Instragram Strategy with Anna MacFarlane, @annaistheworst @kidsaretheworst - 37

Law and Wit Episode 37: Instagram Strategy with Anna McFarlane of Anna Is the Worst, Who's Actually the Best. Welcome to Law and Wit: Creative Counsel for Entrepreneurs. I'm your host, Brittany Rettell, mother of 4, entrepreneur, naptime lawyer, and attorney for creative entrepreneurs. I'm here to share inspiration and action so that you can tackle your business blocks and confidently own your business in every sense of the word. Thank you so much for being here. Hi guys, and welcome back. I am so excited to share our guest today, which I'm always excited to share guests, but this is, this is a really special treat that we have for you guys. I have here Anna McFarlane, and she is a social media expert who helps businesses understand their audience, their message, and discover how to monetize their social media. She is the founder of Instagram account Kids Are the Worst, Things Are the Worst, and Anna Is the Worst. I Obviously she has a theme going on, but the irony is, is that she's actually the best. She has a growing fan base of more than 500,000 internationally. One of People.com's 10 favorite moms on the internet, has been featured in the Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, Real Simple, Daily Mail, among others. So thank you so much, Anna, for being with us on Long Wit.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Awesome. And I love— I've been following Anna for a while. Her accounts, definitely kids are the worst. They make my husband and I just and we laugh our pants off. Even my kids now come to me and they know that after they've done like their math and their reading after school, they'll be like, hey, can we watch the Mess Makers? Like they know how to watch, they know about your highlights even though they're total social media amateurs. But they know just how great and entertaining your content is. But you know, Anna's been in this business for a while and been doing and watching kind of the whole change and flow of social media. So I kind of wanted to start out with having her share a little bit about her origin story and how she got to do with what she's doing now to help people online.

Awesome. Yeah. So thanks for having me and I'm glad you let your sons or your— do you have sons and daughters?

I've got both. Yeah. Two daughters, two sons. Yeah.

Oh, perfect. Look at you. Yeah. So I love that they look at it as well. That was kind of my goal is that kids and parents could watch it and laugh together. You know, some things are definitely for the parents, but My kids look at it too, so that's usually the goal for me. So that makes me happy. I started doing marketing about 20 years ago on— that's how old I am. I majored in English and I got a degree in it, and then I thought I was going to be a teacher for a little bit in elementary school and realized about a year in that that was not for me. And I got into marketing and realized that was totally for me and I loved it. So that was direct mail. That's how old I am. 20 years ago, doing direct mail, doing all kinds of copy, and then just changing as times changed. And it was fun. I liked writing websites. I liked writing landing pages and, and blog posts. Everything is— it all changed. And as marketing changed, but there was just something special about social. It just gave everyone the chance to do marketing. And I just think it's, fascinating. It's different than blogs. Blogs are social, but blogs, you know, you just, you had to have a blog role and you had to find people in such a different way and you had to create so much content. And then Facebook was cool, but it was, you know, still needed finessing. I just think when Instagram and Twitter and Pinterest came on, it changed the game for, for social media. And everyone had this chance to be a marketer and all businesses could like reach their audience and audience could see brands so much more clearly and so much more organically, and I hate the word, but it's so true, and I just, I loved it. And that is how I was able to transition most of my marketing expertise into social for like the last 5 to 7 years. That's kind of how I got here.

Yeah, well, I love what you said there about how it changed everyone into a marketer because it really did make it, you know, it democratized the process. It wasn't this special thing that only someone with the big agency with the big staff that could do major ad buys, you know, like how the game used to be could do, it was everyone had to start caring about this stuff. So then everyone needed to get really clear about what am I supposed to post online and how am I supposed to connect and create a community. Yeah, so which is now why you've become an expert in all of that.

It's just fun. Well, and I think so much of old school marketing has helped me in this. You know, a lot of people kind of come on the scene in, in modern marketing in social and they kind of don't understand the old school, which, you know, there can be good and bad, right, of all the things. But I I feel like the old school marketing knowledge, I guess I could say, or just experience kind of gets you into seeing like how it parlays and how it like moves into the social. And it's just so fascinating. It's so fun. I don't know. I think it's, I think old school people don't want to adopt the social and social people don't want to adopt the old school, but there's just such a fun place when you integrate that I think is really fun.

Yeah, no, I—

I said fun 4 times already. Calm down on the fun.

No, I actually— that was one of the things I was going to ask you because you do talk about being— making— approaching it with a fun attitude. And I think that's such a critical part, especially when people tend to kind of just get down and dog and, oh, the algorithm, as if it was some like mythical beast out there trying to ruin your day and, you know, not part of just it's, it's, it's trying to improve the user experience. So you just got to accept it for what it is and be curious and be fun about it.

Totally. I mean, and one of the things about the algorithm, everyone says it like it's a bad word, algorithm. And I just want to like stop people and hold them by the shoulders and say, everything you're doing online has an algorithm. Like, this isn't a bad word. This is actually awesome that all algorithms are doing is trying to make your experience better and more more beneficial to you. And so you have to work the algorithm to your benefit. And then they— all these social media applications want to keep you on it. So they're not out to like push you away. They're actually out to try to make the situation better for you. So it's this, it's this fighting the algorithm that to me is baffling because everything has an algorithm.

Exactly.

It's like figure it out and embrace it, and it'll be— it'll help you.

Yeah, for sure.

Groceries coming in, so it's just noisy for a second.

That's, that's, that's all right.

My manservant. Just leave them on there. It's fine. I don't know. Do what you got to do.

Do it. Do what you got to do. We all just, um, we all just got to get along. Um, so, um, you, uh, you do, uh, client services for people too, in addition that you now have some online offerings that you've given. So— in terms of doing social media for clients, what do you like about that, what's challenging about that? I know people are just curious who might either have some of their business who's in that space or might want to be doing more of that as they learn more about online marketing.

