A

Hey, it's Mike Stelzner. What if you had an AI system that wrote your ad copy, generated the images and video, reviewed its own work, and made revisions, all customized to your brand without you ever touching it? That's exactly what Caleb Cruise is teaching AI Business Society members to build on July 16th. No coding required. Join today at socialmediaexaminer.com AI and if you're listening to this in the future and you missed it, the full recording and resource kit are waiting for you. Visit socialmediaexaminer.com AI.

B

Welcome to the Social Media Marketing Podcast, helping you navigate the social media jungle. And now, here is your host, Michael Stelzner.

A

Hello, hello, Hello. Thank you so much for joining me for the Social Media Marketing podcast brought to you by Social Media Examiner. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner, and this is the podcast for marketers and business owners who want more exposure, more leads, and more sales. Today, Jerry Potter and I are going to be joined by Chelsea Peitz, and we're going to talk about some important updates from Instagram. Take it away, Jerry.

B

All right, thanks, Mike. Great to be here. There's some important Instagram changes to discuss, including another subscription on top of Meta Verified and Meta AI, but it's unclear if it's for consumers or or for marketers and businesses. Also, Instagram is letting users edit their own algorithm, so we'll discuss how that could affect your brand's reach. And two new types of content that we have to worry about if we want to be on all the parts of Instagram. But the good news is one of them may be something you've already made. We're very excited to be joined by Chelsea Peitz. Chelsea teaches sales professionals how to leverage social media and technology to build a powerful personal brand and develop content that generates real leads. She's host of the Chelsea Pites podcast, and her most recent book is called what to Post to. Today, Chelsea, Mike and I are gonna discuss what these latest updates from Instagram mean for small business marketers and owners like you. Chelsea, welcome back to the show.

C

Thanks for having me.

B

Remember when Instagram, everything was free once upon a time, when it was so

C

simple and easy and there was no algorithm and you just, you know, who you followed was who you saw in the order they posted.

B

Whoa. Well, now here we are. It's a totally different era. We have Meta Verified. Meta AI is another subscription, and they've launched another subscription called Instagram plus, which is an optional thing, obviously, but it adds some premium features while keeping the core Instagram Experience Free Instagram has been very clear, like we're not going to a paid platform. But it's been kind of confusing whether this design for consumers or if it's for marketers and business owners. So some of the features, just to give us some context here, one is called Story Spotlight, so you can give your Instagram story priority for your friends, which sounds like it would be more reach multiple story audiences. So you can actually create audiences into lists. So you can essentially do segmenting, which would be a marketer thing. Story extend where you set your story to last 48 hours so people have more time to see it. I mean, what's your reaction to this, Chelsea? Is this something that as marketers we should be going, oh my gosh, this is amazing, we should sign up right away for or what?

C

My first initial reaction is that this felt more niche to me for a small amount of users that might be excited for some of the ideas. Now I kind of feel like half and half with some are for marketers. I mean, of course you could use all of them as a marketer. I think you mentioned on a previous show that it's not uncommon that a lot of people are not paying for premium subscriptions on any social media platform. YouTube has a premium subscription, even LinkedIn and that happens to be the most. But usually it's a very small, often single digit percentage number and I would be surprised if we saw the masses adopting it because so many people are paying for meta verified and I'm one of them. And that's $14 a month. If you add all this up, it doesn't sound like a lot, you know, 3, 99, $4 a month, but that's $50 a year. So I think that some of these are going to be very niche. I think some folks who are creators may really like to use them because they're fun, you know, custom fonts. I, I personally would just keep the normal fonts because with my age it's helpful just to be able to read everything easily. But I think that the Story Spotlight that you mentioned at the top is probably one of the most interesting because that one is going to move the placement of your story to the front, front of the lineup. And I think that could be interesting. I'm also kind of wondering, well, what if a lot of people do buy it and how, how do they make sure that they get everything in the front? I mean, I guess, you know, there might be overlap of people that are following, but that would be something interesting, I think to marketers to be able to move that story to the front. Because as you know, we open up Instagram and typically we're clicking on the first story that we see, not scrolling through to go to the end. So I think that one could be very interesting. The multiple story audiences, as you mentioned, segmenting, but very basic. So segmenting. So I suppose if you had a list that you had put people on, that could be a potential marketing purpose for that. Although I think consumers would probably just use that for friends groups, maybe colleagues, maybe family over here, friends over here. And I think the last one, I think that's the most interesting for me is the story extend. And I have mixed feelings about this because if you are a marketer and you're really tracking those metrics, you have to keep that in mind. If you have a story that's extending for twice the amount of time and you're looking at the number of views, it could be really easy to forget. Wow, we had a 50% increase in views on this story, but, oh, wait a minute, we had it up for double the amount of time. So I think that's something to consider as well. But you know, again, no matter where you have the story placed or how long you have it available to watch, if the story's not good, it doesn't really matter.

B

Yeah. And I feel like there'd be a lot of pressure then to perform in your stories if all of a. You're like, okay, I'm going to be at the front. And. And I think some marketers, you know, myself included, some days, you know, self destruct under that kind of pressure. Like, oh, now, now it's important. Not that it has to be important for a few dollars a month, but with something like this, like you mentioned, the story spotlight, you get to be at the front of the line when it comes to stories. I mean, would you see that as sort of like a soft boost strategy almost for businesses?

C

I could see that you mentioned the word reach. And yeah, that makes sense to me because if I'm following an account and they're at the front of the lineup and I only have five minutes to scroll, which would be a fantasy, right. Because I get lost in the rabbit hole. But if I timed myself and gave myself five minutes, I only have five minutes and I'm usually starting right there. Because as you know, there's not a very easy way to organize your stories. And I always go to stories. You can organize your feed, but there's no way to just like see your favorites in the stories list. So often the way that it's lined up is people that, that you are watching regularly, you're seeing at the front of the lineup and you're more likely just to click on the first one. So I think so I think that could be a marketing play.

A

You know, it seems like almost all of the features that you get for this $4 a month are related to stories. And the real question I have is what percentage of people are that are on Instagram are actually watching stories? Because obviously you're competing with everything else that's on the feed, right? So what's your take on this, Chelsea? I mean, have you noticed the percentage of your audience that is viewing stories versus the other kinds of content that you produce? Is it small? Is this something that really isn't as big a deal as we think it is? Is it more because your face is showing up there? Is that a brand play? I'm just curious what your thoughts are.

C

I think Community is really watching stories. So for a marketer or for a brand that has a really engaged community, this is most likely a personal brand. The stories are really, really powerful. That is where still we are seeing so many people. And even Instag head Adam Mosseri said people are going private. They're engaging more in the stories and in the direct messages and sharing privately and they're not posting as much on the actual feed. So a lot of people I think are likely watching a reels feed, let's say as television, as entertainment, less engagement for sure. They're going to the stories to really connect and engage with the creators that they want to and choose to follow. Because stories is a choose to follow area. The feed is feed me all the people that I know and I don't know. And most of the time it's people I don't know. And it's a discovery play. So for me, when I want to see the people I want to see, I go to Stories. So that is my personal favorite. I am biased because I like stories. Why do I like them? Because it's easy. I don't need a hook, I don't need to edit. And yes, it's very unedited. Raw people connect with that. So it would be really, really impactful for anyone who is in marketing, that especially is a personal brand, that they are the product they are the stories I think is still massively popular and probably gets more engagement than a lot of the stuff that's in the feed.

B

If I'm hearing you're right, Stories is almost like we should look at stories as the middle of the funnel. Right. So if a brand was attracting tons and tons of eyeballs with their reels, which obviously is top of funnel for most brands, then would you consider. I mean, and again, four bucks a month or whatever is. I guess in some countries they're testing this for even a dollar or two a month. Would this be worth considering then? If you have lots of top of funnel and no middle of funnel, I mean, you gotta actually start posting stories now. But is that kind of how you see the whole thing work on Instagram?

C

I think it could be. You know, you could look at it and say, what is the overall marketing budget if it is a company, if it's a brand and they're going to have more budget, and you might think, okay, four bucks a month, we could try that out and see what it is. And then for the everyday person, even though it is only $4, the cost of a small coffee, that can add up. And the idea I think for creators and consumers is, but why am I paying for X, Y and Z? Right? We have ads, ad revenues, where they make most of their money. We have verified, which a lot of creators need and want to use because the scammers and the bots are so incredibly savvy that you really need that. So to add on another layer, as a user and not just a marketer, as a human who is using the platform, I don't really want to pay for anything else. I feel like I'm already paying for a lot of things. So I think it would be a budget decision and people who want to test things out. I really see these as something that is more niche for the personal brand who has a lot of deep community involvement in their stories and people who want to see something longer or sometimes I don't check in on stories. So if somebody has a program or a launch that they're dropping that week, I very well could miss it. So I could see how you could extend that story, while in reality you could just repost it the next day. So I don't know that you really need to pay for a story extension. You can just repost it.

