← Call Her Creator with Katelyn Rhoades
Call Her Creator with Katelyn Rhoades
143. The Weekly Scroll: Links in Reels, Trial Reels Hack + Instagram Plus Explained
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This episode is sponsored by Shopify and Rella. Shopify gives you the tools to build, market and scale your store all in one place and Rella, a project management platform built specifically for social media teams where you can plan content, collaborate, get approvals, and manage everything all in one place. If you're serious about building a real business this year, not just posting content, these are the tools behind the scenes. Launch with Shopify shopify.com CHC and get 10% off your first three months or annual plan@getrella.com using the code CHC. Today's show is sponsored by Strawberry Me. Are you actually where you want to be in your career right now? Or do you wake up most days feeling like you're capable of more? You're just not sure how to get there? I have been in your shoes, but here's the truth. Success doesn't just magically happen. Y'. All the people you see doing incredible things in their careers, they have guidance, they have mentors, they have coach coaches and people helping them think bigger and move faster. And that's exactly why I love Strawberry Me. Career Coaching Career coaching gives you the clarity, the strategy and the accountability you need to turn your goals into reality. Instead of guessing your next move, you're working with an expert who helps you identify what's holding you back. Build a step by step plan, and then you take action with confidence. Because sometimes the difference between staying stuck and making real progress is simply having the right person in your corner. If you want to try it for yourself, go to Strawberry Me CHC and get 50% off your first coaching session. Strawberry Mech. It's like therapy for your career. Welcome back to another episode of the Weekly scroll where instead of scrolling for the updates, I scroll for you every single week. I handpick the most important updates in social media. I break them down into plain language and then I tell you exactly what it means for your growth. This episode of Call Her Creator and the Weekly scroll is brought to you by Club Influence. It is my all in one monthly membership for creators who want to grow on Instagram without spending hours as researching trends. I will hand pick viral reels, ideas, content prompts, a calendar, canva templates every single week so you can focus on creating, you can focus on posting and you can build real momentum. Okay, so this week's episode is. It's nuts because I never thought this day would come. I did not think that Adam Mossery, the CEO of Instagram, would would say in his heart, it's time to do this for my Users and it is time, baby girl. It is time. Okay, this is a big one. Adam just announced that you can now tag affiliate links directly in your reels. Okay, do you guys know what this means? It means instead of saying comment the word crown or go to my link in bio. Like, you don't have to do any of that. They're gonna see the link right inside the reel. The product can now live right inside the reel. So this is very similar to how TikTok has been doing. So if you know, like TikTok shop, this is exactly what Instagram is doing. It is copying pasting from TikTok. I love that they are still learning everything they know from TikTok, but they're pulling this over to Instagram. I personally don't have access to it yet, so if you do, I need you to DM me immediately and tell me how it's going for you and what the setup looks like. But Adam literally showed a live example today on his post today, while I'm recording this. This is April6, it's Monday. He posted about this about two hours ago. I'm first on the scene to report on this. I posted something on my Instagram. So if you are just now hearing about this through the podcast, you can go over to my Instagram the Kaitlyn Rhodes, and I've got screenshots of what all this looks like. But this changes a lot for how people make money on Instagram, because right now there's a little bit of friction. People have to either click your profile, find your link, scroll, maybe click, maybe buy, or they have to actually comment a word and then they have to go to their DMs and they have to click on the link. Some people say, hey, do you want this link? And you have to answer this. Yes. This is just pulling a lot of that out. And I do wonder what this will do for ManyChat. There's still a ton of value from ManyChat that you can set up besides just sending people links to things. But I do think this is going to move people into simplifying, right? They're going to simplify how they set up conversions. And if you're listening to this, by the way, I have an episode coming out this Thursday, so that will be April 7th that is going to break down many chat automation. It's actually so funny because I've had this podcast episode scheduled out for a while now, and then for this update to come today, I'm just like, oh, my God, this is funny. But after you're done Listening today's to today's episode, I want you to download this podcast so that when Thursday's episode pops up, you'll be able to listen. Because again, there's still so much you can do with ManyChat like growing your email list and growing your following. But this is going to simplify. People are going to see it on your reel, they're going to tap and they're going to be able to buy and you are going to make money from those conversions. No thinking for your audience, no extra steps. And when you remove this friction, it is going to increase conversion. So I can see a lot of creators, especially in the, the lifestyle type content where you link things that you use every day or styles, whatever that is. I can see you guys really benefiting from this update. Okay. I'm also seeing like I've, I kind of shy away from affiliate linking with service based companies, right? So like I get a lot of tech companies reaching out to me because that's what I share a lot about is like Instagram growth and marketing and all that good stuff. But I shy away from it because it's not, not so easy to just length clothing items or you know, everyday items. But if I have a reel where I can show off like you know, a video editing platform and just link it right there with my affiliate link, I might be more inclined to do that. So tech founders out there listening, this is going to be good for you too because this is probably going to get more people to sign up for your affiliate program because it'll be easier for people like me to sell your services. Okay, so what does this mean for all of us in 2026? I think that Instagram is going all in on an app shopping because they're sick of driving traffic off of the app so they don't want people leaving the app anymore. This is how they're going to keep you right there shopping in the app. And creators are about to become full on storefronts, right? Not just influencers. We're going to be actual sellers now we have the power. Affiliate marketing is about to explode again, especially for smaller creators who don't their own products yet. This is going to be the easiest way for you to make money. And I'm telling you too look back on my episodes. If you are someone that's not making money with Instagram right now, listen to me loud and clear. Episode 141 and episode 135, both of those episodes. I have interviewed real life creators out there that one of them doesn't have her own products. She does UGC and she links out other people's products. She's making bank on this app. The other creator, Chloe, she does have her own products. She has a digital product, but she also links like clothes and all that stuff. Stylish. She's a style creator. Both of these creators, though, are making so much money from Instagram. So if you are new to all of this and you're like, all right, 2026 is the year that I go all in on this, go listen to one of those episodes. Episode 135 or episode 1 41. Either of those is going to help you to understand how to do all of this. I predict that DM automation will still matter, especially for lead gen nurturing your audience. But I do think that Lincoln bio, it's already died, but it's going to die even further. Like it's going deeper into the ground. And reels are really going to become a direct revenue driver for all of us. So basically, your content is going to be your sales page. So if you want to take advantage of this now, start creating content like a buyer is watching you. Not just a follower, but a buyer. Talk about your products more naturally. Hey, here's what I'm using. Hey, here's what's actually working for me. Hey, here's what I'd buy. Again, even for people like me. I am not a lifestyle creator. But if I'm, you know, explaining a real strategy and I'm drinking a drink while I'm doing it, I could easily drink what's in my cup and tell people like, hey, this actually works for me. You should try it and get my affiliate pay out. Right. I also want you guys to get comfortable selling without feeling salesy because this feature is going to reward those people that can convert fast. And so if you use affiliate links, organize them now make a little Google spreadsheet. You know, here's my everyday products, here's my style products, here's my health products. Put them in a little Google sheet so that when you do naturally talk about those things or you have them in your content, you can easily just pull the link and link it directly into your reel. Because when this rolls out fully for everyone, speed is going to win, guys. Speed's going to win. All right, next update. This one is low key. A power move. Adam just confirmed that you can now schedule trial reels. And if you're not using trial reels yet, you're missing one of the biggest growth hacks on Instagram right now. I personally should be using them more than I am. But I mean, even when I do just, you know, mindlessly post one, I'm reaching like 2 to 10,000 people freely by just like duplicating a post that I'm about to share. I'll duplicate it and I'll share one to Trials and I'll share one as a live reel. And I'm easily hitting thousands of people with little to no effort. Okay, I'm gonna be real with you for a minute. Working in social media, my life Basically looks like 47 tabs open Slack messages, a Google Doc with captions, a notes app with ideas. And I'm still like, wait, where did that post go again? If you can relate, then