So what do I like about running other people's social media accounts for them? Well, I like that I can work with all sizes and and levels of business and personalities. It helps me kind of understand audience in a different way because all audiences react and respond differently. So I find it gratifying personally. What other people can do to get in that space— is that what you're asking? Like, how can people— I think it's just be willing to, to help out all kinds of businesses and brands, and at first just do it really cheaply until you learn and hopefully they'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

I don't know.

Yeah, I'm not really sure. I think understand marketing as a whole, read a lot about marketing, don't just read about social, read a lot about audience and messaging and branding and really understand like what the goal is because the goal for social is not what everyone thinks it is. Everyone thinks it's engagement, which is awesome, but it's really not engagement. It's, it's purchasing, or it's getting people to be part of an event or an organization or a group. There's always a goal that's marketing-based and that's further, and you need to see that social is the top of the funnel of whatever that goal is.

Yeah, that call to action, whatever that is for.

Yeah, but treat it, yeah, treat it like actual marketing for a brand and not just the social, but also understand where it sits in the funnel. You know what I mean?

Yeah, so maybe zoom— may help to zoom out a little bit on where— what piece social plays in the business.

Yeah, zoom out for sure, but also with a focus on what the actual goal is, because people think it's followers and people think it's engagement. You know, they give all these really buzzwords or these reasons, these metrics that we can see only through social, which is an awesome way to see how you are progressing. That's not the actual goal. So yeah, zoom out and you can see how you can get to that goal.

Yeah, yeah. And be careful of especially getting your ego caught up in vanity metrics that may or may not matter.

Totally. That's easy on social.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. So, um, you've said a lot on your account, especially when you're giving tips to people, to be a doer not a viewer. Can you elaborate on that for those people who haven't had the privilege of following and being up on that, that great pithy phrase that you throw out?

One of my drums I just keep beating. It's part of like, again, the word, the algorithm word, right? And the way that social works is that when you are just consuming, then you are not creating your experience. So you need to take a proactive responsibility and actions on your social experience. So I've had people come to me that are like, "Well, I don't have a business so I don't need to be a doer." Like, no, no, no, the whole point is so that you are controlling your experience, your social media experience, and if you want to see things more, then you need to connect and you need to act, you need to do things, you need to like, you need to You need to comment and you need to show the algorithm and you need to show that application, this is what's important to me and then they give you the best results. But if you just sit there and consume, then you're not, you're not getting the best experience back. So no matter if you are trying to create an experience for your audience or you are an audience member that just wants to have fun, It's your responsibility to create the experience, like to have it work for you.

Yeah, I mean, I think of like, it's the, you know, in the movie Big, it's Tom Hanks, it's those choose your own adventure books, you know, remember how we thought it was like the greatest thing that you get to design your adventure and now you're gonna reach a fork in the road and what do you wanna do next? And really being online is just an endless giant matrix of those.

It totally is, and it's going to help you create a community. It's going to help you create connection. Like, so much of it is, is beneficial to you. But you can— if you don't want to be productive, that's when it starts becoming a time suck or this depressing, frustrating thing. It's because you're not doing— using it in the way that it is best created to help you or to fit your life.

Yeah, definitely. Well, yeah, I want to explore that a little bit because I think that, um, I mean, most of my audience, they, they're happy and they understand kind of the balance and being online and where to put, you know, social in terms of, you know, their real value. But there always seems to be persistent criticism that especially people who might be bloggers or influencers— I know most people hate that word— are, um, are part of, you know, the problem, that they only share their highlight reel, that, you know, they they let people or encourage people to just think poorly about their lives or to get depressed or to play the comparison trap game. You know, what would you say of someone who just criticizes, who thinks that that's all that, you know, we're getting out of online, who is just kind of down, you know, going that rabbit hole?

I mean, I think that's a sad place to be. You can do that for anything. I mean, really, you can do it for anything. You can say that about magazines, you can say that about music and movies. We all have things that we use to enjoy our downtime or to fill our lives with things that are light and full of love and light. And it's just what are you choosing for? What are you choosing to add to your life? And I think when people choose to find the negative parts, you're going to see them. You're going to see whatever you're looking for. And yet there's so much goodness. There's so much connection. There's so much light. And this is with influencers and bloggers and with brands as well. And it's also with communities and and different niche markets on social. You can find whatever it is that you need to fill you with light and goodness. And so just to take a big blanket statement and say that it's only the highlight reel or it's only the benefit or the good or the awesome. It's like, where else in the world would we criticize a brand or a magazine article for only showing the pictures that look nice? You know, I know we have like this whole Photoshop mentality, right, where we get really upset photoshopping. At the same time, we would never expect brands to show their shoes in the worst lighting possible. We want them to show— like, how many times have you seen a car commercial and you're like, that is a really good-looking car, and then you see one on the street and you're like, not that great. You know, it's like, it looked really cool on that racetrack. With the really dark tar, you know, or whatever, right?

And like the paint was like shimmering. What were they using, like unicorn flecks in there? And then you see it on the street and you're like, oh no, that's, that's just a Saturn.

Yeah, I'm not getting the magic out of it. Dollars a month. And I'm like, $88 for that car? Wow. And then you're like, when you see it in person. But that's just how it works. Like, we want to see, we want to see good and pretty and light. That's just basically how we are conditioned to like things and be attracted to things. We don't see— we don't want to see like dark and dirty and depressing. That's not how we grow, you know, build ourselves. So I just feel sad when people want to just see the negative things because you can find negative if you're looking for it. You can also find a lot of light and positive if you're looking for it.

Exactly. No, I really like that, you know, and the ownership is always back on us, you know. What are you searching for? What's in your feed. And as we talked about, it's a completely user experience. So if you don't want to have that in your life, then guess what? Clean it up. Cull it.

It doesn't have to be there. That's, that's my biggest tip for people when they're like, I'm not having a good experience on social. I say it's really cool that you have this opportunity to completely control your experience by following and unfollowing whomever you want.

Yeah. And not, not write a snarky DM that says, hey, I'm unfollowing you. I mean, it's like, don't, don't be like some middle school cool girl of like, you're not my friend anymore. That's basically what that DM sounds like to me. You know, no, just unfollow, just be cool.