B

Yeah. We got to talk about how Instagram is now letting consumers edit their own algorithm and the effective reach on that. But before we jump into that, I got to ask you one more thing about this. As a marketer, the one reason I want to keep up on all the platforms and all the changes and, you know, the reason we talk about the things we do on this show is because we don't want to invest a lot of time and money in a platform if we think people aren't going to be there in the future. Right. Like, if we knew Instagram wouldn't be there in six months, how many of us would post tomorrow, potentially. So if they keep almost nickel and diming, the consumer side, hey, it's meta AI. Hey, it's, you know, Instagram Plus. Is there a point where we think even if they don't invest the money in it, that users are not going to want to be on the platform as much, do you think?

C

I think that's always a concern. And I think that's the line that every major platform, especially for profit platform, is, is figuring out. Because, you know, one, one area is how can we create another revenue stream? And the other area is. But we don't want to upset everybody because the, you know, the, the concept has been a quote, unquote, free platform, freemium, I suppose, with upgrades. So I think that, yeah, you've got to be careful because if you have a lot of people especially that are used to the way something has been, you know, generally speaking, a lot of people don't enjoy change. Not that this is a major change, it's optional. But I think if that optional piece was not there, that could definitely create a lot of unhappy users.

B

Again, it's only because there are so many of these right on YouTube. We have YouTube Premium, which I'm happy to subscribe to, to get rid of the ads, but it's not like they're like, oh, we have this and this and this. It almost might be smarter to do it in tiers. I think so. Okay. Instagram has introduced what they call your algorithm. Kind of love the name. And it's a feature that allows users to view and actively shape the top that Instagram is recommending to them. So what happens is you go in and it'll say, hey, here's the stuff we think you like. And you can remove topics or you can add new topics. And this applies to reels Explore. And then what you see in feed, obviously not stories since that is based on the people that you follow. It's interesting cause in the announcement, Adam Mosseri almost bragged about how Instagram was one of the last platforms to move to a recommendation model with TikTok starting that way, way back, and then YouTube switching, I think they said, in 2016. So I guess to heart, like, is this giving users real control or do you think this is just a PR thing? Because they, they gave us the chronological feed that everyone asked for and then they hit it and made it hard to use.

C

There's a lot of features and tools that we could be using as users. There is the dropdowns where we can change just to see following just to see favorites. And I'll be honest, when the algorithm came out, the. Your algorithm for real speed, because that's what came out first, they. They actually gave us the ability to see what are we being served and to change those topics. And I went in and I looked at it and I said, oh, this is pretty accurate about what I'm interested in. And then I added some as well. Then I also took some away. So I personally did use it once, maybe twice, not on a regular basis. And we are so used to algorithms in everywhere that we are at, whether it's Yelp for a restaurant review or Expedia for hotels or Amazon and something that we're trying to find. There is a benefit to having algorithms. They do help us sort and recommend content and they're pervasive. They're everywhere. So we are used to having an algorithm help us find the things that we're interested in and recommend that. So I think that it's a great idea. I love being able to see what it's serving you. I love being able to tell it, hey, I'm interested in this. And from when I've used it, it's worked. I've immediately started seeing content and less content of the things that I said. But like I mentioned, I went in there once, maybe twice, and I've never gone back in there and I kind of just forgot it even existed.

B

So unless your feed gets to be something you don't want.

C

Right, right.

B

And we've known for a while now on Instagram, if you post about the same thing over and over again, that's the key to reach. Right. You become known for one thing and you're going to reach new people as opposed to if you're trying to be a personal brand or post about a lot of different topics or mix personal and professional without an overarching theme. But does this mean now that becomes more important? Like, how should businesses think about this? You know, when you heard this and you thought about your clients, like, what's your advice for adapting to this? Do we need to fit into certain categories or what? Like, what's the approach here?

