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Build Your Tribe | Grow Your Business with Social Media
Dominate Instagram in 2025 with These 6 Hacks - 845
00:26:53
In today’s episode, Brock Johnson shares six powerful hacks to help you dominate Instagram in 2025. He’ll cover Instagram growth strategies, including Instagram story hacks to boost views, tips on automating your DMs, and how to use trial Reels...
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This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states I'm going to Share with you 6 Instagram hacks that are proven to help you get more views, followers and sales. It has arguably never been tougher than right now to grow and have success on Instagram. I don't say that to scare you away, but I do think it's important to recognize the reality of the times we're currently living in now. With that being said, it is absolutely still possible to grow on Instagram and there are a few key strategies that have almost never changed and will lead you to long term success on Instagram. But that's not what we're talking about today. In today's episode, I'm going to share with you the quote unquote hacks. These are the things that I don't normally focus on a ton because these are things that aren't necessarily going to be working a year from now, but they're working right now. And because they're working right now, I feel it's my duty and responsibility to share these things with you because they might give you a boost of 100,000 extra views. They might help you gain 10,000 extra followers. And while these strategies might not be working in 2027, they are working today, and they are working arguably better than anything else. Let's get right into it with a strategy that I discovered back in October of 2023. I was sitting in this very office, in this very chair, recording a podcast. And when I was done, I left my home office to go make myself some lunch. When I did so, I turned the corner and I about shit my pants because unbeknownst to me, my wife had hung up our Halloween decorations the night before and I didn't realize that there would be a scary witch goblin staring at me from outside of our entry window. But it was such a funny moment that I decided to take a picture of it and post it on my Instagram story. And little did I know this scary moment that I posted on my Instagram story would end up becoming one of the most effective Instagram strategies over the last few years. If you use this little hack, I guarantee you will get more story views maybe than you've ever gotten before in the history of your Instagram. The exact name of this strategy is one that you will not forget. And I'll explain what the acronym of the name stands for. The strategy is called the STD Strategy. And here's what STD stands for. The S in STD stands for single. And when I say single, I mean that you are posting only one single Instagram story in a 24 hour period. Ideally, before you post that single story, there should be nothing else already on your story. So any stories that you have previously posted today, or that you have posted maybe yesterday even, you let those expire. You let your story be completely reset with no active photos or videos, no clips, no stories on your Instagram story. Then like I said, the S is you post a single Instagram story. In my example, when I discovered this strategy, the single story was the photo of the witch outside of the window. It was just one single story up. There was no stories before it. And really, key point here, no stories after it. So you're not posting a second, third, fourth story. You're just leaving one singular story up for 24 hours. Then the T in std is also super important. And the T stands for text heavy. Basically, this isn't a talking head story. It's not a video story where you're talking to the camera or you're showing people what it is you're doing, or it's some B roll clip. Instead, it is just a single text heavy story. We're talking two, three, four, five sentences of text. What this does is it allows your viewers to consume at their own pace. And for most people, the pace they're going to consume or the pace they're going to read is going to require them to hold their finger down on the thus pausing it. So let's break down everything I've just said. You are posting a story that has a lot of text, maybe even two or three paragraphs of text. But because it has that much text, most people are going to have to pause the story because they're unable to read it in the allotted amount of time that Instagram gives them, which is usually like three to five seconds. So by holding their finger down on the screen and thus pausing the story, they're extending the watch time or the duration that they are viewing your story for, for. And they're extending it past what should even be allotted. Most Instagram stories are only viewed for a few seconds. And when you consider the fact that, like I said a moment ago, the average duration is only set to three to five seconds. If people are pausing your story because they're holding their finger down to read the text you have written out and they're reading it for 6, 7, 10, 15, 20 seconds. That is a significant increase in watch time. And, and the algorithm looks on that very favorably. So again, we're posting a single text heavy story and the D is the most important part. You cannot have an STD without the D. And the D stands for DM Automation or DM Reply. Call to action. I know that's kind of a wordy phrase, so I'll break it down for