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Build Your Tribe | Grow Your Business with Social Media
These 9 Instagram Hacks Actually Work In 2025 - 854
00:19:46
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- [00:01]
Instagram Marketing Expert
Sometimes it can feel like nothing is working on Instagram. It feels like you're doing everything right and yet everyone else is getting better results. And so in today's episode, I'm going to be sharing with you nine Instagram hacks that actually work. These are Instagram hacks, not strategies. And the way I differentiate between the two is that strategies work today, tomorrow, next month and next year. Strategies rarely change, but hacks are oftentimes just a flash in the pan. They're a way to get a quick boost in views, to spike your engagement, or to get a bunch of eyeballs on a specific post. But they're not necessarily something that you're going to be using every single day or likely going to be using a few months from now. And that's why here on my channel, I primarily focus on the strategies, the tried and true research backed strategies that are proven to be most effective so you can get the best possible results in the least amount of time possible. But that's not what we're going to be talking about today. So let's get into it. Hack number one and is the meta glasses hack. Now, some of you might be familiar with the new meta ray ban glasses that Facebook meta Instagram has released. They're kind of like ray bans that have like a little camera in them and they're trying to hype them up. They're trying to get as many people as possible to know about and talk about and use these glasses. But the glasses are like 3 or 400 US dollars. And so you probably don't want to buy a pair of meta glasses just to post on Instagram. I hear you. And while I think they're cool, and that's my personal opinion, whatever, there's actually a hack, a way that you can create an Instagram story, trick the algorithm into thinking that the story was made using the meta ray ban glasses. And thus the algorithm will push that story out to more people. Because Instagram wants more people to see stories that were made with the meta glasses. Now, now this is one of those hacks that is definitely going to be available today and gone tomorrow. Because Instagram wants to reward people who are actually creating content using the meta glasses and not just tricking their system. But if we can take advantage of this while it is working and get a boost in our story views, let's take advantage of it. All you have to do to make this hack work is number one, download the photo that I have linked up in the show Notes below this episode. It has to be this Specific photo. I've tried it with other photos, other wide angle or fisheye photos, and it just doesn't work. So I. I'm sure that there are some other versions of this photo out there, but it has to be this specific image, or at least that's the image that I'm going to recommend you use. Download that and then go to your Instagram profile page. Tap on the plus button in the upper right hand corner and then tap on the button that says Story. Then I want you to select the photo that you just downloaded, the fisheye of the guy driving his car with, like, his hairy legs. Okay? Tap on that and open that. Now by adding that photo to your stories. Instagram thinks this story was made with meta glasses. But the good news is you don't have to post a photo of some random dude's hairy legs. Instead, you can tap on the stickers button again at the top, then tap on the button that says Photos, and you can select any other photo from your camera roll. And then once you enlarge it, you drag it to make it cover up the full screen. It will cover up the dude with the hairy legs and. And it will still count as a meta glasses story. And again, because Instagram thinks that the story was made using meta glasses, it will likely boost it to more people. Now, I would recommend using this story strategically, so you could use it to get some more views on your latest Thirst trap selfie. You could use it to show off some random photo of you looking cool. Or you could use that specific story to promote your business. You could put a link sticker on that story. But even better than that would be hack number two, which is you could use the Meta a glasses story to be your STD story. The STD story is Instagram hack number two. Std, yes, is a funny acronym and you won't forget it because it's funny, it's memorable. But the S stands for single, meaning that you're just going to post a single Instagram story. That means that all of your previous stories, you need to let them expire and all of your stories after are non existent. You're not posting any more stories for the rest of the day. You're just posting one singular photo on your stories for that day. The T in the STD stands for text heavy. That means that your story is not a video, it is a photo, or just even just a solid color that has a fair amount of text on it, like multiple sentences, preferably quite a bit of text. What this does is it encourages the viewers, the people watching your stories, to hold their finger down, thus pausing your story so that they can read all the text while they're holding your finger down. That is extending the view duration of your story. Basically, your story has a greater viewer retention