An Instagram Hack... - a podcast by Russell Brunson

One way to make sure you are posting stuff that people will actually engage with.

On today’s episode Russell shares an Instagram hack from the upcoming Traffic Secrets book. Here are a few fun things from this episode:

• Find out how Instagram rewards those who do what they want them to do.
• Listen to an example of Russell using Instagram in a way that gets rewarded.
• And as a bonus, find out how Russell blocks out his calendar from most important to least important priorities.

So listen here to get an inside look at Traffic Secrets with this awesome Instagram hack.

---Transcript---

What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson, welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. Today I’ve got a glimpse for you, then I’ve got an idea for you, and that’s kind of the game plan. So it should be kind of fun.

Alright everybody, I hope everyone’s having a great time out there. I am madly doing the rewrite right now of the Dotcom Secrets book, which is taking way longer than I thought. I thought it was going to be me just tweaking some stuff, maybe adding some things here and there, but in the first two chapters I added 9000 words so far, so it’s basically going to be a brand new book. So for any of you guys who, when you buy the box set, you’ll find a lot of surprises in there. I hope you like the new updates because I’m putting in insane amounts of time on them. Maybe that’s a dumb idea, but I’m really excited for it. So it’s coming soon to a box set, book trilogy near you, which will be awesome.

So I’ve got basically 7 days to finish the Dotcom Secrets book, and then move over to the Expert Secrets book, I think I have two weeks for that. And then I’m done writing books forever, until the next book. But yeah.

Anyway, so what I want to do right now, is in the Traffic Secrets book, one of the things I talk about is figuring out who your dream 100 is and then going onto the platform you want to have success with, and then you look and see what the dream 100 are currently doing. What are they doing that has put them in front of the algorithm? Because Facebook, or Instagram, or YouTube or whatever, they’re always testing things and trying things out, and then they reward people who do things the way that they want them to.

So if you look at who’s winning, who’s showing up in Facebook or Instagram, or what posts are getting the most engagement or feedback, which ones are being shared? Start looking for things, start looking for the pattern, start seeing, “Oh, that’s what Facebook right now is rewarding people for. That’s the behavior they want us to do.” That’s how the algorithms work, they figure out what behavior they want you to do, and then they reward those who kind of sync up with that, and that’s how you beat the algorithms.

So recently, it’s been fun, I don’t even know who the first one was that I saw, but I saw one or two people who started posting on Instagram these really cool short form Q&A where someone would ask a question and then the guru on the page would answer the question. And if you look a thing on the thumbnail, it looks like a side by side, you see the two faces, both of them are just holding up a phone. Someone asks a question so you see, for example, I’ve done a bunch of them now and they’re really fun. Someone texts me a question and it’s got the video there, and so you see my face frozen, when their video ends, then mine starts talking and I answer the question.

Anyway, they’re pretty cool. I’ve been getting insane, really high engagement as I’m doing more and more of them. So I’m sharing that with you guys just as a hint. Go to my instagram if you haven’t yet. Go to Instagram.com/RussellBrunson and look for those. You’ll see probably 5 or 6 of them so far. But look and notice how many comments they get, how many likes they get, and start looking for other people who are doing that. This game is all about looking at what’s working and then modeling it. That style for whatever reason, is working really, really good. So I’m doing it, and you guys should be doing it as well.

So there’s the first idea I wanted to share with you guys, is that one. The second one is, I just got a question today, and I responded back to it. The question was basically about, “If you want to be successful in life, we know you have to have daily structures and routines. So how do you do that?” So I’m going to play the audio of my response because I want you guys to hear it because I thought it turned out pretty good, I think. I don’t know. Hopefully you like it. But it kind of shows you guys how I block out my day and my time to get things done. And then when we come back I’m going to have a challenge for you. Okay, so I’m going to queue up the audio from my video right now, and I’ll be right back.

Hey what’s up Allie, great to hear from you. So I’m doing this video from here because I want you to see right here my 5 amazing children. And I’m showing those guys because a lot of what you’re talking about with the daily structure and things like that, is all based around them. It’s funny, most of us get  into business because we want freedom, and then we start having success, and we get significance from it, and it’s so much fun. But then obsessed our entire lives, becomes a business, especially for me at this level, it gets harder and harder. You know, there’s so many demands that are coming on you. So for me, I started with what’s the most important thing to me, which are these 5 humans right here.

And I said, okay I need to block out time for them that’s like sacred time, that nobody else can interfere with. So every single morning from 7 until 9 is kid time. That’s when I wake up in the morning, tickling them, getting them out of bed, I’m getting them ready for school, driving them to school, dropping them off, going back and forth, and it’s crazy right. So that time is sacred.

Right now my two oldest, the twins Bowen and Dallin right there, they are in wrestling, so from 3 until 5:30 every day I block out time that I go to wrestling practice  to be there present while they’re wrestling. Yesterday Aiden started his first wrestling practice which was 6 until 7:30, so that’s blocked out. So the first thing is I block out from my calendar all the sacred times of the things that are the most important. Then I block out until 9:00 because 9:00 is the time to help kids get into bed, all that kind of stuff. Then from like 9 to 11 my wife and I have sacred time.

So that’s like, those are non-negotiable, that time is blocked out and reserved for the most important people. And then I start sitting down and saying what are my goals? One of my goals right now is I want to hit 10% body fat by the end of the year. So I was like, okay if I’m going to do that I’ve got to block out the time to do it. So I went back to my calendar, I was like okay, when am I going to work out? Is it in the morning? Is it at night? Is it before 7:00 starts? