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Social Media Marketing Podcast
Maximize Your Instagram Growth: Getting More of The Right Followers
00:39:25
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- [00:01]
Michael Stelzner
Are you feeling overwhelmed trying to keep up with all the AI changes? Trust me, I know how it feels. The marketers who are truly thriving today with AI have discovered something really important. They're not doing it alone. At the AI Business Society, we've created a community where smart, curious marketers like you share discoveries, troubleshoot their challenges, and celebrate breakthroughs together. Listen to what Marissa Shadwick had to say. Quote, I found my people. I love chatting about our experiences with AI and supporting each other on our journey towards the future. Unquote. Stop navigating the AI revolution by yourself. Join our community of innovators and let's grow together. Visit socialmediaexaminer.com AI to learn more.
- [00:57]
Lucas o' Keefe
Welcome to the Social Media Marketing Podcast, helping you navigate the social media jungle. And now, here is your host, Michael Stelzner.
- [01:07]
Michael Stelzner
Hello, hello, hello. Thank you so much for joining me for the Social Media Marketing podcast brought to you by Social Media Examiner. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner, and this is the podcast for marketers and business owners who want more exposure, more leads, and more sales. Today, I'm going to be joined by Lucas o' Keefe and we're going to explore how to get more of the ideal people following you on Instagram. In this interview, Lucas is going to share a cacophony, for lack of better words, of strategies that you can use. Pick and choose at your convenience to really draw your ideal audience to you. Let's transition over to this week's interview with Lucas o' Keefe, helping you to.
- [01:51]
Lucas o' Keefe
Simplify your social safari. Here is this week's expert guide.
- [01:58]
Michael Stelzner
Today, I'm very excited to be joined by Lucas o' Keefe. If you don't know who Lucas is, he's an Instagram strategist who helps content creators and business owners maximize their exposure on Instagram and beyond. His newsletter is Understanding Social Media, where he shares social media tips and strategies. Lucas, welcome back to the show. Show. How you doing today?
- [02:19]
Lucas o' Keefe
I'm great and it's awesome to be back here for a second go.
- [02:22]
Michael Stelzner
Yeah, it's super exciting to have you back, Lucas. Today, Lucas and I are going to explore how to get more of the right followers on Instagram. Lucas. So there are a lot of marketers who are using Instagram kind of on autopilot. They don't really have an approach that I would say is methodical. And I know what we're about to unleash or reveal to everyone is a really systematic approach. And, and I'm curious, from your perspective, why is it Important that marketers employ an approach, an intelligent approach to growing their Instagram following. What's your thoughts on that?
- [02:57]
Lucas o' Keefe
The thing that comes to mind is that strategy is what gets people to hit that follow button these days. It doesn't matter what platform you're on. Of course we're going to heavily speak to Instagram today, but anything I'm sharing is going to just speak to the importance of strategy behind your social media. And it's quite simple because people want to make sure they're hitting that follow button. I find people are very protective over their follow these days. They're less likely to hit that button and follow too many accounts. So if you want people to follow, you need them to trust that they're going to be able to rely on you creating good, funny or relatable content that they're going to want to see. If you're posting randomly or posting without a plan, people are going to pick up on, yeah, I don't know what this account's about. I don't know if I'm quite ready to follow. So a strategy solves that problem.
- [03:48]
Michael Stelzner
Very cool. So let's dig in to the very first part of your strategy. Start wherever you want to start.
- [03:55]
Lucas o' Keefe
Yeah. So the strategy that I want to share today is the grows with an S at the end grows G R O W S method that is all about locking in the content that's going to get you these results I'm speaking to. So again, I have five different types of content that I'll share today. The goal here is not to create all five types and to rotate through them. That's too much for you as a creator or you as a brand, even if you have a team. And also too much for your audience to really feel an identity to go with your content. So the content I'm sharing today, it's going to be five key pillars. As you're listening, I want you to think of two, maybe three that really will work for your brand, for your strategy and make them work for you. The more you show up with these, visitors to your profile are going to say, hey, I know what I can expect from this account. I'm going to hit that follow button. And that's ultimately what we want. So again, this grows strategy is all about the content that is going to be reliable and get the results you want. So the first part of the grows method is to create guide content. So looking for what is that type of content that's going to perform well. Get people saving, sharing and hitting false follow, creating, guide Content, which is how to's tutorials show someone how to do something in a series of steps, is an excellent way to really carve out that identity as a useful account that people want to follow and know that they can count on. The great news is there's also an endless amount of tutorials and quick workflows or processes that you do every day as a creator, as a business owner for your brand that you can turn into bite sized content. And that's what this first pillar guide with the grows method is all about.
