Amy Vaughn:
Alright. Hello, everyone, and welcome to our weekly power lounge. This is your place to hear authentic conversations from those who have power to share. My name is Amy Vaughn, and I am the owner and chief empowerment officer of Together Digital, a diverse and collaborative community of women in digital who choose to share their knowledge, power, and connections. You can join the movement at togetherindigital. com. And today, our guest is none other than Jen Herman. She’s a globally recognized Instagram expert. If you’re not following her already, head on over and follow, follow, follow.
Amy Vaughn:
She’s a social media consultant and international speaker. She is the author of not one, but 3 game changing books, Instagram for Dummies, Instagram for Business Dummies, and the ultimate guide for social media networking. Her insights have been featured on major publications, including Fox News, BBC News, Yahoo Finance, Entrepreneur, and HuffPost, just to name a few. But what really sets Jen apart is her unique blend of business acumen and social savvy with a background spanning administration, sales, human resources, and marketing. She really brings a holistic approach to helping businesses of all sizes, which we love, structure their social media strategies for maximum impact. Because as many of us in digital know, it’s a lot to keep up with, and yet Jen’s influence extends far beyond the written word in case you’ve seen her books and read her books. She is also a sought after international speaker and is renowned for providing actionable tips. Like I said, go follow her on Instagram for sure.
Amy Vaughn:
Great tips there. And valuable resources and transformative training that empowers organizations to harness the full power of social media presence. And, of course, some of those tips will be shared here today as we have the privilege of tapping into some of Jen’s wealth and knowledge on Instagram marketing as well as just being a badass single mom and doing it all. Do you know? And doing it really well. So get ready, everyone, to elevate your social media game with one of the best in the business. Everyone, please join me in welcoming the Instagram guru herself, Jen Herman. Welcome, Jen.
Jenn Herman:
Oh my gosh. What an introduction. Thank you so much for helping me. I’m so glad Hey. You know what? When we’re in a
Amy Vaughn:
community of awesome ladies, we like to hype each other up. So, yeah, we’re excited to have you here. Like I said, we have been following you for a while, and I’ve loved seeing, you know, what you’re building and growing, and it’s just very clear what you’re doing is a passion. Right? It’s a business, but it’s a passion. Like, you love it, and that’s what we love about you. Yeah. Right? Because you love this.
Jenn Herman:
Thank you. Yeah. No. It’s you you don’t do all this unless you’re passionate
Jenn Herman:
about it. Well, because our our listeners
Amy Vaughn:
I might not know this, but you’ve built this very impressive career, being a globally recognized Instagram expert while I mentioned earlier being a single mom, but, also, if they look at your LinkedIn, maintaining a full time job, folks. So can you share a little bit with us about how you’ve managed to, well, do all this really, grow your business alongside these significant commitments of motherhood and running a business? And what sorts of insights could you possibly offer to those who are maybe dreaming of entrepreneurship while juggling all of these responsibilities that we do have as women?
Jenn Herman:
Yeah. I mean, I’ll try to keep this short because this I mean, this alone can be a 45 minute conversation. But, you know, I started Gen’s Trends, you know, 11 years ago, and I’ve been at my day job for 14 years. So I started this while I still have the current job that I have now. And it really was a hobby when I started this. It was a blog. It was, you know, writing about social media. There was no strategy.
Jenn Herman:
There were no clients. There was no, you know, revenue. Like, I wasn’t doing it to make money. I was just bored on the weekends and wanted something to do, so I started a blog. And it evolved quickly. Back then, Instagram was still relatively new, obviously, and there weren’t a lot of people talking about it strategically. So I fell in love with the platform and decided I’m gonna start blogging about Instagram more. And because nobody else was, it didn’t take long for me to start ranking on Google and start getting podcast requests.
Jenn Herman:
And next thing you know, I’m, you know, I, I went to the social media marketing world, which at the time was the biggest social media conference in the world. And I was like, I’m going to be on that stage. Like that was my goal. I wanted to be on that stage. And literally a year later I was on that stage. And that, that was like my, my kind of crowning moment of like, I set that intention. I manifested that. And I was like, I did that.
Jenn Herman:
But then it was like, well, now what do I do? So it was kind of always, you know, like, I built this, like you said, alongside the full time job. And, you know, it’s never been directly an exit strategy by any means, but, you know, I’ve had all these life experiences happen. So I I started Gen’s Trends in 2013. I had my daughter in 2015, then I got divorced in 2016, then we had COVID. Oh, yeah. Like, so there’s been all these life things that have happened. And what most people don’t know is that when I got divorced, I paid my ex husband all the alimony and child support. So I had to support myself financially, so I needed 2 jobs.
Jenn Herman:
You know? And I live in Southern California. I live in a very privileged neighborhood. My daughter goes to one of the best schools, and you can’t live here on a single income. Right? You have to be a 2 income household. And so it’s really a matter of survival. Yeah. That’s you know, there’s passion and there’s desire, and I love what I do. My day job is great, and I love what I get to do for Jen’s trends, but it honestly was a matter of necessity.
Jenn Herman:
And, you know, as parents, we do what we have to do. And so having benefits and stable income and everything from a day job is just too good to give up right now. Right. So you keep doing that. And then but building the business, the one thing I think I can ever give people when you’re if you’re looking to say, hey. I wanna get into entrepreneurship and I wanna, you know, start this. It’s 2 things. 1, don’t start out trying to make money right away.
Jenn Herman:
If you’ve got a full time day job, build the business, build the brand, build the recognition, build your skill set, take the time to get where you wanna go without having to chase money. That was one of my biggest advantages. I could build a brand. I could go speak pro bono. I could go on podcasts, and I didn’t care about getting paid because I had income coming in from the day job. Once you leave that day job, you have to chase the money from the side business. Right? So build the foundations of your entrepreneurial journey and your skills and your brand while you still have that day job. And then the second thing would be to make sure you communicate very, very clearly with your spouse, with your family, your kids, your parents, your friends, whoever it is, because doing something unpaid that takes a lot of time builds a lot of resentment.
Jenn Herman:
And when you’re building your entrepreneurial, you know, start, you’re not going to make a lot of money. And that might mean you get up at 5 AM on Saturday and work until 8 AM when the kids, you know, are finally up and ready in for breakfast. But your spouse needs to know, like, that’s your quiet time. Don’t bug me. If you’re a night owl and you wanna work from 7 PM to midnight, you know, the spouse is putting the kids to bed and they know that’s mommy’s quiet time to work, but you have to have those open dialogues and conversations. Because once you start making money, the resentment comes down. But until you start making money, there’s a lot of resentment. There’s the, you know, you’re not spending time with your family.
Jenn Herman:
You’re picking this business over me. You don’t care about your family and you’re not making any money. It’s not doing anything for us. It’s really easy to do that. So you have to have open communication and explain where you want this to go. Like, you’re doing it pro bono now, but in 2 years, this is your exit strategy from your day job. In 1 year, you expect to be making 10, 20, $30,000 or whatever that number is. But set those expectations, and if you’re not hitting those goals, have that open dialogue with your spouse as well and say, okay, well, we’re not where I thought I’d be in 2 years.