C

I wasn't concerned because I'll tell you one reason. I'll give you two. One, I've noticed that the algorithm inside of Instagram has categorized some of my content correctly and some of my content totally incorrectly. And there is no way for me to change that. I've used keywords, I've used hashtags, I've used the text on the screen. I've been very clear about what I've been talking about. And yet sometimes I see how it's categorizing down at the bottom with the AI and it is wildly inaccurate. Yesterday I saw that it was completely accurate. So I'm not exactly sure if the automation and behind the AI world of what's going on is super accurate, probably working and expanding as time goes on. But I've always told people it's not about creating viral content per se, it's about being viable for the people that you know that you can serve. Which isn't always going to be about a number of views or trying to fit yourself into a topic. As long as you know who your audience is and know what their pain points and their emotions are and how you or your service or your product or your company can help you solve those problems or answer those questions that they will be searching for online. That is a strategy that's been around since marketing was created. And I don't think that having different topics in an algorithm, you know, to check a box is going to massively impact that because ultimately humans are on the other side and they're going to be the ones that stop and watch. And so the scroll. So I don't think it's going to be anything major. It's a nice to have. It's nice to go in there and say, okay, what are the topics they're using? But I wouldn't say to somebody who's owning a niche that, oh well, this particular niche is probably too small because it's not showing up in the topics because it will tell you if it's, if it's not showing up, like it just won't have anything registered under it. I would say keep going. You know who your audience is. You're answering their questions thoroughly with firsthand lived experience. It's actually showing your perspective in there as well, or you're highlighting how to solve that problem uniquely with your product or business. So I don't think it's going to be a massive impact that people are going to need to change their entire marketing plan because at the end of the day it's still human beings who you are going to be helping. And those messages and that niche, you know, talking to their pain point is the key. And I think that will remain the key for, for successful marketing that reaches the right audience.

B

So real Quick. For people that don't know how do you see how your content is being categorized?

C

So I see it on my posts when I go to look at my own posts. And I don't know if everybody has this. I think we've talked about it on a previous show. But when I go to my own posts, I can see in blue right under. It's like a little magnifying glass with a little sparkle. And then it's blue font. And for example, I might have something about personal branding and social media, and I can see that it is listening to my content, it's reading my content, and then it's giving me a summarized version of what it is that I'm talking about. Sometimes it's accurate, sometimes it's pulling from just what I'm saying, if it's a video, and sometimes it's not pulling from what I have in the title or what I have in the caption. So I've kind of struggled with figuring out how are we all categorizing this? Because some of it is very accurate and some of it I was like, I don't even know where this came from. One of them said something like QR code. I was not talking about QR codes. I didn't have a QR code on anything and I couldn't change it. So it was very strange. And I have no idea how they're actually doing that, but I have had wildly inaccurate but also accurate results.

B

No QR code in your background or anything?

C

Nope.

B

That you could see. Okay. I'm not surprised. It's not necessarily picking up the title. Right. Like, they don't want to let people keyword stuff or try and manipulate, you know, around those things. Are there categories for some brands that should be worried if it's the type of. I'm just picturing if we think about this topic based. There are some topics that people are interested in, but they don't necessarily want to admit they're interested in. They don't want it listed that they're interested in for some reason? I mean, are there some of those either because it's sad or controversial or goes against what their family believes or things like that? I mean, is. Are there certain things that you think could see a decrease in reach from this because of that nature of the topic?

C

Yeah. I don't know how they're going to be doing anything like that on the back end with Instagram. I know that sometimes if you type things in, you just don't find anything. I know that when I look, looked through some of the topics that I wanted to add and also delete from my algorithm. On the Reels feed, when I got too narrow, too specific, I couldn't find anything. There were just no search results. I don't know what Instagram does on the back end as far as monitoring certain keywords. I'm sure that they do because there are keywords that are monitored. Like, I can turn off, you know, certain keywords for direct messages or things of that nature. So I'm sure that's a possibility. I haven't read any direct information on that specifically.

B

So, like, how should businesses be balancing sort of broad reach content? Like, here's what's on our mind today with content that maybe signals a specific topic or interest. Like, is there a, a general rule for this, like 50, 50, 80, 20 or. I mean, because I feel like if it's just reach, you want to fit into categories as much as possible, but now you're telling us that's not even going to work, even if you talk about the same thing all the time.

C

Yeah. And, you know, maybe it was just my account. I know a lot of other people haven't seen them, you know, their categories shown on the actual content. But what I have seen me think that they are doing more of this is yesterday it popped up where I see two lines and I've never seen that on people's posts before on their reels. And when I click on it, it gives me an AI generated summary of what the entire piece of content is about. I literally just saw it for the first time yesterday, so I haven't played with it. So I think that's probably the direction that it's going to be going. So there is some sort of system that is looking at a variety of different keywords and it's probably pretty accurate, but not all the time. I think that for, for businesses and marketers that are looking at, should I be worried so much about keywords? I would think that you would have sort of those content pillars that are already going to be created so that, you know, we're going to talk about, you know, products, we're going to talk about pain points, we're going to talk to specific audiences because they might have a variety of audiences. So I think as long as they have that strategy already in place, I don't think there's going to be anything major that they're going to need to change. Just because Instagram has rolled out the, your algorithm and a lot of people may not even use it because think about it, they May not even know. The general consumer probably has no idea. There's no big announcement that I've seen that's come open on my Instagram that says, wait, stop scrolling. You can now control your algorithm and you should go here. So a lot of users probably won't even know that it exists and that they can go in and change things. And a lot of people don't even know that you can click the three dots and say, not interested. So I think for marketers, they're going to know that. I think the average everyday user of Instagram likely isn't going to be aware that there is a way to even change or find those topics or where to go to even see what kind of topics that they've been seeing.