The worst. That's what I say. Like you go into a store and you touch everything and then you go, there's nothing I'm buying here. I'm leaving. And the store owner would be like, what? Okay, weirdo. Like that is not polite. You know, you wouldn't do that in person to people. Like, why do we do it on social? It's the weirdest thing to me. What we do.

We get all brave behind our keyboards.

So, yep. And I always just say, haha, okay, peace sign. People say, I'm unfollowing you.

Like, okay, peace out. I saw a car seat that was installed wrong. Peace out.

Yeah. Okay, bye. I get it. Yeah. Like, I don't feel you. If that— if like, kids are the worst is not feeling you, then I'm like, oh, okay, I understand. It's not filling you, then you need to find whatever is good for you. It used to hurt my feelings, but now I'm like, oh no, I totally get it. Go where you are getting the best experience. I get it.

I get it. Yeah, if clever hashtags aren't your thing, I mean, I feel a little bad for you that that's not part of your life.

I mean, if you can't appreciate very clever sarcasm, I mean, sorry.

Hashtag sorry, not sorry, you know?

Yeah.

#YourLoss. Exactly. Well, I— when you were talking about, you know, what you share online, especially the stuff that's not maybe— that's not as shiny or as pretty, I love that you've talked about online and a little bit in your course as well that I took and that I loved about that no one can handle all of you 100%. You know, you talk a lot about the 80/20 rule. Can you share a little bit about what that might mean, or what especially what that looks like to someone who's like,, well, do I share the stuff like that's not going great, or do I share things that are maybe off-brand or off-messaging? How do I do that, and how do I know if it's right?

Sure. So what, what I found is that a lot of people, especially like bloggers, influencers, not so much brands— brands seem to know a little bit more what they're showing to their audience— but a lot of people will say like, oh, but I like to do crafts, and I like to make food, and I have all these children, and I help out at the school. Like, I'm this very diverse person. And it's like, yeah, welcome to the club. We are all diverse.

Like, we're all human beings. Yes, thank you. Let's, let's get t-shirts.

Yeah, we're human beings. Yeah, we're all with you. We— none— nobody that you follow online that has this curated feed, that's not who they are. That's like this small percentage of who they are. But you go and follow them because this is something that you're, that you're resonating with. Now, as soon as they show more of their life, then we decide, oh, do I like them? Do I not like them? This is, you know, this is where it gets tricky. So yeah, don't show all of yourself because we can't handle you. We are dealing with all the people around us. So you want to be careful about what you're showing. Make it very specific because you're filling the needs of your audience. You're not just sharing all your stuff. So when you feel like, okay, it's important to show a little bit more of myself, that's the 20 of the 80/20. So 80% is your values or what your brand is for your audience. So the 80%, and then the 20% is you being able to show a little bit more behind the scenes, a little, if you want to be vulnerable, and vulnerable doesn't always mean exposed, right? People think, you know, when they're being real or vulnerable, they have to show the warts. That's not what it means. Sometimes it just means showcasing something that maybe makes you uncomfortable or trepidatious, or you're not really sure how people are going to respond. Maybe it's like, hey, by the way, I'm vegan. Are you guys okay with that? That could be vulnerable, you know, even though other people wear it as a badge of honor. So that's like, that's what you, that's what I mean about the 20 is like, you have to gauge when it's appropriate. You're not going to push it a ton on people. But in that 20% is you're exposing yourself maybe a little, and, or you're showing a little bit more of who you are, but you also have to include all the other things about yourself in that 20% that you wanna share that's different. That could be a brand that you're working with that you wouldn't typically work with, and you're doing influencing for them, and, or maybe it's a product that you're wanting to try. I mean, when you start thinking of all the things that could fit in that 20%, you realize how small it is. And so that's where you're being a lot more gracious with your audience and not flipping that and turning all of my opportunities and options and personalities and likes and dislikes and my health issues and my family and my blah, blah, blah, blah, blah into the 80, and then only 20% on what your audience came for in the first place. So that's where the 80/20, you gotta like, Stories are 20%. That's where you're gonna show a lot more of who you are behind the scenes. But the, anyway, where was I? The 80% is like, you gotta be consistent with who your brand is, who your audience is, what you're offering to them. And then you have that 20% to play around with. And if you think of it like in a week, that's, I'm really good at math, but I wanna say that's like less than once a week.

Yeah, if you're like a daily poster, then yeah, that's maybe a post a week, or maybe it's just stories, yeah.

How does the math work on that? Hold on. Yeah, unless you're doing a reel.

'Cause if you're only posting like 7 days a week, then yeah, you don't get to.

Yeah, but even if you're posting 7 days a week and you're doing stories, and you know, everyone feels like they know you, that's still, you're not, even if you do like a whole day of stories on your new wart, Wow, that was a really good example. But you know, you might even spend 5 stories on it and that's fine, but you're not going to do it the next day and the next day. It's going to take you another week and you're not going to talk about your wart the next week. You're going to talk about, you know, the dinner you made.

Yeah, the cool food blogging thing that you do, whatever it is that you people do who are food bloggers.

Yeah, we know what it is. I don't know. Yeah, like maybe though, don't talk about your skin warts on your food blog.

I don't know.

Yeah, that might cross the line.

Or maybe it doesn't count.

Yeah. Yeah. It just made me a little not hungry.

You're gonna go out on a limb there. Okay, I have, so I've got a question from someone 'cause I did a shout out and I said, hey, Anna's coming on, she's legit, what questions do you have? So I got a few of those. Someone wanted to know, when should you archive? What exactly does that do and when should you use that option on Instagram?

Oh yeah, so archive when you wanna keep the engagement or you wanna keep that like the likes and the comments as part of Instagram's checking on your engagement but not necessarily the visible engagement. So Instagram will continue to hold those numbers for you and keep it in your percentage. But, or you want to maybe post it again someday in the future or to unarchive it. Right. That's when you'd want to archive it and you're not ready to totally delete it. Maybe you've got really good comments and you want to keep it. By deleting it, you're just taking it all off. Or, I mean, it still lives in the third-party ISP somewhere, but we're not worrying about that. The point is that you don't have access to it. Right. So if you want access to it and you want the numbers to stay and you want the comments to refer to, that's when you wanna archive it. And if it's just causing too much distress, then you just delete it, I'd say.

