← Social Media Marketing Podcast
Social Media Marketing Podcast
What Clickable Reels Links and Hashtag Limits Mean for Your 2026 Instagram Strategy
00:46:55
Loading summary
Transcript92 lines
- [00:01]
A
Over 3000 marketers are gathering in Anaheim this April for Social media Marketing World 2026. They're not coming because it's trendy. They're coming because it works. Martha Cromer told us quote I've been to conferences where I've only heard things I already knew. I learned so many new concepts at Social Media Marketing World, I definitely got my money's worth. Unquote. Year after year, marketers credit Social Media Marketing World with career advancements, business breakthroughs and and strategies their competitors haven't yet discovered. Maddie Young shared quote this year was my first time at Social Media Marketing World. It exceeded every expectation I had. The value of the sessions and networking experiences cannot be overstated. Unquote. While you're deciding whether to attend, thousands of marketers have already secured their spots. Get your tickets now@social mediamarketingworld.info that social media marketing world.info.
- [01:03]
B
Welcome to the Social Media Marketing Podcast, helping you navigate the social media jungle. And now, here is your host, Michael Stelzner.
- [01:13]
A
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 to more leads and more sales. Today I'm joined by Jerry Potter and Chelsea Peitz, and we're going to explore some important updates from Instagram. Jerry, take it away.
- [01:36]
B
All right, thanks, Mike. Great to be here. And there's some important Instagram changes that we need to discuss today. If you're getting thousands of views on your reels right now, how valuable would it be to have a clickable link right on the screen and you don't have to pay for an ad to get it? We'll talk about this new feature. Also, we've had the ability with these trial reels to only release them to non followers. Now we're seeing this test where you can release reels only to your followers. So which one do you use when we'll talk about that. And Instagram's gone from having a 30 hashtag limit now down to only allowing 5. How should this impact your strategy and reach going forward? We're very excited to be joined by Chelsea Peitz. Chelsea teaches sales professionals how to leverage social media and technology to build a powerful personal brand and develop content that generates real leads. She's host of the Chelsea Pites podcast and her most recent book is called what to Post. Today, Chelsea, Mike and I are going to explore what these Latest updates from Instagram and Meta mean for small business marketers and owners like you. Chelsea, welcome back to the show.
- [02:34]
C
Excited to be here as always. Thank you so much for having me.
- [02:37]
B
Yeah, so we have another type of reel because there can just never be too many types of reels. And they're testing it. They call it an early access feature where reels can be viewable only by your followers for the first 24 hours before becoming public. And so the way this looks is if you went to somebody's profile and they had one of these reels and you were not following them, there will be a clock on it and a star icon and it would be blurred and it'd say early access until the timer expired. Now the nice thing is then somebody could decide to follow you and actually get it during that first 24 hours. So it's very FOMO driven, which we know from a psychological marketing standpoint, it's very effective. And of course it's sort of the opposite of trial reels which prioritize non followers. So first, Chelsea, I got to know like, do you think this follower only early access feature is going to increase followers for most brands or does this feel like a novelty that will disappear in six months?
- [03:28]
C
I feel like there's so many tests that Instagram has run over the last even quarter, I don't know if it's going to stick. You know what's interesting is I finally saw my first one live in the feed and I saw it in the feed, it was somebody that I followed and it said early access. So I was one of the people who was already following that person who was able to then see something. And it noted, hey, this is early access. So I think it could be really interesting. You and I've talked about this before with the trial reels going out to non followers. And could this be something where you could have the followers see that first? As for like your first series, or if you're announcing something new and it's a new product that's coming out, I think the series is going to be really where these creators are going to double down because so many people are doing signature series right now.
- [04:15]
A
You know, one of the things that I am concerned about with this feature is what if it doesn't perform well to your audience? Is that going to ding you when it goes out into the public feed? Because it could be just kind of a way that they're trying to get people to. Because you know how these work, right? They test these to a sub audience, they expand it to the entire audience. Do you think this could potentially backfire?
- [04:35]
C
I mean, it's always possible. I think they've done, done a lot of tests and just have seen people not adopt it. And I think they probably thought, oh, people will love this. And then they just didn't do anything with it. I personally haven't heard of anyone who actually has access to it. My wonder is in regards to subscriptions because I know that subscriptions, while it's a paid model, would that sort of be similar and or compete? Like how would the people that are getting paid subscriptions, how would they feel about this free early access? Which feels to me like a little bit of that sneak peek. So it feels a little confused for me. I know that the goal here is FOMO to get more followers because so many creators have said, help, please. My community is not seeing me. Help me grow, help me get the reach. And I'm not really sure if it will work out or not. I don't have it yet.
- [05:20]
B
Now you're making me feel like the strategy is even more overwhelming because it's like, okay, do I put this out for a regular reel, an early access reel, a non follower trial reel, or the subscription reels? Now you mentioned the series and so with that, are you picturing where obviously it would be a series of reels, but where the first one might be public and then the subsequent ones might be early access to encourage non followers to want to jump on board?
- [05:47]
C
I could see that. That's a really good point. I think that one thing is that if your content is going to be hidden or is going to be early access or you're getting people to push a button to follow you, it better be good, you know what I'm saying? So it better be something good. Content that I want to actually see and I'm excited to. But I think, you know, besides product launches and sort of the time sensitive collaborations and announcements, you know, series are very popular on any platform. Playlists, series themed type of content. And let's be honest, it's been a little bit hard to find that content on Instagram and so we don't have playlists yet. We are going to be talking about links later on in the show, but this could be something where you don't miss out on those future installments and be the first person to see it if you are a super fan of that content.