- [05:46]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, so just let's unpack this a little bit. Let's give some examples of kind of how this works and just expand a little bit more, if you don't mind.
- [05:58]
Lucas o' Keefe
Yeah, so Instagram, whenever we're talking about it and content, we have to look at the content formats. And if we're thinking about this guide or education content and you want to think about what's going to work, I like to do two things. You can have a reel, that is a tutorial video. Here are three quick steps to design your own logo, right? And you break down. If you're a logo designer, you break down three key important questions or steps that someone who is hoping to be able to design their own logo would be able to follow from your content to get that outcome. Another great way to do it is through swipeable carousel posts. And that's personally my favorite type of content. That's how I've grown my account to what it is today in a carousel post. Less so thinking of like the typical like photo dump, which is a bunch of photos and you're just kind of swiping through it like an album. Instead, if you use a tool like Canva or Adobe Express or Photoshop or Illustrator and you design your carousel posts, you can make each post like a mini ebook. For example, I posted last week, how to find your niche on Instagram. That's the first slide of the carousel. And, and as someone swipes through, they get my multi step process with details about how to find their niche on Instagram. And that's all packed into one super educational post.
- [07:19]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, so what I'm hearing you say is the first strategy is to be the guide. It sounds like, right? You are guiding your ideal target audience towards a resolution, presumably to a problem that they face. And I would imagine if we step back a little bit, all these things are intentionally strategically built to attract a specific audience. Right. It's not just like you're randomly putting one day Instagram topics, the next day YouTube topics, the next day. Like house cleaning topics, right? I mean, you're specifically have some sort of overarching strategy that's layering into all this, is that correct?
- [07:57]
Lucas o' Keefe
Exactly. And let's go back to my example I gave, which is a reel that could be about, you know, you know, how to design a professional logo in three core steps. If someone is a brand designer or if someone is a graphic designer who regularly designs logos or regularly carves out greater brand packages for businesses and clients, most of their content, if we zoom out, is going to be a series of small quick steps that goes into this person's everyday job. And the goal here is someone coming to this channel, following this person, maybe it's a graphic designer they really look up to. So they're going to follow them. They're learning the bite sized chunks that go into that person's work, that go into their brand or go into their business, and that keeps that graphic designer top of mind. It makes them an authority in their space. A great thing to do with this educational content is as we know, you can teach people how to do things in small bite sized chunks, do it for free with free value carousels or reels. But then if you sell courses or if you do actual logo design or graphic design, someone who is, you know, enjoying your bite sized educational videos might look at it and say, this is awesome, I've learned a lot, but at the end of the day, I want to hire this person to do greater projects or bigger things for me or I want to buy their course. And that trust comes from the, the bite sized educational guide content in the first place.
- [09:28]
Michael Stelzner
What do you want to say to those people listening right now that have this objection inside their mind? Yeah, but I'm teaching my methods to my competitors or I'm teaching people how to do this on their own and therefore they'll never want to work with me. How do you overcome those objections?
- [09:42]
Lucas o' Keefe
I say time is money, right? If you can teach people how to do it and those who are going to do everything themselves and learn that slowly, piece by piece, by going to your grid and watching this reel and then scrolling through and finding the next reel that goes with it to complete the second step of the process and then jumping all over the place, people who are going to do that, because it's, you know, maybe they can get that value and learn from you for free, they're going to do it. But most of the time the people who will become possible clients or customers, they're going to say, yeah, I learned a lot from this Person's logo design video. I want a full brand identity carved out for me. I like how they showed off this logo. Looks like all of their process is really smooth. I want to work with them and that's usually what happens next.