rate and thus it will be boosted by the algorithm. But the ultimate metric that will get your story boosted by the algorithm is the D. You can't have an STD without the D. And the D stands for DM Automation. Basically, at the bottom of your story, instead of putting the link sticker and telling people to tap on the link, you're going to tell people, reply with the word blank and I will send you blank. Reply with the word guide and I will send you my free guide to rock climbing, whatever it may be. If you want more information on DM automation, I did an entire episode about that just a few weeks ago. In my opinion, it is the best tool for anyone who wants to get more views, followers or sales on Instagram. But again, you can't have an STD without the D. And that is hack number two. Hack number three is what I call the two slide carousel. Now, Instagram has become overrun with reels over the last few years. People are posting way more reels than they are carousels. And that has led to carousels becoming a huge opportunity, a way that you can reach way more people because you don't have to fight with the hundreds of millions of other reels being posted that day. You only have to fight with the significantly lower amount of carousels being posted every single day. And so here's what I'm going to recommend you do. Take any reel that you have previously posted, but preferably a reel that is a talking head reel, A reel where you are speaking directly to the camera, or at least you are doing a voiceover of some kind where there's some sort of spoken audio in the reel. Take any reel from the past where that is the case, and then create a still image. It can be a screenshot from the reel, it can be a photo of you, or it can be some other relevant image that somehow relates to the reel, and then add a headline to that image. A headline, of course, that relates to the reel. A headline that can be, you know, one sentence, maybe around five to 12 words long, that encapsulates or summarizes or sensationalizes even what the reel is about. Then what you're going to do is post a carousel that is only two slides. The first slide of the carousel is the headline. It's the attention grabbing news and then when people swipe, it reveals your reel. So really, this should be very easy for you to create. It just takes a few seconds to maybe find a photo of yourself and come up with what the headline is going to be. But this two slider carousel, as I like to call it, is a great way to repurpose the content that you've already made and allow yourself to create more content that is still great, high quality, captivating, engaging content. But do so in a very efficient manner that's not going to take you very much time, energy or effort. Instagram hack number four and this one, I am praying, I am hoping that this one isn't so overdone and so horribly annoying by the time that you hear this. But it's the horizontal real trend. The horizontal reel trend first began blowing up around September 20th, maybe September 21st of 2025. And basically it's a very easy hack. It's just that people figured out that you could post reels that were very skinny, very wide and very short to your Instagram feed. And because this was so different from the norm, it was grabbing people's attention. It's not like Instagram is trying to push more horizontal reels. It's not like Instagram is favoring horizontal reels. It's simply that we're so used to these vertical, tall, full screen reels that suddenly when we see one that is shrunken down and super horizontal, it grabs our attention. This quote unquote hack is very easy to achieve using pretty much any editing software. If you are using Canva, all you have to do is set your dimensions to a width of 5120 pixels and a height of 1080p. Then you just add your video, you drag it to be covering the entire window, you export it and you're good to go. You can also do this in canva. You can also theoretically do this right in your camera roll by just shrinking down the crop of your reel to make it horizontal. Now, like I said when I first introduced this hack, there are quite a lot of people who do not enjoy this hack. And, and it is something that has kind of been getting on people's nerves already. Now I think it's getting on people's nerves because it's become overdone and like everyone has got to do their version to the point that the official AT creators account of Instagram made a post about these horizontal reels. But I think that by the time you're seeing this in October, it should hopefully have died down and if you want to strategically use this hack, I think you can do so in a way that you're going to be safe and, and you're not going to annoy some people. Just make sure that you're doing it strategically. Make sure you're doing it with a purpose, and you're not just doing it as a way to be gimmicky and confuse your followers. Instagram hack number five is what I like to call the hook swap strategy, also known as transitional reels. Basically, the hook is the most important part of your reel. I usually say that 80% of your time, energy and effort should be spent on your hook and improving your hook and coming up with better hooks. And your hook, of course, is not just the text or the words. It's the entire video. It's the sound, it's the visual, it's everything. But one really cool strategy, or hack, if you will, that you