- [06:31]
B
Yeah, that makes sense.
- [06:32]
A
Just a couple of clarifying questions because I'm just as confused as probably everyone else is listening with all these options. Trial reels and all this stuff. So isn't it true that reels are generally meant not to be seen by your following? Am I wrong on that or what's the deal on that? Because I've, I've always heard a lot of these Instagram experts say reels are designed to draw a new audience to you and stories and posts are designed to nurture your existing audience. Is that fundamentally shifting here? And is it possible that eventually we'll be able to only have our reels be seen by our followers? Do you think that's where this is going?
- [07:03]
C
So in the early days of reels, I feel like it changed over the first three years from, you know, year zero to the three years in because there was so much adoption. When I first started doing reels, yes, it primarily went to non followers. It was very much like the other app that goes to non followers. And now personally, my content generally goes to majority of my followers. I'm very happy with that. And also it depends on when you're looking at the insights because they're testing it internally first with people that follow you and then from there they're going to place that out with other people. So you might look at it at hour three and it could look like it's going to all your followers. You could look at it at hour 32 and it could look like it's changed. So I think that the trial reels is good for testing. I think that the goal there was to test things and it's creators to test content with a newer audience. And then the early access I believe probably was for, hey, reward your loyal followers. So we're trying to figure out the nurture versus, you know, new growth. And yes, originally reels had kind of been designed to say, hey, this is how you're going to grow. We're going to help you find all new people. And I think that's changed for some of us and probably will continue to change.
- [08:18]
B
It's interesting because Chelsea and I have had this conversation multiple times over the last couple of years where I remember early on when most people were still seeing most of their reels views from non followers. I mean, I, you know, even taught and coached on this. And early on Chelsea was like, oh really? Most of mine are going to my followers. And I was like, okay, I think you're the exception. But that's interesting, Mike, because it does seem like maybe it's moving in that direction where we are going to see more of that. The people that I think about are the marketers that have to Basically report to somebody else. So if you're running an agency and you have to report to your clients, or you're the marketing director and you have to report to your boss, I think a lot of them have pushed toward reels simply because they theoretically get the most reach. And it removes, you know, some of that pressure because it. When you think about our roe, that return on effort, it doesn't feel worth it sometimes for some of these other platforms. So I don't know if, I mean, Chelsea, how much content are you doing on reels versus some of the other, you know, formats? Carousels. And I know you're avid with stories.
- [09:17]
C
Yeah, right now, carousels are performing so well. And I feel like so many people are talking about the two big trends that I see right now. Carousels, which are performing much better for me than my reels, and also the unedited talk to the camera Instagram story, like reel, which is a big shift from what we've seen and I'm loving it. I'm here for that. Of course, it's going to shift back to highly edited and produced at some point, but I think that, you know, for me, carousels are performing really well. I'm still doing the talking head reels and I always will do them. So I like to mix it up. I probably do one to one at this point. So whenever I post a reel, my next post is usually a carousel. Sometimes I get wild and I do two reels back to back. But I really try to do some of those carousel posts, too.
- [10:03]
A
Okay, this is a crazy question that I pondered because I'm seeing a lot of people doing reels on Facebook as well. Do you recommend. And again, I'm confessing I'm an Instagram noob here. Okay. But I know other people might be thinking what I'm about to ask. Do you recommend cross publishing your Instagram reels also to Facebook? Because I don't even know. I mean, in the olden days, I know it was one click. It was very easy. What's your thoughts on that, Chelsea? I mean, are you doing the same thing on Facebook that you're doing on Instagram?
- [10:32]
C
I think it's highly efficient. And here's the thing about Facebook and Instagram. You either love Facebook and hang out there, or you love Instagram and you hang out there. So a lot of people come to me and say, well, I'm nervous because I feel like I have some overlap in my community. Will they get annoyed? And I said, they're probably not hanging out on both. And so you are going to have an easier way to scale that reach in content. I don't know if it's still operating like this as it once was, but it was my understanding that Facebook was really pushing reels because the adoption was much lower than over on Instagram. And so it's possible that you could have something that doesn't perform that well on Instagram and it really takes off on Facebook and vice versa. So why not, why not share the post? And it is fairly easy. You can just toggle a switch on and it will as you're posting your Instagram reel and it will ask you, would you also like to post this to Facebook?
- [11:18]
B
Well, and from a consumer standpoint, I've never seen a reel from one company on Instagram and then seen it later that day on Facebook and thought, oh my gosh, I can't believe they're posting the same content everywhere. Like, I think we've moved past that. I think that was a fear of marketers back in the day. But I also know that people open different apps for different things. You know, when I open Facebook, I'm looking for something different. When I open Instagram looking for something different. When I open LinkedIn, if I watch videos, I'm looking for something different. So I can't remember the last time that I did unless it was a close friend that I see on every platform that I saw the same piece of content on multiple places from a different brand or from the same brand. So going forward, Chelsea, with this, if you were to publish a reel tomorrow and you had access to these early. Again, to recap, we have early access reels which go out only to your followers for the first 24 hours. Then we have trial reels that go out to your non followers before going out to your actual followers. And then we just have regular reels that theoretically go out to everybody. So what would you think about as you were creating a reel or do you give it much thought as you were going to put it out there?