B

They should have an exit intent pop up. You know how you have on websites and it's like before you go, I don't know if the technology exists to do that in apps. I don't know if I've ever seen that before. But it's like if somebody logs in, only scrolls for 60 seconds, they're like, wait, you can fix this? You can change these things?

C

Oh, my goodness, I hope not.

A

You know what most marketers are doing manually? Ad creative writing the copy, coordinating with the designer for the images, waiting on video edits, managing revisions every campaign, every cycle. I wanted to fix that for our members. So on July 16th, I'm bringing Caleb Cruz to teach inside the AI Business Society. He's going to show members how to build personalized AI pipelines using Claude code that runs the entire creative process on its own. Copy, images, video, revisions, all customized to your brand. And you don't need to be a coder to do it. I'll be in the room for the entire session. I'm in every session and I can tell you members are going to walk away with a clear, buildable system that they can put to work. That very same week. If you can't make it live, the full recording and resource kit will be waiting for you. Transcripts, slides, key takeaways, the whole shebang. This is what we do every month inside the AI Business Society. Come and see for yourself. And don't miss this training. Join@SocialMediaExaminer.com AI Again. SocialMediaExaminer.com AI There's a couple of new

B

types of content on Instagram and as a marker, this is usually the last thing that I want to hear because it's like, oh my gosh, somewhere else to post. The good news is one of them that we'll Talk about in a second is one that you may already be creating content for. It's just kind of a new way to categorize it. But the first one found out during the pre show is not Chelsea's favorite. It's called Instance, and it's real time disappearing photo sharing. So if you haven't seen this in your Instagram app or you don't use Instagram as a consumer regularly, basically it'll prompt you to take a photo and then they disappear right after somebody views it, and they automatically expire after 24 hours. You can't upload from your camera roll. There's no advanced editing tools, so you have to take the mo. The photo in the moment. And it is instant, at least when I tested it, because as soon as you snap the shutter, it goes up. It's not like, oh, let me, let me retake that, you know, here in a second. Like a brand accidentally post something they shouldn't. I mean, can you delete it, like, right away?

C

From what I understand, you can delete it. I have never used it, nor will I probably ever use it, but I did. It says, yes, you can delete an instant if you post it and you're like, wait a minute, I should delete that. So according to the information that Instagram is sharing. Yes.

B

Okay, so you told us pre show that you don't like this feature, but now you're saying you've never even used it. So I guess talk us through what

C

makes I'm a rebellious. I don't want to use it, but I'm going to tell you why. First of all, we've talked about notes before and how you and I were like, I don't know, but I was definitely like, I was not a notes fan. I also feel like Instagram has done this before. We've seen this. Was it called Shots or something like that?

B

I think it was a separate app.

C

Yeah. So they tried this before where they were like, hey, let's do this disappearing thing. I get it. They want to appeal to people who perhaps are using disappearing content elsewhere and bringing that in. Of course, like in the moment connection again. Of course people are going more, you know, private more with friends and wanting to communicate with those people. However, the reason I don't like it is because it cluttered my inbox. And in the beginning, I saw a giant picture and every time I went to click on someone's message, it would open the instant, and I was like, I don't want to open this thing. I just want to get to my messages. So I became very frustrated. Well, I noticed that it keeps moving farther and farther and farther off the screen. It's almost. You can barely even see it now. So I'm wondering if other people gave feedback and said, wait a minute, why is this thing being forced right into my inbox and I'm accidentally hitting it all the time? And it was very frustrating. So for me, as a user, I did not like that it was cluttering my inbox and I was clicking on it accidentally over and over and over again every single time I went into my inbox. So maybe they fix that. Now I have noticed it's moved and I kept trying to swipe it away and it kept opening every single time I would try to swipe it away. So I got frustrated with it. So that is my point of why I didn't want to use it, because I just did not have a good user experience. And that, that's really my, my stubbornness around it.