- [10:28]
Michael Stelzner
I love that. And I think it's really important for people to understand that when you demonstrate your insights and wisdom to other people, it does a couple of marketing things that a lot of people don't really think about. Number one is it demonstrates that you know what you're talking about versus them just going to a website and seeing a bunch of logos on a website versus them, seeing the craftsmanship that goes behind it. This is something that can basically establish a little bit more know like and trust. In addition, if someone does learn how to become a graphic designer, a better graphic designer or a better logo creator as a result of following your stuff, they might attribute that down the road to you. They might say, hey, I learned all this from Lucas o' Keefe. And that is another form of branding and marketing. So this is just kind of a reframing for some people that don't want to reveal, quote, unquote, the secret sauce. And just because you show what goes into it, you don't have to show all that goes into it. Would you agree?
- [11:30]
Lucas o' Keefe
Exactly. A hundred percent.
- [11:32]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, so we've talked about the first part of your strategy, which is the guide. What's next?
- [11:37]
Lucas o' Keefe
Next up, our part of the GROWS method is to create relatable content. And just like you said, we live in a time where, you know, as you were just describing, how people want to learn it from you, they want you to become the person they learn from. Likewise, we live in a time where there are so many powerful AI tools that can create tons of content, generate tons of content ideas. So it really comes down to the who behind the content, less so the what that person is talking about. And our next one, relatable content, which is the R is super important for this. So if you are looking at your overall industry, looking at your possible community that you want to speak to online, remembering that the GROWS method, I'm giving five pillars of content and the idea is to find two or three that work for you. This relatable content, which can be things like reels that are funny and going to make people share it, or memes that are single images or carousels of memes, anything that shows you're a human, you get the same problems or understand the same issues in your industry as the customers you're reaching out to. This is a Super important type of content to be human and to stand out with.
- [12:50]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, so talk to us about how this is different than what we just talked about. Maybe by giving an example of maybe what you do for yourself or what some of your students or clients do, just so people can grapple a little bit with what you mean by being relatable and revealing the who behind the company or the person.
- [13:09]
Lucas o' Keefe
Yeah, and I to answer that, I like how the first two letters of this framework are guide and relate. Because we always talk about getting people to follow you on social media as being as simple as giving value. Right? You give value. And when people think of value, it's easy to consider educational content. You teach people stuff, you show them how to do something. People watch YouTube videos every single day to learn. People read blogs every single day to learn. Now we're doing it on social media in bite sized chunks. So we've always known value comes from that content. Well, where I like this relatable content is value doesn't have to be education. Value can be making someone laugh. Value can be giving someone something to share to their best friend and say, this is totally us, this post. And that's the example I can give. If any creator listening right now, whether it's their business account or their personal account, go into your DMs on Instagram and look at the content you've recently shared to your best friend or your closest colleague. And chances are they're not educational content, they are relatable posts. So a good example is typical, you know, POVs about your favorite sitcom that you might be watching or your favorite Netflix show. Whenever a big show comes out, people like to talk about it, people like to make jokes about it. We saw this with shows like the White Lotus, where people were having all these like viewer parties and talking all about it and sharing memes related to that. We saw this with the show Severance, which was a great show for wondering what's going on.
- [14:45]
Michael Stelzner
Oh, I love that show.
- [14:46]
Lucas o' Keefe
Oh, it's so good. All sharing in this collective confusion of not knowing what's going on. And that relatability, especially if you're a brand or a business, really brings you down to earth. And instead of trying to sell people and stuff all the time, you become that core aspect of, yeah, we sell you stuff, but we get it just as much as you do here in the industry. And that's where relatable content's valuable.
- [15:13]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, so this is where it can get a little confusing potentially, because if we talk about severance, which is A great show. What does that have to do with my target audience who's into marketing? The reason I ask this is because there might be other relatable things that I could share that are not necessarily cultural moments, but might be the common challenge faced by the audience. For example, algorithm changes, you know, would be the obvious one that we could talk about. Is that relatable or is that not relatable? Help me understand how we can delineate between maybe cultural entertainment phenomenons and laughing entertainment versus stuff that maybe is relatable for anyone in the niche that we're in.