you. Basically, the call to action at the bottom of all of your text should be telling your viewers to respond with a specific single keyword in order to get something specific in respons response, not just telling them to respond. If you want to learn more, let me know if you have any questions, but instead giving them a specific word. Maybe you're going to say reply with the word guide to my free beginner rock climbing guide. It needs to be clear and simple, telling people what you want them to do. And what you want them to do is respond with a specific keyword so that they can get something specific in response. The reason that this is so effective is because Instagram is in love with the DMs, according to Adam Mozeri in my conversation conversation, my interview with him, which was a former interview, a former episode of this podcast, which I'm never going to stop talking about. So if you haven't watched it already, definitely go back and check out my interview with Adam Mozeri, the head of Instagram, where he spills the tea on the Instagram algorithm and everything you need to know. But one of the key things he said and continued to talk about in that interview was Instagram's belief in the power of the DMS and the importance of the direct messages and their internal mission to bring people together via the DMs. So when you can get someone to send you a direct message and reply to your story, the algorithm flipping loves that. And when you satisfy the S, the T and the D, your story will be pushed out to more people. And like I said, this hack could probably end up producing your most viewed story of all time. Hack number two for Instagram is one that I can confidently say isn't going anywhere anytime soon. And it's been around for quite a few years now. It was a tool software that was originally created back in 2020 and it is one of the few officially partnered softwares with Meta, as in Meta has given the stamp of approval on this tool and it is totally allowed on Instagram. And I'm really thankful that it is allowed because like I said, it is arguably one of the best strategies or hacks in the history of Instagram. Especially if you're a business owner. Especially if you're someone who wants to make more sales or get more link clicks, if you're a musician who wants more people to listen to your song, if you're an artist who wants more people to visit your website, or if you're a business owner who wants to make more sales. And we're talking about none other than DM Automation. Now I mentioned DM Automation a moment ago with the D of the STD strategy. But DM automation is much more than just replying with a keyword to an Instagram story and then getting something automatically in reply. There are so many capabilities of DM automation. You can automate posts and reels and even lives on Instagram so that people can say specific keywords or phrases and automatically get a message from you with whatever it is that they're looking for. I've used DM automation not just to sell products, but to run giveaways, to collect feedback, to get people onto my email list, to even get people to subscribe to my Instagram so I can send them messages all the time. In fact, back in April we did a 30 day reels challenge where every single day for the month of April I would send people a DM. Now, could I manually send 17,000 DMS? No. Heck no. Even if I hired 300 employees that would be impossible. But thanks to DM automation specifically through Manychat, which is an approved partner with Instagram and with Meta, I was able to send 17,000 people daily reels prompts. DM Automation is a non negotiable. If you're a business owner or anyone who wants to grow on Instagram and you want to direct people to a link, a website or anywhere off of Instagram, DM Automation is a non negotiable. It has been proven to increase your views, increase your engagement and increase your sales, which that's what we are all after. And I know it sounds super techy and intimidating, but in all honesty, it's really easy to get set up. Like it's literally just drag and drop point and click. You could get set up in less than five minutes. So stop waiting around, stop delaying setting up diem automation and get started today. Me, I'm currently using DM automation in some form or fashion on about 2/3 of my posts now, not every single post that I'm Making with DM automation is super in your face. Not every reel is going to end with Comment the word blank and I'll send you blank. Sometimes it might just be tucked away at the bottom of my caption letting people know, hey, if you want more info on this, you can comment the word info. Sometimes it might even just be somewhere in the comments where I'm letting people know that hey, if you have this question, you can actually DM me this keyword and learn more. Sometimes it is more overt and explicit where I am including in the actual call to action of the post to comment a specific keyword. But in some form or fashion there is DM automation being used in about 2/3 of my Instagram posts as we currently speak. Instagram hack number three that will help you dominate Instagram is none other than trial reels. I've done quite a few episodes of Build you'd Tribe recently about trial reels. In fact, just a few weeks ago I did a full in depth masterclass about trial reels, explaining to you what they are and the beginner, intermediate and advanced strategy. But the too long don't read the TLDR version of that episode is that trial reels are a kind of reel, a kind of post on