- [12:19]
C
If I knew specifically that I'm going to create a reel and I'm going to make this a trial reel and I'm going to create a reel and I'm going to make this an early access reel, I personally would have two schools of thought. I know that for the trial reels, I think the current max is 20 a day, which I think is a lot. And I know a lot of people are using it's different content now. So here's the thing. They have the AI that can tell this is the Exact same video that you've done. So it's not, hey, let me do a bunch of B roll videos for my camera roll and put some different text on it and then shoot out 12 different trial reels because they will now notice. Nope, sorry, this is the same thing. So could you have 20 different little B rolls and try 20 different hooks? Sure. So for people who really want to a B test, those trial reels are going to be really helpful and see what's working and then double down on that one for the early access. I think that's more interesting to me because I'm very community focused and I want to grow deep with my community. I'm not as concerned with the reach, which is why I was so excited that my reels actually go to my community and a lot of people were saying they weren't. So I personally love that. To create that really close community connection where people are really excited to see what is coming next. If you have a really big announcement and you kind of have been talking about it in stories and you're like, okay, this is going to be the launch date or whatever it is that you're promoting or coming out with, that could be really interesting to. So I personally would look at it in two different ways. I think one is more for testing, one is more for rewarding your loyal fans. But I am very interested more so in the early access and the trial.
- [13:52]
B
Personally, one thing that's not going to escape my head is that idea that once somebody decides to follow you to unlock a specific piece of content, their expectation is higher. So as you said, it better be good, right? Like if you're going to ask them to take that step. So. Well, we obviously have seen reels grown and now as Mike you just brought up, you know, is Instagram expecting reels to be more for your followers rather than non followers and middle of funnel? So one of the things we are seeing is more and more insights, which is of course what Meta has called analytics, including in the actual edits app, where there's a new tab now where you can sort reels by views, likes, comments, repost shares, saves new followers, lowest skip rate. You can also filter performance data across multiple time ranges. So the past week, two weeks, 30 days, one year, they're adding all of these different like elements in there. And I know Chelsea, you've kind of gone back and forth between the native Instagram app and the edits app, but does it feel like the regular Instagram app is going to become more for consuming and potentially obsolete for marketing teams, if they can do everything in edits.
- [14:57]
C
I think the big component though, that Instagram, the original Instagram, has over edits, is the communication, the DMs. And so I can't imagine that going away because that social media managers know social media, that that's so critical to respond to that community. I think that these new insights are a social media manager's dream because here it is finally where we can see all of these things. You can compare them, you can go back up to a year, it's not just like 30 days. And it can really give you some good insights. And they will allow you to print out a really cool little looking PDF so that if you need to deliver it to someone, it looks nice and has all the charts on it. So I don't think that Instagram itself, because of stories, remember edits, doesn't have stories. I suppose they could put all of that stuff in it. But as user of Instagram and Edits, and I use Edits every time I make a reel, I would be really annoyed if I had to get half the stuff over on Edits and half the stuff over on Instagram. And some of the it's kind of happening now because now they're like, here's your ideas, get your inspiration, get your templates. And so now I'm going back over there, but I just really want everything in one place. I'm not even sure why they made the separate app.
- [16:04]
A
Well, and I want to clarify this because for people that may not realize maybe they're using Cap Cut still or whatever, you know, like, what is the advantage that edits brings to the table?
- [16:14]
C
The main advantage, I think in many people's minds right now is a very specific reel. That came out with Adam Mosseri, the CEO of Instagram, who said, hey friends, this new edit app, we're going to give you a little bit more love if you actually use it. And so I think that's kind of in the mindset still. I personally haven't seen any difference. It stayed steady whether I used Cap Cut or Edits or not. But I use Edits because in my mind I'm thinking, well, if it's made by Instagram, why wouldn't you want to use it? Why wouldn't they want users to use it? So I don't know that they're going to publicly say they'll penalize anything or promote anything. But they did say for a specific amount of time, who knows when the time was, when it started or when it ended, or if it's still going. You'll get a little bit more of a boost if you're using the edits app and you're editing in there. So I used to use Capcut all the time and now I exclusively use Edits and it has gotten much better, much more like Capcut. I think it's pretty similar to it. It probably doesn't have as many bells and whistles, but honestly, with this new rollout of the tools and the editing features, I think we're pretty darn close.
- [17:24]
A
So, Jerry, just so we're clear, are you saying that there's statistics that are only available in the edits app that don't even have any Instagram app? Is that what I'm hearing?
- [17:32]
B
You say this stuff is all rolling out, but yeah, that's the way that they are presenting it. And it almost feels like, you know, Chelsea brought up that, that potential widening gap between what you get in the Instagram app and what you get in the edits app. And you know, over on the YouTube side, which is my main platform, we've had that for years with the YouTube Studio app and the regular YouTube app. And so I, you know, completely see where that's going. But at the same time, if we think of a company or, you know, an agency where they're creating a lot of this higher end media, you know, years ago and I worked at an agency, we were just mostly doing text posts and image posts. Right. And occasional video. But now for most companies, I got to think that at least half of your content is going to be video. So I love the idea of having the analytics right, where you're creating the videos potentially just to be able to see things in that way. And as we think about AI integrating with all of this, you know, like the tool that I use for editing videos has AI built into it. And now as those models get better, they can see frame by frame what's in the video and do all kinds of things. So I like where this is going in that way. Now, Chelsea, you did bring up the insights and how helpful they are in that way. And one of them is they're allowing you to do a side by side analysis of real performance. So you can kind of compare them. And this is where I could see, you know, you mentioned being able to release, I think you said up to 20 trial reels a day.
- [18:49]
C
That's the number I heard it has been different numbers, but the last one I heard is around 20.
