Instagram is where Americans are spending a good chunk of their time nowadays. And why not? Photos, videos, stories, and even live broadcasts provide endless ways to interact with audiences. One publishing trend you should begin using is the “carousel” strategy. We’ll explain how you can hop on in today’s episode!

Episode Transcript:

Jeff Lambert:                Instagram is where Americans are spending a good chunk of their time nowadays. And why not? Photos, videos, stories, and even live broadcasts provide endless ways to interact with customers. One publishing trend that you should begin using is a carousel strategy and we'll explain how you can hop on that in today's episode.

Jeff Lambert:                Hello everybody, and welcome to Inbound Academy. I'm your host, Jeff Lambert. So today we're going to be talking about Instagram carousels. This is a content strategy that you can put into practice, could be able to help increase the follower accounts on your social media channels, particularly Instagram. So to talk about how to use these Instagram carousels and the benefits of using them overall, I've invited Nichole Mena, the creative director at risen to come and talk about this a bit more. Nichole, thanks for coming.

Nichole Mena:              Thanks for having me, Jeff.

Jeff Lambert:                So I think we should start off by talking about social media, why it's worth business people's time to establish a presence there. Can you tell me a little bit about Instagram, because we're talking about carousels and that's mainly an Instagram thing. How popular is Instagram?

Nichole Mena:              Oh, it's popular. And gaining popularity, which is awesome. According to Hootsuite, which is one of the largest social media management platforms out there, they tell us that 1 billion people log into Instagram every day.

Jeff Lambert:                Okay.

Nichole Mena:              So that's a good amount of people. 63% of users login at least once a day, which is a pretty impressive number.

Jeff Lambert:                Sure.

Nichole Mena:              The gender usage is pretty split, about 52% female on 48% male.

Jeff Lambert:                Okay.

Nichole Mena:              And then 200 million users visit at least one business profile a day.

Jeff Lambert:                Wow. So specifically profile setup for...

Nichole Mena:              Business.

Jeff Lambert:                Okay.

Nichole Mena:              Correct.

Jeff Lambert:                Wow.

Nichole Mena:              And then the potential advertising reach is over 800 million users in 2020.

Jeff Lambert:                So that's the outlook coming up.

Nichole Mena:              Yes.

Jeff Lambert:                That's an insane... That's more than the amount of people in the United States.

Nichole Mena:              That's right.

Jeff Lambert:                Wow, okay. So Instagram is obviously a platform where people are, is an effective way for businesses to establish a presence. What are some ways that Instagram is currently used now that's been successful for businesses? How can I use that on its basic level?

Nichole Mena:              Sure. So Instagram can be used in multiple ways and to post different types of content. So we can use it for images, for videos, for stories, which is more the interactive elements obviously, and then live broadcast, which is IGTV. It's gaining a ton of popularity.

Jeff Lambert:                So this can be as basic or as complicated as I want it on Instagram.

Nichole Mena:              That's right.

Jeff Lambert:                That sounds like it's a lot more multifaceted than something like Twitter or Facebook. Is that a fair statement to make?

Nichole Mena:              It is. Facebook has its similarities as well because you can use carousels on Facebook also.

Jeff Lambert:                Okay.

Nichole Mena:              But obviously Facebook owns Instagram, so you could see where that direction.

Jeff Lambert:                Yeah, they're trying to get the copy of the two.

Nichole Mena:              That's right.

Jeff Lambert:                In Twitter I think you can do live video.

Nichole Mena:              You can do live video, right.

Jeff Lambert:                But not so much the carousels. Right?

Nichole Mena:              No, not so much the carousels.

Jeff Lambert:                So you get one picture, one shot.

Nichole Mena:              Yeah.

Jeff Lambert:                Or one video, one shot. Okay. So I can see why this has become popular, and I can start off by posting just regular photos on my Instagram profile, all the way up to doing live broadcast.

Nichole Mena:              Yes.

Jeff Lambert:                Okay. So I have options if I'm going to set up an Instagram profile. Why don't we talk about this carousel thing you mentioned. It's a term I'm not a hundred percent familiar with, so can you give us the basics of what a carousel is and how I can use it?

Nichole Mena:              Absolutely. So it's a way of posting existing photos or videos at one time to create a story, or a lesson, or even a tutorial, so it's more like a slider.

Jeff Lambert:                Okay.