I want to tell you about Rella. Rella is not just another scheduling tool. It's full project management platform built specifically for social media teams. Instead of jumping between five different tools, RELA is where you plan your content, collaborate with clients, get approvals, and actually get the work done all in one place. And this is my favorite part. Your clients can improve content through a public link, no login required. Plus they have Ella, which is their AI creative assistant. It literally learns your brand, builds your content calendar, identifies trends, and even writes scripts and captions based on what will actually perform. It's used by thousands of social media managers, agents, agencies and teams. And once you start using it, you're going to realize how much time you are wasting between everything else. So if you're ready to get your life Together, go to getrella.com and use code CHC for 10% off your first three months or annual plan. That's G-E-T R E L L A.com to start your free 14 day trial and use code CHC for 10 percent off and see why social media teams are ditching the tool chaos. So trial reels, it's where your content gets shown to non followers only. So it's only going to be shown to people who are not already following you. They are not your audience, they are not your people. They are cold traffic. Which means you can test content without risking your current engagement. That's what's so fun about trial reels. So before though you could only post a trial reel, but your timing was kind of random because you couldn't schedule it. But now you can actually schedule when you want non followers to see it. So this is actually a bigger deal than it sounds because timing is everything when it comes to reach. So you can post when your ideal audience is online, not just your current followers. But like, who are you trying to reach? What time of day do you think they're on Instagram? Another thing here that I love, test different time zones, treat trial reels like a true experiment. This is totally giving like data driven content strategy, not just a post and pray and hope we reach the right people. Like, like we are going to based. We are going to post based on data. Now the real strategy that no one's talking about here is that this is basically Instagram giving you a free testing lab, right? You can test different hooks, you can test different topics, you can test different formats. Even post old reels that went viral. Repost those without spamming your current audience. Post them for your new audience. I've done this before too, and it actually really does work. I will repost a reel that went viral and I will reach brand new people that have never seen my content. And it, it makes me so happy inside. So that's like probably the lowest effort that you could do is take a video that's already performed well for your current audience and repost it for non followers. I think that in 2026, creators who grow the fastest are not going to be the ones that are posting more, but it's the ones that are testing smarter. We're moving into like a test, analyze, scale phase instead of just like a hoping this works phase. So if you want to use this strategy right now, take two to three reels that you've already posted and repost them as a trial reel. Run them as a trial reel, schedule them at different times, watch which one performs the best, and then push that winner to your audience. Repost it again to your live audience. Trial reels are about to separate casual creators from strategic ones. I'm already seeing it. I'm already sleeping on trial reels when I need to be utilizing it more. The creators that I've seen using it are growing by the thousands. So we gotta stop sleeping on this stuff. Okay. All right. Instagram's testing something new and I have thoughts. The team just confirmed they're testing a new paid subscription and it's called Instagram Plus. This is not the blue check mark verification. No, this is more visibility, more control is what they're. They're saying. So what you get so far with Instagram plus unlimited audience list for stories. So beyond just your close friends, you can make specific stories list to show different stories to certain people. You can see how many people re watched your story. You can spotlight a story so like you can push it to the front of your stories. I Think that's kind of cool. Super likes on stories. Not very clear on what that is, but I'm sure we'll find out pretty soon. You can extend your stories past 24 hours. Love this. You can preview stories without being seen. So you can look at other people's stories and them not know that you looked at it. And then you can search your viewers who've. Who viewed your story. So if you're trying to see if so and so saw your saw your stories yet and you don't want to search through like scroll down, just type in their name and see if they've posted it. My honest take here is that Instagram is turning into a pay to amplify platform, kind of like meta did. It's not fully pay to play, but it's definitely pay to get an advantage. And the reason that this matters right now, it's. It's not so much about the features, but it's about the behavior. Instagram is telling us, hey, visibility is