- [18:55]
B
Okay. And so would you see marketers then, you know, having this, doing more of this AB testing with trial reels, where there were two reels that only have one variable between them, like a different piece of B roll or a different hook on the opening screen. Or is this what you were talking about, where you sort of implied that Instagram's gonna, we know that's the same content. We're not gonna let you do that.
- [19:14]
C
Yeah, I haven't talked to anybody who's actually gotten caught for, hey, this is the same content. I do know somebody who got put in timeout because they were posting too many trial reels a day, said they were like, no, no, sorry, you can't do that. I don't know how long she got put in timeout for. But I think this side by side comparison, again, social media managers, especially teens, when we have like a large content team, I think this could be really useful to see what worked. And you're looking for that little edge. Like, for me, I'm a personal brand. I'm not looking for the edge. I'm not going to be spending hours comparing a real, be real that kind of thing. But I think for the teams who are creating volume content and are looking to potentially really try to optimize that reach, maybe even possibly go viral, it's very important to look at those small little nuances about the first three seconds and, and what was the watch time retention? I think you mentioned one thing about lowest skip rate. That's really important to be able to see that and then look at those visuals and figure out as a team, well, here's what happened in this one, here's what happened in this one. And we're looking at it side by side. This is the one that performs. So that's the one we're going to go with to really give you those insights to then take it forward and create future content with it.
- [20:24]
B
And then one other metric they're talking about is AI that will basically, you know, browse your comments and give you summaries about, you know, exactly what's happening there. Which I like the idea of. When I worked in radio as a morning radio host, if one complaining call came in, I was just done for the day. You know, it was like, sorry, 499,999 listeners, I'm going to go try and deal with this one person. And so I think other people go through that. But do you see that as being valuable as well, or do you think it's still important to go through comment by comment and make sure that you're embracing everybody?
- [20:58]
C
Well, of course, you know, instagram says, respond to as many comments as you possibly can, hopefully all of them. And of course we're dealing with the super large accounts. Some people have millions of followers, hundreds of thousands corporations and brands. And so I think the idea here was twofold. One to help people with time to get through and say, okay, here's what people are saying. But also I think their original intent was to also get ideas from all those comments. If you're getting hundreds of comments like what are the thoughts that people are talking about, that might be a great idea to make some future content. So I also think your idea is very interesting as a fellow sensitive person where I'm focusing on, oh gosh, this is maybe a not super positive comment that it definitely could weed those out. So I think for the, you know, the personal brands, they probably don't have 500 comments to go through on every reel or every post. But I think for those larger brands with lots of content, super helpful for that.
- [21:55]
A
Wish you could experience social media Marketing World 2026 without having to leave your home or office. Our virtual ticket includes both live streaming and on demand recordings in one powerful package. Here's what makes this special. You can watch all the marketing sessions and keynotes live as they happen in Anaheim, yet you also get recordings of everything to study and implement at your own pace, access exclusive AI training not available anywhere else, and learn Instagram and Facebook strategies from practitioners that get real results. The very people you've heard on this podcast, Julie Dougherty told us, quote, my eyes are sore as I've watched way too many sessions today. All awesome stuff. It's like Netflix, just one more unquote. Unlike the in person experience, you can also pause, rewind and rewatch every session while you implement. Plus you'll save thousands on travel and hotels while getting the same expert insights. Secure your virtual ticket right now at social media marketingworld.info that's social mediamarketingworld.info. you know, this is so intriguing because for those that have been around for a little while, you've got Facebook, you've got Instagram, you've got threads, you've got WhatsApp, and you probably have a bunch of things I've forgotten about that exist within the meta ecosystem and they seem to take these little features and try them out somewhere and then they put them somewhere else. Like one of the things I've noticed on Facebook and I haven't seen it lately, is when I see someone else's thread with lots of comments, I will have a little AI analysis of the sentiment at the top on someone else's post. So I can kind of see what the vibe is. Okay, so that's been on Facebook, I feel like, for months. And this concept, I don't think is new. The real question is, who sees it? Do you see it or does everyone see it? Because that's where it could get really interesting. Do we know Jerry? Because everyone sees it on Facebook. Okay. I see it on other people's posts where there's a lot of comments, and it gives me the vibe so I don't have to read all the comments. But the real question is, like, is this going to come just for the creator, or do you feel like this is going to be available for the entire community?
- [24:01]
B
The update is they're adding this to the insights for the person who's creating the content, so you can see it on the back end. But I have also seen those summaries on Facebook. Have you seen them on Instagram, Chelsea, where it summarizes other people's comments?
- [24:13]
C
I think I might have seen it once I know somebody shared a screenshot. And I personally get to see summaries on my content, but not other people. People's content. And nobody else seems to have that. And it's very interesting.
- [24:24]
B
Okay.
- [24:25]
A
Yeah, it's just. It's interesting because, you know, it seems like these features are just kind of like they start out on one app and then they. They're very smart in the way they release all this stuff to just kind of keep the conversation going. So, look, let's be honest. Meta has spent a lot of money on AI. They've been using AI for a long time. Remember back when they would say, hey, do you want to tag your friend in this photograph? I mean, like, it's been going on for a long time. But I do think that. That this is very valuable, and I do think it's going to help a lot of people because it'd be really cool if it highlighted important comments. Right. Imagine if this person is influential. Like, sometimes you'll see Facebook, it'll say, this person has more than 10,000 followers, you know, and I see that as the creator. And that might. Oh, maybe this person has influence. Maybe I should respond to that person's comment over the other people. I don't know.
