In this episode of The Bathroom Break, hosts Daniel Murray and Jay Schwedelson discuss Instagram strategies for B2B marketing. They share tips on how to effectively use the platform to grow your brand and engage with your audience, covering topics such as algorithm preferences, Reels, hashtags, and the importance of video content.

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Best Moments:

(01:44) Jay's inquiry about Instagram for B2B marketing

(02:16) Daniel's overview of Instagram algorithm preferences

(03:00) Tips for creating and posting Instagram Reels

(03:48) The importance of using hashtags and music in posts

(04:38) Strategies for static posts on Instagram

(05:22) The emphasis on video content across platforms

(05:54) How to share podcast clips on Instagram

(06:29) The significance of shareable content and engagement metrics

(07:23) Techniques for maximizing story views and engagement

(08:22) Comparing Instagram to LinkedIn for B2B networking

(09:25) Closing remarks and podcast recommendations

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Foreign to a new special series called the Bathroom break. That extra 10 minutes you either have to listen to marketing tips or use the bathroom or both. But I don't recommend both. But that's your choice.

This collab is going to be super fun.

We have Daniel Murray from the Marketing Millennials and me, Jay Schwetelson from the do this not that podcast and subjectline.com each episode in the series we are going to go over quick tips about different marketing top topics. And if you want to be in the bathroom, fine, just don't tell us about it. Thanks for checking it out.

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the Bathroom Break with the Man. Jay Schwedelson from Do this not that podcast didn't mess that up.

And Daniel Murray from the Market Millennials. I want to ask you something because you, you've been on the road a lot. So what do you do on the airplane? Do you sleep? Do you watch movies?

Do you do work? What is that time dedicated to?

That's a great question. So the first thing I do is I avoid the person next to me, like as much as humanly possible.

And then any reality show that my wife doesn't want to watch, I will probably download that and watch that. Like she's not really into the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. And so I went deep on that.

And so I try to catch any reality show that she doesn't want to watch. And I don't sleep and I always have headphones in because I don't want to talk to anybody. And that's my jam.

Which is funny because you were the most outgoing person in person and you just don't want to talk to anybody on airplane.

No, I just want to talk to you right here. And here's what I want to talk to you right here about today. I want to talk about Instagram and here's why.

I got the perfect person, I believe and I want to know your take that Instagram is becoming more and more a place where business to business stuff is going on and I need to amp up my sharing, my doing, my growing for me, my brand, my company's brand. I don't know how to do it. I feel like I'm in an embarrassment. But you've grown your brand on Instagram really fast. So I want to get the inside scoop.

What should we all be thinking about on Instagram?

I'll just start with the high level stuff and then we'll go into tactical stuff. You have to use the platform how it's intended to use and what the algorithm likes right now. And what the algorithm likes is a couple of things.

One is posting reels.

But what I mean by posting reels is when you post a reel, what I do is either you can do video memes, you could do green screen talking because people want to see actual people. And I, I want to start doing more of that content too, of educational, informative content.

You can do statics, which we'll talk about statics a little bit way. But there's hacks on statics as well. So let's go into like reels first.

So when you post a reel on Instagram, what I like to do is use the editor inside of the, the, the platform. So I'll, I'll create half the, the, the meme outside of on like cap cut.

And then I'll use their tagging system, their writing system inside there to create the caption. And when I post it, what I'll do is I will add three hashtags.

So you, when you add hashtags, and unlike other platform, Instagram actually utilizes hashtags because it signifies what this content is about. Instagram needs to know besides the.

And that's why it's good to have reels too, because it signifies when you're talking and caption signifies what the content's about. So Instagram knows who to serve for. So what I do is three hashtags. Usually I'll do. My content is about marketing. I'll do hashtag marketing.

If it's a funny thing, I'll do hashtag marketing. Humor. I try to find ones with big buckets that could tell people, hey, this content is going to this person.

What I also recommend you doing is they have mu their music inside of Instagram. So pick the top music because there's a reason they're showing you top music because they want those musics to get more listens on the platform.

So they're going to serve it to more people when you use their music that they want.

So when I'm creating a meme, I'll try to pick one of the top 15 songs because I know that they'll start serving either that song or that music to the audience. I, I want to get served to the same thing with statics. What I've seen with statics is don't just post a static on a grid.

Add music to it and add those hashtags to it. A lot of people just post the static. But when you add music, for some reason, I've seen it get 25 to 50% more engagement to non followers too.

And that's the important because Instagram will serve it to a per portion of your followers. But the non followers is how you really grow your, your Instagram.