- [15:56]
Lucas o' Keefe
So the best part about relatable content is that it brings those two things together, right? You take the cultural moment, you take the super industry relevant thing like for example, stressing out about the Instagram or social media algorithm, and you put them together, right? You get a common like still frame image or like a gif, a video gif that's like a clip of one of the Severance. The, the characters on Severance, right? You know, they're working at their computer desk. They don't know what they're doing. The whole point of the show is in Severance, workers don't know what the purpose of their work is. So you, you, you know, you get a clip of one of the actors on Severance typing away at their computer looking confused. And then you make the caption marketers trying to figure out the latest Instagram algorithm and people who watch Severance go, oh, my favorite brand just used my favorite show to communicate an aspect of my industry that is stressing me out. And yeah, I am stressed out about the algorithm. So I'm going to share this post to my friend in my industry who also watches Severance. And there's a lot more overlap than people think.
- [16:58]
Michael Stelzner
Well, and I'm thinking about, for those that haven't seen Severance, these people come out of an elevator and they have no idea how much time passed or even what just happened. And I could see the elevator opening as a kind of analogy to AI forgetting everything you just told it. You know, like this is something a lot of marketers face where like you've been working with AI for a while and then it's as if it just doesn't even know who you are. And it's like it started from scratch, which a lot of marketers deal with when they're inside of a chat GPT thread and they've reached the limits and all of a sudden it starts acting completely different. So, okay, I think I understand what you're saying. But does all relatable content need to be culturally relevant or can it also be niche relevant by just maybe talking about the struggles of entrepreneurship if you're trying to target that particular audience?
- [17:43]
Lucas o' Keefe
That's a great question. And no, it doesn't all have to be culturally relevant. There are some like ageless memes too that will always kind of work and are cyclical and cycle back. Something that I'm see, we're seeing a lot of right now is people are using the new Chat GPT image mod to generate like full on cartoons, right? Like little mini four panel comics. And yeah, it might be like a typical comic style in the illustration and you can prompt ChatGPT to make sure it has that style. But these are completely brand new images and looks. They don't have any kind of cultural relevance. We're not like generating spongebob comics or anything like that. It is a completely unique cartoon or comic and people really have that freedom to make it about whatever they want in their industry. So that's a great way to continue to create relatable content and even kind of have your own branded comic or cartoon that is just really beginning because of how powerful that new model is.
- [18:40]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, so we have five possible options in this strategy. We're revealing this grows strategy. The first one was guide, where you be the guide and you teach or educate your ideal target audience on how to do the craft that you're specialist in. Second one is relate. And we talked about how relate is this opportunity to connect to memes or popular television or entertainment or even just relevance that's happening inside of the industry. What is the next example?
- [19:08]
Lucas o' Keefe
Yeah, and O so stands for observe. And that perfectly follows how we spoke about relate as listening to what's happening in the wider pop culture around the world, maybe in your industry as well. But the O standing for observe is basically looking at what news is coming out in your industry, what trends are coming out in your industry, and acting quick to be the source of information and news on those changes. I love this content personally. It's one of my main pillars that I use because as we've mentioned before, Instagram has tons of changes. The Instagram algorithm is updating with new features, new ways content is or isn't being seen, and people understandably want answers or if there's a new feature, they want to know how it works or how to find it. I try to be really quick to the point to being able to share my first impressions of those new updates of those new features. And it's a Great way to have my audience trusting me and relying on me because they know I might be that source of information. People might turn on post notifications for me because they know I share very timely and urgent information in my content. And all the things I'm mentioning, of course, lead to people hitting that follow button too.
- [20:28]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, so this one, I think needs just a little bit of explanation because this one requires you to be like Johnny on the spot, for lack of better words. Right. You have to be quick, and for some people that's going to require them to be constantly. Any tips on how to do this? Because I can imagine like a couple hours feels late in this kind of an environment. Right, you're right.