- [25:13]
B
Yeah, YouTube does that, too. They'll show you how many subscribers somebody has.
- [25:17]
A
Oh, YouTube does, too.
- [25:18]
C
Yeah.
- [25:19]
B
Yeah.
- [25:19]
C
On Instagram, I know it's possible because on my inbox for my direct messages, and I think also my comment sorting, I just recently saw it for the first time. You can actually sort now by verified and like certain number of followers. So I don't think that's far off. They already are offering that for different aspects of Instagram, but. But perhaps not directly on the actual post, but yeah, that's in play.
- [25:45]
B
Well, speaking of meta, recently on the show we had Mari Smith and we were talking about how Facebook is testing something now where you can add links to reels if you pay for meta verified. But meanwhile, over on Instagram, there's a new update where you can actually link to other things on your reels. And it doesn't have to be part of a paid strategy, either meta verified or an ad strategy. Now there is an asterisk with it, but. But now you're going to be able to add clickable links to an Instagram account or on a public reel, which basically appears right on top of it. It's a. It's a clickable overlay. And again, this is when you are exporting directly from edits. So another thumbs up in the column for using edits. And the way that this is working is you're able to then link to, for example, other profiles or other public reels. So how meaningful are these clickable video links for businesses? Do you see people actually clicking on these? Chelsea? I mean, obviously everything's worth testing, but what's your initial reaction to this?
- [26:43]
C
I think of it very similar to YouTube. I think you probably immediately thought of that too. When I watch a video and I'm interested and somebody says, if you want more information, click here to go to this video, or if it's again, a series, which are very popular right now, I would be likely to click on someone's profile or click on the next video. And I love that it's not just a link for the actual reel, it's the overlay, like you said. So I think that's really smart because it's one thing to see a little link, it's another to be able to see like the overlay of the actual reel, the visual. So I love that. And I also think it's interesting to be able to direct people to profiles and say just click this link and go right to the profile. So even if you have maybe multiple profiles too, you know, as you're operating with a brand. So I think it's really interesting. I think it's been a long time coming. I think it's a good thing. Again, these links don't go out to other websites. They only stay with inside the Instagram ecosystem. So again, Instagram's like, hey, we're going to keep you on the platform, but more tools, I think, for creators to get people into that quote unquote video funnel. Like, let's go down the rabbit hole of consuming as much content as possible.
- [27:55]
B
Yeah. Can you just describe visually what you mean by the difference between an overlay link versus another link for people that
- [28:03]
C
haven't seen it only in pictures? I haven't seen it live yet. So there's going to be, let's say a link like. So, Jerry, let's say you're doing a reel and it will have like, almost like a little long bubble and it will have your profile photo and your, your username. And so it'll appear almost like a sticker on the reel and people can click on it and then it will take them directly to your profile or somebody else's profile. And when you are using the overlay, it will show up like as a video, like a picture in picture or a video. And so that people can actually point to it and say, and if you want to check this video out, that's next in the series, just go right here. Which is really nice. Instead of just having a link that doesn't show you any kind of visual, so you can have somewhat of an image and element to it. And also even the link, if you put your profile still has your profile picture, which is really nice.
- [28:51]
B
One of the things that I love about this too, and this is something that I've done and I've seen other people do over the years, is I think at this point it might be worth maybe making some more profiles that have a specific external link, you know, on there. I did that for a podcast once so that I could smart. Yeah. Tag the podcast. I had no intention of growing this podcast Instagram account, but that podcast Instagram account had that clickable URL. So they are now it's social media marketing world the last few years. I think in marketing in general, we always hear marketers ruin everything. So maybe this will be the way that marketers ruin these on screen links on top of the reels. But I think that's an incredible opportunity too.
- [29:27]
A
Jerry, doesn't this sound a little bit like what YouTube does? I mean, with, you know, how YouTube has the ability to put, I forget what they call them, cards up on the screen or something like that. It kind of feels a little bit like that, doesn't it?
- [29:36]
B
Yeah, there's the cards that you can put anytime in your video and then there's the end Screen videos that you can have at the end, the last 20 seconds of your video. And it does feel somewhat like that, but without having to use this on Instagram. I'm curious, like, can it be up there the entire time? Now, one of the big things that has to happen for any new feature like this is consumer adoption. Right. So I can tell you that when I have, you know, tried to use cards in my videos and I've talked to other people in the same way, they don't get a lot of clicks right now. Occasionally they might. And my hope when I use them is kind of like, if this isn't the video you were looking for, I have one that does this. You know, go click on it now instead of going to somebody else's video. Like, for example, if it's a tutorial about how to do something on desktop and they want to know on mobile. But the end screen ones work really well. But it's all about consumer adoption. End screens wouldn't work if somebody was stubborn or if we were all stubborn and we're like, you don't tell me what to watch. You know, I'm going to go watch my own thing. So. But yeah, I think it's similar.
- [30:33]
A
Chelsea, how long is the maximum length of a reel now?
- [30:37]
C
Some people have 10 minutes, 20 minutes. I have never gone that long. But some people, it's all different. It. So I think 10 minutes is probably the average for most users. But I do have a friend that has 20.
- [30:48]
A
Okay, so it would make total sense if you did a 10 minute video and you wanted to reference another video that everybody could go watch. Is that effectively what this functionality would achieve on a longer form video? Is that what we're talking about here? Because that could be a really big deal if, if you created like a little miniseries, for lack of better words, you know, and you had episodes, you could just episodically kind of connect these things together, could you not?