Jenn Herman:
Where do you think we should go from here? Should I keep doing this? You know, do I need to bring somebody on to help? Are we willing to absorb that cost? You know, when you start this, you don’t have a team. You have your family, and you have to treat them with the respect that you would a business team.
Amy Vaughn:
That’s such great advice, Jen, from top to bottom, beginning to end, all of that. I love that idea of really leaning into building your credibility, your brand, and who you are because I think, you know, we have to support a lot of entrepreneurs within Together Digital. We’ve had a lot of women come to the group and start their business because they’ve joined the community. And a lot of that is, you know, spending time sort of establishing your brand, your credibility because the 1st year of business is almost ultimately referral and word-of-mouth. And so you have to have that trust and credibility. Yeah. And word-of-mouth is the best way to obtain that. I think that’s great.
Amy Vaughn:
And I, again, being a fellow entrepreneur, support support support Support. I mean, this goes for any working parent in any working environment, but for entrepreneurs, especially because you have to go that extra mile. And if you are doing the full time on top of the side hustle all the more. And I do think, as women, sometimes we do think we have to do it all and be it all, and by all means and for god’s sake, no. You don’t. Lean on the community. Lean on your network. Lean on your support system, your immediate family, your extended family, your friends, whomever your neighbors for crying out loud.
Amy Vaughn:
Like, whoever you can. And I love how you said that, like, articulate your vision for not just yourself, but for those around you to know where you’re headed. I think sometimes too, we tend to kind of hold that close to our chest, and then we expect some because we don’t be wrong.
Jenn Herman:
Right? We don’t wanna say, oh, I’m gonna do this in 2 years, then you don’t get
Jenn Herman:
a goal.
Jenn Herman:
Or, like, you don’t want people to be like, you can’t achieve that. Like, we’re afraid that people aren’t gonna trust where we think we’re gonna take it.
Amy Vaughn:
But like you said, though, if you don’t put it out into the universe, it’s never gonna happen. Happen. And if you don’t look around and ask for the help and support that you need in order to obtain that goal, then it’s also not likely to happen. Such great advice. And I, again, I 100% agree. I think that’s one thing I’ve learned that I I kind of it’s like a I think it’s a cool side effect of becoming an entrepreneur, having been somebody who was in an agency environment for, you know, decade and a half is that, running a business and I’m being an entrepreneur is kind of like a whole family project. You know? My husband is involved. My kids are involved, you know, to some degree, and they get to see and be a part of that journey and experience in a way that when I was working for somebody else, it just wasn’t the case.
Amy Vaughn:
It’s really, really interesting.
Jenn Herman:
Well, even I’ve had this conversation with so many people in, you know, kind of in their even not even in this industry. Like, I have friends that work at home that have corporate jobs, but they work at home. As kids, we never saw our parents work. Right? Like, our parents left in the morning, and they went to work, and they worked. We didn’t know what they did. They told us, oh, I worked in a bank or, oh, I, you know, I’m an interior designer, but you never saw them work. Our kids are watching us work. They see how we handle conflict.
Jenn Herman:
They see how we handle stress. They see how we handle coworkers. Even if that’s just your VA or your accountant or whatever, they see us interact in ways that we never got to. Like, they learn leadership from us. They learn business skills and negotiation and, you know, resisting the no. Or better or worse.
Amy Vaughn:
That’s that’s a great
Jenn Herman:
point. These are things that we get to share that we never got growing up watching our parents work. And so it’s a privilege.
Amy Vaughn:
It’s fascinating.
Jenn Herman:
But it’s a privilege.
Amy Vaughn:
I know. Right? Such a fascinating observation. I yeah. I hadn’t even never thought about that. Alright. So I wanted to kind of ask you quickly to kind of as you’ve gone through this journey looking back because, you know, a lot of our listeners are sort of on this path or about to go on this path. Yeah. And they’re gonna hit that moment.
Amy Vaughn:
Every single one of us have, right, on this entrepreneurial journey. Was there ever a moment that you felt like giving up? And if so, what kept you going, and how did you push through just for anybody maybe who needs those kinds of words of encouragement as well?
Jenn Herman:
I don’t think I ever wanted to give up. I’ve never I’ve never hit that, you know, that level. I have definitely hit levels where I pull back, where I’m like, we’re gonna let life take its course, and I’m not like, I always say there’s, there’s various stages of acceleration and as an entrepreneur, right? Sometimes you pedal to the metal. Like you are full throttle, and you are just building and growing and throwing everything out there and doing everything you can. And then there’s seasons where you kinda come off the throttle and you coast. And you’re like, I’m just gonna relax this year, this 6 months, this quarter, whatever it is. And I’ve got other things. I’ve got kids’ things.
Jenn Herman:
I’ve got, you know, spouse things. I’ve got family things, illness, medical things happen, and you just kinda come back off that throttle. And you just let it coast for a little bit. And I think that’s one of the hardest things as entrepreneurs is learning to accept coasting. We’re so you know, I come from a sales background. You don’t sell, you don’t eat. Right? Like, you’ve got to be making sales. You’re constantly pushing.
Jenn Herman:
There is no stop. There is no slowdown because when you do, there’s no revenue. And so I think it’s really hard as entrepreneurs for us to take vacation, to learn to, you know, say, no. I’m gonna stop working at 2 o’clock and be there with my kid. That’s why you did this. You started your own business to be there for your family, but we’re the first people to say, no. I’ve gotta get this email out. No.
Jenn Herman:
I’ve gotta make sure this project is done. And we don’t learn to scale back. And I think if we learn to scale and then coast, then we don’t wanna quit. Right? Because it’s when you’re all in, it’s when you’re pushing so hard that you wanna give up, that you can’t go another day, that you’re burnt out and you just wanna throw the towel in. And that’s not to say that we, you know, I, yes, I’ve had days where I’m like, what if I just quit? Like Yeah. We’ve all been there. These days. I’m talking, like, move to an island somewhere in, like, you know, the Caribbean and never let go.
Amy Vaughn:
Or another planet altogether maybe. Right? Like, it’s extreme over here. Right?
Jenn Herman:
It’s we’re all in. Right? But it’s but we all have those momentary thoughts. But, yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever really thought I wanted to quit. It’s been more, let’s find a way to coast. Let’s find a way to to scale back when we need to and trust that we have the positions in place, whether it’s through support or ourselves or, you know, multiple revenue streams, whatever it is that we can take that time for ourselves and rejuvenate ourselves so we don’t get
Amy Vaughn:
100%. I think, I just there’s so much I love in that answer as well. There is absolute power in the pause, and I have found that I am so much more productive when I listen to my body and pay attention to how my mind is working or in some instances not Yeah. Working so well, when I need those moments of intentional pause. And I think the beauty of running a business over time too is you begin to understand the ebbs and flows of your business. You understand the seasonality of your business, and so then you can kind of begin to take advantage of those times when you can start to press the gas or come off of the gas. And I think it’s been one of
Jenn Herman:
And as you grow, you get to set those ebbs and flows too. You get to say, I’m taking the month of like, I typically take the month of December off.