- [20:50]
Lucas o' Keefe
Yeah. If you're reporting on something, you know, eight to 12 hours later, let alone 24 hours or more, you're probably too late because you probably saw it from someone who does a better job. Posting observational content or reactive content is what you could call it as well. But this is why I love this framework. Of the five types we're sharing today, I keep saying it's important to just find two to three. And the reason for that in this specific example of observational or trend content is because there isn't always going to be news. Right. I personally feel lucky because I'm in this Instagram social media industry, which changes fast and has a lot of new content and new features, but in maybe slower industries or industries where you don't have access to as much of a news network to find things out really quick. Yeah, this probably wouldn't be the pillar of this strategy to focus on because it really does require a lot of listening and ear to the ground in your industry, whether that's through other creators who are regularly faster than you, having inside connections who you can reach out to, and also just, you know, having a strong blog network that's going to quickly report on stuff because I find print and publishing online is usually faster than video and whatnot. So there is a lot that goes into it, which is why for some people it might not be the ideal pillar. And luckily they have four others to choose from.
- [22:18]
Michael Stelzner
Well, if you haven't been tracking, there have been some major AI updates over the last month and the changes just keep coming. I know this feels overwhelming, but what if I told you you can actually thrive in this rapidly evolving AI frontier? The marketers succeeding aren't the ones with the most AI tools, they're the ones with the right guidance. That's exactly what you'll find inside the AI business society. Our team cuts through all the noise so you can focus on what actually moves the needle in your marketing. As member Shannon Caldwell told us, quote, these trainings are filling the gap between knowing what AI can do and knowing how to do it. Are you ready to thrive with AI? Join me inside the AI Business Society by visiting socialmediaexaminer.com AI Just a couple thoughts. As a guy that runs a media company and we do cover the entire space, so what we used to do and this is for longer form content. So this would be like if you have an Instagram live show, I know there's plenty of people that go live and cover kind of the news of what's been going on in the last week. This gives you a little bit more time if you want to do like a weekly recap of here's kind of the main things that happened in the last week. Because maybe people don't care about like literally same day news. Maybe they just care about the total recaps. Is that an option where you could get away with something like that? Like in a a weekly update of important news inside of a carousel or something like that? Instead of having to do it instantly, that way you can interpret it, decide which ones are the most important, and then have like a weekly post update. What's your thoughts on that?
- [23:58]
Lucas o' Keefe
I love that idea. And the whole point of the strategy too is to make it predictable and reliable in what you're creating and sharing. So yeah, a content creator could absolutely, you know, share a lot of guide content or share a lot of relatable content. And then once a week one of their posts is an observational collection. Here's what you missed in social media this week, right? Here's what you missed in Fill in the Blank. Anything. Any industry can really go there this week and that's a great way to do it. In fact, the the official Instagram @creators account I've been seeing more and more. They do like I think monthly, but maybe every week they do a monthly like Creator's Digest of like here's what you missed on Instagram this month. They might even do like a weekly here's what's trending on reels this week, which is valuable because it shares trends on their platform and it also gets people inspired to create more reels and content on Instagram. So they use that really well. And yeah, it's a great example of why it's important to have two to three pillars from this strategy because you won't be able to post industry recaps or observing Industry trends every single day. It could fit perfectly into a Friday recap. It could repurpose easily into your weekly newsletter, which is something I like to do. Or it could play up to a longer form YouTube video that someone is creating. So there's so many interesting options here, as you can probably tell. This is why observe the O of this is my favorite.
- [25:30]
Michael Stelzner
I love it. But you know, another thought for people that don't want to be chasing news, it's one thing to report the news, it's another thing to interpret the news. And I feel like people actually place more value on what's your view of this item and is this something important? That could be a short little video like Instagram decided to add this new feature. Is it worthy or not? Here's my take. What's your thoughts on something like that? That way you don't have to be the first on it, but you need to be the best on it. Maybe because you're going a little deeper. What's your reaction to that?
- [26:03]
Lucas o' Keefe
I love that it comes down to, you know, what is your special sauce, right? And like you said, if someone's maybe not the fastest, but they're the funniest.
- [26:11]
Michael Stelzner
There you go, right?
- [26:12]
Lucas o' Keefe
They're giving some funny part.
- [26:14]
Michael Stelzner
I like that.