- [31:12]
C
Absolutely. Yep. Absolutely. That's exactly what I would use it for. That's what I would suggest it for. Because as somebody who does a ton of educational content myself, I know, Jerry, you do the same. You are talking about similar topics or going in depth on new topics. And so that is really helpful to then direct them to the next step. Or if you're doing a how to or a process and you're on step number three and they're like, well, where is step number two or step number four? I think that could be really helpful as well.
- [31:40]
B
Yeah. And you could link to some of your other 20 reels a day that you're, you know, uploading into your trial reels and your test reels and everything else. And then another update they added for the Edits app is a feed of 10 personalized content ideas each week based on your past reels. And so once a week, they'll generate this list of 10 personalized content ideas, and you can save them, edit them, or skip them. On one hand, I'm like, hey, the more ideas, the better. But on the other hand, you know, AI generated content ideas. You know, do they help us think strategically or do they encourage sameness? What are your thoughts around that, Chelsea?
- [32:16]
C
I'm very interested to see this. What really got me interested was that it said your content. Because when I go to Edits now, what Edits offers is you can go to the inspiration section. But I will tell you, as somebody who makes primarily talking head reels that are long form, you know, over a minute, and not B roll content, that's all I see, that's all I get served is short B roll trendy kind of content. And I'm like, but you don't know what I'm making because I don't usually make that kind of content. So I'm very, very interested to see how accurate I guess it is. I know we're going to talk about the creating your own algorithm. That algorithm's pretty accurate. So I'm interested to see. I think it's possible. But as far as, you know, sameness. Yeah, I mean, trends are trends. That is sameness with a twist. But I think hopefully if they are able to do it customized to your last, whatever, you know, how many videos they're looking at, that could be interesting, but it's not going to be helpful if you want to change your content.
- [33:21]
B
Yeah, Mike, I'd love to know your take on this. Just, you know, living around AI so much. I mean, can we get good original ideas from AI?
- [33:29]
A
Oh, a hundred percent. But I'm not sure we can get it from an Instagram or an Edits app.
- [33:34]
C
App.
- [33:35]
A
I'm not gonna lie. And let me explain why. You know, over on my other show, AI Explored, we talk about all sorts of fascinating things related to AI. I feel like you'd be much better off using ChatGPT or Claude, which is my personal preference, and giving it a lot of insights about who you are, what you're creating. You could create like I've created a YouTube hook specialist, and you could create a Instagram or TikTok content expert, and you could tell. Here's my target audience. Here's the kind of things that I talk about. And you could actually, you could give it data, you could give it screenshots from your insights and you can say, help me understand what are my most successful pieces of data. You can actually download the video and upload it and have it watch it frame by frame. And then you could say, okay, help me come up with a series of relevant topics that I've not yet covered. You know, you probably have scripts somewhere, right? Most people have scripts. You could put all that inside of a document or a PDF and attach it up there and say, what have I not covered that this target audience is interested in that I could cover? These are my most popular ones. Like it's going to give you ideas that you hadn't even fathomed and you probably smack yourself in the head and say, well, why didn't I think of that? You didn't think of that because you're too close to it, you know, so honestly, I think you can't get any better. Chelsea or Jerry, have you guys tried any of these tools to ideate on topics?
- [34:56]
C
I love Claude. When you said Claude, I was like, I use Claude and chatgpt every single day. I use them with each other and against each other. I am a big fan and use it every single day for a variety of things and ideation, talking through things. And I'll say, no, I don't like that. No, I want to go against it. Give me the opposite. I want to poke the holes in it. And so I use that. I can't imagine that being inside of Instagram.
- [35:22]
A
That's why I just don't think that their models are as capable as like Gemini, which is multimodal also and it can view stuff. Gemini, Claude and ChatGPT are going to crush whatever Instagram is capable of doing. If you're looking for ideas, I would start on those platforms. And because most people have scripts, you can just feed all that stuff in there. Jerry, have you tried this at all on some of your YouTube stuff?
- [35:46]
B
Yeah, well, YouTube has its own built in AI which obviously runs on Gemini, called Ask Studio. And you can go in, which is what sounds like Instagram is doing. You can say, hey, you know, based on what my done in the past, what videos should I make? And obviously even if you could access all the data, you could never get through it all. Like you said, Mike. And so it'll come back and it'll say, hey, you can make a video about this and video about this. And the thing I Like, about it, and this is what I encourage others to do, is if something's just wrong, you just know it's wrong, right? Like, I don't talk about that, but if something's like, oh, that's interesting, but I'm not sure, I will push back and I'll say, tell me why you think that. That, and I think this is where AI is amazing and also dangerous. If we just take what it says blindly, then we end up doing things that don't fit. But it'll come back and it'll explain it. It'll say, because of this and because this video attracted this audience or whatever it might be, then my brain goes, yeah, you're right. All right, let's do this. So I definitely think that's the future of ideas.
- [36:40]
A
Well, and I have a really hot tip for everybody. If you have a phone, smartphone, which pretty much everybody does, you can record your screen and load up. Up Instagram and go through the insights and go through it slowly and just record the whole darn thing. Okay? Then you can download that or send it over to your computer and load up Gemini. And the reason I'm saying Gemini is because it's got the best vision model, and everybody who has a paid Gmail account gets access to Gemini for free. You could go to gemini.google.com I believe it is, Jerry. Maybe you can cross check that, and you can literally upload the video into it, and you can just give it this command, hey, analyze everything you see inside this video and tell me important insights that I might have overlooked. It will literally go frame by frame through that entire darn video. I don't know if anybody's tried this, but I'm telling you, this is the big unlock for a lot of people is literally just having a video from your mobile phone because you know how hard it is to look at insights on, like, a mobile phone. It's. It's a nightmare. But you can just upload that video and then it'll. It'll literally analyze the entire thing for you.
