5 Tips To Take Your Instagram Engagement To Another Level – Episode 6

Want to crush Instagram and grow a massive following? The secret is not to focus on growth, but rather engagement! In today’s episode, The Boss Life Podcast shares 5 tips to grow your engagement the right way.

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Resources From Today’s The Boss Life Podcast

The Boss Life Find Your Business Quiz

Three Key Boss Points From Today’s Podcast

• Find something that is your own thing that you do every day on your stories! This will allow people to connect with you and say “Oh that is so Miguel!!” or “Oh that is so Erin!”
• Engage with your customers. Don’t expect them to engage with you if you aren’t engaging with them.
• Never do more than three video stories in the same setting or position. If you are, then you should consider going live instead.

5 Tips To Take Your Instagram Engagement To Another Level – Episode 6 Transcription

In today’s episode, we’re gonna give you five tips to take your Instagram engagement to another level!

All righty, so how do we take our Instagram engagement to another level? Hey listen, Erin, we’ve been getting a lot of comments from people about Instagram. It’s like everyone wants to know what are the magic hacks, tricks-

Secret formula?

The secret formula. What software do we use? All these things and the reality is, we don’t do any of that.

You know, I think it’s really important for you guys to know, is that when we built one of our last businesses, on a social media platform, it was Instagram. It was on Facebook. We really had to learn all of the nuances that are different with this social media platform. We really wanted to share them with you.

Yeah, we’re pretty excited. We have personal accounts, as well as other business accounts. We do have a following in total of over a hundred thousand on Instagram, so we are gonna give you some tips that actually work. We’ve tried everything. We’ve tried follow, unfollow. We’ve tried the groups. We’ve tried paying for it. We’ve done everything.

What we want to do today is really, the key to growing your following is to get awesome engagement. That’s why we’re not making yet another video on how to increase your following by 10,000. That sounds good! I guess, for a headline.

We’re not gonna tell you to use 50 billion hashtags. While hashtagging works, we want to give you some really applicable, tactical things for you to use today.

Right, why don’t we dive in to the first tip. We’re gonna give five tips today. Erin, why don’t you get us started?

Yeah, so, the first tip that we have for you is to create something you are known for. This is something that you’re gonna have to come up with, that once someone sees you do this, they’re gonna think of you when they see someone else do this.

For example, Miguel, you do something on your stories that you’re pretty well known for. Why don’t you explain that a little bit?

Sure, well, I do two things. The first thing that I started doing that worked really well, it’s kind of funny, it’s basically a little workout routine. On my personal Instagram, what I like to do on my personal Instagram, is I workout a lot. I love to workout. My story is I lost, I was at 240 pounds, ended up in the hospital, high blood pressure and had to lose some weight.

I lost about 80 pounds, so I workout a lot in my personal Instagram. That’s just part of who I am. I like to run. I love to workout at home. I do all these things. So, as part of that, I learned this really cool, kind of workout routine, where I’m basically doing kind of like jumping jacks on the floor, while moving my elbows in different ways.

It’s kind of like pushups. It’s really hard to explain on audio. You kind of have to go check it out. I guess if you want, you go to @Miguelmindset, you can check that out, but basically it’s a really hard, complicated workout routine that I do. It’s a 30 second routine and I do it on the floor.

But it’s funny, I go to conferences and stuff, and I’m presenting. People will wait in line and they don’t want a photo, they want to get on the ground and do this hard workout routine with me, that they’ve been practicing. They want someone to video it.

I try and do it, at least every other day, if I can, if it’s part of my workout routine, but people tune in for that.

I think that’s really important for you guys to note that nobody, this is not something he saw on a movie or anything. No one taught him this is the routine that you should do. It’s something that you kind of just threw together. It was, a lot of this stuff is sometimes fluke.

Yeah, a lot of it’s fluke. I just noticed, and I think part of that is, try and think of the things that you like to do, that you like, and then see what sticks. Try and do different things.

Another thing that I’m becoming known for lately, as well, I obviously drink a lot of water. I do a lot of pre-workout, post-workout stuff, as well. It’s kind of boring. Just to be here, I’m doing my pre-workout drink. One day I decided, why don’t I make it fun?

So what I started doing is, I started taking my phone, and you can do all this if you want, as well, take your phone and I started hitting record and I would throw in, first, I’d start with my shoes. I would throw my shoes on the ground, like I was gonna put ’em on.

