Oh, I've never done that before.
I've got good news and I've got bad news. The good news is,
is that Instagram is still pushing out Reels.
Meaning it's getting you in front of new people like never before,
six months after this feature came out. That's incredible. Now the bad news is,
is that some documentation from Instagram leaked out and it
said that Instagram wants you to make between four to seven Reels a
week. Oh, I've never done that before. Even for me,
an Instagram marketer,
that's a lot of content that Instagram is suggesting we create and it
gets worse. The recommended numbers that leaked from Instagram,
I'm not going to lie. It's pretty intense.
And I'll share all the recommendations at the end of this video,
but for this topic where I want to cover my Instagram marketing strategy
for 2021,
what I thought I would do is actually look back at my top performing posts from
2020,
because that data is my best shot at knowing what's going to work for me
going forward into 2021. So in this video,
I'm going to show you what my top performing posts were from 2020.
And I'm going to give you a little insight as to why I think those posts did so
well and what I'm going to take from it,
how I'm going to carry that strategy into this 2021 year. Alright.
So I have my insights pulled up on my phone and you get insights if you are a
Business or a Creator account. And what I did was select "reach".
So I wanted to know which posts got the highest reach,
and then I chose for the entire last year.
So if you want to play along with me and look at your settings,
those are the settings that I chose for this. Now, interesting enough,
the top three posts from 2020 are quote cards.
This was a surprise to me and when I look at them,
two of them were animated quote cards, and one of them was a static quote card.
So take a look at what I mean by a quote card.
What I did with these posts was I packed in done-for-you
ideas into the post itself.
So 16 Instagram Story ideas for business,
six Instagram caption starters, five Reel ideas for business.
Those are my top performing posts. They have nothing to do with me.
They aren't a GIF. They aren't a meme.
They are information packed quote cards.
So why did this type of posts do so well for me in 2020? Well,
when I dive into the insights of each one of these posts,
I can see how many people shared them.
So many people shared these posts because they clearly found them helpful,
and they thought that their audience would like to see this post too.
And I believe that is why my reach is so high for these type of posts,
because these are shareable quote cards.
That was my intention in creating an info-packed quote card like this.
I wanted people to be like, OMG, this is so good. I need to share it.
So I can look at the data on every single post. See that, yes,
these got a lot of shares and they got a lot of saves.
This also indicates to the algorithm that wow, people are liking, saving,
sharing, sending this post all around. Okay, well,
we're going to share it to more people. Hence the highest reach.
If you're interested in stealing this strategy for your own business,
I have made a video all about how to make quote cards right here.
So be sure to check it out.
My one tip that I'll share about quote cards now is,
think about for your industry and your niche.
What kind of done for you content can you pack into a quote card?
My quote cards, for example, I'll give my audience ideas.
I did the brainstorming for my audience, and then I just gave it to them.
So think about that for when you're designing a quote card for your industry.
And my second tip that'll sneak in is try to animate the quote card too.
So all these quote cards were designed by me and made by me in Canva.
I'm not a graphic designer,
but I was able to put these together and then to ensure that my reach goes even
further, I animated an element of most of these quote cards.
So I added a sun animation or an underline animation
that way in Canva,
I'm actually able to download it as a video and upload it to Instagram as a
video, which I believe improves my reach. Alright.
So the next type of content that did really well for me in 2020 is videos.
So when I look at this video, How to get 10,000 followers overnight,
this was actually a TikTok that I had created and I uploaded it into my feed -
this was before Reels really came out - I uploaded it into my feed and I cut
off the top and the bottom so that you couldn't see the TikTok watermark.
I knew that this video did well on TikTok. So I thought, Ooh, why not?
I'll bring it over to Instagram. And the proof is in the pudding.
This was a 10 or 15 second video set to music. I'm not even talking in it.
I'm just pointing. And there's a bit of a plot twist as well.
But this type of video really kept people engaged on TikTok.
And the same thing worked on Instagram.
Now you might notice one thing when you're looking at my best performing posts,
there are no Reels. So if my Reels did better than this post,
I don't have that data right now.
So I'm really hoping that Instagram does eventually release data on our Reel
videos and includes them in a summary like this. Because again,
as I look through my top posts, there are no Reels here.
And I know my Reels did really well because some of them have 200 or
300,000 views. So while we're here,
let's talk about videos and let's talk about Reels and how they're going to be
incorporated into my Instagram strategy for 2021.
The short answer is more.
More video. More video than photos or static posts.
The data doesn't lie, and just like this TikTok video,
as well as the second one where I'm wearing a pink shirt.
Those are two TikTok videos that I posted to my feed,
they were some of my performing posts.
So when it comes to top performing video content,
these were posted in my feed and they happen to do really well because they were
made in the TikTok format.
So I'm not suggesting that we do more in-feed video posts.
What I'm going to take away from this is that I continue to make Reels and
upload them into the Reels section of my Instagram profile and make
sure that I preview them in my feed.
That's what I was doing for the most part at the end of 2020 and in the
beginning of 2021.
So instead of taking my TikTok video and posting it to my feed,
I'm just going to actually post that same kind of content to the Reel section of
my profile because as we know,
Instagram is still pushing out Reels six months later,
and Instagram has actually said, you know,
we're putting more weight into this feature because it's new,
because we want people to adopt it.
So I can't think of any other feature that we've had six months of glory days.
So keep it going if you haven't tried Reels jump on it now. And if you have,
keep making Reels. So that's what I'm taking away from this. Short form,
edu-tainment, that's education and entertainment together,
short form edu-tainment videos are doing really,
really well for my Instagram strategy.
So looking back at my insights from the last year,
the next type of posts that did really well are carousel posts.
These are the posts that you can swipe through and see up to 10 images or videos
just in one post. Now,
I find this surprising that these were some of my top posts because carousel
posts can be tricky when you're an outside viewer and looking at the number of
likes on a carousel post, I find that it's typically lower.
And so you feel like, Ooh, this post didn't do so well.
But when I look at other insights like saves and shares,
carousel posts do really well, usually,
especially when it comes to being shared.
So when I look at these top carousel posts,
Anatomy of a great Instagram caption, of course, the engagement post,
I kind of knew that was going to do well, but that one was a personal post.
It did well. And then, How to make an Instagram Reel 101.
These were all info-packed carousel posts.
And I made sure to build in call to actions in both the caption
and in the carousel images themselves to remind people to save this
post for future reference. So I think that really helped us.
So if you're making info-packed to carousel posts for your industry,
for your business,
be sure to include little reminders in your graphic or in your image to save
this post for future reference.
When it comes to carousel posts for your Instagram marketing,
I've seen people use them in a way where they're kind of telling a story over 10
different cards and then putting them all together in one post,
you could try that out for your business. But for my post,
what I'm seeing is sharing step-by-step information and giving people straight
up ideas on how to do something is what my audience resonates the most with my
content.
Last but not least the next best performing piece of content for me in 2020 was
a new addition to my strategy.
And that is GIFs or memes. They're kind of the same sometimes,
but the post that I'm referring to is after I watched the Queen's Gambit,
I decided to grab one of the GIFs from the show and
connect it to my Instagram strategy. So the post says,
Staring at my Instagram at 2021 strategy like,
and then the character from the show is saying, let's play.
I also wrote my caption to be related to the Queen's Gambit.
And I made sure to connect it back to how you can approach your own Instagram
strategy.
So it took a little creativity to take a pop culture reference and something
that I knew was trending because people were talking about the show quite a bit,
and then I binge watched it.
So it took a little bit of creativity to take the topic of the Queen's Gambit,
which is a show about chess and connect it back to Instagram.
But people really liked it.
This was the first time that I tried this strategy by taking a GIF and embedding
it into a post, but because it performed so quickly so fast,
this tells me that this is a great piece of content to create going forward.
And I'm definitely going to keep this kind of strategy going. Okay,
so there you have it.
That's a look at some of my top performing posts and the type of content that
I'm going to keep going for 2020. Now, remember the beginning of this video,
when I mentioned that some insider secrets from Instagram have leaked out? Well,
what ended up happening was a blogger who has an Instagram presence was actually
contacted by Instagram in October of 2020.
This person reached out to this blogger and said, Hey,
I want to help you with your Instagram strategy. So of course she said, yes,
even though this was a little unconventional and this blogger ended up having a
conversation with someone from Instagram and she ended up reporting on
what happened in that conversation.
This rep from Instagram gave her specific advice on how much she should post to
grow her Instagram. And this is what the advice was:
He said the goal was four to seven Reels a week, she said,
this felt like something more than general guidance.
So she started asking questions.
How many photos or videos should she be posting to her main feed? Three a week,
she was told. How often should she be posting Instagram stories?
Eight to 10 times a week, but preferably at least two times a day.
What about posting longer videos to Instagram TV? One to three per week.
Consistency was key, the rep said. Now,
even as an Instagram marketer where I've kind of committed myself to making
content for the Instagram platform, I read that and I think Whoa, Dolly, like,
this is going to become a part-time job. To recap,
Instagram's recommending three feed posts a week, eight to 10 stories per week,
preferably two a day. Four to seven Reels per week.
And one to three IGTVs a week.
The blogger who reported this information admitted that this was a lot and
probably way more than what the average person can do because most people have a
life and work and school outside of posting to their Instagram.
I kind of feel the same,
but it also really encourages me to keep up one key aspect of my
marketing strategy for 2021. And that is Reels.
Video marketing. I can see from that recommendation,
that Instagram cares about video a ton. Right now it's pushing out Reels.
It also wants us to keep up long form video.
If you're someone like me and you create YouTube videos, for example,
you could bring those over into your IGTV channel. But even if you're not, like,
even if that's too much, I think the key takeaway here is Reels.
Instagram Reels is what Instagram wants you to focus on.
And even when we look at Stories, that's still video-based content.
So all signs are pointing to video for 2021 for
me and my Instagram strategy.
I think what I'm going to do is prioritize Reels as number one,
shareable type posts as number two,
carousel posts as number three and then videos,
whether it's in-feed videos or IGTVs as number four.
So that's my priority list. If I can keep those up for my feed posts,
I'll be really happy.
And of course I usually post to Instagram stories at least once a day.
So that's kind of a habit that I've got down,
but that's also in addition to all my feed posting. Alright.
If you're with me this far and you're down to incorporate Instagram Reels into
your Instagram strategy this year in 2021,
I have something for you that's going to make that task a whole lot easier
Meet Videos Vault. Videos Vault is 300 done-for-you,
brainstormed ideas for your TikTok or Reels.
I've done the brainstorming for you,
and I've come up with a hundred ideas for you as a coach,
a hundred ideas for you as a service provider and a hundred ideas for you as a
product-based business. So if you're ready to jump on Reels or TikTok,
but you have no idea what to create in 15-second video format,
head to VideosVault.co, and check out this program.
I think you're going to love it. To ease and revenue,
I'll see you in the next video.
Thanks for watching today's video on what my Instagram marketing strategy is for
2021. If you liked it,
don't forget to actually like the video and subscribe and hit the bell so that
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