So using their music, using the hashtags are a quick way to start getting things off the ground. But you have to do what the platform really likes right now, and what they really like is video content.

Every platform is just doubling down on video content. So if you're in B2B right now, and I, I'm not seeing a lot of people do this.

Whether your podcast should, which I should be doing more of, should be video content, which Jay's good. And Jay should be posting more of his podcasts on Instagram. He's not doing that right now.

And that's like a huge miss for him getting out there on Instagram.

Okay, I, I need to ask you about that. Okay. Because I, I need to make sure I understand this. I'm going to ask you as if I'm an idiot, because I possibly am.

So I take the clip from my podcast or any video and I put it in there as a reel. Okay, great. Do I then share that to my story as well?

That's a tactic to get more views. Yeah. What I would do is share to my story and kind of block it. So it's kind of like a teaser of that video.

But what people don't know is 80% of engagement in Instagram, and this is coming from the head of Instagram, comes from stories in the inbox. Like that's where people use Instagram. So what you're, you're trying to do with creating content for Instagram is creating the most shareable stuff.

That's. And the metric I look at more than likes is how many shares this piece of content is getting.

So if you see that you post 10 pieces and one piece is getting more shares, that's something you should start doubling down for, for content.

So what you need to do is for that create content that someone is going to press share in their inbox or share to their Slack channel or share, create content that has that shareability like we talked about in a previous episode, lists how to content or hot takes from your podcast or hot takes from a guest from your podcast. People want to share those hot takes because they're like, aha, this is something I want to share with my co workers. It makes me feel smarter.

It makes me feel cooler going back to stories too. The, the best thing to do is start off your day with a story that has engagement to it.

And what I mean by that is either a poll, a question, something that gets people to reply or fill out a box. Because once you do that, it for some reason in Instagram makes the story get more and more views.

And what I would do is instead of if you have a series of things, if you post a story and you have like four other things you want to post on your story after, like let's say a slide show or a slide deck or something like that, what I'll do is post that engagement first and then post that four stories right after. Because that first one is we'll get engagement and then, and then they'll swipe through to the next four after that.

So you'll get more engagement from doing that.

That is a great tip.

I mean the hacks of picking the trending music and the hack of doing something like a poll or an open ended question as your first story, that is gold because you're right. You gotta play the game, you gotta follow what is going on out there.

And the other thing is get comfortable kind of being a little bit more of yourself on Instagram. Unlike LinkedIn which is a little bit more buttoned up, I gotta get comfortable kind of being uncomfortable. So I'm gonna do that also.

I'll add to that is that what I'm noticing from Instagram is that people are more willing to share and like because unlike LinkedIn their bosses aren't following them or usually like their best friend co workers are following them on Instagram. It's not a random co worker. So they are more willing to do comments and shares and reply to stories than they are on insta on LinkedIn.

Because when you, you know what happens on LinkedIn you like a piece of content and says Jay Schwedelson like this. And if you, your the post is about I hate my job, it, it might be not good for your boss to see that.

So but if you, if your post is about five ways to get your next job and you like that, your boss will be very concerned that you're posting that. So I feel like it's a more free place for B2B now where you can share things and meet people are more comfortable.

It's more of a safe space than LinkedIn. Like LinkedIn is the, the, the conference. Instagram's the networking party.

Oh, look at that. I like that. On that note, we're going to wrap that up because no one likes a party like Daniel. He is a, he's a party guy that's what he's known as.

Because I like to go and party.

No, nobody likes a part like Jay. If Jay. I've been to two conferences this year. Jay's been to 42, so.

Oh, I'm done. Done. You won't see me anywhere next year. I'm hiding out. But we're not hiding out. We'll be back for another episode next week.

We appreciate you all following the Bathroom Break. Go check out the Marketing Millennials podcast and the do this, not that podcast and go post something on Instagram. See you later, Daniel.

Come on, man. I gotta get back to work. Get out of there. All right, while he's still in there. This is Jay. Check out my podcast, do this, not that, for marketers.

Each week we share really quick tips on stuff that can improve your marketing and hope you give it a try. Oh, here's Daniel. He's finally out.

Back from my bathroom break. This is Daniel. Go follow the Marking Millennials podcast, but also tune into this series. It's once a week, the Bathroom Break.

We talk about marking tips that we just spew out. And it could be anything from email subject line to any marketing tips in the world. We'll talk about it.

Just give us a shout on LinkedIn and tell us what you want to hear. Peace out.

Later.