[social_warfare]

SHOW NOTES

The future of Instagram and content marketing is changing.

The head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, recently announced that Instagram is no longer a photo-sharing app.

AKA, Instagram is panicking as it tries to compete more effectively with TikTok.

This means that Reels, Lives, Stories, and other content will become even more favorable with the algorithm.

As Instagram evolves to prioritize video, your marketing strategy MUST evolve too.

In this episode of the Not For Lazy Marketers Podcast, I’m diving into the future of Instagram and video, and what it means for your business and marketing strategy TODAY!

If you’re not prepared to adapt to the platform’s shift to prioritizing video content, one thing is certain: you WILL fall behind.

After tuning in, shoot me a DM on Instagram (@emilyhirsh) and let me know how you are planning to incorporate more videos and Reels into your marketing strategy!

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Honestly, we’re more than a marketing team — we’re a tactical partner who will care about your business growth just as much as YOU (maybe even more)! We’re here to play the long game and help you create a powerful impact! APPLY NOW!

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Emily Hirsh:

Hello, my friends. It has been a minute for me since I’ve recorded a podcast. Obviously, you guys don’t feel that because we release them twice a week still, but I got so busy getting home from California a month ago. If you’ve followed my Instagram at all, or anywhere on my social media, you know that I’m now on a six-week trip and our house is getting completely remodeled. So super exciting, super crazy. It was really crazy coordinating all of it just because of my kids, work, coordinating the timing of everything, making sure we have everything packed. We’re going to California and then we’re going to Colorado for a month after that. I’m really excited. I love traveling like this and being able to have a routine where I’m working, but then I’m also having fun in the afternoons, but it is a lot with three kids and making sure that everybody has everything they need and we’re all set. 

So I am now in California. My house is currently being ripped apart, cabinets, floors, all of it. I cannot wait to come home and see the new and improved Hirsh House. So that’s the update on the personal side. Things in the business have been really busy as well. I’m starting a new company, which is pulling my attention about probably 25% of the time over to that company. I’m super grateful for how much Hirsh Marketing runs without me and the incredible team that I have supporting that so I can build this super exciting new company. 

In today’s episode, I want to talk about the future of Instagram and video marketing. We’ve been talking a lot about this on our team. We have been sharing some inside tips around this and what it means inside of the PDQ, our marketing media site. If you’re not a part of that, definitely subscribe to that because we give almost daily news tips that come from our team huddles, or team meetings, or things as managers are seeing that you really don’t want to miss out on. One thing we’ve been talking in depth about is the announcement that the founder of Instagram put out, which was Instagram’s no longer a photo-sharing app, it is a video app and that’s the direction they’re going. 

I talked a little bit ago about aligning your own marketing goals, and your company goals, and your actions with the goal of a platform. This is a really perfect example of that because right now, what we’re seeing is that Instagram is feeling that TikTok is a real threat to them. I think they were able to eliminate Snapchat with stories, and not eliminate it, obviously, Snapchat is still there, but it didn’t continue really growing. I think there’s one small generation that uses it, but not exclusively like that. So Instagram was able to kind of eliminate Snapchat with that, and we saw them push stories when they were trying to do that. I think they’ve been trying to step over and dominate TikTok and take away the attention from TikTok and not necessarily succeeding. I think TikTok is continuing to grow and they have really great marketing. So the reels that Instagram did really didn’t take over TikTok, didn’t ruin TikTok. I think they are panicking about it a little bit. 

Now I think Instagram, personally, and Facebook will never go anywhere. They have such a massive monopoly over everybody and their use, but whenever you notice that a platform is doing this, you have to think about their why. So when the founder comes out and says, Instagram’s not a photo-sharing app anymore, it’s for video, and you also know that they are trying to dominate TikTok, they’re in competition with TikTok and they’re not necessarily winning, what are they going to do? They’re going to start prioritizing Reels, and videos and engaging things like that to take their users’ attention away from TikTok and put it on Instagram. 

So we’ve been talking about what does this mean for companies? Even myself and a lot of you guys listening to me, you might be the face of your brand, you might be the one responsible for your content. And I’m going to be honest, like it’s a little exhausting, right? To have the expectation that you need to make all these Reels and all these videos to keep up and stay on top of everything, and you need to be on social media, and the trends are changing so fast. I mean, it really is also this bigger symptom of the fact that people’s attention span is so limited these days and we as humans need constant new, new, new stimulation. I think that it’s sad in my opinion, but it’s not going anywhere because people are so addicted to their phones and social media. Because of that, as a brand, as a content creator, you have to cater to that and you have to have new, trendy, and exciting. If you wait five days, you’re already getting stale with your content. It is exhausting. 

I want to talk about that and the future of that and what that means for your business. Here’s where I come from, which I think I have a little bit of a unique perspective on this because I don’t really go on social media. I feel really strongly about disconnecting from my phone about having time where I’m with my family and I do not have my phone at all. I don’t like scrolling social media. I think it’s distracting. I think it’s noise. I have a business that really depends on social media and Facebook and Instagram. So I think that it’s possible to not give your life to that and still have a very successful business if you can build the right process and teams around it. 

But number one, what this means is you have to start prioritizing video in your business. You have to. If you have a brand where you’re the face of the brand, there is no option really. Now I want to talk about how you can be creative because my team and I talk about this. It doesn’t have to be videos of me and my face every single time. There are ways to do it without, and featuring teams, and bringing in your brand as a whole, but you really can’t get away with not doing video anymore in some capacity. If you for some reason don’t like doing video with your face, you can find ways around that, but you need to have time and resources to create video. 

As a company, we’re actually going to be increasing our video support to clients because making Reels is not easy for someone. I don’t want to actually go edit my reels, right? It’s not something that a CEO should necessarily be doing in my opinion. So Reels and small video edits, small clips, the thing is, it’s not necessarily these overly produced videos like it used to be where you needed a YouTube video and you got a videographer, and you had scripts, and a teleprompter, and all these things. People don’t want that. They want these very organic, authentic, really short videos. I mean, Reels are 15 to 30 seconds because people don’t have an attention span for longer. Obviously, you can do some longer content videos, but really not on social media anymore. Your video should be a minute, two minutes, max, even if it’s content videos. Instagram favors all under one-minute videos and pieces of content. That means you have to be very stimulating and very catchy with that short amount of time that you have, which is really what the purpose of Reels is. 

My advice here and just is number one, start thinking about this in your brand. Really start thinking about the fact that the Instagram founder said this. He didn’t say that Instagram is not going to be just a photo-sharing app, he said it is not a photo-sharing app anymore. Those were the words from his mouth. While I still believe 100% in paying attention to your stats, we still get great engagement on specific photos and we’re not going to stop doing that until we see that we have no engagement. It’s not like you have to tomorrow switch over to a hundred percent video, but you need to start prioritizing video and Reels if you have not done that. For the last six months, we’ve seen those do the best in ads too in most cases. Videos and Reels are top-performing organic content, top-performing ad content. That is because Facebook and Instagram are absolutely favoring them in the algorithm. 

So as a business owner, you need to figure out one, how is this going to play out in your organic social media? How’s this going to play out in your ads, social media? Do you need to increase the amount of videos and Reels that you’re creating? Do you need to hire somebody to help you with this? Do you need a video editor to help you with this? Do you need a day that you do this every month where you batch record a bunch of content? How are you going to make it work for you? What is your commitment of how many Reels, how many videos you’re going to produce every month? 

Then the other thing is inspiration. At least for me, I enjoy making Reels when I have the list in front of me of like here’s all the Reels that you should make. I’m not personally a super natural creative person, so I don’t want to have to sit there and be like, I would never be able to sit there and be like, this is a great Reel idea. If I see it, I like it. We have a process on our team where we find Reel inspiration and we’ll collaborate on those and either send them to clients as suggestions or my team will send them to me as something that I could record. So every month I have a whole list that I can choose from to record. You’ve got to create a process that’s going to work for you. But the bottom line is you have to increase the amount of output you have in video and reels, right now, today. 

The other piece of this that I think is really important is how you now can’t really have successful marketing without having a really solid brand, which comes from having values from having a clear why defined, having very clear messaging around that that allows you to stand out, and within that is video and content. Your brand comes from having an engagement and showing up frequently on social media. It used to be like five years ago you could kind of get away with not having that at all. You didn’t really need to have a brand to be able to go run Facebook ads and be successful in marketing your business.

Nowadays, because brands are so strong because social media, and video, and Reels are going viral and people are getting this attention, and everybody’s fighting for their audience’s attention, you really have to have a brand. You have to build a brand around your business. I’ve noticed that in the last six months especially, there are people that are commenting, they’re like, “well, this worked for me a year ago,” or “a year ago I didn’t have to post Reels. I didn’t have to post videos. I didn’t have to even post on social media,” or “a year ago my offer worked,” or “a year ago this worked, but the landscape has changed.” 

If you’re sitting there as a business owner saying a year ago this worked for me and so now it should work, and the problem is my team, or the problem is my ads manager, the problem is my copywriter, whatever it is, that’s not really the truth. The reality is the problem is the industry has changed. The algorithms have changed. The iOS updates have happened. Things have changed around and you’re not adapting fast enough. So now the reality is you have to have a brand built around your business in order to have successful marketing, and a huge component of that is really great creative video. 

If that’s not something that you naturally do, you need to build a process around it. You need to hire a video editor, hire a videographer, get somebody to come over to your house and help you record it, get your team to find you inspiration, collaborate with your marketing team if you have one around this, build processes around it so that you don’t fall behind. This is relevant for both your organic and your paid ads because it is the top for both. We’ve seen this happening for the last six months, but I think it’s only going to increase, especially after that announcement, especially after knowing where Instagram’s intentions lie because of TikTok. Playing to that is going to benefit your business. 

I suggest that you somehow find either resources or the time to stay on top of what’s trending. Like I said with Reels and with videos, you have a little bit of time to capitalize on something trending until it’s something new. And let’s just be honest for a second, this is definitely exhausting. I think it’s exhausting. I think if you don’t build a process around it, it’s going to burn out CEOs who feel this pressure to step up in this way and to create this level, and frequency, and refreshing of content because that’s the bottom line. It’s like you have to constantly have new photos, new videos, new Reels, new content, new angles to stay relevant today. Unfortunately, that will only increase. 

There are things you can do, like making sure you stand out in your messaging, that you’re different, that you have a unique value proposition, a unique selling point that allows you to stand out. But you can’t just say the same thing for four months, for even two months anymore. You have to be fresh, you have to be new, and you have to be on top of it with video. So something to start thinking about soon, tomorrow, right away. because I think that people who don’t really jump on this are going to start falling behind. You’re kind of missing out on opportunities because I’ve definitely seen people who leverage Reels do better with ads and with organic social media because the bottom line is the algorithm is favoring it. You want to work with that algorithm, and this is a way to work with that algorithm. 

So hopefully this got you guys thinking today. I want to know how you’re going to incorporate video and Reels into your marketing. I know when they first came out, I was like, I am not doing it. Here’s the other thing, those Reels where you’re just like pointing to the sky, they’re done. You’ve got to be more creative than that in my opinion. I mean, when I see those, I ignore them. At the beginning, I think they worked and I think they probably are better sometimes than a photo, but you’ve got to be more creative because people are doing such incredible things. Creators are doing such incredible things on TikTok and with Reels that if you’re just pointing to the sky with text, you’re boring already. It’s already developed where, in the beginning, all my Reels were just that it was like, okay, I can dance around for 15 seconds and point around to the air, but now I have to step it up and do like Snoop Dogg voice-overs, and The Office voice-overs, and different creative things because that’s what’s going to stand out even more. So even that has evolved in the last four to six months when Reels really started picking up their pace. 

Who knows what the next four to six months after this are going to bring? That’s why I created the PDQ too is how quickly things are changing and the importance of staying on top of that. So if you’re not subscribed to the PDQ go to notforlazymarketers.com/pdq because that’s the place and the container where I’m going to be consistently delivering you guys here is this just in, this is trending now, this is what you need to know right now, because even a monthly report or podcasts, by the time you listen to this… We’ve had conversations for the last four weeks about this on our team we’ve already pushed it out to the PDQ members because it’s that urgent. Of course, I bring it to the podcast, but most podcasts have a publishing and content schedule that’s not immediate. That’s just the nature of podcasts and the nature of content, whether it’s blogs, or YouTube videos, or anything. That’s still helpful and valuable, but you really in today’s world, in today’s industry, need a very quick turnaround, very quick feedback, and understanding of what’s trending versus what’s not before you become irrelevant. 

So not to overwhelm you and scare you. I do believe that you can build a process around this. Let me be the inspiration behind somebody who doesn’t even go on social media. I really don’t even scroll social media. I will occasionally have very targeted times where I go for either engagement or just catching up on DMS, but I’m not sitting there scrolling social media. I’m still able to stay up on the trends and really be the leader in that because of my team, and the processes, and the expectations, and the values we have as a company. So I hope this was helpful to you guys. I’ll talk to you next time.