Instagram that will only reach non followers. It will not be shown to your existing followers. So what does this mean? This means that you could post the maximum number of trial reels per day, which by the way, we've recently found out that it's about 20. You could post 20 trial reels per day and you will not overwhelm or frustrate or annoy your existing followers. But you will have 20 opportunities per day to test out new content, to try out new hooks, and if nothing else, to reach new people. With my advanced trial reels strategy, I've been reaching millions of new people every single month. And these are new people who are converting to followers and customers as well. If you aren't already using trial reels, you need to be, because this is a rare golden opportunity. It's not very often that a social media platform comes out with a feature that is this beneficial for people who want to grow. Usually they come out with features that make the average person happy. But now that Instagram came out with trial reels, it's a clear indication that they're trying to make us content creators and small business owners happy and allow us to reach more people. So if you aren't already posting trial reels, definitely go back and check that previous episode. I'll link it up down in the show notes below. Instagram hack number four to reach more targeted followers, grow your engagement and boost your account is to take advantage of the name line on Instagram. Now, there was recently some Instagram news that as of July 10, 2025, the entire Instagram profile and all of your posts will be searchable. What that means is if your ideal client or customer or future follower is searching on Google and they look up terms that you cover or address in one of your recent posts or that you talk about in your bio, people can find you, your Instagram will come up. That means that for almost no additional work, as long as you're using strategic SEO friendly keywords, you will reach more people, you will grow your following, and you will be served up on a silver platter for people who are already looking for you as their solution. This is such an awesome change and I'm so happy that Instagram has made this change. And so what you need to do to take advantage of this change or to hack this new SEO strategy is change your name line on Instagram. Now, what the heck even is the name line? The name line is not the username, it's the bold text that's right below your username. And when you're setting up or editing your profile on Instagram, it's labeled as name. So what do most people, maybe even including you, likely have on this line their first and last name. For example, if I had my first and last name on this line, my username would be Brock11Johnson. And then you'd see on this line Brock Johnson. But the problem here is that my name in and of itself is not searchable. Your name in and of itself is not searchable unless you're a household name, unless your brand or product is that popular, that famous, that people are just searching for it on its own. You need to make sure that you have SEO friendly keywords or a title for yourself or your brand or your account on this name line. On my name line it says Instagram Growth Coach. Because that's something that's searchable, that's something that more people are likely to be looking up and thus more people are likely to be discovering me organically because of it. Now, back a few years ago, Instagram actually made a really helpful change, which was they extended this line from being a maximum limit of 30 characters to now up to, I believe, 56 characters, which just gives us more space to articulate what we do, who our niche is, what our topic is, what those searchable SEO friendly keywords are two pro tips that I want to give you before we move off of this nameline. Number one, Instagram limits how frequently you can change what is on your nameline. So make sure that you spell check whatever it is that you're going to be putting on this line. Yours truly back a few years ago changed the name line to say Instagram Growth Coach, but I spelled Instagram wrong. I wrote Instagame instead of Instagram. And so for 60 days I was locked in as an Instagame Growth coach, which obviously wasn't searchable and that really hurt my discoverability for that period. So number one, make sure that you spell check before you press save. And number two, make sure that you're using words that people would actually be searching for. Are people searching for a marketing diva? Probably not. Are people searching for your rock climbing bestie? Probably not. Are people searching for Minnesota Fitness Gal? Probably not. You want to use terms and phrases that people would actually be looking up. If you're struggling to know if a term is searchable or not, you could use Google Trends to see what terms are more popular. Let's say if you wanted to compare Fitness gal to fitness coach and if you want even more help with SEO on Instagram, we have a complete guide to search engine optimization on Instagram and that is linked up down in the show notes below. Totally free guide to help you out with SEO on Instagram. Instagram Hack number five is my all time favorite and it's one that I will never shut up about and it is called upcycling your content. Upcycling your content basically means reposting or recreating your own posts every 60 to 90 days. Once two to three months have gone by, most people have forgotten about your content. In reality, after two to three hours have gone by, most people