But you wouldn’t see me throwing them. You would just see the shoes landing. Then I would just do a quick, two-second video of that. Then I would throw my socks in there. Again, a quick two-second cut of that. Then, I would show a two-second cut of me putting it on.

Then another two-second cut of me throwing in a shaker cup, where I was gonna put in my pre-workout, but you would just see it slide in on the table, almost like magic. Like it’s sliding into the shot, then it was like a second and another second where I would slide in my pre-workout.

So It kind of becomes this really quick, ten second story of multiple little cut stories and it just looks really cool.

It looks cool and I think one of things that, you know, I’m gonna give you a tip, ’cause most of you are probably thinking, oh, I don’t really have anything. I’m not all that interesting. Just look for stuff that you find on social media, that you’re like, ooh, that’s cool.

Then, put your personal spin on it. I think that’s where you’re going to really find the engagement increases, is when you see something, don’t necessarily copy it full out. Find a way to put your flair on it.

Yeah, totally. There was a guy that was copying me throwing the stuff in. Now he throws vegetables all over the place. Someone sent me that yesterday. It was pretty funny. I mean, whatever, it’s funny, he’s like, throwing vegetables as he’s making his lunches and stuff like that.

Find something that you can become known for and you’ll see, it’ll stick. Another thing that we do, even outside of Instagram, a little business tip is, whenever we take photos, we take photos pointing, right? So you’ll see a lot of photos of us pointing.

It’s just something we became known for, as well, at our conferences, where we just pointing. I’m like, who are you pointing at? I’m like, just nobody really. It just catches on. You could start your audios with, Ka pow! Or Boom! Or anything you want. Something that you can become known for.

If you do it consistently and if you’re wondering how to make something catch on, basically, once you have something that you like, that you feel is a part of you, then just do it consistently and people will tune in, just to see you do that.

If you think about a lot of your favorite TV show episodes, like mine would be Fresh Prince, what a great show. They became known for things like the whole dance, some of the Carlton dance. Carlton built a whole career.

You should do that on Instagram.

On the Carlton dance, you know. I cannot pull off the Carlton dance. Find your Carlton dance. That’s our tip number one.

Cool. So let’s move on to tip #2. This one, I really love. I think with tip #2, is you have to tell people what to do.

Tell people what to do?

Yeah.

Can I tell you what to do?

No.

I always lose that battle.

That’s not how this works. But when you’re doing posts on Instagram, I want you guys to understand that most people are watching stories with no volume on. If you have a really important message or something funny that you want to share, or a tip you want to share, you’re gonna have to tell people to turn the sound on.

Here’s an expert tip for you. Don’t just do it in the story that you’re giving the tip in. Do it before. What I’ll do is, I’ll take my phone and I’ll put it against my leg, so it takes the black photo. Then I’ll put text on it, you know, there’s gonna be a really important tip coming up. I want you guys to turn your sound on.

What I’ve been doing lately that’s really worked is the next slid and this is another tip, just tipping all over the place. Is to create a poll, where it’s funny. What I’ll do is?

A funny poll?

A funny poll.

Give me an example of something funny.

Ha ha, I’ll be like, you know, you sneaky bugger you. I mean, you didn’t turn your sound on, did you? Then I’ll give the option of, hah, you caught me. Or no, I totally turned it on. You know, yesterday I did a poll like that. It was 50/50. That, basically, if someone didn’t turn their sound on, they’re like, oh. They kind of feel bad.

Then they’ll turn it on, so the next story, where I’m giving a tip, or an important story or something that I want people to hear, people have their sound on.

That’s great. You know, I love all those tips, because I know that on Erin’s account, I see all the stats and stuff, she gets incredible engagement because she’s so, she allows her audience to engage with her, right?

You have to realize something about Instagram. It’s not a one-way yelling street. It’s not to be just one-way talking.

It’s not like Facebook.

It’s not like Facebook. A lot of Facebook is like one-way yelling, almost, right? And then like, even on this podcast, we don’t want this podcast just to be us just talking to you, you listening to us in your car. We love that, but we want you to engage with us. That’s why we ask you to go and leave comments on iTunes and all this stuff.

Because we want to hear from you, want to engage with you. That’s why we built a website, thebosslife.com, where you can go and comment on all these episodes and download resources, because, really, it used to be, in marketing, that you used to be able to build a business just by yelling and whoever had the most money could take out the biggest ad and the biggest billboard and people would come to your restaurant.