- [37:41]
C
You.
- [37:41]
B
That's really cool.
- [37:42]
A
Chelsea, have you tried this?
- [37:43]
C
I haven't tried it with Gemini, but that's a hot tip because I didn't know it had the best vision model. But I have uploaded videos of mine into Claude and ChatGPT to ask questions,
- [37:54]
A
and both of them will do the same thing. Claude will just take the frames out of it and then. But you can do this with Claude as well. But Gemini is exceptionally good with video because it was built from the ground up as a Multimodal model. So, yeah, I mean, this is the kind of stuff when people start thinking outside the box a little bit about taking data from one place and sticking it in another place. All of a sudd. You can unlock some pretty cool ideas.
- [38:14]
B
That's brilliant. I never thought about just. Yeah. Putting a video in there, because then you can give it everything you're not like. All right, which. Which columns do you need from this CSV that I.
- [38:22]
A
Let's be honest, eventually it's just going to be on your phone and literally it's just going to take over. You know what I mean?
- [38:26]
B
Yes.
- [38:26]
A
But for now, I prefer video.
- [38:29]
B
Yes. Well, I honestly thought hashtags would be dead by now on Instagram. They're not. But we started with 30 hashtags on Instagram as the limit, and now they've reduced the hashtag limit and captions for posts and reels to five hashtags. The whole idea is to help marketers create more targeted, more specific content. And of course, they're continuing to discourage us from using spammy hashtags like Hashtag Reels or Hashtag Explore, which they said will or potentially negatively impact your reach. So, Chelsea, you know, you're on Instagram more than either of us. Do you see lots of people still using hashtags? And are you still using hashtags as part of your strategy?
- [39:06]
C
You know, I actually can't even use five hashtags. I was trying to put in my hashtags the other day, and it said, I'm sorry, you've been limited to only three. So I only have three hashtags. Personally, behind the scenes, do I think that they've been doing this probably for a long time? I think we humans have a really hard time with change. And for many, many, many, many years, we used 27, 28, all the way up to 30 hashtags because. Because that's how the system was able to understand what your content was about and sort and serve it up to people who are interested. And now AI is just so smart. Right. You don't even need hashtags, quite frankly, the words in and of themselves. I thought that I had read some words. They might even be trying. And maybe it was on threads trying to hide those hashtags just so you don't have to even look at them. So I think it's really interesting. I mean, I think this has probably been going on behind the scenes for much longer than we have known, but we have a big, big hard time with change.
- [40:03]
B
Yeah, well, you're a power user, so they're taking away features from you first. So it'll probably be three, you know, for all of us here soon.
- [40:10]
C
I don't even use hashtags sometimes now, and it totally works. I get the little AI summary that tells me what they think it is and it goes out, so it's doing its thing.
- [40:18]
B
So I think you just answered this question, but for the marketer or business that's listening right now, and they're going, oh, gosh, should I. Should I finally be using hashtags? Should I get back to using hashtags? What do you say to them?
- [40:27]
C
I still use hashtags, but I also think of them just as keywords that have, you know, I'm aging myself, the pound symbol in front of it, because that's just how it works. But I think when you're looking at hashtags or keywords in general, it's just very simply, what is it that your ideal clients would be looking for and what is the topic that you are talking about? Because again, the AI is smart. If you're talking about one thing and you're trying to use something else, it's going to know that it's likely not going to categorize it. It if you're trying to hack your way through that.
- [40:57]
A
Well, if we think about the history of hashtags, they started on Twitter, okay? And back in the day, they were a way for Twitter to categorize things, okay? So it was a way to structure content so that Twitter could intelligently serve up relevant content. And eventually, like you said, Jerry, marketers kind of got crazy and went nuts with it, and everybody implemented hashtags. But now we're in an era where we've got incredibly intelligent AI algorithms that understand that the essence of what it is, you're saying, so the hashtag, if it's being hidden, it serves no function. Let's be intellectually honest. And why do we need hashtags when we have really intelligent models that listen to what we say when they're videos, read what we write, there's no reason a hashtag is going to make their job any better. If anything, they're going to probably doubt that the ha. You might even get punished if your hashtag isn't relevant to your content, because they're going to know you're trying to game the system.
- [41:51]
B
Oh, for sure.
- [41:52]
A
I don't even think, like, honestly, I would not be surprised if they disappear tomorrow, because what do they actually do? I don't know. I'm just throwing that out there. I Mean, like, what do they really do?
- [42:00]
B
And maybe they're there because they, as Chelsea said, people don't like change and they're just trying to appease people a little bit longer. You know, like, usually go from five, it'll go to three, and then it'll go to one, and then, you know, you'll, you'll have nothing. I, I always like to tell people, and this is across platforms, basically, in the last couple of years, the algorithms have all learned synonyms. So you don't have to put in every possible usage of a word. You can just put in what your content's going to be and it's going to figure it out.
- [42:25]
A
I mean, if we think about what Meta is doing on the ad side, you don't even need to address an audience anymore. Okay. So like, I've actually interviewed quite a few experts and they say just let it do its thing. You don't even have the same targeting that you used to have. So if that's available to paid advertisers, what's available on the actual feed, it's the same ultimate technology behind the scenes. So this is just kind of like, I think it's like a patterns are hard to break kind of thing. And my guess is it's probably worth an experiment to just do none and see if they actually do better. Because if there's one less thing we have to do as creators and marketers, then isn't that going to make our life a lot easier? Chelsea?