Amy Vaughn:
Love it.
Jenn Herman:
I don’t I don’t typically want Love it. Because I wanna enjoy the holidays with my daughter and my friends and travel and my boyfriend and do things. I wanna have a holiday experience. I don’t wanna be working until December 23rd and get 2 days of post holiday time. But we get that choice. And if I ramp up heavy September, October, then I know I have the revenue settled so that by December, I know I can settle in and take it. You can know
Amy Vaughn:
you can drive harder when you’ve taken the time to rest, 100%. And this is the idea of, like Yeah. When you work for yourself, work for yourself. Like, don’t drive yourself into the crowd. I agree with you. I think for as hard as it has been, I think deep, deep down, you know, yeah, there’s just never been, like, a breaking point of, like, I just wanna give it all up because it’s just like, how did I ever go back?
Jenn Herman:
And that’s the thing. I’m like, I’ve I’ve this is my this is my baby. Like, I’ve been raising this business for 11 years. I, you know, I I and that’s not to say that there isn’t a time to pull the ripcord and and, you know, leave. Like, there’s times where you just have to shutter a business and start over or sell a business or there are reasons why you will let something go, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t change.
Amy Vaughn:
You can’t pivot.
Jenn Herman:
Can’t adapt. Like Mhmm. I’m an Instagram expert. Let’s face it. Instagram is not gonna be here for the next 20, 30 years. I’m not gonna retire on Instagram, But that means I have to pivot. It means I have to think about long term strategies, but it’s my business. I can do that.
Jenn Herman:
Right? I can do that whenever I want. I can add additional strengths and I can turn around tomorrow and be like, you know what? I’m gonna be a motivational speaker for women. And that’s my prerogative. No one is stopping me because it’s my business to do that. And I think, like you said, this is your business. Work for yourself. You’ve built this for yourself. Work for yourself and trust that you get to make those choices whatever they look like.
Amy Vaughn:
Love it. Well, we’ve got live listeners with us today, so don’t forget, folks, you could use the chat and you can ask any more questions that you have about Jen and her entrepreneurial journey, that you’ve got about starting and building and growing your business. But let’s do some nerding out on Instagram. But first, a little bit more background about you. I mentioned in your bio that you have experience in administration, sales, and HR. I am kind of curious, you know, before we kind of get too deep into the Instagram nerdiness. Yeah. How has this diverse experience influenced the way that you approach marketing on Instagram?
Jenn Herman:
Oh my gosh. It’s why I approach marketing the way that I do. You know, I’ve been in sales since I was in high school. Right? I’ve worked in retail and all that sort of stuff, stuff, and I’ve worked in hospitality. I’ve worked in customer service. So those have always been the bedrock of my marketing mentality. Customer service comes first. If you have customer service, you don’t have to market.
Jenn Herman:
You know, because, again, it’s word-of-mouth. Right? Like, if you’re marketing and you’re putting content out there, you’re doing social media, you’re doing your blogs, you’re doing your website, you’re doing, you know, podcast, whatever it is, it’s your customer service. When someone reaches out and asks you a question, how long does it take for you to respond? How do you respond? Are you compassionate? Are you rude? Are you direct? Are you subtle? Like, all of these customer service aspects are your brand. Right? And so that is your marketing. That is how you are known. And so that has always played a major impact. And then going into the corporate world and, yeah, working in I was an executive assistant to, like, the number 2 for a major massive organization, like a global organization. And, you know, so I saw a lot of, like, how corporate works and and how things how one decision here has so many impacts and how a person making a decision over here doesn’t understand how that decision will impact all these people and working in HR and, and, you know, all these other aspects of corporate.
Jenn Herman:
It really does impact everything. And marketing is kind of the face of the company. Right? Marketing is what people see first, whether that’s recruiting, whether that’s customers, whether that’s partnerships. Your marketing is what people see first, and marketing cannot work in silo. It has to work in conjunction with all those other departments. If recruiting over here is trying to do one thing and your marketing is doing something completely different, it doesn’t align. It doesn’t serve the business purposes. And I think that’s one of the things that so often people turn to social media, and then they hire the intern.
Jenn Herman:
They hire their, you know, nephew or whomever. And they’re like, oh, just throw some content on social media. And it’s not that it doesn’t work, but it’s not strategic. Right? It’s great. You’ve got likes and engagement, but is it serving your business? Is it getting recruited? Is it building customers? Or how are you treating those people when they ask questions? And all of those have such a huge impact on the business as a whole. So, yeah, I definitely approach Instagram, social media, and all of marketing as one major cog in the wheel. Right? It all works in conjunction with everything else in the business and will never work in silo. And if you treat it that way Yeah.
Amy Vaughn:
I 100% agree. Yeah. Yeah. I 100% agree because, I mean, just even from, like, a branding standpoint, and I don’t think people realize this much, but it’s such an inside out job. Right? Everything down from, like you said, the recruiting and the hiring down to like, because, again, like, how those customer service people speak to and treat the individual customers. If I have a brand experience on your Instagram page and I got the idea that you’ve got a great product with great customer service. And then I have a problem with your product, and I go on. I try to, like, reach out to somebody, and they’re a total a hole to me or it’s not the experience. It’s like there’s broken trust.
Jenn Herman:
With no response at all. Yeah.
Amy Vaughn:
It’s a completely broken trust. And if there’s no trust and there’s no consistency within, like, the way that my customer experience is going, then I don’t trust and believe in your brand, and there’s gonna be no loyalty. There’s gonna be no continued word-of-mouth. And, yeah, you could probably be the prettiest brand in the world or the ugliest even, and I’m not going to keep returning. But, yeah, I agree. And then as far as the platform itself goes, so why why Instagram? What was it that kind of drew you to it? You said you kinda picked it up early on.
Jenn Herman:
Yeah. I mean so I will admit, like, when Instagram came out, it was definitely one of those. I’m like, oh, not another platform. Right? Like, we had Twitter. We had Google Plus. We had Facebook. We had all these things, and I was like, I don’t have time for another platform. But I loved it as a creative person.
Jenn Herman:
Like, back in the day, Instagram was about photography. It was about visuals. Right? And back in the day, it still is one of the best community tools. But back in the day, Instagram was a place where you could literally just comment on someone’s post and, like, 2 minutes later, you were besties. Right? Like, it was just such a community driven platform. And you met so many people around the world who were so similar to you. And so, you know, just aligned, and it was so easy to connect with people on Instagram because it was so simple in that capacity. And that was why I loved it.
Jenn Herman:
And so I was like, okay. But this is so great for business. Like, imagine if you could take that community interaction that Instagram gives us and turn that into customer service and loyalty. And so that was the real business draw to it. And I still to this day, the Instagram head, insta or Adam Missouri has said he will never put clickable links on posts. And I was like, yes. Like, I support this 100%. And I’ve always supported it because it keeps Instagram so different from everything else.