- [26:14]
Lucas o' Keefe
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Be the funniest, right? Be the. You don't have to be the fastest, but if you are, like, if you have a way with words and making people laugh, that's almost like again, a combination of take the relatable pillar and take the observational pillar, smash them together and you now have this unique type of content. I don't know if I've said this enough that series content. So series based content is really big on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, shorts, most social media platforms right now, because again, you want people to know what they're coming back for. Your weekly comedic commentary on the latest social media trends can be a series that people look forward to. And as you pointed out, it also removes the need for urgency because yeah, people will say it faster, but people might not say it as funny.
- [27:05]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, so we've got disclaimer, we've got relatable content, we've got observational or observed content. What's the next part?
- [27:12]
Lucas o' Keefe
So the W is similar to G, which was guide, but this is win, and particularly it didn't fit in my acronym. But it's quick wins, okay? And quick win content, just to explain it, is think about the fastest outcome or value you can give to someone. It sounds funny to say because everything Feels fast on social media nowadays. But the guide example I gave earlier, which was like, you know, three tips to mastering logo design. Three, three tips to a professional logo that's almost takes too long in today's day and age. So when I say Quick Win content, I mean a visual checklist or a visual routine. I like this as like infographics and single images. Not a carousel, not a reel, just a single thing that someone can look at, scan, get some value from right away. Ideally share that post because it was consumable and valuable for them, so they're going to share it to their network. This is another great pillar that can also save time and also be a good extension of your guide content. Because if you are sharing more, more fleshed out guides, three steps, you can also turn multiple posts into a quick little checklist or routine. They're super easy to make and you can share that for your audience pretty regularly.
- [28:29]
Michael Stelzner
So let's give an example so people can understand what something like this might look like.
- [28:33]
Lucas o' Keefe
Again, I always think my favorite examples are content that I've seen, not content I've created, but content I've seen and shared or seen, you know, my friends or family or colleagues sharing. And I think quick Win content is done really well in the like food and nutrition space. So I'm sure people listening will have seen something like this. But it's just a single checklist and it says something like eight inflammation helping foods. And then it's just a quick little image of like designed in Canva and it's just like four different icons of those foods on the top row, the other four of the eight on the bottom row and it's quickly telling someone, oh, these are foods I should maybe cut out to help my inflammation. This is cool. I'm going to share this to my audience. I'm going to save it. Yeah, sometimes we all save stuff and don't go back to check it. But that's the real goal of this content. A quick routine, a quick checklist, almost like a shopping list that you can turn into a single post and put out there for people to see and save and follow you with.
- [29:33]
Michael Stelzner
Is this generally a image and not a video? Is it, can this be done? Okay, it's not a video.
- [29:39]
Lucas o' Keefe
Okay, it can be done in video. You know, with so much content, people get creative. I do find it's best with images, but I've seen more graphic design oriented reels these days where it's just like animated and you see like the text appear on screen. Right. It might just Be B roll of someone like working at their computer and then superimposed text over top of like a 9 second reel. Not my most favorite type of content, but I see this work for many creators where with that B roll of them working at their computer, it'll be like, here are my five techniques to stay more productive during my workday. And it has like the Pomodoro technique or it has other techniques that they follow and then maybe the caption explains it in more detail or they can look at your other content for more detail. But yeah, it can be done in video as well.
- [30:27]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, so it sounds to me as if the Quick Win is one of the harder ones to pull off, right? Because we're kind of restricted intentionally to creating something that's simple and precise and ideally can be put into a square image. Right? I mean, isn't that kind of what I'm hearing you say it is?
- [30:47]
Lucas o' Keefe
But again, people want to scan like the brain obviously registers so much visually that just communicating with those visuals. I say this all the time because it still wows me, the content I put so much detail into and it's like a carousel. And I'm like, wow, people are really going to get so much value out of this. This one's going to be the winner. It doesn't do as well. And then I really have to like tone things down, as you said, to squeeze it all into a single image almost to the point where I feel like it's not enough. And that post often does really well. I have one I posted this week. It already has 500,000 views because now we get views on photos and carousels similar to Reels has 500,000 views. And the whole post is how to spend an hour on Instagram. Or it's like only have one hour on Instagram, question mark and I break down. It's a pie chart of an hour. And I break down, do this for 10 minutes, do this for 15 minutes, do this for 10 minutes, do THIS for 5. It adds up to the full 60. And it's just a single image and it's doing super well and growing my audience.