can use on Instagram is to seamlessly transition from a viral hook from a video that is super captivating and proven to be engaging. And seamlessly transition into your own reel. Maybe it's your own talking head video, your own B roll reel, you, your own vlog, whatever it may be, but seamlessly transitioning between the two hooks in your audience, and then they're so hooked that they keep watching the rest of your reel. Hook swaps ultimately come down to what's called a match cut, basically having some sort of image or object or having whatever the main focal point of the first video be matched into the second video. So if the first video is a video of a gorilla doing like a funny spin in his enclosure, then the second video should begin with me also doing a spin or finishing the movement or being in the same pose again. It's called a match cut. And when you do this match cut, it makes the seamless illusion of the first viral video transition perfectly into the second video. In order to help you out, I created a free library of 40 of these hook swap videos. All you have to do to get access to those is go to my Instagram brock11johnson and and DM me. Send me a direct message with the word swap. Just say swap, S W a P. Nothing else. You don't have to say please or thank you, and you'll automatically get a reply so that you can get those 40 transitional hook videos and you can use them in your future reels to get more views. Instagram hack number six is direct message Automation. I've been talking about this since 2021, and I'm so happy that now over a million people use DM automation. But when you think about the total size of the creator economy, that still means that less than 1% of people are actually using DM automation. And if you think about the people who actually use it on a daily basis to promote their business and get more views and link clicks, we're probably talking about 0.1% of creators. So there is still a massive opportunity for you to start using DM automation. Diem automation is that thing where someone says comment the word blank to receive blank. It's a win, win, win. The first win is for your customers or viewers because instead of having to go to some confusing link in your bio with a long menu, they can just comment a keyword very simply and then you serve up the link or the guide or the free transitional hooks or whatever it is in their DMs sent directly to them. The second win is for the algorithm because usually when you go to sell something, you say click the link in my bio, but when you say that no one's going to engage with your post because the people who are not interested in what you're selling, they're just going to scroll away. And the people who are interested in what you're selling, they're going to leave your post alone and go click the link in your bio. And so you're left with little to no engagement. Instead, when you use DM Automation, everyone who's interested in the link is going to comment, AKA interact with your post. And that increase of engagement will help you get more views, which the algorithm loves. And the third win is for you. And as the brand or business owner, because you are serving your audience better and because you are getting more engagement and interaction on your posts, your posts will reach more people. On average, we see a significant increase in views, engagement and link clicks when using DM Automation compared to when relying on the link in Bio or even the link on your Instagram stories. I'll put a link down in the show Notes below so you can check out DM automation provided by manychat. Manychat is an officially approved partner of Instagram. Most third party tools just access Instagram through allowed doors, kind of like unlocked doors that Instagram has left open for third party tools, but not manychat. Manychat has taken it a step further and has become an officially approved partner. They work with Meta and Instagram on a weekly basis. And so it's totally safe, it's totally secure. I've been using it for about four years and it has Revolutionized my business on Instagram. I did an entire episode about it a few weeks ago. So you could check that out if you want more info or if you are ready to sign up. I have a free trial code down in the show notes below. Instagram hack number seven is what I like to call the secret post. The secret post is essentially posting something on Instagram and the second that it finishes uploading, you're going to archive the post. So it's hidden, so probably no one's going to see it. Like unless you're Taylor Swift and millions of Swifties have your post notifications turned on and they get an alert the second you press post and then they see it. What's going to happen is no one's going to see the post because you immediately archive it. And I do want to make sure we're clear. Archive it, but don't delete it. The post is now hidden. It's tucked away, no one has seen it. And you can strategically use that to your advantage. What I've done in the past is posted a solid yellow post with big black letters that say Secret post or hidden post. And then the second I finish uploading it, I archive it, I hide it. And what that allows me to do is use that post in the future for some sort of fun interactive game. I could do a giveaway where I tell my followers, if you can find the hidden post, you will win X, Y or Z. If you can find my