becoming a product. Do you want to pay? And I think that with this, I do think organic reach is still going to exist. It's always going to exist. But I do think that paid advantages will stack on top of organic. So the creators who invest in the tools and the ads and the features, they'll move a little bit faster than those who don't. And stories are be gonna, are. They're gonna become more important. This is all story focused. If we look inside of this package. So what does that mean? That means that Instagram is trying to put a little more effort in stories. So if you don't have a story strategy, this is where another podcast episode comes in. I do have an episode on here about, I think it's like 10 ways to increase your story views and convert more people. It's so beneficial. Guys. I've had clients listen to it on the podcast or they'll watch it on YouTube because I also have it on YouTube and they'll come back to me and be like, oh my God, Caitlin, I sold out my offer after listening to that episode. So there is a strategy behind stories and selling. So if you want to get that, I'll link it in the show notes to make it easier for you to find. But it's super beneficial. The next thing I want to talk about, it's not necessarily an update, but it's something that a lot of people don't use correctly. This is an Instagram feature that I, I think a lot of people sleep on or they're not certain how it Works so they don't create content for it and you're losing out. Okay, so one of the most underrated growth tools on Instagram is the Explore Page. So why does the Explore Page matter? Okay, so the Explore page is that little magnifying glass at the bottom of your screen when you've got the Instagram app open. And when you click on that, what Instagram is doing is it's showing you a bunch of content that it thinks you will like. So your goal as a creator is to get on that Explore page. That is actually how I grew like my first 150,000 followers was me ending up on the Explore page like all the time because I was creating such good content. So what you need to think about is when you're creating content, what is going to make people engage with it? What's going to make them comment, like it, share it, whatever increases engagement on that page is going to help you get on the Explore page. Because the more engagement you get, the more that Instagram sees that piece of content as good content and it pushes it to the Explore page. So the way to land on the Instagram Explore page, a strong hook first, one to two seconds. If someone doesn't stop scrolling, you're out. You're not going to be put on the Explore page. Then there's watch time completion rate. Are people staying long enough to complete your video? If so, the Instagram will push you to the Explore page. Engagement from non followers, like saved shares from people who don't already follow you. You're going to the Explore page. If you're getting saves, that's a clear view that this is valuable content. You'll get pushed to the Explore Page. Shares also explode the Explore Page. So if people are sending your post to friends, Instagram's gonna push it even harder to the Explore Page. The strategy here is to make content that feels instantly relevant to people. It makes them stay it stay on the page longer. You don't just get lucky and Instagram chooses to put you on the Explore Page. You actually have to earn it through like attention and retention. So what I'm getting at here is I dedicated an entire episode to the Explore page and how to get found on the Explore page. It's episode 1 40. I will link it in the show notes for you as well. I want you guys to truly understand how you can optimize your content to get pushed to the Explore Page. Because once you are there, that is what's going to grow your account and get you seen by more people and get you more followers. Now, lastly, before you go today, I just have one small favor to ask. If you've been loving this podcast, call her creator. If you've been listening, if this is your first episode and you liked it, or if this is your 90th episode and you liked it, please leave me a review. Please share it with a friend, please post it to your Instagram stories and tag me. It would mean the absolute world to me if you just took 30 seconds to do something like that for me. Really, truly, like, reviews are what helps this podcast grow, reach more people, reach more women, and it helps keep keep me bringing these conversations around. And I'm telling you, I read every single review that you guys leave me. So if this is something, if something in this episode hit for you, please go leave a review, tell me what landed, and send it to a friend. And then lastly, Girl Club Influence is officially open. If you want me to send you trending reels every single Monday, ideas that you can literally plug and play into your business and record and post, I need you to get inside. Get inside of Club Influence. This is for the creator who doesn't want to overthink their content anymore. They just want to show up, they want to grow, they want to make money. Club Influences where it's hot. All right, guys, thanks so much for listening to today's episode. I will see you later on this week with the mini chat episode.