So here's something that has been driving
me bananas and I have been producing
content for Instagram specifically for a
long time and we
haven't seen that much growth.
In fact, we see marginal growth on
Instagram and I'm like,
I gotta crack this nut.
Like, we need to be growing this platform
because we do so much on this platform
with the tiny audience that we have.
What would be possible if we grew this
audience and reached its full potential?
So, our content was all over the place.
Some posts would hit, most wouldn't, and
then I'd have no idea why.
And we were just creating blind.
And we'd have an idea and we'd create it,
but we would check the analytics after
posting, but we weren't really studying
what was already working in our space.
And then I discovered a little tool that
I'm gonna share with you in this episode.
And it's a tool that pulls the top
performing posts from
any account or topic.
And I literally just spent like an hour
looking at the 50 highest performing
posts in our particular market.
And oh my goodness, the
patterns started to jump out.
Specifically, things like text first
posts with simple graphics, way
outperformed fancy videos.
I was looking at posts that were starting
with certain types of hooks, or I would
look at celebrity name drop posts that
were getting three times the reach.
So then we created a simple playbook from
what we found and we started testing
different variations.
And literally, within weeks,
right away, we started to get more and
more reach from every
post that we were publishing.
Now, here's what's beautiful.
This isn't about being creative per se,
it's about being observant.
So here's the bottom line.
You really need three things.
You need a monthly research habit, a
weekly testing rhythm, and
a 15-minute review process.
So let me break it all down.
Point number one is
your monthly research.
So I wanna encourage you to spend one
hour per month studying what's working.
Now, I mentioned that I discovered a tool
that has been a huge helping hand in
this, and it is a Chrome
extension called Sort Feed.
I'll make sure to include the links and
all the information in the
show notes for this episode.
But bottom line is this Chrome extension
is something that makes it so stinkin'
easy to see what's working for people.
So basically, once you've got this
installed, you can open up any Instagram
feed and then you can sort the posts
based on views, based on comments, based
on a ton of different options.
And right away, you can
start to see patterns.
I could immediately see what was working
from a format
perspective, like text versus video.
I could see what was
working from a hook perspective.
I could see different topic patterns.
I could see all kinds of things.
Now, the key is when you see these
patterns, don't just flat out copy them,
because you don't wanna copy.
You wanna find what game is being played
so that you can play it better.
Now, research shows, according to
BuzzSumo's content analysis, the top 1%
of content share
common structural patterns.
They're not random successes.
So you and I, our whole goal is to
identify what are those common patterns
and then ask ourselves the questions, how
could we apply those
patterns to our content?
And that's really the secret sauce.
You wanna use a tool like Sort Feed to
identify the patterns.
See, most of us, we just scroll through
Instagram and we randomly see content.
But with Sort Feed, you can immediately
identify a winning format.
I was doing this for a client of mine
that hired me for a VIP day.
And one of the things that I did was
analyze her competitors and immediately,
immediately, we found a format that was a
home run win for one of her competitors.
And it was glaringly obvious, because out
of the top 20 posts, 18 of them used this
specific format and pattern.
Now, this is gonna be different for you
and for every market that you're in.
But my point is, is that
you gotta do the research.
And using a tool like Sort Feed is a way
to immediately see what
is working and what is not.
Now, Sort Feed is a
paid Chrome extension.
I think it's now on a monthly basis,
bottom line, it's a tool that I use all
the time and highly recommend it.
But the bottom line is you and I are
trying to find patterns.
That's what we've gotta identify.
So whether you're using a tool like Sort
Feed, or whether you're using now right
within Instagram itself,
you can go to the Reels tab.
And if you have the latest version of
Instagram, you'll see a little dropdown
menu and you can actually sort their feed
right there on Instagram by views.
So that's a start, right?
So there's a whole bunch
of different ways to do it.
There are other tools.
I like Sort Feed, but bottom line is that
you want to use this to
be able to find patterns.
So number one is you
gotta do the monthly research.