Jenn Herman:
You’re not a link funnel.
Jenn Herman:
You’re not
Jenn Herman:
just dropping links every 5 minutes, and it forces us to be creative. And I always say I’m like, the people who do Instagram well are setting themselves apart from their competition because they are doing it well. They’re not just doing it to check for that.
Amy Vaughn:
You gotta make that extra effort too. I do. It’s so funny. I am a copywriter and creative director by trade. And even though I’m a copywriter, I’m still a very visual person. So, like, you would have thought on that day in the days when it just first came out that I would have been, like, all about Twitter, but I was never really that, like, turned on by Twitter. When Instagram came out, I was like, yes. I have a place to put all of my pictures.
Amy Vaughn:
And, like, I’ve let everybody basically just see my camera roll for all these things that I can I wanna show? And then I don’t have to try to, like, write words with them because, like, Facebook was, like, oh, already becoming its own weird little thing.
Jenn Herman:
And, you
Amy Vaughn:
know, Twitter, I was like, I don’t know. I could be quippy, I guess, and write headlines, but I kinda already do that all day for a living. So maybe that’s why. Just like, I don’t wanna do more of that. Right. I can just show pretty pictures and meet. Like you said, there was a community aspect for sure there. Yes.
Amy Vaughn:
I love that. I love that. Well, let’s talk a little bit about misconceptions. When you’re dealing with folks kind of coming into the platform, I think that’s something you mentioned, like, the struggle with the links and whatnot. Are there any sort of misconceptions about Instagram marketing that you tend to need to address often in your work?
Jenn Herman:
Yeah. I think one of the biggest ones there is, well, there’s 2. There’s 1 Instagram that doesn’t work for me. And then they’re done. Like, if it didn’t work for them once, they’re just done
Jenn Herman:
with it. And I’m like, okay. I will post the next time.
Jenn Herman:
Nobody liked it. Try. Like, right. It was like, what, like, people are so quick to give up on Instagram or there’s so many changes. They’re like, I just can’t keep up with the algorithm that hates me. So there’s all these things where people come in and just assume that it’s not going to work. So I’m constantly trying to, like, be like, but no, it does. You just have to give it its own strategy.
Jenn Herman:
And you can’t do what you did on Facebook, on Instagram. And you can’t do what you did on LinkedIn or Twitter or whatever and put it on Instagram. It doesn’t work. And the other kind of flip side that I deal with a lot is from people who aren’t in marketing that will say, it’s Instagram. How hard can it be?
Jenn Herman:
You know,
Jenn Herman:
they’re like, you post a photo. It’s not hard. And I’m like, yeah. I haven’t built a decade-long career on it being easy. Right. I’m like, I’m not speaking in foreign countries because it’s easy. Right? So the people who don’t do marketing think it’s so easy. And the people who do marketing are over here being like, it just doesn’t work.
Jenn Herman:
And so it’s the two sides depending on who you talk to that would be the biggest mispronouncing.
Amy Vaughn:
That makes a lot of sense. And I would definitely agree with your very first one of, like, I tried it and it doesn’t work. People just don’t seem to understand, like, the engagement aspect of it. How just necessary it is. You can’t just post once and put it out there. It’s like building a website and expecting everyone to come and find it because you built and put a website site.
Jenn Herman:
It, and you’re like Where Why don’t I have 10,000 visitors? Everybody.
Amy Vaughn:
I’m like, because you just put a grain
Jenn Herman:
Why isn’t Google showing it to people?
Amy Vaughn:
I was
Jenn Herman:
like, because you just put
Amy Vaughn:
a grain of dust, sand in the desert, and you expected everyone to find that grain of sand. Congratulations. It doesn’t work that way. Exactly. Oh my goodness. And we’ve talked about that quite a bit too. We just did this like our social media week this week. We did for our members a social media master class, but actually it was hosted by one of our members, Dixie, who used to work for Warby Parker.
Amy Vaughn:
And, yeah, it was just so funny because we talked about that. Like, we spend, you know, a good portion of our time being marketers, but, really, a lot of our time is spent being educators. You know? Yeah. A hundred percent. Everybody, but, like, no, really. Like, this is honestly like you said, it’s more work than what you realize. It’s not as simple as posting Yeah. A picture and now Yeah.
Amy Vaughn:
You have to do more than just post the picture. Alright. Yeah. When so, let’s talk about those folks that are struggling to stand out on Instagram.
Jenn Herman:
Yep.
Amy Vaughn:
What are maybe what’s one kind of fun unconventional tip that you could share for creating engaging content that might help cut through the noise? Because it can sort of feel daunting, right, when we first come into the space, and we wanna make a little bit of a splash.
Jenn Herman:
Oh my god. Only 1. Like, I have 12 off the top of my head. No. So
Amy Vaughn:
Go follow
Jenn Herman:
the page
Jenn Herman:
all the
Jenn Herman:
rest. Right. Exactly. If you’re really wanting to make a splash right now, the biggest thing unfortunately would be Instagram reels. It is a heavy push. It is something that Instagram wants us to be creating reels. They want us creating video content. That doesn’t mean photos don’t work.
Jenn Herman:
It doesn’t mean stories don’t work. It’s just you know, it’s kinda like when Facebook said build a Facebook group, it was like everyone wouldn’t build a Facebook group because it was, like, like, when Meta says do, we do. So reels are kinda like where you are and if you don’t love creating videos, I get it. Like, I actually really don’t like reels at all, but go look at my feed. It’s a lot of reels because they work. The key to reels, if you are trying to garner attention, is to stand out by doing shorter reels. Longer reels are amazing. I’m the first person to max out a 92nd reel.
Jenn Herman:
I have one loaded up. That’s literally 88 seconds. I’m like, yes, just got the 92nd mark. I love those, but those are the educational ones. Those are
Jenn Herman:
serving your existing audience.
Jenn Herman:
If you’re an existing audience. If you’re trying to grow, reach new people, stand out, you wanna be reels under 30 seconds, because those are the ones that go into explore. Those are the ones that go into recommendations. Those are ones that go into the, you know, the home page for reels. Reels over 30 seconds don’t get that type of exposure typically. So you wanna be creating those shorter reels, and you gotta come in hot. Like, I always tell people you can’t come in with a reel. And as marketers, as brands, we’ve been conditioned with the YouTube environment.
Jenn Herman:
Right? So you’ve got this beautiful bumper intro, and you have your, hi. I’m Jen Herman with Jen’s Trends. And in this video, like, you can’t do that in real life. Like, in a real, like, you’re coming in hot. You’re like, do you struggle with it? Like and you just come in hot. Like, you gotta get their attention because if you don’t have their attention in those split seconds, they’re scrolling past you. So you can after the fact, like, you can come in and say, do you struggle with using hashtags on Instagram? I’m Jen Herman, and I’m one of the world’s leading experts on Instagram marketing. Here’s what you need to know about hashtags.
