So strategy podcast episode 76. Everyone says we're in loss and welcome to the strategy podcast bringing you the best in online business, social media, professional fashion networking. And today I'm going solo just for a few minutes. Actually, I'm not going to go into a super, super long episode.
This is only going to be a just a quick hit. There's a lot of stuff that happened this week. The biggest thing being Instagram stories, the straight up copy of Snapchat by Facebook. One of the funniest ways I've heard this whole thing being described is that Facebook is Debo from the movie Friday.
And when he sees a bike, takes a bike, like everything that Facebook has saw Periscope, what they do, Facebook Live, Debo, and that comparison, it actually, it actually came from Glamazini. Look up that profile out on Instagram everywhere. Pretty much Twitter, Glamazini. I'll actually link her up in the show notes because that was funny.
She's a YouTuber and mom and just one of great bloggers that I know. And that was really, really funny. I'm going to see if I can get her rant and posted here somewhere. If she saved it, it was in her Instagram stories.
But I wanted to talk to you quickly about Instagram stories because people are wondering, OK, this is a Snapchat thing. I'm not really sure that I need to do this. I wasn't on Snapchat to begin with. So why would I want to jump on Instagram stories?
It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Why would anybody want to listen to something that's going to disappear in 24 hours? Well, the thing is, is that it creates a sense of seeing things live. Snapchat is a behind the scenes look.
It's a minute to minute review of your day. It's showing you what's going on. You're getting a glimpse into the person's life. And I tell people all the time that Snapchat is one to one at scale.
It's a one to one conversation when you're talking to the camera and you're looking at the camera, you're having a conversation with a person that's looking back, whether it feels like it or not. It's different than a video that you would watch where they know that it's going out to a wider audience, even though you know that with Snapchat and now with Instagram stories, it still feels different. And people watch the entire thing because it's only 10 seconds. And if you missed 10 seconds of it, it's gone.
So you got to go back and listen to it. Now, the good thing with Instagram stories is you can actually go back by tapping the screen and looking at the video. There's a whole lot of stuff you can do with Instagram stories that you can't with Snapchat. You can look at it as many times you want without having to scroll down and find the story.
Although there are a lot of stories, depending on the amount of followers you have and how many people are doing Instagram stories, which is increasing every day. You may have to search a little bit to find it, but the thing is that you can search to find it and then you can consume more content. So one of the things that I talked about in a LinkedIn article I did is the major key is that you now can discover people. You finally have the ability to search for users that have invested interest in your brand.
And that's what's so important about Instagram stories. There's no discoverability on Snapchat. It's just not there. When you're trying to find someone on Snapchat, you have to go out right now to ghost codes.
And there are a couple of other sites out there to figure out who's talking about what and then follow that person and hopes that they'll follow you back. But you don't know whether or not. Well, actually you do know on Snapchat if they're viewing your story because you'll see who viewed your story, but you really don't have a way of reaching out to that person without going to another site to consume content. Since you're right there on Instagram and you see something in your Instagram story and you're just letting them play and something grabs your interest, you can then go back and look at that person's profile and see other stuff.
So for a brand, you can place calls to action right in your profile. You can create a company or business Instagram page and have people contact you directly through your profile. You can put your name, your phone number or your email address. Well, not your name, your names are about to fault, but you can put your email address, your phone number, they can text you or call you right there.
There's going to be another little button next to your edit profile and they'll just see contact when they go out to your profile so they can contact you. That means you can put those CTA's, those call to actions in your post, either on pictures or in videos to send people wherever you want them to go, whether that's a capture page, whether that's just your website, whether that's another social media profile like your YouTube channel where you're trying to drive viewership. You can do all of that now with Instagram stories by giving them a small glimpse into what you're doing to get them to go to your profile so that now you can drive them where you want to go. And the cool thing about linking your Instagram account to your Facebook page, because that's how you have to do it in order to have a business Instagram account.
I've got a short little video out on my Facebook page that shows you exactly, you know, the advantages of having that in place. There's going to be a video in the show notes where I walk through all of this, including some Instagram story stuff that shows you some of the stuff that you can do, the analytics that are there. You can tell who's watching the video, how many people are engaged, how many people actually took some type of action by clicking on your video, liking it, making a comment, stuff like that. That is powerful.
You can't do all of that with Snapchat. And you know, saying that it's not saying that I prefer Instagram stories because quite honestly, I don't, but the sharing is so easy. You can save the video. So you do it once.
And if you decide or you see that there's a lot of engagement on the video, because a lot of people have watched it, you can then post that permanently to your Instagram account for them to continue to consume and for more people to consume. And then you can hashtag it to get even more people to view that video. Then you can run promotions from that same post to make it even more powerful and make more of an impact. So there's a lot of layers to what you can do with Instagram, not that they've instituted the stories mode that they copied from Snapchat that Snapchat doesn't have all this ability yet.
Now there is a lot of bugs. It's very, very buggy. Um, I've had it lock up on me when people are talking. It's just a image.