Number two then is
you want weekly testing.
So I want you to set up like a 15 to 20
minute meeting where it's the same time,
same day, every week.
And what you want to discuss in that
meeting is what did we test last week,
what happened, and what are
we going to test next week?
So you always want to be in this frame of
mind where you're gonna
be testing different ideas.
And so you want to micro
test different examples.
Like maybe you want to run a test with a
text first post versus a video first
post, where it's the same message, but
you're just delivering
it in a different format.
Or maybe you want to test
different time-based hooks.
Like this morning, I realized versus a
location hook, like at the coffee shop.
Like I remember back in episode 217 that
we recorded with Sam Demma, he was the
creator who grew his social following to
millions in literally six months.
And one of the things that he identified
was that when he used a specific
time-based hook that we are talking about
here, like when he mentions a specific
location, like when I was in San Antonio
or when I was on a dock in Muskoka's,
like specific locations or time, they
increased the number of views.
So guess what he started doing?
He started doing more of
those types of hooks, right?
So you want to micro
test different examples.
One of the tests that we started doing
was we would incorporate marketing
lessons from big well-known celebrities.
And if you look at my most popular posts,
some of them, some of my top most popular
posts are posts where I'm mentioning
people like Taylor Swift as an example,
or Ryan Reynolds as an example.
And so what we've discovered is that
there's a format there
that's working for our audience.
Again, I don't know if it's gonna work
for you and your audience, this is
something you wanna test.
But once you start finding those common
patterns, you wanna try then to test
different variations and test different
examples around that working format.
So another good example would be like
testing with a carousel with five slides
versus eight slides or different format
or whatever it might be, right?
So you're always testing
something, but the rule is simple.
You wanna test one thing at a time.
So if you change everything, it's gonna
be really hard to identify what is the
one thing that is working.
But if you're constantly testing every
single week just one thing, you're gonna
be able to identify the few things that
really make a difference.
Does that make sense?
Okay, so you in this scenario is you're
building a database of
what's working for your audience.
But the only way to discover that is you
gotta try different things, different
formats, different delivery styles,
different structures.
You just wanna be testing
different stuff all the time.
And this by the way, kind of speaks to
the point of why producing regular
content is so important.
This is why we publish three posts a day.
We usually do two reels and a carousel.
And a big reason for that is we are
constantly testing different ideas.
So a lot of times people say, oh my gosh,
that sounds like a lot of work.
Well, not really because we're trying to
discover the things that are right for
our audience as fast as possible.
I just wanna speed up the process.
So the more content I publish, the more
learnings I accumulate and
therefore the faster we can grow.
So bottom line, test one
new thing a week at minimum.
Okay, point number three,
the collaboration shortcut.
So collaborations and name drops, like we
mentioned earlier,
aren't just nice to have.
They are a shortcut to
expanding your reach.
HubSpot found that collaborative content
gets 47% more reach than
solo content on average.
Now there are two really
simple ways to do this.
One is just a name drop.
So mention someone respected in your
industry in your post
and they might share it.
And number two is direct collaborations.
This is where you co-create content with
someone who has a different audience.
So let me give you an example of each of
those types of content.
So one of my favorite things to do when I
go into a bookstore is to rearrange the
books to give friends of mine who have
written books more prominent shelf space.
Am I the only one that does that?
By the way, if you're ever in a bookstore
and you see my book, "Predictable
Prophets," I would love to see you
rearrange the shelf, give that prominent
bookshelf space, and then
take a picture and send it to me.
I love that.
Anyways, that's a
common practice that I do.
So in every bookstore that I go into, if
I see books of friends of mine, I will
make sure that the book
has prominent shelf space.
And then I typically take a picture of it
and I usually will text it to them.
But then one day I
thought, you know what?
Like, I'm gonna
create a reel around this.
So I created a reel and then I tagged all
of the authors that I rearranged their
books for in that particular reel and a
bunch of them shared it.
So it wasn't a post
that we collaborated on.