They come to your e-commerce store or whatever, but nowadays, you really have to engage with your audience, so always remember on Instagram, the more you can inject your audience into your life, and engage with you.

The other tip, I’m just gonna say one more thing and I’ll pass it back to you, Erin, is respond to them, as well. THere’s a lot of people that I see, that allow their audience to engage with them or get comments, but they don’t reply to the comments.

Right.

Or they get direct messages where people share their stories, but they don’t reply back and say-

Or they’ll give a little heart back or something.

Or they’ll give a little heart back. Those are opportunities for you to engage, right? That’s the whole point of building an Instagram following. When people share your stories or do all these things, make sure you send them a thoughtful response back.

Because really, those people, that’s your tribe. A lot of what you want to do, as you build a business, as you build your own boss life business, is you want to have a tribe of people that are cheering you on, that are excited. You know, when you win! That’s really what gives you more momentum.

Even this Boss Life podcast, even though we just launched it, on launch day, it became #1, which is pretty cool. We should mention that.

Woo-hoo.

Okay, #1, in business, which is super cool. We had passed podcasts, like Tony Robbins’ podcast. I don’t know, all the podcasts, Rachel Hollis. Hey Rachel, if you’re listening, you should come on our podcast.

We love you.

We love you. We love all these people. It’s so cool. Wow, even Gary V. So a lot of that was because of our tribe that we had built up. Even when we did it, our tribe was happy. They were excited for us.

And I think it’s because they were part of it. I think that that’s what Miguel’s getting at is that the people who are following you, you have, I want you to think of them, they’re like your family. When you do well, they do well.

When you created that kind of vibe, that’s gonna transform any kind of business that you’re trying to build on Instagram. So, yeah.

Awesome, well, let’s go to #3. Number 3 is create opportunities to engage, both stories and posts. Why don’t you share a little bit on that, Erin?

A lot of the times when we’re doing social media and if you’re using it for business, we’re thinking, how can I sell this? How can I sign someone up for this? You’re not thinking about how do I make this person part of my family?

When you start with the intention in mind, that’s going to create a very different vibe that you’re putting out. When you want people to feel like they know you, because the only people who are gonna buy from you, are people who know, like and trust you. That’s not a new thing.

But for people to know, like and trust you, you have to create opportunities for them to engage with you. You have to engage back. One of the tips that I will give with this, in particular, is when Miguel was saying, if someone sends you a DM or someone comments on your post, I want you to match what they sent you.

If someone sends you a four sentence reply, I want you match it with at least a four sentence reply. I don’t want you to match it with a heart, because that’s a different energy exchange.

Yeah, I’ll give you a big ninja hack on this, as well. Is what I like to do, I like to send audio voice messages, right?

Hmmm.

‘cAuse that’s a big game changer. People don’t expect audio, especially as your profile starts building up. They’re not gonna, your fans aren’t gonna expect you to send them an audio message back, but if they share your story or something, and you send them an audio message, and say, hey, thanks so much for sharing that story, Jen.

I’m so excited that you’re following us. Hopefully, you’re tuning into the podcast as well. Hey, send me any thoughts. Anything you want to hear about on the next episode of our podcast. We’d love to feature your question. Stuff like that.

That takes someone from a level one, level two tribe member to like a level 10 out of ten. You’re raving fan for the rest of their life.

I think if you want to build, even upon that, is go and check out their profile and actually comment on, when you’re doing your voice message, look at their profile and say, oh, maybe they really love dogs or something or rainbows, or coffee.

I love how you said that because a lot of people don’t engage with, they want engagement on their own stuff, but they don’t engage with their people on their stuff.

That would be an expert tip, if you want to go and really build that connection more quickly, is you’re gonna have to be interested in other people. It’s not just about you.

It’s not really about you at all.

Right, so one last thing I’ll say on this topic and then we’ll move on. Make your stories fun. Create funny polls. There’s lots of different things on Instagram where you can use gifs. I love using gifs. People think they’re funny. I use polls usually. When you can customize the poll’s responses, right? It’s not just yes and no. You can customize that and so make it fun.

Make it something that you would click on. I think that’s a really huge thing is that you can use that little slidy bar. You can use the polls. You can use gifs. The questions thing. The question thing should be fun.

I’m glad you’re the funny one, ’cause I’m not funny.