B

So, location aside, putting on your marketer hat and somebody who, you know, earns a living by connecting people on to your business through Instagram, what do you see as the potential for this? Because just, I mean, off the top of my head, I go, okay, well, this is another platform we have to post on, but it does. Or another part of Instagram, but it feels, you know, perhaps lower pressure. We talked about stories and how powerful stories are from middle of funnel earlier, and one of the features they have is you can take a collection of your instance and it'll turn it into something you can publish to your Instagram stories. So, like, location aside, what are your thoughts?

C

Yeah, I think this could be really good for any kind of like Flash sales. If something is going on at an event where you want to see something that maybe isn't going to make it to the feed and people are really excited about it or excited about following a brand or a specific creator. I think that this could be really interesting because it's going to be disappearing content, but also very in the moment and you could feel like you're there at the event or maybe get information. It kind of feels a little bit like that insider scoop. So I do think that the product itself, I mean, there's been proof that disappearing content, very unedited in the moment content work works. It just hasn't worked in the same way on Instagram yet. And I do know that a lot of people like, like to be where they are, right? So if, if I go to LinkedIn to do a lot more in depth writing, that's what I like to do there. If I go to Instagram, because I like reels and stories, that might be what I do there. So again, I'm always looking at it from the user. Human behavior, Product psychology, part two. Because as marketers, we could try all of these things. And also, you know, humans are creatures of habit. So will people adopt a small little feature that happens to be in the moment? Maybe I think it will be a little bit of a harder uphill climb for people who are just not used to that and or already using another app that is made more for that. But I think that marketers could be using it for something to really drive community connection in the moment. You know, live types of events. Could be a really interesting usage point for it too.

B

Do you think there's any early adopter advantage with this? You know, new features often get more reach.

C

I don't know if that's going to be something that Instagram would say, hey, you're using, you know, this new feature. It's been the lore, the mythology that if you use the new features, oftentimes they'll give you a little bit more love. I couldn't hurt. Might as well try it, right? You try it and see what happens. And if nothing else, it's a fun way to be seen by, by more people. I mean, let's be honest, like I told you, my challenge with it could be positioned as a win because where do we always go? We always go to our inbox and if there's something there, it's really hard to be missed. And so you could definitely get a little bit more traction because you have something that people are going to their inbox. They may miss your stories because they may only be going through a few stories or they may be going through the feed, but people always go to their inbox. So the placement, I think is smart.

B

You must get way more messages than I do because I don't go to my inbox on Instagram that much.

A

What is interesting about this is I'm looking at the landing page when they announced this thing, and every single picture in here shows young people. We're talking really young people, like, like middle school, high school people. And they have a dedicated app called Instance App. So it seems to me as if this is a play to basically get the younger generation, because you know how the younger generation has kind of moved off of Instagram in some regards and moved on to Tick Tock and all these who knows what's next app. Maybe this is like a move towards, hey, all we want is pictures. You know what I mean? All we want is real photos and video clips and that's it. And I don't know, maybe they're just trying to, to see if they can get this sucker off the ground. And they say they've been testing this, this concept for a little bit of, for a little while. So I don't know. I just think the signals here are pretty clear. This is probably not for your average marketer.

C

Well, I think there was that other app. I didn't use it, but was it called Be Real? It was the one. It was very similar. Right. Where it was just sort of in the moment types of photos.

A

You only had like a few minutes every day to take the shot and it took the front and rear camera shots at the same time.

C

Right.

A

I mean, I got one of my kids who's still using it, but I don't think everybody's using it as much as they used to. But it is interesting conceptually. Maybe this is moving towards a hey, we just want to get be completely authentic, no editing, real raw authenticity kind of move. So we'll see where it goes. But typically it's the younger generation who, you know, starts these trends and then they move their way into the app. So my guess is there's some app out there and I'm sure someone is listening. Yes, there is the app and they know the name of it, but we don't know the name of it. And Instagram is just copying it because let's be honest, Instagram generally doesn't innovate. They copy.

B

They're the best. They're the best copiers in the world. And you're right, Mike, Notes was designed design for younger generations too. That was one that was, you know, supposed to catch on with that. Let me ask you this, Chelsea. Just, you know, in your gut and you know, maybe Mike, you can chime in on this as well. Are we still going to have this in 12 months? Like, is somebody going to be teaching strategy around instance at the next Social media marketing World?

C

I would be surprised if they're going to be a real dedicated area just for this one small feature. It would be similar to, like you said, having notes, an entire class just on notes or an entire session or training. And notes didn't last and they really, really tried. They really pushed notes for a long time. So I think we'll probably see this for a while. I would be surprised if it caught on massively because there's a lot already going on in the app and people are Usually feeling more overwhelmed when they're looking at all of the different features and all of the different surfaces and all of the different place. And it's hard enough just to keep up with the creation of the content and looking at the metrics and the dashboard and the trends and all of the things that go along with it. So my vote, if I had to put money down, I would say probably not going to see this going to become the next big thing. As far as Instagram goes in about in year. I don't know how long it'll last, but we'll see.