Okay, yeah, okay, that makes sense. IGTV, what should we be doing with IGTV?

It's funny, I was just talking to a client about this today. So here's the funny thing about IGTV. This is what I finally realized about IGTV. It's like if Facebook Live Instagram and YouTube had a vertical baby. That's what IGTV is, a vertical baby, by the way. Like, like suddenly it's, it's changes its shape. So the thing about it is any application wants you to stay on the application as long as possible because they make more money, they can sell more ads, right? Right. So that's the, that's the big non-secret secret. They want you to stay on. So IGTV is Instagram's way of not having to say, go to my YouTube channel, swipe up to watch my YouTube channel, right? Or my YouTube video. And they also believe that vertical is the new frontier, that we're going to have vertical TV someday.

I don't know. My husband is still a serious doubter. If he sees people starting to record video, he goes, Stop horizontal, okay? I don't want to see you, Mom, turn your phone. He can't, he can't not say something.

And yet I'm like, can you please turn your camera vertical when you send me a video? Because I want to put it on my stories. Anyway, yes, but IGTVs, but the thing about it that's like Facebook Live is that you can leave comments, you can see comments that other people are leaving. It's a lot more of engagement, engagement heavy. But where it's like YouTube is that it's edited. It's, um, you can't just go live like on Facebook and then, well, you can go live on Facebook and then post it. But the whole point is it's supposed to be edited. It's supposed to be more like a YouTube video. So where I think it's really successful right now, I haven't seen it successful for a lot of people and brands. Brands are trying so hard and I'm just not seeing any really nail it. Except for the food bloggers and the foodies and the recipe makers. That's where the money is. If you have an audience and you're in, in food, I don't know, whatever that looks like for you, you get edited videos vertically created, put them in your IGTV, and you're gonna be making money hardcore because Instagram wants people to use this. And so you are using IGTV and and you're using the other, the other offerings through Instagram, they will show you more often, more frequently, put you in the searches, put you in the Explore page, right? Because you're using the thing they want you to use. And if you're getting at all engagement and views, they're going to keep pushing all of your content forward. Everyone else though, Like, it's hard. It's a trick.

It's a trick.

You really want to watch it, and that's hard. 10 minutes. Oh, by the way, it's 10 minutes. Yeah, that's the other problem.

Yeah, that's a lot, a 10-minute, you know, to— that's a big jump from 15 seconds.

It's both a lot for Instagram, but it's not a lot for YouTube. So it's this really weird time, right, of like, what are you supposed to make?

I don't know, a recipe, a recipe, food. So if you're a food blogger, there you go. Okay, the— you've heard it from the horse's mouth, from Anna. Get on it, get on your IGTV.

Yeah, make, make your mark there and you're gonna be at the forefront. But everyone else, I'm like, I don't know how it's gonna work for everyone else. So far it's just not valuable enough to get people to watch. That's what it is. Like, why, why would people watch it? I'd watch a recipe, right? Even if I'm not cooking a ton, I'm like, oh cool, look how they're making that. But everything else, you're like, ugh, more of you talking?

No thanks. Yeah, your audio is getting a little pixelated.

I wonder—

oh shoot— if it's, um, your distance to your router. But here, let me see. Let me make sure I don't have anything else running that's affecting it.

I haven't changed. Let me see. Alan, are you on your phone? Can you get off?

You have someone on there? He's gaming. Is he on—

is he World of Warcraft? I'm sure he's just on Twitter, but like, he's gonna be like, what? What?

Why did you take it off my phone? You're like, bandwidth. Okay, baby, let's go.

Let's be on the same team here. Let's see, I'm just gonna turn mine off. See if that helps.

Is it still bad? It's okay. I just— every once in a while I get like a little, you know, the EMDR, you know, robot sounding. Yeah, bummer.

Okay, has it just been since my groceries came home? Yes. See, I'm gonna ask him really nicely. Mags, are you on your phone? No. Were you just on your phone? Okay, yeah, can you stay off? Just, just charge it. Just put it up. The, the bandwidth isn't quite as awesome as it needs to be. Well, I'll try and Yeah, you can do it later. Oh yeah, sorry, sorry, Charlie.

I love your Christmas decorations, they're so cute. Your little star corner, they're adorable.

Oh yeah, thanks. That was— she helped me with it. She was doubting it.

Oh, and I, I loved it. I thought it played for sure. So yeah, my, my kids loved it. They're my Christmas decoration decorators. We've gotten like snowflakes up. They've gone like full snowflake Buddy the Elf style in our family room.

So I did that 8 years ago, 9 years ago, and it was like one of my favorites.

Yeah, they would love that.

So all like the white paper, yeah, paper snowflakes, say paper airplanes, paper airplanes.

Hey, anything with paper, you know, I, I, I wouldn't put a stop on it. I would accept all of it. Okay, all right, the audio's sounding a little bit better, so okay, I will, I'll push on. Um, Maybe. Yeah, there we go. Um, okay, another question that I had, um, was about using hashtags. Um, this is one that I asked a couple weeks ago and you gave me a great answer, but maybe not everyone else saw. But, um, you know, how do you use hashtags, vanity hashtags? Um, I hear a lot of myths out there about do you put them in the post, you put them in the first comment, how many you're supposed to use. I feel like we've all been fed some bad intel on the, on the internet about hashtags.

