Boost Engagement: 10 Ways to WIN on Instagram

Fresh Prince asking, I hear storytelling a lot nowadays. We talked about this at the top. What's one way I can do that on social media, on Instagram as an example?

I think it's a great question, Fresh Prince. And there's a couple of things I think on social, you know, Instagram's great, awesome channel. Go where your audience is. If that's the demographics of your audience, then they're likely to be interested in your idea or product. Then that's absolutely where you go, or Facebook, or maybe more traditional channels of Twitter. But I think definitely it's fantastic, so you could embrace that channel. The other thing I think is really, you have to have compelling content. So on things like Instagram, great visual, visualization, pictures, video. And also I think on social media as well, the great thing about social media is it's not all kind of one shot. It's a continuous conversation. It's a storytelling. And one of the most compelling ways to tell your story, and I guess it's the way where you start with, is what problem am I solving for my customer? What is the pain point that my customer's going through every day that I'm gonna alleviate? What is the gain they're gonna get from it? And so if you kind of answer that question, you're really clear about what problem am I solving my customer, what is the pain point? And then you show through stories, especially with pictures and visualization, then I think you're off to a winner. And then great thing with social is you can get other people involved and you can kind of build a community where you are one of the opinion leaders on the conversation and you are one of the participants in terms of shaping the conversation. And that's so powerful. And I think the first thing is, again, you want to, if you've got the idea, you know what you want to do, you know what pain point it solves, you've got a great idea in terms of how to show your product and you can show it through demos, pictures, videos, all that sort of stuff, then you get out there and do it because you'll find other people out there who will be really willing to contribute. And they'll be, you know, the great thing is you can get loads of almost like instant feedback, market research, whatever you want to call it, and it's all free. It's all free, just lap it up, um, and evolve your product according to the advice you're getting from, from the, the folks out in the community.

I think for any kind of storytelling, it's understanding first what do you stand for, like what's your mission, what's your value. Like for me, believe, I want to help entrepreneurs. Everything that I create oozes believe. Every video I make, every interview I do, every picture that I post. And I think what you want to do is create something that you want to go and show your grandkids. Like, you want to create something that you're so proud of that you want your grandkids to see in every post that you're creating. Um, and so within an Instagram structure, Instagram typically has been you put your best picture out there, right? It's like you curate all of these pictures, you take 1,000 pictures, and like one of them, your best one, is the one you're going to put up. But the recent change with stories has been super interesting, and now you have the ability to tell stories along, along your day, just like Snapchat does. It disappears in 24 hours, and so it's a chance to develop the more human side of what you're all about, what your routine looks like, the behind the scenes, talking to customers. And so it's a great way, I think, that entrepreneurs can win, because that's how you beat bigger players in your industry, is the human connection, is the— it's the why. Because you care more about what you're doing than than some other big corporation might in your space. And so going all in on your story is gonna be really important, and Instagram is a great way to do it. So these quick 10-second clips of what's happening in your day, why you started this thing. And why it's also great is you don't need to have a big budget. Steven talked about it being free. People don't expect, like with YouTube, there's still some expectations over video quality, and a lot of players are spending a lot of money with production crews and cameramen and lights and all that. And with an Instagram story or Snapchat, it's expected to be real. It's expected to be a little more gritty because it's just taken from your phone. And so that's really an awesome chance for you to practice telling your story, sharing what is so important to you in your day-to-day life, and a chance for your customers and your audience and your followers to understand you better and connect with what you're all about. So I would highly recommend that as a practice, even just for you to practice, because you know it's going away in 24 hours. The thing only lives for 24 hours, those stories. So developing the communication skill to talk into an audience is a really valuable exercise to go through.