Jenn Herman:
Like, you can still put your intro, but it is gonna be so short, so quick, just the high list of highlights, and it comes after you’ve introduced the topic. You’ve really got to capture their attention, make them want to stay. And if you’re doing an introduction, it should validate why they should stay. So in that case, I said, I’m Jen Herman, one of the world’s leading experts. If you ask Chad GPT, I’m technically the leading expert. But you wanna say that because it validates why they would stay and listen. It’s not just you saying, hey, I’m some rando over here talking about Instagram hashtags. Right? So, you know, if you’re a dog walker and you’re saying, like, here, like, this is why
Amy Vaughn:
you should This is why you need
Jenn Herman:
to walk on concrete. I walk dogs every day for a living. I’ve dealt with the burns. Right? Like, you wanna validate in your super short introduction why they should listen. And then those are the reels that will typically get more exposure. But to your point, you’re gonna have to create, you know, 6, 8, 10, 12 reels before you start to see results before you start to go. This is what works for me. This is what my audience wants.
Jenn Herman:
This is what gets attention. You have to test. You can’t try one thing and go, oh,
Amy Vaughn:
it doesn’t work for me.
Jenn Herman:
I tried it once. Exactly.
Jenn Herman:
I did that one reel or, and conversely, you know, I have one of the members in my membership. I have a membership called profit your profile dedicated to Instagram marketing. And one of the members came in. Her first reel she ever created went gangbusters viral. It has, like, tons of thousands of views. You know, it was like, which is amazing. Right? And she was like, Jed, I made a reel
Jenn Herman:
and it just won’t stop.
Jenn Herman:
And I was like, well, this is great. But in the same turn, every reel she’s had since then gets like 1,000 views. Right? Like, you can’t, you can’t be like, oh, I did one of it’s work and just expect that you’re gonna be massively successful from then on. Like, one is never an efficient case study.
Amy Vaughn:
Goodness. Exactly. You’re like, that’s great, but, nah, don’t expect that for the rest of the time. Sorry. And then you’re like, don’t go over here, guys. It’s not gonna be that way every time. I’m sorry. But good for you.
Amy Vaughn:
Exactly. Good for you.
Jenn Herman:
It’s like it’s like the kid on
Amy Vaughn:
the field that accidentally scored a goal the first time playing ever, and
Jenn Herman:
then you’re sure you’re just gonna be the best. You’re like, I know. Love you, honey. You did so good. That’s not happening again for the rest
Amy Vaughn:
of the season. But hey. You know what? Great confidence builder. But you did. Once. You just have to keep going and keep trying. I love it. Those are great, great tips.
Amy Vaughn:
Again, this is why you all need to go follow her because, again, like I said, all very good, very actionable tips and advice. Because, again, it’s like it’s so clear that you study and you know the platform, and this is what this is what it means to be specialized, which, again, in digital Yes. Anymore. Jen, this is, I think, this could be, like, a whole other hour long conversation. Having been somebody who came into space just as digital was kinda coming out into the world. Mhmm. You know, it used to be that you had to be specialized, and now we have to be generalists, and we have to know all the things and be all the things and do all the things, and that’s just ridiculous. Anyhow.
Amy Vaughn:
But I digress. That was great advice. I took loads of notes. I hope you all did too. Like I said, live listeners, feel free to drop questions in the tap the chat if you have them. Let’s talk about audience engagement. As I mentioned earlier, it’s really critical, and it’s very much a two way street, which I’m sure you’ll probably get into here. So on that note, what is your favorite method for fostering genuine connection with your followers?
Jenn Herman:
So I’m gonna preface this first before I answer that by saying engagement sucks right now on Instagram. Okay? Like, let’s just let’s just call it what it is. Instagram engagement sucks. And it’s but it’s still honestly, like, right now, the average engagement on the platform is hovering just under 1% engagement. It’s probably about 0.8, 0.9 as the average across the platform, which sounds horrible. You’re saying, like, 1% engagement. Woo hoo. But understand that, like, on Facebook, it’s 0.1%.
Jenn Herman:
You know? On things like Twitter, it’s 0.01%. So at 1%, it’s actually exponentially higher, and the only platform that has higher engagement would be TikTok. So it’s still one of the best platforms for engagement even though it sucks. And it sucks for a lot of reasons. We’ve had a lot of changes in the last 4 years. Reels came out 4 years ago. We had a pandemic 4 years ago. There’s been major shifts to how people use and consume content and create content on the platform.
Jenn Herman:
So it’s created this massive shift. So I have 28,000 followers, and I’ll get 30 likes on a phone. Like, it’s statistically impossible to get that low of engagement on a photo, but I’m like, it’s so impossible, but it’s not always about that engagement. So that being said, the things that are going to do the best on the platform is to have a range of activity, a range of content. I typically recommend that you wanna post on average, ideally in a perfect world, 3 to 5 times a week. If that sounds like too much, then just do 1 a week and use this same idea, but do it so you would do one post every week instead of 1 post Yeah. You know, ever or 1 instead of doing 3 posts a week, you’re gonna do 3 every 1 every week for 3 weeks and then mix up the rotation. So the key is to do one photo, one carousel, and one reel.
Jenn Herman:
So we wanna mix up the types of content. Because if you’re only doing reels, you’re alienating the people like me who love to look at
Amy Vaughn:
the feed.
Jenn Herman:
If you’re only creating feed content, you’re alienating the people who want videos. And carousels give you double the chance for exposure. So carousels will if you log in once, you don’t interact with it. When you log in again, they show you that same post with the second image in the sequence. So carousels give you extra exposure. So we want to be ideally doing those 3 posts a week, or like I said, do a carousel this week, a feed post next week, and then a reel the 3rd week kind of thing. So kind of keep that momentum. And then within that so ideally, if you have those kinds of 3 to 5 posts a week, one of those should be a personal post.
Jenn Herman:
Personal for me is about me as a human, as a mom, as a business owner, because it’s me. I’m my brand. If you are a bigger organization, personal things may be things like behind the scenes, meeting the team, your mission, your value, your community involvement. Personal is something that makes people connect with you for who you are as a brand. The second post is going to be educational. You’re providing value. You’re giving something that they didn’t know they needed. Tips, tutorials, you know, industry news, you know, anything that’s gonna give something of value that’s gonna be quality to them.
Jenn Herman:
So if your, you know, target audience is, you know, moms to toddlers, you’re gonna have educational content on how to entertain your kid in the rain, how to entertain your kid when it’s hot outside. Like, that would be educational content. Right? Then the third thing is your sales post. So you are gonna push your product, your service, right? You have to have content in there and it doesn’t have to be a quote sales post, but it has to be something about your business products you’re working on. You’re coming up on a new launch, teasing that launch. You’re going to have content related to, you know, discounts available or sale this weekend or whatever it is. So there’s no magic ratio. It’s not that everything has to be, like, an exact 20 or 30% or that sort of thing.