No, you’re-

It’s not my thing!

You’re very, and that’s okay. You want to attract people like you, right? You have to post like you, but sometimes it’s okay to be candid.

Yeah, sometimes when I try and be funny, I force it and then it’s just so not funny.

It’s not funny.

I leave that up to Erin. The next one is, the next tip for you guys is alternate video stories with pictures. Really, a lot of this, I’ll say one thing on this, is like, too much of anything is a bad thing, right?

Hmmm.

And so you gotta give people time to pause, but at the same time, if I were to look at most of your profiles, I’d say 99% of stories are done incorrectly. I want to really share with you the good strategy for this. I’m gonna let Erin kind of talk about this one.

I mentioned it before, but most people are watching Insta stories with their sound off. There are apps that you can get that, if you are doing a story, with video, that it will type the text for you, which is really great. It is time consuming, so I will warn you about that.

But it will enable people to still listen to you, without listening to you. The reason I think you should alternate the videos with a post in between, is it gives people a break in between what you’re doing. It’s almost like a, not a commercial break, but a comic relief break.

What I do is a lot of the times, maybe there’s a quote that I really love, or a post that I did on Instagram, that’s another tip, if you do a post, an actual post on Instagram, and you share it to your stories, there’s a little airplane, like an arrow button, that’s a great way to get engagement in your stories and on your posts, as well.

Because people who are viewing your stories are generally not the people who are seeing your posts. That is something that people don’t really talk about. It’s like, oh, you should post so many times on Instagram.

There’s two different audiences.

Yes.

It’s almost like it’s two social platforms.

Yeah.

Completely different people.

Completely different people. The people, I mean, you will have some crossover, but generally, the people who are liking my posts are very different than the people who are watching my stories.

That’s great. Would you recommend people, so how would I, give me a typical day. I’m putting you on the spot here, I know how much Erin loves it. Before all our podcasts, she’s always like, hey, don’t forget, if you’re gonna ask me something, tell me now, so I can think about this.

What would be a typical, let’s say, typical day, maybe some ten, or twelve posts that you could put together that someone that’s listening to us right now could put together that would increase their engagement across the board?

Okay, so if I look at my typical day. First of all, in the morning, I am not necessarily camera ready. My first morning posts are generally about other things. A picture of, say, my celery juice. I’ll put that. Or it’ll be a picture of my cat cuddling with me.

Then I’ll move on throughout my day. My day is pretty, people know what to expect from me. They’re gonna see those two things, generally every single day. I love my cat.

So you’re known for your celery and your cat?

I am. It’s weird. I know. But again, it’s okay to be known for weird things. Then, generally, I’ll share a funny story. Or I’ll do a workout and I’ll share something from the workout. I always alternate, at that point, video with a post.

If I’m doing video that I want people to pay attention to, again, what I’ll do is I’ll tell people, I need you to turn your sound on. I love doing polls that will, it’s almost like choose your own adventure. Remember those books as a kid?

I loved Choose Your Own Adventure.

Right?

And The Hardy Boys.

Well, this is more Choose Your Own Adventure.

They were always taken out. I had to buy them from Scholastic. I don’t know, do they have Scholastic everywhere?

They still, well, I don’t know, but they still have Scholastic here.

Is that a Canadian thing? Or is that a, I don’t even know.

I don’t know. You guys should let us know, if it’s everywhere.

Let us know. We don’t know.

But I will give someone an opportunity, tell me what to do. I’ll be like, should I do this, or should I do this? That way, once I do that, it’s a Choose Your Own Adventure and people will be like, oh, yay! People love giving their opinions, right?

If I’m trying to decide between salad and I don’t know, a burger and fries, people will give me their opinion. A lot of the times, you know, it’s just-

In my opinion, that is a great tip. You know, I thought I would share my opinion, just kidding.

Yeah, so I mean that’s a really good idea, is to ask people’s opinions. If you’re going to do the question option on your stories, you have to make it so simple. I think people are sometimes, what is the meaning to life, in their question. No one’s gonna answer your question.

It’s gotta be something that’s gonna be relevant to your audience.

What’s your favorite color? I bet you’d get way more response to that.

Totally. Last tip. It’s kind of like a bonus tip, what we’ve already been talking about, but it’s, we see this a lot. The tip is basically more than three stories in a row, should be a lot. Let me explain that.