I've just basically mentioned them
because I was rearranging their book.
And they then shared that reel, which
then expanded the reach, which then
attracted more followers to my account.
So that's an example
of the name dropping.
Now, the direct collaboration is where
you actually create a
reel with another creator.
So one of my favorite collaborators on
this is Matt, Matt Diamante.
And he and I met a couple of years ago,
we were invited to an
Instagram group for Canadian creators.
So like Meta hosted this group and the
whole purpose of the group was to help
creators be able to expand the reach.
It was awesome, by the way.
Really grateful for that group.
And ultimately it helped me meet some
other amazing creators
and Matt was one of them.
And we actually live
fairly close to each other.
So we ended up like getting together
multiple times and we, every time we're
together, we create various posts.
Now he has since joined my impact
mastermind because he launched a
membership after learning about
memberships and he's absolutely crushing
it, which is so fun to see.
And then I have learned so much from him
because he has a very dry topic.
Like his topic is SEO.
You can't get much drier than that.
But yet he makes it super interesting and
he's grown his social following to I
think it's over like 350,000 plus now.
Like it's crazy, but he
does it in a very creative way.
So I love collaborating with him.
So whenever we get together, we typically
are gonna end up producing like three,
four, five different
pieces of content together.
And what's amazing is that when we
collaborate and we share that, his
audience gets exposed to me, my audience
gets exposed to him and we both grow.
And so I love this
direct collaboration concept.
And this isn't new, but it doesn't often
become a common practice that you're
seeking on a regular basis.
So I'll just tell you, like part of my
strategy this year is to
do more collaborations.
So when I'm with people, then I'm being
intentional about like
asking to create content together.
Now I'll just tell you from experience,
take the initiative.
You know, one of the things I appreciated
about Matt was he
initially took the initiative.
And so he came up with the
ideas and had some suggestions.
We created it.
And then he created the real.
And then I just saw the magic in that and
how easy that was for somebody to say,
yeah, and to collaborate on a post,
especially if somebody else is doing the
majority of the work.
So for me now, like when I get together
with other creators,
I'll take the initiative.
I'll create the post itself and then
collaborate with them on it.
And now that gets
shared to both of your feeds.
It is magical what can happen when you
begin collaborating with others and the
reach that that then makes possible.
Cause you're not just
creating content together.
You're also creating shareable moments
and there's something
to be said for that.
So I don't encourage you
to just name drop randomly.
It has to make sense for your message.
Otherwise it's just gonna feel forced.
But whenever you can, I encourage you to
name drop with other creators and biggie
size that by looking to
do direct collaborations.
So bottom line here in this episode is
that success leaves clues.
I use sort feed to pull up all the top
posts and then I look to create a
repeatable playbook around that.
And your playbook is your cheat sheet.
What formats work?
What hooks work?
What topics work?
You wanna zero in on those so you can do
more of what works and
less of what doesn't.
And then you just update it monthly and
you're updating it from all the tests
that you're doing on a weekly basis.
Think of it like a recipe book.
You're collecting
recipes that you know work.
You're just trying to
find the right ingredients.
So here's what I want you to do.
I want you to block one hour on your
calendar and go find the
top 20 posts in your niche.
And I want you to write down three
patterns that you notice that you are
going to start using in your playbook.
And then next week, I just want you to
test one thing from that
playbook and track what happens.
Did it work for you?
Did it help you get more reach?
Did you get more
engagement, more comments?
And do this for 30 days and you'll have
more insight than most
people get in a year.
Now, if you found this helpful, I
encourage you to subscribe.
Go and hit the subscribe button because
oh my goodness, we've got a doozy episode
coming up first thing on Monday.
It is with somebody that has sold more
than 4 million copies of their book.
Can you imagine?
So what makes a book
sell 4 million copies?
Well, we talked about a recipe.
There is a recipe for doing that as well.
And on Monday's episode, we break it all
down with the one and only Jay Papazan,
author of "The One Thing."
It's an episode you won't want to miss.
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