- [31:49]
Michael Stelzner
Love that example. Okay, what's next?
- [31:52]
Lucas o' Keefe
Last we come to the S, which is showcase content. And I really added this into the framework to shout out the artists, the designers, the people who maybe feel like Instagram of late or of the last few years, ever since it's shifted over to being very reels heavy hasn't served them as well. These are the artists and creators who, you know, used to post a photo of their work and get a good audience following from there. Photographers who of course had beautiful photos to share and to grow their audience with, many of those creators are finding it difficult to carve out in this whole reels centric environment we've been in with Instagram. So showcase content is really about, yeah, show off your final piece. Show off your photo, show off that logo you designed, show off that beautiful art you drew. But make it a video, make it engaging by showing the whole process that went into it as well. A good way to do this is to kind of to show the finished piece first and then show how you got it. Because then someone's going to be, they're going to grab their attention by the finished piece and say, wow, I really like that photo. I've been trying to get my photography to that level. Oh, they're showing me how they set up that shot too. This is great. I'm learning and I get to see this really cool photo.
- [33:10]
Michael Stelzner
So many of these I feel like I've seen are like sped up. Maybe it's a one hour process that's sped up in like 60 seconds. Is that kind of what we're talking about? Yeah, I see a lot of these crazy arts related things where they take like, I don't know, a pine cone or something crazy and they make it into a piece of art, you know, or a stub, a log or whatever, you know. So is this the kind of stuff where we're talking about kind of like all the little, with almost like no voice? Right. It's just got a music track behind it and it's showing the whole thing. Is that right?
- [33:39]
Lucas o' Keefe
Exactly. I love that example because it's like, what's this pine cone doing on screen? Oh, he's turning it into something very cool. Right. And you can really play with, as you said, you don't need voice. You can really play with text hooks. Right. Watch me turn this pine cone into xyz.
- [33:56]
Michael Stelzner
Like a candle or something. Yeah, exactly.
- [33:58]
Lucas o' Keefe
Yeah. Someone's going to see that and go, wait a second, I, I had no interest in this before a second ago, but I didn't know I needed to see this. And they're going to watch the video. And these are videos you see photographers, artists, designers doing very well with often going viral too. Because if you can really master this format, yes, it's hard and time consuming to film, but if you can master this format and really make it work for you, it's one of the most highest growth potential types of content out there.
- [34:25]
Michael Stelzner
Well, and I Feel like there's a little ASMR going on on some of these too, where it's like there's a drawing and there's a. It's an artist with a pencil and you can hear the pencil and the eraser and all that kind of stuff. Is that part of what's going on here as well? The sound effects and stuff like that?
- [34:38]
Lucas o' Keefe
Exactly, yeah. It's so versatile. And I love how all these examples are coming to you. Right. Like, we've all seen it, right. And that's. That's the core message I want to share with this content, is all the examples I've seen today. Again, if you look at most content that you like, that you save, that you share, if you can find all that content presented in front of you, you could probably sort it into all of these categories, would probably cover all of the content that you like, save and share. And that's why it's so good to grow with. And there's also a wealth of examples out there to learn from and make your own.
- [35:12]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, so you kind of hinted a little bit about how you can pair some of these things together. Why don't you expand a little bit about how these things do not have to operate on their own? And by the way, just for the record, go over all five of them and then let's talk about some pairings.