Sometimes we’ll see Instagram accounts that are doing really, really well, but then you’ll see those dashes at the top, right?

Oh, this drives me crazy.

When there’s too many dashes, guys, people are gonna tune out. Okay? It’s like it’s too much consumption. People are going, you gotta understand, people are going to YouTube and those other platforms if they want to watch longer form video.

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Generally. Or they’re going to Instagram TV, to watch longer form video or they’re going to your Instagram lives to watch your live. Stories, really? THey’re trying to get through 20-30 people, while sitting on the bus. Or they got a 15 minute coffee break.

They don’t want to spend time listening to every 15 second thing for 30 minutes. You’ve got to give them that option and they’re basically gonna swipe off you. They’re gonna move on the next profile. So if you ever have a situation where you have a lot of stuff to say, and it’s gonna be you holding the button down for literally five, ten minutes, then maybe you should think about it and maybe it should be a live.

The rule of thumb that we like to say is that if it’s more than three in a row of the same thing, then chances are, it should probably be a live. That’s not say that if you’re showing a workout for example or something you’re doing? You could do ten, if you want.

But it just can’t be the exact same shot. It can’t just be you sitting there for ten specific ones.

That’s the big key, is what Miguel just said. I want you to think about Insta stories that you’ve watched. If the same person is in the same position, with the same background and there’s story after story, how many of you guys actually still pay attention.

This is so interesting!

Right? Because no ones that engaged. I think it’s not necessarily what you’re saying is not interesting, it’s that people, they don’t have the attention span. If you want to do more stories and maybe you’re not at that live stage yet, move, move around the house or change your background, so people, you’re tricking people into thinking that you’re talking about something different.

Yeah, think about it this way, too. Think about, we love Apple TV. If you choose the movie section, right? Chances are, you’re committing to a 2, 2 and a half hour sit down. You’re ready to watch a movie, right?

But a lot of times, if you’re choosing the television section, it’s ’cause you got 30 minutes. You want to watch a quick show. If you go onto Netflix, they’ve got exactly the same thing. If you choose a movie, you’re gonna go in there and you’re gonna watch a movie.

Think about it that way. With stories, people are not going in there to watch a movie, right?

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

To watch your live. They’re going in there to just get a quick little hit from you. A little adrenaline rush.

A dopamine hit, right?

A dopamine hit. We’re talking drugs.

Yeah. Brain drugs.

I’m kidding. My kids listen to this podcast. Kids, this is not-

No.

What we’re talking about. We’re talking about brain drugs.

Brain chemicals. And so that’s why we check our Instagram and we look for notification, ’cause it gives us a little hit and we’re like, woo. It makes us feel good.

Yeah, that’s uh-

Awesome. Along with the challenge, we gave you guys some great tips. Hopefully these tips are great, by the way, if you enjoyed them and you want us to do more Instagram tips, just go to Apple iTunes in there and just leave a comment. Let us know. We love hearing from you guys.

That really helps us drive the direction of this podcast. Join in the challenge. You wanna do it?

Yeah, I think I’ll do the challenge.

Give them The Boss Life challenge for the day!

The challenge for today is we would love if you guys could tag @BuildTheBossLife, that’s our Instagram account, in one of your stories or your posts, using a tip that you learned today. I know we dropped a lot of awesome stuff on you today, so if you have to re-listen to it or pause it or rewind it or whatever, I highly encourage you guys to do that.

But we would love if you could tag us in something that you learned or used today.

I think what this’ll do is it’ll make it real for you, right? ‘Cause now you’re gonna be accountable and we know how many listeners we have and it’s crazy how many. It’s insane how many already. It’s awesome. I wanna see you guys tag us. That means you’re taking action. Might even do some prizes. Can we do a prize giveaway or something like that?

Ooh, I love that idea.

Let’s do that. Just so you know, on Facebook, we have a group called the Science of Building, what’s it called? The Science of Building-

Your Online Empire.

Your Online Empire. If you look up The Science of Building Your Online Empire, you will find it, it’s a Boss Life, you will see our photo. If you want to joint that group, that’s where we do all the giveaways. So if you @ tag Build The Boss Life and you join our Facebook group, we will do a little giveaway in there, as well. May give a way a book or something, personal development. We’ll send it right to you.

Yeah, let’s end it with how we typically end this thing. Remember to ditch the employee mindset.

And start living The Boss Life.

We’ll see you guys, take care.

Bye guys!

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