have already forgotten about your content. I know we'd like to think that everyone remembers every post we make, but most people aren't even seeing every post you make. And the few people who do see your post, they're likely being distracted by 40 other things at the time and so they probably don't remember your post. The very small 1% of people who do remember your post, they probably remember it because it was that good and everyone else would benefit from seeing it again and you would benefit from posting it again. Especially if the post when you originally posted it did well, maybe got a lot of views or comments or shares or whatever. If it did well in the past, it's likely going to do well now. So post it A second time. That's all I mean by repost. Instagram doesn't have a repost button, although I will let you know they are working on such a thing. And there are more than just rumors. There is some internal leaked data from Instagram where it appears they are working on a direct repost button on the app, but at the time of recording this, that isn't available. So in the meantime, when I say repost, I mean post your reel a second time. If you already have your reel saved in your camera roll or saved to some sort of cloud storage, great, you already have it ready to go. Just literally post it a second time. If you don't, I recommend using the website save clip.app. again, that's s A V E C L I P dot app. Save Clip app. Yes, it is a website, even though it ends in app. I know that's confusing, but if you go to that website, you can paste in the link to any post that you have made in the past and then you can download it to your device without the Instagram watermark on it, thus making it easier for you to repost a second time. Now, like I said, part of upcycling is not just reposting, but it's also tweaking or recreating your content. Maybe you want to use a new audio, maybe you want to redo your voiceover, maybe you want to swap out the hook for one that is more engaging or more effective or more culturally relevant to whatever is trending in pop culture right now. The bottom line is, if you've been posting on Instagram for more than two to three months, you've already probably created a ton of content. And there have probably already been some outliers, some content that really performed well. And so rather than stressing yourself out by constantly having to create more new, new new content, just repost the stuff that you have posted in the past. In fact, the majority of my posts that you see on my Instagram are upcycled. Many of them are directly reposted, maybe even directly numerous times. And a lot of my posts are slight recreations or variations of things I've posted in the past. Only about 30% of the posts that I'm posting are actually new strategies or new content or new ideas that I have never shared about before. And remember earlier about how we talked about trial reels and how you can Post up to 20 a day if you've never heard about trial reels before, and if you've never heard about upcycling before, me Talking about trial reels probably scared the shit out of you because you were like, oh my gosh, now I'm gonna have to post 20 reels a day as trial reels. Brock, how is that a hack? That's a hack if you upcycle. So I am posting 20 trial reels a day, but none of them are new. Sure, occasionally I might throw in a new reel as a trial reel because there's something I wanna test or a hook that I want to experiment with. But the majority of my trial reels, probably 95% of them, are just direct reposts or variations of things that I have previously posted. And with trial reels, the upcycling strategy makes even more sense because again, trial reels are being shown to new people, non followers, who have never seen your account before. And so if they've never followed you before, well, then the post that your follower saw that did really well two months ago hasn't been seen by all these new people. And so it's likely going to do well. They definitely haven't seen it. It's not going to annoy them. And it might even go viral or help you bring in a bunch of new followers. So stop trying to reinvent the wheel with every single post and just start upcycling. And then finally, last but not least, our final hack for getting more views on Instagram is getting more shares. Shares are the best form of engagement on Instagram. Five years ago, a save was the best form of engagement on Instagram. A few years before that, comments were the most important. When Instagram first started, it was all about likes. But today it's all about shares. Remember earlier when I told you that Instagram believes that DMs are their bread and butter? DMs are their sweet spot. DMs are where they excel, where they differentiate themselves from platforms like TikTok and YouTube and even Facebook. The direct messages on Instagram are their favorite child. And when you send a post to a friend, also known as sharing a post, that brings people together and that is oftentimes facilitated through the direct messages. I have friends, and maybe you have friends. Maybe you are that friend who literally send me 20 or 30 reels a day. I bet you during the time that I've been recording this podcast, my wife has sent me a few reels on Instagram via direct message. And so, algorithmically speaking, Instagram has optimized their platform to reward content that gets the most shares. If you get more shares, you will get more views. According to Adam Mozeri, himself sends per reach or the number of shares that