Oh, here's, here's the funny thing is that I change my mind every 3 months. Not change my mind, but I get different information and I test it and I see different results. And so things are constantly changing. Again, this is why social media is so exciting and powerful is because it constantly changes with us. So we got to kind of stay on top of it and like, change with it, take turns with it as it moves. So if anyone ever says, you know, take 30 hashtags and keep them in a hashtag cloud and then just keep reusing them over and over, then you're like, oh, that's old intel, right? Or if they say you must put the 3 dots and then put your hashtag cloud, like, no, you must not. You don't have to do anything. So really Anytime I give advice about hashtags, I'll always get one or two people that are like, I tried that and it didn't work. I'm like, well then do something else. Like, this isn't me saying this is a hard and fast rule. I'm just telling you this is why it works and this is why you need to keep trying it. And if it's not working for you, turn. You know, it's like the old better off dead. If something gets in your way, turn, right? If you just like, you have to realize how it's working for you and your audience. That being said, there is nothing wrong with using hashtags, and in fact, I highly suggest hashtags. They are one of the easiest ways to get new eyeballs on you. Not always are they going to be eyeballs that you want on you, so you have to be like ready for that, but it's such a strong, powerful, simple, cheap, easy way to find new audiences and to find the community that you're looking for. And especially as you get bigger, as your audience size gets bigger and your engagement gets bigger, then the more you are using the hashtags, the more it benefits you as well. So yeah, captions, I always suggest vanity hashtags only in captions, and then maybe a couple others if it's very important to the post. And then all the rest in your comments because your audience, the way it looks visibly, is very frustrating to see so many hashtags, especially if you're looking for engagement. If you want people to leave a comment and you ask a question, let's say Brittany, you say, what is the one law document, a legal document you wish you had? Okay, so you ask a very important question that's going to help you understand what, what document you should create next, and then you do dot, dot, dot, and then 30 hashtags underneath it. Then by the time your audience gets to the comment section, you've worn their, their, you've worn them out. Their, their ability has been worn out. This is not something we realize that we do, right? Right. But for the most part, most of our captions that are worth reading and that people want to engage with are going to be longer than 2 lines. So that's called above the fold. If it goes past the 2 lines, it's below the fold and they have to do like a read more often, right? Right. Especially if you're putting hashtags in there. So if you go read more and you push it down and you've got all this copy and then you have all these hashtags, then by the time, even if I'm not reading them, visually I'm seeing all this copy and I forget that I was going to respond.

Yeah, your audience needs a nap. They don't want to comment.

Even if they didn't read them, they are visually not prepared to then leave a comment back because they see all this copy and that, that reaction, that split second when they're ready to respond to you is gone. Right. So that's why it's in the caption or in the comments. And some people are already getting this rollout through Instagram where Instagram is hiding hashtags in comments. Like if you put a hashtag cloud, like 7 to 15 hashtags in a comment, that you will see 1 or 2 and then the dot dot dot in the comments. So you're not going to see these big hashtag clouds in comments. So that's really thoughtful of the new Instagram rollout so that they know that they're helping us, but that not everyone wants to see all the hashtags.

See, there you go. Instagram isn't trying to screw you guys, people, okay?

They want you to be on it. They really do. It's like, how can we make this easier for you?

And yet everyone's like, argh, this free thing that helps my business, I don't like it today. I mean, the worst ever. So no, it's not actually. That's the irony, guys. That's sarcasm, okay?

You get it? That's my sarcasm, you guys, right there, the word.

That's right.

Business versus private. Oh yeah, I mean, private, man. So personal, you got personal, private, business, right? So private, the thing that I teach all the time, especially to youth and young adults, is that private is not private. Anything is on the dark web, on these third-party ISPs, be aware of it. For a long time, but I won't. So nothing is actually private. Everything is stored on these third-party internet service providers. So don't think that you can get away with things just because they're private. Okay. That being said, it's not easy for the layman, the average person to get content from a private account. So if you're just wanting to keep yourself a little bit safe and protected from maybe the neighborhood or family or whatever, then private's great. But if you're thinking it's private from the world, then you're out of luck. It's definitely not. Now public is great and it won't do anything for you if you are, if you are looking to grow your account. If you want insights, or of course the way that Instagram shows you the details of your of your posts and of your audience so you can get a little bit more insight into who your audience is and how you can best serve them. So you only get the insights with a business account. Now the frustrating part is you have to have a Facebook account to be able to become a business account. Can you just hold on for a second?

Thanks.

So you have to have a business account, or to get a business account you have to have a Facebook page, and that is completely serving Facebook, mother Facebook, you know. The mothership, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, and if perchance your audience doesn't realize that Instagram is owned by Facebook, now they do. So they're trying to get you more ingrained into the mothership, yes, into like their whole world and universe. If you wanna use an ad and you wanna do ad spend, You actually do it through Facebook. You know, they all work together. So yes, it kind of gets you way more connected to Facebook, and then they're able to share more information and your audience— they can serve more ads, serve more ads to your audience. So it definitely benefits them, but the benefit for you is just as great. So you still benefit greatly to have a business account because you can grow your audience, your SEO increases, and you are able to gather information and be seen more easily than if you had not had the business—

or the business account. Yeah, I sometimes hear from people that say, well, you know, it seems like I— you get, you know, penalized, or maybe, you know, in the algorithm. That's kind of the myth, that that's what happens. If you have a personal over business, but that doesn't seem to really support a healthy business model because all they want is for you to do well and for you to buy ads as a business account.

Well, so then people will say though, then people say, oh, now they want you to buy ads, now they want you to pay to play, so they're penalizing you so that you'll pay to play. And I've read so many different accounts and businesses about, or articles about this, because people really do wonder if they're getting penalized. And the, the main consensus is no. But of course, there's always this case study that says, yes, you're penalized. And then there's a case study that says, no, actually, I got seen by more people. So for me, it's a wash. Everyone wants to prove that their engagement went down when they went business. And I think that's just, it makes us feel good when we say, oh, it's this reason, it's not actually me.

Right, yeah, yeah, awesome. I mean, I know the answer to this, but I think other people need to hear this about, give us the straight talk on buying bots and buying followers.