Jenn Herman:
But if you’re doing 3 posts per sequence, we want kind of that one to each of each post to cover each of those categories and then mix it up. So this week, your real might be educational. Next week, your real might be personal. Right? We don’t want it to always be the same thing. And that’s gonna keep the diversity so that you’re not always doing the same thing
Jenn Herman:
for
Jenn Herman:
the same people. Because if they’re not interacting with it, you start to fall algorithmically. When you keep it, you know, variety, you keep them interested, they keep interacting. You stay higher in
Amy Vaughn:
the field. Gotcha. That makes a lot of sense. And I’ve seen some people do this, and I’m not sure how you feel about it. But they literally, like, can all of their past historical content and will make their whole entire profile reels. I’m like, what why? What are you doing?
Jenn Herman:
It’s honestly, like, the worst advice I would ever have. I mean, like, there are some people out there who are video creators, and they have created the audience around being video based. I get it. Like, if that’s your brand, I get it. But for 98% of the population of brands out there, no. Like, it’s such it’s so alienating. Because if I don’t log in to the reels tab, I’m not gonna see your contact. I mean, I might still feed in the feed if I follow you, but if I don’t consume reels, I’m not going to watch it. And if I don’t watch it, Instagram’s not gonna serve it to me.
Jenn Herman:
They’re waiting for photos to serve me because they know that’s what I consume. So you have to have that variety. You can’t go all in on one other thing.
Amy Vaughn:
I love that advice. And I’m even just from, like, a user perspective. I appreciate that advice. Algorithm aside, you still gotta think about the people.
Jenn Herman:
Right? Exactly. And sometimes you do. Like, sometimes I will admit, like, I’ll fall into, like, the real feed and I just wanna scroll and look at random videos but most of the time I’m in the feed. I want to see the feed posts. I want, like, I want I’m a reader. I’m not a listener. Like, I don’t Don’t have
Amy Vaughn:
the audio on.
Jenn Herman:
Auditory input. I like to read the input. Right? So when I have to watch a video, I’m like, ugh, you’re not getting to the point that I want to.
Amy Vaughn:
Like Move it along. Right? Goldfish attention span, folks. Goldfish attention span. You got 3 seconds, if that. Alright.
Jenn Herman:
Well, and that’s why Reels are so popular. Right? Because they’re so short. You gotta you gotta get to that fast.
Amy Vaughn:
Alright. Let’s talk about some Instagram features. They are obviously, like you mentioned, they’re changing a lot, you could say constantly. How outside of us following you, which, again, folks, you know, I can’t say it enough, go do it. The link for our listeners that are listening live, it’s already in the chat. Thanks, Kaylee. And it’ll be in our show notes, of course. How do you stay on top of these updates, Jen, and what is your process for adapting some of those strategies as they come along?
Jenn Herman:
Yeah. So first, I’m gonna say, on average, we have 10 to 12 updates a month. So it’s a lot. Right? So don’t don’t let that scare you. That’s my job.
Amy Vaughn:
You’re like, I know.
Jenn Herman:
Job is to figure out what the updates are. And then I tell you what you need to know. And that’s the biggest thing. Right? Like, there’s all these, like they’re always testing. They’re always rolling out a beta feature. Then, like, someone posts about it and you get access, but nobody else has access. And there’s all these things that impact whether you need to worry about it or not? So like you said, follow me, sign up for my newsletter. My newsletter goes out the 1st Wednesday of every month, and it breaks down all the Instagram updates and tells you what you actually need to know about.
Jenn Herman:
Like, if you, if it matters, I will post about it and tell you it matters. If I’m not posting about it, it’s not that big of a deal. But I will make sure that people understand what those new changes mean for them and their business. For me, I again, because this is what I do, a lot of it is fed to me. I have, like I literally had a woman message me yesterday, and she’s like, Jen, have you seen this new feature? Like, people know who I am and what I do, and they want to share news and updates. So I get a lot of Things
Amy Vaughn:
like that. Yeah.
Jenn Herman:
Screenshots and beta, you know, exposure to things from people sharing. I do follow certain blogs, certain content creators who are inherently known for kinda scraping into the back end of the platform and leaking things before Instagram releases them. So I I I have my sources around that are all public sources and everything that I follow. One of the biggest ones I’ll follow is social media today. They are a website of aggregate blogs of all social media content, but they’re, Adam is the guy who writes for them primarily, and he’s Yeah. Oh my god, he’s on it. Yeah. As he’s after me.
Jenn Herman:
Sleep. Right? So that like, and how Matt Navarro is one of my go to’s as well. He’s been sticking into the back end of Facebook for years, years, and he’s so humble. It’s like I’ve met him multiple times. I consider him a friend, and he’s just the most humble person. And I’m like, but he’s, like, literally the person that everybody in social media follows for what’s happening in the world. Right? So and so but, yeah, I go through. I dissect all these things that are coming in, and and I typically you know, even Adam Missouri will come out, and he’ll be like, this is why our platform does these things.
Jenn Herman:
And he starts talking about it. And I’m like, like, and I’ll start reading behind the lines kind of thing. And I’ve got so many output reels up or posts and be like, this is why you don’t need to freak out about this, you know, or or whatever it is. So I have the advantage of having been so deep in the platform for so long that when someone says this is, you know, recommended, I’m like, that’s not gonna work. And that just comes from experience. That’s where you know? Like I said, I get to be a specialist. You all get to be the generalist. Just follow me, and I’ll make sure you know.
Amy Vaughn:
I love it. Well and I think I just wanna touch on something that you just said right there. That perspective and that historical perspective and wisdom was something that came up during our, the end of our conversation during our master class on Wednesday. Because at Together Digital, we like to have deep and vulnerable conversations as women who work in a space that is ever evolving and actually does have a lot of ageism. And as women who have worked in the space, you know, we have most of our members have 10 plus years of experience, bordering on 20 in some instances. So we’ve been around as long as all of this has been.
Jenn Herman:
Right.
Amy Vaughn:
And I think a lot of us feel like we’re kind of, like we get put into this space of, like, aging out. But what you just said right there was what I told them. Like, that’s the mindset you should have. I have historical knowledge. I have the wisdom. I have the perspective to tell you when I see things coming down the line and you’re all freaking out, I’m like, chill. It’s cool. I’ve seen this before.
Jenn Herman:
Exactly. You know? Right? And it’s so true. Right? Like and that doesn’t mean that, you know, we’re always right. You know, and, and things are changing and, but we’ve seen dozens
Amy Vaughn:
Right.
Jenn Herman:
100, thousands of evolutions of these platforms. Like, we remember Facebook when it was a college based form.
Amy Vaughn:
No pay to play, open API. Those were the days, baby. Right?
Jenn Herman:
Graph search. Remember when graph search was like the big thing and like and when you know, like, it’s just we’ve seen the evolution of these platforms, and we know inherently when something’s a big deal and when it’s like a smoke and mirrors big deal. Yeah. Right? Like, these platforms will come out and there’s been so many times where some little tiny change in terms of service or some little comment is made. And the, you know, let’s call it the media, the the aggregate blogs will pick it up and run with it like it is catastrophic,
Amy Vaughn:
You know World’s burning.