secret post, you'll be entered in to win a one on one coaching call. Basically, it's just a really fun, unique, different way that you can engage your followers and in a way that breaks the norm. It's a pattern interrupt, it's a game, and it's very, very interactive. And I forgot to mention probably the most important part of this strategy, which is that you have to unarchive the post, you have to unhide it. When you make the second post, announcing that there is a hidden post somewhere or else people are going to be scrolling through your feed and you've never unarchived it. So they're never going to find anything. Basically, a few days or a few weeks, or even if you're bold, a few months later, you can make a second post saying go find the secret post. And then when you do that, unarchive the original secret hidden post. And it just creates a really fun interactive way for people to really take a look at your feed. What's going to happen is people are going to go to your profile and they're going to be scrolling, they're going to be looking for the hidden post. And what's probably going to happen is they're going to stumble across other posts, posts that they miss, things that they're interested in. It's a great way to just boost engagement overall across your profile. Instagram hack number eight is also about hiding something. It's also something that's going to be hidden and it is hiding the timer on your Instagram stories in order to create a cool confetti effect. Basically there is a timer sticker that you can add to your Instagram stories and most people use it as a countdown sticker to alert for a upcoming live training or a sale or something like that. And when the timer hits zero, if your story is still active, there will be a confetti explosion. It's just a cool interactive effect. But something that I like to do is whenever I'm making a big announcement, I don't use the countdown timer to countdown to the time of the announcement. I instead set the countdown timer to one minute later than when I am actively posting the story. So if I'm posting the story at 8:51am, I will set the countdown to end at 8:52am and then I will drag the countdown sticker off of the screen. So that means that anyone who is viewing my story after that first minute that I post it, they're not going to see a random countdown sticker. They're going to see an explosion of confetti across their screen. And it's just another great fun interactive way to break the pattern of just tap, tap tapping through stories, call attention to whatever your story is. And you could use this to announce a sale, talk about a live, or really just promote anything that you want to get more eyeballs on. And then last but not least, my ninth Instagram hack that actually works is when you are doing those story responses. You know when you put up one of those Q and A stickers and you allow people to ask you questions or give you suggestions or whatever. Usually you can only reply to one of those @ a time, but I've come up with a little hack that can allow you to reply to two or three at a time. And when would this be useful? This would be useful if there are multiple people asking a similar question and you want to answer them all on one story. This could also be useful if you want to answer two or maybe even three questions on one story so that people have more to consume on each individual clip instead of having to tap through two to three individual stories to get the two to three individual answers, all you have to do is select one of the questions that you want to answer, take a screenshot of it, and then crop your screenshot so that it's right on the edges of that question sticker. Then you do that again for a second or a third or a fourth or however many different questions you want to have on this singular story. And then finally just select the actual question that you're going to be replying to and then go through the normal story reply response. And then once you have finished taking your photo or your video for that story, just tap on the stickers button up at the top of the screen and then you can tap on the photos button and you can select all of those screenshots that you just took and it will add them as if you are responding to multiple questions at the same time. I would love to hear from you if you try out any of these hacks and whether or not they work for you. Thank you so much for being here. I will see you in the next one. And as always, happy networking.
- [19:46]
Jeff Bridges
Morning Zoe Got donuts Jeff Bridges why.
- [19:49]
Zoe
Are you still living above our garage?
- [19:51]
Jeff Bridges
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- [19:56]
Zoe
Teach me so Dana oh no, I'm not really prepared. I couldn't possibly at t mobile get the new iPhone 17 Pro on them. It's designed to be the most powerful iPhone yet and has the ultimate pro camera system.
- [20:10]
Instagram Marketing Expert
Wow.
- [20:10]
Jeff Bridges
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- [20:17]
Instagram Marketing Expert
Nice.
- [20:17]
Zoe
Jeffrey, you heard them.
- [20:19]
Jeff Bridges
T Mobile is the best place to get the new iPhone 17 Pro on us with eligible traded in any condition. So what are we having for lunch?
- [20:27]
Zoe
Dude, my work here is done.
- [20:30]
T-Mobile Commercial Narrator
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