I know, that's another one of my drums I just keep beating. Well, because it needs to happen. I know, I know. Buying your followers is, and your comments and your likes using a bot, using a program, you know, there are all these different names for it, or, and they're such smart advertising, these, these programs. They'll say, we'll get you real audience for only $100, or get 100 new followers in one day, and they're real engagement, right? And you're like, oh, it's It's organic, you know, and yet you're paying money for a program to do something for you, to create bigger audience or more awareness. And all this does is you're bypassing the terms and conditions. It's actually the, the rules that you sign up for on Instagram that say you will never have a third-party application act on your behalf. Right. So that's for following, unfollowing, liking, commenting, and posting. Now they have changed it a little bit. There are some applications like Sprout Social and all these third parties that help you plan or, yeah.

Or do like, or who can do like, you know, contests like Gleam, you know, has, they're okay, they're an approved. You know, third-party affiliate.

Yeah, API. There are some approved third-party apps that are able to post on your behalf, but they should never be able to follow or unfollow on your behalf. And I don't even think they're allowed to like or comment. So they can comment for you, but you're giving them the permission through your application and they are approved. But they should— but this is still you writing this and then it's being sent by you. So if ever you use a third-party app to, or program to do anything for you that you are not actually giving this, this, uh, what, validate this verification to do for you, then you are going against terms and conditions. And not only will you get banned, will you get shadow banned, will you get blocked, will you be unable to do certain things on Instagram eventually, you're going to be taken off Instagram or your website won't work or your links won't work or you won't be able to do all these things that you've worked so hard to build this account and then suddenly you're not able to use it because you didn't follow the laws of it. Not just that, but your engagement is going to plummet. And if you are trying to work with any brands, they are getting savvier and savvier and they are able to see how you are engaging, how you are connecting with your audience. And if you are doing anything that is against these terms, it is considered fraudulent. And if you are fraudulent, not only can you be banned, you can have a fee put against you, but you're also just really looking bad.

You just look bad. It's really poor business practices. And, and irregardless of that, is that you could get beat to suit on your contract, guys, because I'm telling you, I, as the person who drafts these contracts and reviews these contracts, it's very clear in there that you are not indemnifying the other party, meaning that you're not in charge of covering their legal fees if you do anything that's fraudulent, that's an illegal or unethical business behavior, which going against the terms and conditions of the platform that says that you're an influencer on is exactly that. So I mean, yeah, Anna's dropping some, you know, legal bombs on us here, but That's why you guys need to read these things. So, and if in the least, if you're not going to read them, which I know a lot of us don't, we just click and we go to the next screen and we just say, yada, yada, yada, sign my life away. Um, then don't do shady things. Don't hire Russian bots and plug them into your business and think that nothing bad's going to happen.

It's, it's just baffling to me, maybe because I just work on the other side so often too, like you do, you know, like seeing how it works for businesses. But I think in what case in this, in the public or in the actual business world— not actual, because this is actual business— but in the business world, would you lie about numbers and think it was okay? Like, where? If you went and said, oh, I'm in a hurry and shove $1,000 of my brother's money into my account to get a loan, and then I'm going to pull it out. I mean, if the bank saw that at all, you would be in big trouble.

It's called having a straw man, and it's illegal.

Yeah, it's illegal. These are all illegal practices. We don't do these things. And like, you can say, oh, ethically I can see how that's a problem when it has to do with money or when it has to do with whatever, you know, cooking the books at all. We see, oh, that's wrong. And yet people feel like it's totally okay to do it on follower number when they're trying to get business connections and they're straight up lying about what these numbers are. It's like, where are we seeing— where is there a disconnect that we don't see that this is fraudulent. I just— it's baffling to me, and yet it persists.

Yeah, it's no different. So yeah, on, on top of being unethical and just really shady for the business, and you know, it's the dark side of influencer marketing, it makes everyone look bad, it's— it could also be certainly illegal from the, the point of terms, you know, of terms and conditions, and also depending on what kind of contracts you've signed. So what you've promised to do.

So don't do it. The worst The worst thing would be to get a huge contract and be all stoked on it, and like you said, and then get sued. Yeah, what's the point? There's no point, by the way.

There's no point. There's no point, guys. So don't do it, okay? Grow, grow slow, grow real, okay? That's, that's how, that's how you do it, okay?

There's no shortcuts.

No, you got to do the work. Okay, um, I, I love that you, um, talk about, you know, it's for someone who who works online, you don't always hear of people giving reasonable tips about how to maintain healthy boundaries about that. I feel like, you know, for someone who's in the business of actually being online, that's kind of counterproductive for you to tell people like, hey, you should, you know, rein it in and be thoughtful about your use online. And yet you do that, which is great. And you even have some guides about people talking to their kids about being online, which are awesome. But you kind of talk about how you can still be successful on the platform on 20 minutes a day. But so how do people really want to do that? What does that look like? What do they need to plan for that to be actually be part of their reality?

Yeah, so 20 minutes a day is, is kind of just the goal on, that's on an application. And yet I also say 20 minutes could be up to twice a day depending on if you're really trying to grow your business, then you might need the 20 minutes twice a day. Um, and sometimes we break up that time as well. And I say that, and then I'm always very transparent too, that for me, that can sometimes look like 20 minutes on each account. You know, I can't do 20 minutes on all 5 accounts that I'm running total. That would be really amazing. But also, I don't think I would be growing at all because I wouldn't be able to do it. So what that looks like is a schedule, right? So everyone will tell you in, you know, when you get a social media account or when they tell you how to grow or when they say here's a good plan, they'll say you need to comment back, you need to post, you need to go and like 3 other accounts or follow different accounts or leave a comment and engage with other people. And that starts feeling like a ton of stuff. Plus you want to enjoy social media as well. And so you're like, working on it and you're not enjoying it and it just, you just lose that excitement. So what I suggest is that you get a schedule. I have a schedule in my guide, but of course it's just an example. Everyone has a different way that you're going to do different things on different days. And one day might be really heavy, like for me Mondays are really heavy on my content creation. So I'm going to try to get as many posts created, as many memes, as many videos. I'm going to try to create as much as possible on Monday and then have it ready for myself to be posting quickly on Tuesdays, Wednesday, Thursday, etc. And then I have certain days that I do stories and kinds of stories, and then, and then I have certain days where I go back and I will find different accounts and I'll leave comments. So I'm not doing everything every single time, but I'm making sure that I'm doing it frequently enough that it's helping my engagement, it's helping my visibility. I'm using the app, I'm doing, not just viewing, and I'm connecting with people so that they see it. But I'm also using it in the time that it— that I allot for myself so that I can get off and enjoy the rest of my actual life.