They're not moving. It's not perfect, but they just copied it. So, and I keep saying that, but it's the truth. I mean, it is pretty much a carbon copy of Snapchat.
The only difference is is that it does have a lot more features right now than Snapchat does. So it makes sense to just use it. And you do want to get that first movers advantage. You want to get on it early, start talking on it early, keeping a story out there and fresh so that people have something to go to and watch anytime they go to Instagram and pull up their own Instagram.
Hopefully you're up there in their stories so that they can see it because guess what? Instagram has an international audience and Chris Rimer pointed that out. Rizzo T's on Instagram pointed that out in the story he was doing yesterday. He's like, you know, Snapchat is big in the US, but not everywhere else.
Instagram is big worldwide. So you can have your story go out like a Snapchat story to people internationally. And if you have an international audience, guess what? You can start driving into your Instagram page and your Instagram stories to interact with you there and connect with you on a deeper level there.
But like I said, you know, it's still buggy. There's still some things that need to improve, but I think it'll get there over the next couple of weeks as they do updates. And I would not be surprised if there is an update out there already, which I have not checked to fix some of the bugs with Instagram. So definitely going to be monitoring and screening the progress there and looking at it.
So I mean, there's a lot of people already doing articles and tutorials, Kim Garst did a tutorial. I'm going to link to that in the show notes and should be having Kim on the show coming up here soon. We just got to coordinate some schedules to talk about. You know, Snapchat, Instagram and of course, you know, Facebook, we're going to cover it all.
So I'm definitely looking forward to having Kim Garst on the show. We just we chatted a little bit yesterday, which is one of the things that's powerful about Instagram stories because she was watching my story. I'm like, Oh, wow, look, Kim actually took a look at my story. And I was looking at her story and we started commenting and next thing, you know, talking to her about being on the show, you know, who knew that's that's just how it works.
The more connections you can make and the easier you can make them, the more things that happen. So I just want to kind of go over Instagram stories, talk a little bit about it. Of course, guys, there are new episodes out of the podcast. Go check it out.
Shelly David, the last interview that I posted right before this one, really, really interesting for health and wellness professionals. You guys got to check her out. She's doing some great things in that space. And she's doing a lot of it over social media.
She built her business basically on Facebook, Facebook instant messenger and the inbox, as people call it on Facebook and talking to people and getting her message out there. It's really amazing and inspiring story. And I really enjoy the conversation with her. And I also have another one coming up with another startup guy.
And this is this is a really cool interview because guess what? It is local. It's a local guy here who came back from Singapore to have his startup in St. Louis.
And that's a really interesting thing to do. We talk about everything, including parkour and how it translates over to business, the skills and the risk that you have to take. That was a fun interview. I really enjoy talking to Nick.
So check out the podcast. There's going to be a lot of stuff coming up, lots of stuff going on. Of course, you guys know I'm writing the book, master your message, how to find your voice in meetings behind the mic on the stage in any situation. It's coming out soon.
Go and sign up, get on the email list for the book. It is not going to be the same one for the website. I'm not doing that. It's Vernon Ross.com, four slash book.
Got a video out there. There's going to be two more coming out where I'm talking about some key things in the book that I want you guys to pick up before you even buy it. So if you get some value out of it before you get it in your hand, so you know, this is something that you want because on launch day, when we look forward to you guys supporting the book, getting it in your hands and learning some stuff. So if you're a podcaster and you're looking for sponsorship, what's pie being, there's a new advertising marketplace, sign up for your podcast, Vernon Ross.com VR, pie being free, get free 30 days on me to check out pie being.
You guys know, I made great deals. So definitely check it out 30 days for free, sign up, any of the plans, check it out, it's unlimited. You get to really kick the wheels and drive around the block, see if you like it. See if this is what you want to do.
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And yes, I'm doing that with pie being to help them build out this marketplace because they're doing some good things in podcasting. And I like what they're doing. I like the company. I love the CEO.
He's a great guy. Shannon Martin over there is great, it's a great podcasting company. And I really enjoy working with those guys. So definitely check that stuff out guys.
Of course you can find me everywhere on the social medias at Ross PR right now. Talked about maybe changing that. I'm not sure, but maybe Facebook.com, four slash Verne Ross VR in Ross, not Vernon Ross, but Verne Ross at Ross PR on Twitter, at Ross PR on Instagram, check out my stories, I'm on Snapchat. If you're still using it, if you haven't abandoned Snapchat, as a lot of people have said they are because Instagram stories is Snapchat for adults.
But if you haven't abandoned it, I'm on Snapchat at Ross PR. A lot of stuff in the show notes this time. And it's mostly about Instagram, which I've never really done a show about just one platform, but this is kind of a disruption in the social space. So people are really, really excited about it.
But I want to do a quick episode to kind of update you guys on what's been going on and everything like that and how you can use it and how you can take advantage. Definitely check out the article on LinkedIn. It's got a link up in the show notes and get out of here. See you in the next episode.