B

Yeah, the overwhelm is real. I mean, even on the Facebook side, they just announced they're bringing back the Creator Studio app, which is going to be basically an analytics app separate from Facebook. And I assume Instagram will be in there as well if they're integrated. So it is a lot. All right. Another type of content. The good news is this one you may already have stuff for. Meta is testing a new series feature that lets people organize reels into episodic collections on Instagram and Facebook. And basically each reel in a series becomes an episode within a dedicated series hub on the brand's profile, so viewers can watch content in sequence. So that's definitely an opportunity there. If somebody discovers an episode in their feed or the Reels tab, they can easily navigate to the full series and save it for later viewing. So no more of this search for the next episode or anything like that. And Meta said we're already seeing serialized content take off. So is this the signal, Chelsea, that if we're not right now as brands and markers, we should be thinking about episodic content?

C

This is a finally feature. This is what we call the finally feature, where we have been wanting this for a long time. Yes. Because series has always series playlists. It doesn't matter what you call it. It's always been a thing, thematic content, content that all goes together, especially if you're talking about a very specific topic over time. I think this is hugely value valuable for marketers, for consumers. We've seen it everywhere. Part one, part two. This is my series on X. This is my signature series. Uh, and this is not the first time that this has happened. It's almost, I think, hopefully the better version of IGTV. If you recall, in 2019, they were going to be putting out series and I used those and I was so thankful that they were there, but they were kind of clunky. And then guides, which, you know, I really wanted to love. I used those too, because it was a way to combine things together in one spot. But I think with the way that we consume reels now and the episode episodic content, and even if people are thinking, oh, I don't have. Have a series. You don't have to have a series. You can have a theme, right. And put everything in your playlist just like you would on YouTube or, you know, if you're using something that's a playlist or series or episode of content. So I think this is awesome. And as a user, I've personally seen it out in the wild, and I love that I can just click on the watch whatever the series is and go right to it. So I think this is a really, really awesome thing that they've been rolling out.

B

Should we just call them playlists? I mean, I know they're calling it series, but for the sake of. It's a playlist. Okay.

C

Yeah, okay.

B

It almost makes easier, right, to go, oh, I can think of things for my brand that I could put into a playlist as opposed to, well, now I'm Netflix. I've got to go create series, you know, with this type of thing.

A

Real quick question on this, Chelsea. Is this yet another tab on your profile or whatever? Then you got reels and then you got another icon for a series, or how does that get organized?

C

I don't have it yet. They're only testing it with a certain number of creators. But yes, I believe that it is going to be another section which does, I know, kind of feel like, oh, that's already a lot going on there. But yes, there will be a place that people will be able to see the different series playlists, whatever we decide to call them. And I think that that's going to be really, really helpful because again, watch time, watch time, watch time. The more somebody watches your content and goes to the next one. And I personally, as a consumer, have. Have been someone who watched playlists not on Instagram, because we didn't have habit, but elsewhere, where I went down and watched all 32 episodes and then hired that person or worked with them. So I am a consumer of serial content. And that particular content wasn't episodic in the sense of Part one, Part two, Part three. It was just themed content that was all about a specific topic that I was highly interested in. And what I really loved, actually, was the part where I could see that they had put content in there from a year ago or two years ago. I actually enjoyed seeing the older content and how it evolved and the new things they were Talking about within that theme to the current day. So I liked that it was a lot of content that wasn't necessarily part 1, 2, 3, watch this in order. But it was just themed content. And I also like that I could see them talking about it two years ago and how it changed and what updated to current day.

B

Okay, I like, I like where we're going with this because we talked about reels top of funnel, of course, the most reach potentially for new people stories could be great for nurturing. But this is starting to feel like this could be an incredible conversion mechanism. Like you can almost take conversion content if you were a product based business. It could be positioned as an faq, but it's really overcoming an objection in each video. Or it's a how to use tutorial. Or, you know, if you have a, you know, if you sell through workshops or sales calls or different things like that, I mean it almost sounds like you could disguise your sales process as, I mean it's still content. But I mean, is that kind of how you're envisioning this then? Is it could be bottom of funnel almost?