you're getting divided by the number of people who saw your post is the ultimate metric for determining virality and success of your post. Also, if you take the whole algorithm out of it, just think about what a share is. It's one person sending a post to another person or maybe another group of people. And so you're at least going to get one additional view, if not dozens of additional views from everyone else in that group. It's one human connecting with another human over a post. And so when you can create share worthy content, it is highly engaging, it is most likely to go viral, help you get views and it's going to help you get followers. Because when people are sending a post from one person to another, it's not the algorithm deciding who sees what. It's not the algorithm deciding, oh hey, that was a really good post. Let's show it to these people who might be interested. It is one person sending it to someone else who they know would be interested. When my buddies send me posts, they're the posts that I find the funniest, that I relate to the most because my friends know me. When my wife sends me reels, those are the reels that I laugh the hardest at, that I engage the most with, that I spend the most time watching because she knows me and she knows the kinds of reels I'm going to like to watch. And so I am the ideal target viewer of any reel that is shared with me. You are the ideal target viewer of pretty much any reel that is shared with you. And by that same extension, if you create content that gets, sends or gets shares, it is going to be shared or sent to your ideal target follower and future customer. Now, getting more shares on Instagram is not as simple as just waving a magic wand and yay, you suddenly get more shares. Getting more shares is the result of creating share worthy content. Again, I've already done an in depth episode that was like 30 or 40 minutes long going through the five different kinds of share worthy content, what they are, how to create them, examples of each, and going more in depth into creating share worthy content. But to summarize that episode, it's that share worthy content is rarely educational content. Educational content has value and I don't want you to get me wrong. There is plenty of value in educational content. Content that shares a tip or a lesson or a tutorial. That content has a purpose. But that content is rarely going to be the stuff that gets a lot of shares. Instead I want you to focus on entertaining content. In fact, recently I had a conversation with Thomas Finetto, who is the head of Instagram for Business, and he said, and I quote, brands need to think of themselves as entertainers first. End quote. Now I don't say that to scare you, and I don't think that you need to learn to juggle or dance or ride a unicycle or become a fire spinner. But you do need to consider the entertainment value or how entertaining your post is when you are creating content if you want to have success. Nowadays, the reality is even the most valuable educational, smart, intelligent, useful posts will not get views unless they are also entertaining. I oftentimes compare it to textbooks. Think about the books that you are recommending to friends, the books that are flying off the shelves and becoming New York Times bestsellers. Those books are rarely textbooks filled with education after education after lesson after tip. And instead they're stories. They're entertaining, they're captivating. You don't need to be the next Oprah Winfrey, but you need to be able to tell your story. And like I said, there are five different kinds of share worthy posts. Those five kinds of share worthy posts are number one motivational, number two community, number three relatable, number four controversial and last but not least, number five is timely content. If your posts can fall into one of those five buckets, you will get more shares Recently I've been really challenging myself to up level this podcast. I've been blown away with the number of subscribers that we've gained over the last few months and I've been really trying to make it a priority to improve the value both in the actual production value and so I would love to hear from you. And if you are listening to this podcast, I want to encourage you to check us out on YouTube. One of my goals is to hit 100,000 subscribers and get my first ever silver play button by the end of 2025. I know it's a big goal and it's kind of scary to say it out loud, but I think that we can get there. And I think we can get there because people like you are so flipping awesome. Continuing to subscribe and listen week after week and going back to my strategy and going back to what I was just talking about, about shares. People like you sharing the podcast is how this podcast is growing. It's how I'm able to up level and continue to create better episodes. And so I want to ask you to share this with a friend. If there's someone you know who could benefit from today? If you have a colleague, a friend, someone in your space who you think would benefit from today's episode, send them the link. Maybe if you're so bold, you even want to take a screenshot of today's episode and post it on your Instagram stories. Just don't Forget to tag me Rock11Johnson so I can appreciate you for doing so. But if nothing else, thank you so much for being here. Don't forget to subscribe so that next week's episode automatically shows up in your inbox. And as always, happy networking.
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