My New Adventure on Instagram

Hi creator,

After I got a taste for 30-day challenges, I decided to start a new one on Instagram.

In today’s letter, I will break down my strategy, the tools I’m using, and what I hope to gain from this whole challenge.

Let’s dive in!

My High-Level Instagram Strategy

I’ve never been very active on Instagram. Ever since Instagram came out, I wanted to be there because it was the social thing to do.

Ever since I became a digital creator and started viewing social media platforms as assets for content creation, I started researching Instagram much more than before.

And what I found amazed me.

For starters, saying “link in bio” on Instagram no longer works. You could have many links in bio but if you want to get people to do something, you have different tools to do so in 2024. More on that later.

So, I decided to try out instagram for 30 days in the following way:

1. Create 30 reels. One every day (that’s the core of the 30-day challenge).

2. Encourage reels viewers to sign up to my 5-day free email course related to the reels they’re watching.

3. Keep in touch with them through this newsletter.

4. Offer them my paid course about podcasting in a discount since they found it through my email course.

That way, I’m creating an asset that Instagram keeps pushing because there’s on-platform engagement and new people keep discovering the videos.

In addition, I’m building a relationship with the people who sign up to my email course and can talk to them 1:1 and see how I can help them better.

If some of these people would buy the course, I will be able to at least cover for the tools’ expenses on the low revenue scale and totally change my life on the higher end of the revenue scale.

That’s the strategy in a nutshell. I’m keeping it simple with a straightforward funnel. No complicated branching. What do you think?

The Tools I’m Using

Now that you know the strategy, let’s talk about the tools I’m using during the challenge. There are a few of them. I’ll start from the content creation side of things up to the email marketing tools and course hosting platform.

Sony A74 Camera

I’m using my Sony A74 camera to capture the videos. I have a lighting set from Amazon which includes a LED light bulb and a diffusing umbrella in addition to the tripod it stands on.

I’m recording the videos in 4k so I can later cut them vertically.

Camtasia

I’m using Camtasia to edit the videos. It doesn’t take a lot of time to edit one video. Since most of them are less than one minute. The max length I can publish on Instagram reels is 90 seconds so far.

After editing the videos, I export them as vertical so IG can recognize them as reels.

Creating Captions With the Captions App

I love the Captions app. It’s pretty awesome and very easy to use.

You can use it on both your computer and your iPhone very easily. Adding captions to your videos is not only a nice thing to do, but it also enables your video for disabled people who might not be able to check it out otherwise.

After the captions are ready I upload the final video to Instagram, add some labels and their time on screen, and press publish.

Before we move on to the next section, here’s the first video. Check it out. And please follow me, too.

ManyChat for Automated DMs

I integrated my account with ManyChat and created a simple automation that allows people to type “course” on any of my reels and I’ll send them the link to sign up for my free 5-day email course. It also helps me raise followers since the link is sent only to people who follow me.

Flodesk for Serving The Email Course

I have a founding rate on Flodesk where I only pay $19 for life because I got in early, and now I get all of their new features, too. So, I created the automation there and I serve the course over 5 days.

When someone signs up, I immediately send them day 1.

ThriveCart for Serving The Paid Course

If someone decides to sign up for my paid course after finishing the 5-day email course, I send them over to my ThriveCart page where I have my course set up.

ThriveCart handles both payment and serving the course itself.

Recording Lessons With Loom

I recorded all of the lessons for the course with Loom. Loom is amazing and also allows me to embed the videos right into the course pages instead of uploading them to a video hosting platform like Vimeo or even YouTube.

You can also embed Loom videos in email by downloading the little GIF they make for you in the share page and adding to it a link to your loom video in your email.

What Is The Goal From This Challenge?

Okay, so now you know the strategy and the tools I’m using for the challenge. Now it’s time to talk about why.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’m getting some solid proof why it’s important for someone to have their own business that is based on their audience and not on a single employer.

When I’m “employed” by my audience and they pay my wages, it’s okay when someone decides to stop paying and cancel a subscription. But when you only have one income stream and that’s a salary, you can’t 100% rely on that.

As a millennial, I always had challenges concerning money, but I guess now is a good a time as any to build something that lasts. And by building a business that also builds my email list, I can keep in touch with these people and see how else I can help them along their goals.

What Next?

I’m going to keep chugging away at this challenge and will probably batch record some of the videos just to make it easy to record and schedule them later.

If you have any questions about the process, or you have any suggestions on how to improve the process, please don’t hesitate to let me know!

Thank you for being here and I’ll catch you in the next one.

Enjoy your weekend! ❤️