- [35:24]
Lucas o' Keefe
Yeah. So if we're looking at the overall grows method, the five pillars of content that I suggest taking two to three of our guide or how to educational content. Relatable content. That's funny. Super shareable observational content, Reporting on industry trends or news. Quick win content, which is super visual, quick to the point, giving value and providing an outcome. And then showcase content, showing the behind the scenes or showing the process that goes into creating something. Those are the five. And as I've said, most good content out there today fits into one of those five baskets, if that's what we want to call them. And obviously, if you're looking at making a content strategy from this, combining a few of them is the way to go. Not just because your audience will probably get sick of just seeing the same thing over and over again if you only have one. But as a creator, it's hard to do the one pillar over and over and over again multiple times a week. So I like to think of first and foremost of those five, what is the one that interests you the most? Thinking of your niche, your industry, your type of communication style, Looking at examples that we've shared today or going online and Finding your own examples. Which one stands out as Yes, I can do it. Some common ones to start with are educational content because again, someone's brain and communication style might lend to teaching something in the how to tutorial style. Or someone might find that they're really good at showcase content. They're an artist, they're a photographer, they really want to show what goes into their process or that just lends to what they do. So let's say we're starting with either of those. Someone does educational or someone is doing showcase content. Well, those posts probably take a while to make. Creating a tutorial carousel, a tutorial reel, or creating a time lapse showcase post, they're going to take some time. So if you're picking either of those to start with, knowing that they're going to be pretty time consuming, we want to pair that with at least one easy to make content. I like having relatable content come in here. So the R of the Grows method memes are pretty endless to make. They're super fast. Memes themselves have a communication style that kind of speaks for itself, so I love pairing that with one of the other two. Also, if you're constantly educating people, it's nice to make them laugh every once in a while. Or if you're constantly showing your process. Like you said, maybe these showcase videos are not a voiceover, they're just music. Well, let's put the human back into it with some relatable content. So I like relatable paired with educational or paired with showcase. Another way you can do it. Observational content is a great one to mix in with educational. You're regularly teaching how to do something, so let's also pair that with the new changes and the new updates and how that lends into some tutorial or commentary about it. Quick wins are another one that can kind of be mixed in wherever you feel it's good because if you're making educational content, you can easily repurpose your tutorial post into a single image checklist that isn't as detailed. It doesn't explain the educational guide as much as that other post does, but it breaks it down into a simple to follow step. An example I gave of that is I might do a post that is here's how to engage on Instagram in one hour of time to really grow your audience and build connections. And maybe that's a reel where I break down all the steps I would do in an hour. Maybe it's a carousel and each slide is explaining a step. Well, if I want to also turn that content, which takes a lot of time, into a quick win post. I might take those steps, cut out all the details, and make just a quick win checklist. I now have two posts about the same topic, which is a great way to think about pairing these as well.
- [39:18]
Michael Stelzner
Lucas o' Keefe this has been a fascinating exploration. If people want to connect with you on Instagram, where do they find you? And if they want any more stuff from you, where do you want to send them?
- [39:29]
Lucas o' Keefe
Yeah, so my Instagram is the Lucas o' Keefe Lucas L U C A S o' Keefe O K E E F E and what I've actually done. If you're hearing all these, I love to take notes. So maybe some of the listeners are taking notes as well. But if you're taking notes or not taking notes and you want a paper or a digital copy of a planner that will go with this grows strategy to help you find what types of content you can use, Go on my Instagram, go on any post of mine that you see on my on my feed, leave a comment and comment SME altogether SME and I will use automation to send you a link to a Google Drive where you can get a worksheet I've made that you can fill out to plan out these content types.
- [40:10]
Michael Stelzner
Just quick question. If they happen to put more than the word SME, is it still going to work or does it need to just be SME?
- [40:17]
Lucas o' Keefe
If they put like a sentence, then put SME at the end, that's fine too. Yeah, it's okay.
- [40:20]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, so if they say I heard you on Mike Stelzner's podcast and then SME or something like that, it would still work. Okay, cool.
- [40:25]
Lucas o' Keefe
Exactly.
- [40:26]
Michael Stelzner
Thank you so much, Lucas, for coming on and sharing your insights with us today.
- [40:29]
Lucas o' Keefe
Thank you. It's been a blast as always.
- [40:31]
Michael Stelzner
Hey, if you missed anything, we took all the notes for you over@social mediaexaminer.com669 if you're new to the show, be sure to follow us. And if you've been a longtime listener, I would love it if you would share this with your friends and consider giving us a review. Also, be sure to check out our other shows, the AI Explored podcast and the Social Media Marketing Talk show. This brings us to the end of the Social Media Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner. I'll be back with you next week. I hope you make the best out of your day and may your marketing keep evolving. The Social Media Marketing Podcast is a production of Social Media Social Media Examiner Just a quick reminder before you go. If you're ready to become indispensable in the age of AI, the AI Business Society is your solution. Join now and secure your discounted membership by visiting social media examiner.com AI I can't wait to see you inside the AI Business Society.