jeff Sieh: Gotcha.

[00:43:35] Corey Walker: Yeah. Another thing that people are doing is remixing reels.

[00:43:39] Jeff Sieh: Mm-Hmm.

[00:43:40] Corey Walker: So, so that’s a big thing, where you have somebody that did a reel and then you can be side by side, split with them and be kind of commenting on, on what they say. That I know a lot of people are doing, and I’ve had some success with getting more traction and getting more views on things.

[00:43:56] Corey Walker: If it’s already kind of a popular reel, [00:44:00] they’re adding their own, Explanation, or maybe it’s, saying how wrong it is sometimes, you

[00:44:06] Jeff Sieh: Does that make brands nervous though? Like I, because you can, you can toggle if you can, you know, let people do that. Remix your reel. I think you can, when you upload it. I’ve always been hesitant because I could just see. What would happen if that, you know, somebody, it could go bad. I guess I was saying, do brands kind of are, are they okay with that?

[00:44:23] Jeff Sieh: Or do they just don’t even care and just let it go?

[00:44:26] Corey Walker: you know, I don’t, I don’t work with any super big brands, so I’m not sure what, what they’re doing with that toggle. But, yeah, I mean, it could be, it could be a little dangerous for people. So I think it kind of depends on what your product is and what kind of feedback you’ve gotten on it. And if it’s, if your service or product is something that’s a little bit more controversial, or if you’ve gotten a lot of bad reviews, you might want to toggle that off.

[00:44:51] Jeff Sieh: Okay. Cause that’s what I was, cause some brands would not like that. I just know from working with them in the past. So. Got it. gosh, [00:45:00] our time is almost over and I wanted to make sure, one of the, the last things, I know a lot of brands, you know, they, they’re basically, like you said, can get one, you know, reel out a week or even a month.

[00:45:11] Jeff Sieh: Like that’s good for them. How are businesses and brands, other than buying your book and reading that, keep on top of all of this stuff? Like what’s, where should they go? What resources did they subscribe to, to stay on, up on top of all, all of this stuff?

[00:45:26] Corey Walker: Yeah. So, well, Social Media Examiner does a good job of, you know, I’m on their newsletter and every week they’re coming out with some good information. they can go to Social Media Marketing World. I, I’m not an affiliate or anything. I’m just, It’s a, it’s a good place to find, all the information you need.

[00:45:45] Corey Walker: And they do a good job of not only talking about Instagram, but other, you know, LinkedIn and YouTube and all sorts of different, um, that’s one of my main ones, social media today. I follow a lot of different people [00:46:00] on, Instagram. So Jen Herman, who is one of our, coauthors of the first four books, she always is a really great resource as well on all things Instagram.

[00:46:10] Corey Walker: And, once a month she has a newsletter that comes out that, details everything. Every single update that Instagram has come out with. So that’s a really good newsletter to, hop onto. But, yeah, I mean, I’m so in it that

[00:46:23] Jeff Sieh: Right.

[00:46:24] Jeff Sieh: so you’ve been very kind telling everybody else about, Where to go and Jen Herman, but what about you? Like you talk about your book and your

[00:46:32] Corey Walker: asked where I find my things, so I don’t follow myself,

[00:46:35] Jeff Sieh: right, right. But where, where, yeah, where could people find out and follow you? Because you’ve given so much great information this, this, session.

[00:46:42] Jeff Sieh: So yeah, tell

[00:46:44] Corey Walker: Yes. So, you can go, you can follow me on Instagram, which I think is below on the screen at Corey C Walker is my Instagram handle. And I publish different tips, tricks, all sorts of updates on Instagram all the time. so that’s a really great [00:47:00] resource. and I also have my own newsletter. So if you go to themarketingspecialist.

[00:47:03] Corey Walker: com, you can, Sign up for my newsletter. You can also sign up, through my, LinkedIn bio and, and then buy my book, of course, which is Instagram for Business for Dummies, third edition.

[00:47:15] Jeff Sieh: Gotcha. And that just recently came out, right? It’s a kind of a, a recent re,

[00:47:20] Corey Walker: It’s in pre order right now. So it’s not even, um, you, you won’t get it until December 5th, but if you can pre order it now on Amazon, and just make sure you get Instagram for Business for Dummies. Third edition, it’s got a purple cover with a girl holding a pink shirt. there’s five different dummies books for Instagram out there right now.

[00:47:41] Corey Walker: So I just had a friend, I went to lunch and she pulls out the last edition. She’s like, look, I just bought your book. I’m like,

[00:47:49] Jeff Sieh: That’s the wrong one.

[00:47:51] Corey Walker: I like to tell people it’s the purple one and it’s Instagram for business for dummies. Cause there’s another purple one. They just make it really confusing. So just make sure you have the latest [00:48:00] one and it’ll say it’s on pre order.

[00:48:01] Jeff Sieh: Yeah, because I mean, things have changed as we have discussed the entire time with, with Corey today and make sure you get that right one. Cause that would be bad to get the wrong one. Connor Brown, where can people find out about the unsinkable Connor Brown, what you do, all this stuff, your newsletter, you’ve been putting out some good newsletters lately.

[00:48:18] Jeff Sieh: I’ve been catching them when I’ve been traveling. So talk about

[00:48:21] Conor Brown: I have. I have a new newsletter. It’s called Connor in the Parks. Each week I share one thing that I did the previous week in the Orlando theme parks. It’s gonna help you stay up to date with everything that’s going on. Gonna help you plan your next vacation. You can go to vacationkingdoms. com slash email to sign up for that newsletter and you’ll see the next Connor in the Parks next Wednesday.

[00:48:44] Conor Brown: Awesome show. I learned so much. I have so many ideas. On, on what I have to start doing on Instagram right now.

[00:48:57] Corey Walker: starving and stopping. So a lot of times [00:49:00] they will, they’ll just be like gangbusters and they’re, they say, Oh, I’m going to post a reel every day. And then they do that for like a week and then they fizzle out. So, so that’s what I like to say. Like I, I work with people where they are and, and, you know, build on that.

[00:49:16] Corey Walker: So instead of saying, yeah, we have to do, you know, five posts a day, we start We start slowly and build up. So that’s, that’s the biggest thing is people get all excited and they’re like, yes, I’m going to do this all the time. And they don’t. So

[00:49:30] Jeff Sieh: Yeah, I get it. Awesome. Well, you know, something that does work all the time is our friends over at Ecamm. You can find out more about them at ecamm. com forward slash Jeff. By the way, there’s been a lot of talk lately about these streaming companies that are increasing their prices. Well, I won’t say any names, but it rhymes with Storm Guard.

[00:49:46] Jeff Sieh: But, the Ecamm has a great community. They have, it’s really competitive pricing. So if you want to do what we have done today, Stream live to all your friends and the whole entire universe. Ecamm. com forward slash Jeff, [00:50:00] save 50 percent with the code Jeff15 at checkout. And with that, thank you guys so much for watching.

[00:50:05] Jeff Sieh: Thank you. Uh, cast head, Chris Stone, Rich Graham, Abby, all ask Ralph, of course, everybody who showed up today to watch us live. We appreciate you wouldn’t be able to do the show without that, without you guys here and with that, we’ll see you guys next week. Bye everybody.