- [43:02]
C
Yes. And you know what? I look back and think, years ago, I used to have the spreadsheets. I had so many tabs on every single spreadsheet. I would research those hashtags. I had big hashtags, mid size hashtags, smaller hashtags, niche hashtags, tags. Wow, what a waste. Because we don't need any of that. And every time I make a piece of content, it's interesting because sometimes even the words that I'm saying and the words that I'm typing, it's not even picking that up, it's picking up something I'm holding. Like, if I'm talking about a book, I'm holding the book. And maybe I'm not even saying the exact book name. I will see it in the summary and I'm like, wow, it really already knows everything that we're talking about and showing in our content.
- [43:42]
B
Yeah. And Chelsea, I want to ask you, because you mentioned this earlier, where Instagram is letting users now choose their topics and sort of customize their own algorithm so anyone can Go in and do this if you don't like what you're seeing. And so how do you think these user controlled algorithms are going to impact brands that are trying to reach new audiences at scale? Is this a bad thing? Is this a good thing? How do you see this playing out?
- [44:04]
C
Yes, this is a very interesting one. As soon as this came out, I immediately went to my reel. This is just right now we should make the disclaimer. It's just on the reels feed. Okay. But Adam said we are planning to bring it everywhere. So they're starting it on reels. So we can anticipate this just basically being the norm at some point on Instagram. But when they said go and check it out, I immediately went, I clicked on the icon. And I think even if you love what you see and you don't care about your algorithm, go see what they think you like. Because it has 20 words that it said that I thought I liked. And I would say 90% spot on, 10% were wild and random. I'm like, I'm not interested in that content at all. So I took those out and changed it and immediately, like as soon as I clicked done, my content was different. Now what I will say is it was very cool because I got to see content from people I'd never seen before in the content I'm interested in in. But also I stopped seeing other stuff too. So it was kind of like a little bit of a stop for me on discovery of more content. Now I think that a brand or a company. Yeah, you should be thinking about that. Be thoughtful, because people like me who are using that, I may not see your content. So you might have to think of a different way. You might be losing some views. But if you look at it on the other side, your views are going to the right people now. So what's a view if it's not going to the right person? I don't care If I get 30,000 views and I don't get any clients from it. I'd rather have three clients and very low views and then going to the right clients than a bunch of numbers that amount to nothing. So I think you could argue both sides of it. As a consumer, I like the ability to go in and change it and then look at it because it continues to think. And so I went back a few months later, it had added more things that it thought I was interested in. I did not add them. And so I do find that I go in there to remove things, but you can say, see less. So you don't totally delete it, or you can say, do not show this to me. I am not interested. And you can change it at any time, but I think you should go in and just see what Instagram thinks you're interested in.
- [46:19]
B
And so from what I'm hearing you say, then should brands consider making sure that their content does fit into a topic that could be listed like that sounds like the important part to me. If. If you don't fit one of these categories, then you're potentially. And I'm sure there's way more than any of us see in our list. But you're. If they can't categorize you, they can't put you in front of new people, is what I'm hearing.
- [46:41]
C
I don't know on the back end if that's how it's working. I tried to put in some pretty niche things, and actually quite a few of those niche things were allowed. And then I got really specific and it didn't allow me that. So I was surprised. You know, you don't just have just marketing. But listen, like, even if they're more niche and. Or broad, if I'm not interested in sports, I'm not seeing sports. So if you're a sports company, good luck. You will never end up in my feed. So, you know, I've got dogs in my feed, and you know what? I see a lot of. I see a lot of dogs. So I think the, you know, brands kind of got, like, nervous, like, oh, my gosh. I don't know that it's the categorization, because I think the AI is still smart enough to really categorize all the niche stuff. Stuff. But I don't think they have to worry about fitting into a specific keyword or a tag. I think they got nervous thinking, oh, my views are going to go down. Because if content is going to people that are just interested in that content, then my views are going to go down. But I think that's positive because hopefully then your content's going to the people that are interested in sports. And so I think they should be thoughtful about it. But if you're not making content that is directly speaking to your audience who's interested in. I think that's more of the foundational problem than whether or not people can control their algorithm, because ultimately it is making content speaking to your ideal human.
- [48:00]
B
All right, Chelsea, this has been a fascinating conversation and also the tip from Mike about how to use AI to analyze your Instagram insights. If you missed that, make sure to go back and grab it. Thank you so much for joining us today. Chelsea. If people want to explore working with you, where do you want to send them in? If they want to connect with you on the social media socials, where's the best place to do that?
- [48:16]
C
No surprise you're going to find me on Instagram. It's my name. It's Chelsea Pites. P E I T Z Chelsea and
- [48:23]
A
Jerry, thank you so much for being on the show today. And hey, if you missed anything, we took all the notes for you over@socialmediaexaminer.com 708 and if you're new to the show, be sure to follow us on whatever podcasting app you're listening to us on. And if you've been a listener for a while, we would love a review. And do check out my other show, the AI Explored Podcast. This brings us to the end of the Social Media Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner and I was joined today by Jerry Potter, my co host. I'll be back with you next week. I hope you make the best out of your day and may your marketing keep evolving. Catch you next time.
- [48:56]
B
The Social Media Marketing Podcast is a
- [48:59]
A
production of Social Media Examiner. What if you could get year round AI training? That's exactly what's waiting for you with our AI Business Society. To learn more, visit socialmediaexaminer.com AI.