Jenn Herman:
World changing. And I’m like, you know, it’s been like Alright. Like, this isn’t even something new, but you just have to They just need something
Jenn Herman:
to talk about. Exactly.
Jenn Herman:
But we’ve been too busy. Know what this is.
Amy Vaughn:
I agree. And I think it’s just a matter of internal narrative and perspective. And I do think so it’s, like, it’s so easy to be passionate about this space and, you know, to be and and so many of the women within our group are, like, just consistent learners and always hungry to learn and grow, but then there is that intimidation factor and that fear factor of of being cast out as irrelevant or too old to be in social media. And it’s like, I just really just wanted to take a moment to pause and dispel that because I think I’m just calling BS on it. And I think that you have perspective, you have wisdom, and then you also have collective power and knowledge. And I think, Jen, the thing I also love about everything that you’re doing is that you do so much to share. Like, you are not knowledge hoarding or power hoarding. Like, you are, like, open book sharing.
Amy Vaughn:
You’ve written books, literally multiple books. You’ve got, like, a tremendous, channel that, you know, you’re just really giving really great tips. Like, you were walking the walk, talking the talk, all of the things. And I think that that’s so helpful because, again, it’s like you shouldn’t have, again, do it all, be it all.
Jenn Herman:
Yes.
Amy Vaughn:
Ask for the help that you need. There’s people around that are willing to help. You know? You don’t always have to be an expert.
Jenn Herman:
Day, you can have it all, but you can’t
Amy Vaughn:
do it. Exactly.
Jenn Herman:
And the same thing in, like, in this. Right? Like, you can have it all. You can be a generalist. You can have all the experience, but you can’t do it all. You have to go to resources for the information. You have to have a team to support you. You have to, like, know where to go to find out, okay, is that change relevant? Or, you know, when your client comes to you and goes, I heard we have to do reels, and you’re like, well, okay. Yes.
Jenn Herman:
But you now need to pay me an extra $3,000 a month to
Amy Vaughn:
create reels for you. Like because the time that
Jenn Herman:
it takes. Right? Like, whatever that is, it’s these things are all it’s so easy for people to just say, well, just create some videos
Jenn Herman:
for
Jenn Herman:
me, or, well, why can’t you handle my DMs for me? Or why can’t I like it? There’s so much that goes into these things. And if they want you to do that extra level of expertise, you need to be confident
Jenn Herman:
in the mood for
Amy Vaughn:
- Absolutely. Preach, friend. Alright. Alright. Away from that disclaimer. Away from that public service announcement. Alright.
Amy Vaughn:
Let’s have some more techniques because, again, you just always got them in spades. And, having looked at your feed recently, I have some clues, but I would also be curious to know if you could give us a sneak peek at maybe one, advanced Instagram strategy that you’re really digging right now that you’d like to share with our listeners?
Jenn Herman:
So my biggest thing right now is again, this is one of these things when Instagram says we do. They’re big on direct messages right now, and they are pushing hard for people to be in direct messages in the DMs. It all goes down in the DMs. Right? But it’s not just for the direct message sake. What people don’t realize is that Instagram has made direct messages a personal relationship. So, Amy, if you send me a DM on Instagram and I reply to you, we now have what’s considered a personal relationship. You know, we went from, like, dating to married with, like, one conversation. But in that process, Instagram goes, well, you clearly want to know what each other are doing.
Jenn Herman:
You’re having a conversation. So if you’re following me, my content now ranks higher in your feed because you clearly have
Amy Vaughn:
a direct
Jenn Herman:
personal relationship. Awesome. It prioritizes my content in your feed. So it’s really important that we are getting our customers into our DMs. And so we wanna look at strategies that open up that communication because there’s an algorithmic advantage, but also it goes back to the customer service, the relationships, the loyalty, the interactions, the, you know, building that time and communication with your audience. So we wanna do things like instead of saying go to the link in my bio, which still works. I use links in bio for anything that’s evergreen. You wanna sign up for my newsletter? Go to my link in bio.
Jenn Herman:
But if I’m talking about a podcast, I’m talking about a webinar, if I’m talking about, you know, something that’s a short term thing, it’s always send me a DM and I’ll get you the link. Or comment below and I’ll send you the link. Because now it’s giving them a reason to show up in my DM. Smart. It’s algorithmically beneficial. It’s a hot lead awareness. I know who’s actually clicking on those links and interested versus going to my link in bio. They’re blind linked.
Jenn Herman:
I don’t know who clicked them. Now I start to know who those people are, and they’re hot leads because they have to take extra effort to request it. So those are advanced, you know, techniques to get them in there. But even your stories. Right? If you’re putting Instagram stories up and someone does a quick reply with, like, the, you know, the emoji responses, that’s a direct message. Awesome. So respond. Like they send you a quick reply.
Jenn Herman:
Don’t just heart to like it. Like, if they did the laughing emoji, be like, oh my gosh. So funny. Right? And then they come back and like, oh my god. It was so funny. You have communication. You know? Like so we wanna have those opportunities wherever possible to encourage the direct message incoming and then foster that conversation. It doesn’t mean jump into sales mode.
Jenn Herman:
It doesn’t mean they send you an emoji reply. You’re like, great. We have a sale this weekend. Right? Like Yeah. Unless it was related to a sales promotion. But it opens up that dialogue. Right? Like, I don’t know how many times I’ve had somebody go, you know, hey, Jen. You know, I just saw you posted about your daughter.
Jenn Herman:
I’m like, oh, yeah. And they’re like, we start talking about that. And next thing you know, it’s like, well, what when’s your next speaking gig? Oh, well, I’m probably you know, I’m gonna be here. Oh, great. Well, I can’t make it to that one, but can you let me know when the next one is? Like, it starts pushing that conversation in a natural organic way into leads and sales versus just posting content out there and hoping that the world is consuming it. It allows you to move in that direction. So my best advice right now is to really focus on that direct message strategy. How are you gonna get people in there? And like we said at the beginning, when we’re talking about customer service, know that whoever’s managing your social media, whoever’s managing that Instagram account has the ability to answer those questions that is prepared to handle it from a customer service perspective and to do it from a relationship building, not just a, here’s the link.
Jenn Herman:
Right? But to then be like, so glad you’re interested. Here’s the link. Let me know if you have any questions.
Amy Vaughn:
Well trained, well trained on the brand and the voice and, yes, really knowing how to keep that engagement going. Love it. That was gold.
Jenn Herman:
Love it.
Jenn Herman:
Love it.
Amy Vaughn:
Alright. We got a few minutes left. Let’s try to get through these last few questions. Oh my goodness. This is so good. Let’s see. What was the most surprising thing you learned about Instagram’s impact on business during your career so far? Most weapons and What was the most surprising thing that you’ve learned about Instagram so far during this whole kind of, like, span of experience?