Yeah, get on, get on with a good thing. So, um, well, I think that's great, and I think that's— it's I think it's real for you to be so transparent about like, here are the realities, or like planning is still important and, you know, creating ahead and batch content creation, which is obviously so helpful if you know you're going to be creating stuff, getting everything all together so that you're not just slave to your timeline. Yeah. And to the content wheel.

Yeah. Yeah. But also like there are times when I don't, I don't use a posting schedule. A planning or anything like that, only because it's bit me in the butt a few times where I've had that all ready to go and I wasn't connecting with it every time I was posting. And that got me in trouble because, you know, if you're not totally aware of what's going on in the world right now, like, I mean, like right this very second, if I didn't realize that something had happened that was tragic or something happened in the news or, and I wrote something insensitive, 5 days ago, but it wasn't insensitive 5 days ago, but it's insensitive today. You just have to be aware of what's going on or what other people have posted. You kind of have to be conscientious of your audience and of your community so that you're not just going, here, here's all my content, but you're actually— for me, I realized I have to connect with the content when I posted it.

Right, which certainly makes fun because you are in the humor entertainment channels. And so yeah, you do have to be sensitive to the news cycle and what's happening, the kind of collective consciousness around that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. So, um, so, um, I wanted you to share, um, because as we're concluding, so we— people can, you know, hit the ground running with some tips if they want to shape up their Instagram, um, if they want to, you know, just take a small part of many of the great wisdom nuggets that you have about being better online. Um, what are some some great ways, some 3 ways that they can increase their engagement on their account?

Yeah, well, I mean, the best thing they could do is follow me.

I'm just kidding. But seriously, like, what are you doing with your time? Like, what, you don't think kids are funny and you don't think Ana is great?

Because she is, yeah. I'm just saying, you can get these tips all the time. No, so what I would say to improve your engagement is to comment back to those who are commenting on your feed. It sounds so, so, so simple, and yet I'm surprised at how many times I have to remind people, if someone is commenting on your posts, they are your people. They care about you. You need to put time and energy back into them. It works twofold. They feel seen and then they want to keep engaging with you. But also other people who have not yet engaged see that you're engaging back with people and then they— you give them the right to, or the permission rather, to then feel like they can engage because they might get a relationship with you also. And then that just starts snowballing. The more you are engaging back with people, it helps that person and it helps future people engage. So comment back. That being said, don't feel like you got to comment to everyone back, especially as your account grows. Um, you've got, you have to like spend a certain amount of time and you have to remain valuable and your perception of value has to stay high enough. So you can't go and be spending all the time responding to every single person. So do that. The second thing is to utilize stories. Stories are the biggest win for everybody right now. If you can add to your stories, each time a slide in your story is seen, it counts the same for your impressions as a post would if it were seen. So if I do 3 slides in my stories and 20,000 people people see each one of those slides, that's 60,000 impressions I got. And if only 40,000 people saw my one post for the day, I win on stories because more people saw my stories. And when brands and businesses want to work with you, impressions are the only thing currently that you cannot fake, you cannot cook. That is exactly what it, it is. It seems to be every time a real person sees a story or a post, that's what you're showing. So you need to make sure your impressions are high. And the more your stories are being seen, then the more likely your posts will be seen. It just is this, this cycle that keeps helping itself. So people will respond more. The other thing is on your stories and on your posts, this is my third tip for increasing engagement, is to refer people to the other without doing it in an overbearing or an assuming way. So what I mean by that is when you post something in your stories, the thing I hate, but people keep doing it, so do what you got to do. But when they, they'll share their post in their stories and then they'll cover it up with some GIF or emoji and be like, "Did you see my post? Go check out my post to read more about it, right?" And it might work for some people, but it also seems like a really cheesy game show. Like you're saying, I'm not going to show you until you pick door number 3, you know? And some people don't like to feel manipulated. And so you could be also ostracizing some of your audience. I don't appreciate it. Instead, I would share it, show it, and then say something like, the comments in this post are giving me life today, or I can't believe how emotional I got reading some of your comments today, or did you see that? Not even did you see, but you just, you're referring to it like this, this post meant a lot to me and I would love if you could add your story to everyone else's, etc., etc., etc. There's so many ways to ask people to go to the post without saying, go see my post, right? That actually feels like you are engaging back with them and vice versa in your post. Say something like, "I'm going to give more details in my stories," or "I realize how much this post— how much I needed to share this post based on my story yesterday and your responses to it." All this does is it creates the little reminder in people's brains that, "Oh, she does stories. Oh, he's doing a post. Oh, I didn't realize I hadn't seen these stories." And so they will go do it when they can, and they're not feeling pressured. They're feeling like you're giving them something and they want to do it because they want to connect more. And the more you get them to go on the stories and posts and to leave the comments and to share, etc., etc., etc., the more your engagement grows just naturally.

Gotcha. Okay, so I wanted to recap. Those were all great tips. Okay, the first— no, they were all awesome. No, we'll take all of it. Okay, the first was comment back, people. Okay, if someone takes the time to comment on your post, then they've already showed you they like you, okay? Treat them well, comment back as far as you can. 2, use your stories, okay? Make sure that you're giving value on those, that they're relevant, you know, use your 80/20 like we talked about. You can kind of do some, some little on-fringy stuff, slightly off-brand stuff if you want, but use your stories. And then number 3 is tie those 2 together. So make sure that your comments and your stories your posts and your stories are referring back to each other, but always through the lens of value. Why does someone care? Why do they want to be tied to those? You know, why, why are they on their account? And hopefully you should know that because they've taken your course and they figured out what are the 3 values, um, that people are getting out of, um, out of, out of your platform.