Nichole Mena:              Instagram allows you to put up to 10 photos or videos to be published as one post, which is great. And once you've shared, audiences will see a set of blue dots on the post to indicate that it's a carousel, so to keep moving through the images or videos. And then users can swipe back and forth to see all those videos or photos. And then there's the ability to choose the order of the content too when you're adding it, and you can add filters and even tag friends to each of the videos or images that you're posting.

Jeff Lambert:                Okay. So it's almost like creating a slideshow on social media.

Nichole Mena:              That's right, yeah.

Jeff Lambert:                And the ability to add users, like you said, to tag. On the third photo, is this account or this brand.

Nichole Mena:              Exactly.

Jeff Lambert:                Okay. So that's a lot more multifaceted in terms of I can show 10 videos or photos of a product or a service as opposed to hoping just one resonates.

Nichole Mena:              Yes.

Jeff Lambert:                Okay. Can you tell me some ways that businesses are using carousels now that works?

Nichole Mena:              Sure. Yeah. So obviously a popular segment is the beauty and cosmetics industry and those channels use carousels to post before and after photos. People use it to show off case studies, and obviously promote their services and products in a more unique way. And you can share personal stories that progress like stories.

Jeff Lambert:                Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Nichole Mena:              And then you can do posts that are like mini tutorials or lessons, which is a really popular way to create that visual version of a blog post, let's say.

Jeff Lambert:                Yep.

Nichole Mena:              You can even post footage and behind the scenes content, which is fun. And feature testimonials or customer reviews is really popular.

Jeff Lambert:                Okay. So again, some very interesting ways that you can apply these Instagram carousels. I think it's always easier when people can look at an existing carousel, or an existing copy of something, and say, "Okay, that's how you do it," and then apply it to your own business. Are there any influencers or businesses you would recommend that some of our users follow so they can see carousels in action?

Nichole Mena:              Absolutely, of course there are. Obviously some big players, we all know Disney. They use carousels to show a lot of behind the scenes content for movies under production, which is really cool. I'll invite you to look at that, that's pretty neat. DC Comics shows sketches during the beginning stages compared to the published content, so that's a cool thing that they do.

Jeff Lambert:                Sure.

Nichole Mena:              And a company like Airbnb while feature photos and videos for featured properties on their platform, which is nice.

Jeff Lambert:                And that's got to be so much more of an organized approach to take as opposed to I'm going to create 10 separate posts on the same property, like for Airbnb. I can put it on one post and just have people scroll through in a more organized fashion.

Nichole Mena:              That's right.

Jeff Lambert:                So the benefit in this is really the ability to help the user get kind of a multistage to view of whatever you are talking about.

Nichole Mena:              Yes, said perfectly, yes.

Jeff Lambert:                I can see where that would be as a benefit. And overall, do you think that carousels are something that we're going to see more businesses start using in the future?

Nichole Mena:              I do believe so because it's such a great tool to use to showcase instead of posting different posts at once, you can really encompass an idea a lot easier with carousels.

Jeff Lambert:                Okay. So to our listeners, to our viewers, give carousels a try. It's a proven way that you can include more people in the conversation and increase that count. And that's always the goal.

Nichole Mena:              Of course.

Jeff Lambert:                So Nichole, thank you so much for coming by.

Nichole Mena:              Thanks again.

Jeff Lambert:                We'll see you on another episode.

Nichole Mena:              Okay.

Jeff Lambert:                And to our listeners and viewers, thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. Remember we come out with a new episode on a weekly basis now, and it's always going to be filled with information that is going to help you grow your business. If you'd like to partner with an organization that can help you with your marketing efforts and they're experienced and they know what they're doing and they have a great attitude about building a relationship with you, check out Rizen Inbound. They're available at gorizen.com. That's with a Z. Gorizen.com. You can also follow them on social media to learn more about what they do on a day to day basis. They are on Instagram, some carousels there too, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn at the username gorizen, one word, gorizen.

Nichole Mena:              [inaudible 00:08:24]

Jeff Lambert:                Oh no. Shit. Okay.

Speaker 3:                    Retake.

Jeff Lambert:                Let me think. Where can I cut that? Do I have to do the whole thing over again?

Speaker 3:                    No, just start from, "You can reach them at..."

Nichole Mena:              "You can reach them," mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jeff Lambert:                Okay You can follow Rizen on social media at Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and by searching for the username rizeninbound. That's one word, rizeninbound. And remember, if you want to help us out a little bit, please go on the podcast app of your choice, leave us a review, it always helps us be able to find that new listeners and to grow on podcasts as a whole. So thanks again for your support. We'll see you on the next episode.