Jenn Herman:
You know, that’s a good question. I think how much lately, I would say, they have moved towards copying TikTok.
Jenn Herman:
Yeah.
Jenn Herman:
You know, Meta was the king. Yeah. Like, Meta was the king on the hill. And when they bought up Instagram or it was Facebook at the time, and they bought up Instagram and then have since become meta. But it was you know, I wasn’t upset when they got amalgamated into Facebook. I was like, good. This is gonna give them the back end. They can do the ads.
Jenn Herman:
Like, it’s gonna help from a business perspective. It’s only gonna grow the platform. But they were always the king on the hill, and TikTok really, you know, took them down a couple of notches. And I have to admit, like, it’s so I just feel like now everybody’s a copy. Yeah. And it’s like, now you got TikTok over here creating photos. You know, you can swipe through carousel photos on TikTok. I’m like, where am I?
Amy Vaughn:
What platform
Jenn Herman:
Instagram over here. I’m like, we get to a point where they just lose their uniqueness. And one of the things I’ve always loved about Instagram is how unique they were. Like I said, they don’t do the links, and they’ve always been the first photo. And now you have Adam Azeri saying their video first. I’m like, oh, that’s
Jenn Herman:
not really Yeah.
Jenn Herman:
You know, it and I’m like, why? Why would we be video first? You’ve never liked it, it’s always been a photo first. And so it’s it I think, like, from a disappointment’s perspective, but also shocked that they wouldn’t literally be that way. See that much of a threat in TikTok that they wanted to copy it that much.
Amy Vaughn:
Because there’s still so much opportunity with where they are currently, I think. Yeah. Because, again, all of us marketers are like, I don’t wanna be making 1000000 videos a day either. And then even consumers are like, I don’t like you said, I don’t want sound always on. I sometimes want to just be looking at pretty pictures.
Jenn Herman:
Well, and the fact that everything cycles down for us. Like, the short form video has been a thing for, let’s call it, the last 5 years. You know, the pandemic definitely kinda sped up the consumption of short form video. But TikTok’s over here is going to 10, 30, 60 minute videos. I’m like, oh, so what that long form content is dead Uh-huh. Like, we’re back
Amy Vaughn:
Yep. Yep. It’s always shifting and changing. Alright. I’m gonna ask one more quick question, and then we’re gonna go to some rapid fire questions in case we don’t get anything from the audience. But I wanna make sure we get to the rapid fire because they’re fun. So looking ahead, what do you think will be the next trend or feature on Instagram that businesses should get ready for?
Jenn Herman:
I don’t know if I can predict any specific trend. I think Instagram is doing more for businesses, and I think that’s what’s worth paying attention to right now is, you know, they’ve done so much for, quote, creators. Right? They’re like, they wanna make sure creators have all these tools. But in the last year, we’re seeing more businesses. You know, every now and then, they’ll launch new features, but I think they’re really starting to recognize the business functionality. And that’s been, you know, more functionality in things like the web version. It has more functionality in direct messages. And I’m I’m really hoping and expecting that we’ll see more of that to support brands that you know, one of the things they’re testing right now is actually finally finally having admin access, you know, where you can have some, but, like, other people that don’t have your password that you’re getting to your profile.
Jenn Herman:
So I think we’ll see more of that shift towards what brands and businesses need to be successful with the platform, and I hope that we see more of that.
Amy Vaughn:
Me too. I do. Because I think, again, like, as a small business ourselves, like, honestly, like, Instagram, we I feel like we got more attraction, attention, and leads from that and LinkedIn than probably Facebook and x. We’re not even really on anymore. So, yeah, this has been so much fun, Jen. Alright. We’re gonna do a power lounge first. I’m calling this our power round, and I might start doing this from here on out because when I’m on other podcasts, I always feel like this is just a fun way to wrap it up.
Amy Vaughn:
So alright. Are you ready, Jen? Okay. Let’s do it. Let’s do it. Okay. Alright. Instagram filter or no filter? Alright. Favorite emoji?
Jenn Herman:
I’m like a smiley face emoji. I’m always there
Jenn Herman:
for a
Amy Vaughn:
good smiley face. Reels or stories, which do you prefer?
Jenn Herman:
Oh god.
Amy Vaughn:
Stories. Alright. Most overused hashtag.
Jenn Herman:
For me
Amy Vaughn:
or in general? Let’s go in general.
Jenn Herman:
In general, things like hashtag love. Like, it’s just like, 8 quadrillion people use that hashtag. Like, I just don’t even know.
Amy Vaughn:
Alright. For you, most of you use hashtags then.
Jenn Herman:
Hashtag Jen Stretz.
Amy Vaughn:
I forgot. Way to stick with way to stick with your hashtag strategy. I’m with that branding. Gotta gotta stick with it. Alright. And then last but not least, favorite Instagram account to follow for inspiration.
Jenn Herman:
So I don’t know if it’s my favorite for inspiration, but one of my favorite accounts is actually the TSA. Yep. The people that make take your shoes off at the airport. It is one guy that runs that account, and it is dad joke central. It is comfy. It is fun. They have the worst visuals known to mankind, but their captions are witty. They are so great with educational information in their stories.
Jenn Herman:
It’s just it’s an all around perfect example of, like, who should not do well on Instagram doing it. Just killing it on Instagram. It.
Amy Vaughn:
Well, I guess they’re gonna get one more follow-up today because I’ll be sure to check it out as well. I’m trying to remember. I don’t know if any members are on and listening right now that can drop it into the live chat. I’m having, like, a Friday brain fart moment, but I feel like Dixie shared an example. I don’t know if it was the TSA, and that’d be funny if it was. But there was another, like, very kind of blase type of, like, government organization that she shared as, like, a really cool LinkedIn profile that she’s like, and it’s amazing. You all should follow. And then I was like, oh, because, again, it is it’s such a, like you said, it’s such a creator space, and I think you don’t have to come at it as all business if you really just kind of look at it as a tool in a way to connect its community.
Amy Vaughn:
That’s what attracted you to it first, right, was it was a community platform as a way to engage and talk to your customers and build relationships. Yeah, you could have something really great there. Oh, here we go. Thanks, Julie. The New Jersey gov. Okay. The New Jersey, gov site. So there you go.
Amy Vaughn:
You got one more to add there, Jen.
Jenn Herman:
I will have to check that one out for sure.
Amy Vaughn:
Thanks, Julie. Alright, everyone. Thank you so much for listening today. I hope you all learned as much as I did and enjoyed the conversation. Jen, thank you so much again. It was an absolute pleasure having you here with us. Follow Jen’s Trends on Instagram. Also, we included her LinkedIn above, and we’ll include those in the show notes.
Amy Vaughn:
Jen, it was great. I hope you all have a fantastic
Jenn Herman:
Thank you so much. This was fun.
Amy Vaughn:
Have a fantastic Friday, everybody. We will see you next week. Until then, keep asking, keep giving, and keep growing. Bye, everybody.
