Instagram Insights that gave me 910% Growth in 6 months

I have been experimenting with Instagram for the last 3 years. In fact, my experiments got so serious that I started my Instagram from scratch in February 2019. 

[ Read: 5 Reasons Why I am Rebuilding My Instagram From Scratch ]

5 Insights that gave me 910% Growth in 6 Months

1. Nobody cares about me
2. Validate what the gurus say
3. No Stories. No Growth.
4. Commenting is 50% of my strategy
5. Promote Others

#1: Nobody cares about me

Everyone talks about posting things like branded quote cards with pictures of yourself doing something cool with a quote from you. 

Boom… Personal Brand Baby. 

Newsflash: Nobody. Cares. (For the most part) 

Nobody cares unless it helps them. My personal quote cards. My teaching videos. All the stuff that I thought were really good in building a personal brand like the world tells you to do… totally did not work for me. 

Then one day I posted a list of my top 5 favorite interview questions. I got 91 Direct Messages that day in response to that post within the first few hours. 

That’s when I realized that building a personal brand was figuring out what my loyal audience loved and giving that to them. Not promoting myself so that they thought I was cool. 

While I am continuing to experiment… I am spending more time doing infographics and list-posts with my entrepreneur-centric audience in mind, with longer story-based captions and doing a lot fewer traditional "personal brand" quote card crap.

#2: Don’t be a Guru Junkie

Let’s be real: The (self-proclaimed) gurus are out to build a brand for themselves and sell you stuff… most of the time. 

What works for them is probably not going to work for you. You can’t keep up with Gary Vee’s content creation team or Grant Cardone’s sales team. They will just beat you on pure volume. Besides, a new hashtag secret has no impact on your growth, your business, or your bottom line. We need to get out of the "grind" mindset for social media. 

So I went on a search to find some Instagram gurus that I could learn from, follow, and emulate. After sorting through 17 people, I landed on two people whose advice has been on-point 100% of the time. 

Those two people are Jason Capital and Sunny Lenarduzzi. I have done all the research for you… and I follow them, so you should too. 

#3: No Stories. No Growth

I fought doing Instagram stories. 

The truth was I didn’t really understand them. I didn’t see the point. Almost like Snapchat… which I am still trying to "get". 

Then I decided to stop looking at people’s posts for a week and just look at stories. And then I started to get it. 

The fact is, everyone, is telling you to "do stories" but most people have no idea "what to do". To make matters worse, there are people telling you "how" to do stories but now they are layering on top of our lack of understanding. 

I am as smart as the average bear. It took me a week of just watching a lot of people doing stories to get what was good and what was bad, what I liked and what I didn’t like, and more importantly "how" to do it. 

My biggest revelation came when I found myself feeling more connected to people whose stories I had seen. And the best part is that Instagram "knows" that and the algorithm with start showing you more posts of people’s stories that you engage with. Fascinating. 

So I did an experiment…

Week 1: I posted ZERO stories

Week 2: I posted one 1-minute video story every morning 

Week 3: No Stories

Week 4: I posted one 1-minute video story every morning and shared some random posts into my stories

While I will not bore you with the details because I am shocked that you are still reading :) let me just tell you that 

On the week’s I did stories, my engagement with feed posts, interaction in DM, and overall engagement (metrics and feeling) were up 4.5x. 

Bottom Line: No Stories. No Growth. 

#4: Commenting is 50% of my strategy

I cannot expect people to like, comment, and share my posts if I don’t like, comment and share their posts… right? 

What a novel idea, Sharran! :) 

When I open up Instagram, I force myself to look at it from the filter of how can I comment, engage and appreciate content. 

Here is my commenting strategy that I learned from trial and error and by reading a lot of stuff out there:

1. Reply to all comments left on my posts
2. 10 comments on the Top 10 people I follow daily
3. 10 comments on the Top 10 hashtags I follow daily

I spend 50% of my time on Instagram commenting v. liking. I would rather make 1 comment v. 10 blind-likes.

Be social. What a concept. :)

#5: Recognize and Promote Others

It hit me that there is almost no place better for public recognition than social media. I don’t know why it took me so long to realize this but with a personal following of over hundred thousand across the major platforms now I am more convinced than ever about my new 80/18/2 rule on social media

Sharran’s 80/18/2 Rule

80%: Recognize and Promote Others

18%: Share what I stand for (my message, stuff I love, stuff I have learned)

02%: Promote myself without attachment / experiment

Here are ways to recognize and promote others:

Share a post or podcast that they did and tag them

Write about them in your next caption and tag them in your post

Do an IG story on what you learned from them

DM someone you haven’t met but love their stuff and compliment them

If you want to connect with someone, don’t DM them and ask to pick their brain or sell them something… recognize and promote them a LOT.

Don’t go to bed unless you recognize and promote someone every single day on Instagram.  

All the best,

Sharran

PS: Jump on my VIP list, I write a private email for top entrepreneurs every day called the Daily Mojo. I think you would enjoy it :) ?? sharran.com/dailymojo