Wow, you said that so much better than I did. Can you be my writer?

Yes, yes. Yeah, definitely, of course.

So that was so good, like you said it in such a good way. But yeah, don't, don't treat your audience like, like they're, they're your followers. Treat them like they're your community. And that doesn't matter if they're a brand, if you're an influencer, whatever you are. If, if people feel like you're trying to trick them, then they don't feel like they're connecting with you. I'm going to engage with people who I feel see me and value me and That's how your audience is. So anytime you try to do something that's tricky or that's like funny or not funny, because you know, funny wins, but like trickier and like trying to pull one over on you. I mean, who wants to feel like you're being tricked? You just want to feel like you're getting something out of this.

So, right. Yeah, no, no. Yeah, yeah. No one, no one wants to feel like they're being manipulated or it just, it feels a little skeezy. It feels a little snake oil and And I mean, you know, whether you want to roll your eyes or not, it's not authentic, okay?

Yeah. It's not though. And even if they get you 30 more views, in the long run, it's not worth it. In the long run, the more I see people doing it, the more I detach from them and I disassociate from them. And I'm saying me, but I'm also saying this is just audience at large, right? We just, we just get tired of tricks. We don't want to see tricks.. And we just want people to feel like there's a real relationship. And I'm telling you that the influencers that I see who get the most engagement and get the most success in their, in their audience outreach and in their, their campaigns, it's baffling to me because they are not the biggest influencers. They are not who you think they would be. They are mid-influencers to micro-influencers, and yet they talk to their audience like, I know you, we know each other, and people respond. It's, it's amazing. Like, it's obvious, but it's also amazing.

Yeah, it's true. It's all about that human connection, and they're still so close to it that they, they're teachable, they listen, you know, and they're very thoughtful about what they bring in and what they show out and pimp to their audience. And there's a huge difference there. Yeah. Yeah, all the way around. So, uh, well, this has just been amazing. Um, well, tell people about where they can connect and find out more if they want more of all the good stuff that you have going on, because you've got a lot of it.

So lay it on us. Okay, well, I— this kind of stuff is on Anna Is the Worst, but it's spelled like Anna Is the Worst because that's what my parents— how my parents spelled my name. So it's A-N-N-A Is the Worst. It's on Instagram, but it's also annamcfarland.com. And then all my fun stuff is at Kids Are the Worst or Things Are the Worst. And I'm trying to resurrect Dogs Are the Worst, but making my husband do it. But so far it's a little bit older. It's a tough sell. Oh, just like one more to do. But man, that's such a good— it's such a fun one. To do about animals. But yeah, so that's where those are. And then yeah, there's Facebook, but you know, the Instagram's the easiest.

Instagram and websites. It's pretty amazing. So, and your course is incredible. It's the best guide, the best Instagram recipe guide, yeah.

Yeah, the best Instagram recipe, 'cause it's a recipe. Follow it. And it seems easy, right? So sometimes recipes seem so easy that we just think we can wing it on our own. And yet sometimes it's the following the recipe when we get the best results and we think, oh, I guess I should have followed a recipe. That's all it is. It's just like, trust it.

Trust Betty Cracker. That's good. Which is good for you, you know, for not, you know, using a trademark outside of, you know, branded terms. So a point, a point for that for sure. So, um, well, thank you so much, Ana, for being on and sharing with us. And yeah, it was just a pleasure to hear more about and hear all the tips. So hopefully everyone will put some of this into action and, and really remember why you're posting and what you're trying to get at and, you know, put it in its proper framework of, of your brand or your, you know, your following and what you're trying to build.

Yeah.

Awesome. Thanks, Brittany. Hey, wasn't this just an incredible episode? Huge shout out and thank you to Ana for being willing to spare her time. She's a busy woman. She's a busy mom, busy entrepreneur. To come on and share so much of her wit and wisdom with us. She was just a delight to chat with, and she, after this conversation, kept on talking to me about my own business and basically gave me a free half-hour consult, which, as someone who also charges for my time, I really appreciate. So, um, she's a wonderful person, and if you aren't already following her, if you haven't taken advantage of any of her online offerings, whether it's in the social media Instagram space or Even if you have kids and have come across her digital guides about talking with people in your family about being smart online and what role technology should have in your life and in your family space, I highly recommend that as well as her courses. I took her course, I paid for it myself, and I absolutely loved it and got a ton out of it in terms of my own strategy with Instagram. Okay, I'm going to wrap up. I do have a, a printable, a freebie that goes along with today's episode, so make sure that you head to to the show notes and get it. It will be a summary of the tips that Ana gave us today, her 3 tips for building engagement on Instagram, along with kind of the key quotes and takeaways that, that I got out of the episode that I think you will too. So if you were on the go listening to this and didn't get a chance to take notes, I know sometimes I'm in the same boat as you and are like, ah, what was it that talked about? And want to actually have something to sink your teeth in, an actionable plan for you to start looking at your own social media Use your own channels and how you can improve those today, this week, right now, not later. Go ahead and download that. Get on my email newsletter. Get access to all of the goodness that is going on there. I know we all have to fight these inbox battles, guys, but I promise you that I don't ever send anything out that's not useful to you. That's not the way I operate. I'm not into wasting anybody's time, least of all mine. Okay? So go ahead and get that at brittanyratelle.com/37. Okay, b-r-i-t-t-a-n-y-r-a-t-e-l-l-e.com/37. Thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing with friends. Thank you for posting about listening to the show. When you're a content creator like me and you're putting out stuff like this for free, the biggest compliment that I can have is that people share, that they leave a review, that they are letting others know in their community, so that it can also help and spread the word for people who are creative entrepreneurs who are hustling and working on their own stuff. Um, there's no bigger compliment that you are not alone and there's people out here who care about your success and whatever it is that you care about, we care about that too. And we want to help you reach, um, those goals and whatever those dreams that you have. So keep working and plugging away and we'll catch you next week.