C

I think it definitely could be that. I think it could be at the bottom of the funnel. And it's for somebody, like, for me, I was actually not looking at any content that was from like a creator or personal brand. I was looking at products from somebody who is making products and they were showing how to use the products, answering a lot of questions about them. And I wanted to make sure that I did all my research and I watched all of those videos and as a consumer who was going down the rabbit hole, so to speak, of that person's content, I found it extraordinarily helpful and I made a decision and ended up buying the stuff from that person. So I think it can be more bottom of the funnel in that capacity because people just want to learn and they want to learn from somebody who's going to explain something thoroughly and show you and say, here's how this works, here's exactly what to do. And so I think it can be definitely bottom of the funnel, middle of the funnel. I mean, it really could be all of the above. Because if you think about it, somebody could see one of your series, maybe it's episode four. Even maybe, though it doesn't need to be in that order, and then go through and see that you have all of these playlists and the first thing that they're going to think is, wow, whatever the topic is, this person has a level of expertise and to create more and more of this content. So that's already building some of that digital trust and then to be able to consume that content and then go to the next one and next one and the next one and then make that decision. It is a bit of a little funnel built right into Instagram.

B

I think my primary platform is YouTube and sometimes when I'm trying to talk somebody out of Instagram to come to YouTube, what I say is on YouTube somebody can watch, you know, three 10 minute videos in a row and they spend a half hour with you.

C

Exactly.

B

But now that potential's there on Instagram as well, is kind of what you're saying.

C

Yes, it is. And I believe that they're also testing much longer form content. So I would not be surprised that this rolled out out in right before more longer form content. I know Instagram's been trying to make long form content a thing on their platform for a very long time. That's nothing new, but perhaps because of this feature, it might be easier to do that as well. I think they still will have a quite a battle to take over YouTube in that arena, but nonetheless they're going to keep trying for longer form content. But these playlists, I have wanted playlists list for since probably 2017, so I am personally very excited to get them.

B

So if somebody's listening right now and their brain is spinning about content, they could create into a series, but they want a quick win. Like if somebody's looking at their past reels, like what types of things would you suggest people look for if their brain's just not going there right now, that could be immediately put in the moment they got the feature into a series.

C

Right. Anything like how tos, reviews, comparisons, process step by step educational content, informational FAQs, like you said, answering unasked questions, questions people should be asking, there is likely a good chance that you already have a lot of that content, like you said. And how great would it be able to go through and place all of those older videos or reels or carousels or pieces of content into one playlist? That would be excellent. So yes, you don't necessarily have to start from scratch and create content. Hopefully you're already creating content like that, that which is highly searchable and shareable and that's the kind of content that will increase reach and help people grow organically. Because we generally share things that are very helpful, educational, informational, help us see things in a different way, change our perspective, etc. So that is probably going to fall within a lot of the content that might be episodic and series based, but it doesn't necessarily have to be. But I think for marketers that's probably going to be the sweet spot. Something that's more how to more expertise, more educational based and you likely have a lot of those. It could even be, you know, customers, customer generated content. Kind of have everything all in one place where you could see happy customers and see that they're here. Their experiences with working with that company and that brand, that could be something too, because I personally do look for that kind of content and I want to see multiple people talking about their experience working with or using that product. So I think that could be both really helpful in a variety of ways.

B

Well, and again, to reiterate, you can add something to a series that you've already made. So if you don't have the feature yet as of this recording, it's sort of in testing and rolling out. But since they've tried a similar feature before, I feel like maybe this time it'll hang around. You could go ahead and start creating the content then and then add it to your series later. It sounds like yes. Love it. All right, now I'm excited about Series Chelsea. This has been a fascinating discussion. Thank you so much for joining us today. People want to explore working with you. Where do you want to send them? Where's the best place to find you?

C

You can find me on Instagram. It's just my first and last name. It's Chelsea Pites. P E I T Z Chelsea and

A

Jerry, thanks so much for being on the show today. Hey, if you missed anything, we took all the notes for you over@socialmediaexaminer.com 7:26 if you're new to the show, please follow us. And if you've been a listener for a while, we would love a review. Do check out my other show, the AI Explored Podcast. This brings us to the end of the Social Media Marketing Podcast. I'm your host Michael Stelzner and I was joined today with my co host Jerry Potter. We'll be back with you next week. I hope you make the best out of your day and may your marketing keep evolving. Catch you next time.

B

The Social Media Marketing Podcast is a production of social media executive stamina.

A

Before you go, if you want to stop grinding through the ad creative process manually, the AI Business Society can help. Caleb Cruz is teaching members how to automate the entire process on July 16th. Full recordings and all the resources are included with your membership. Join@SocialMediaExaminer.com AI Again, Social Media Examiner.com AI.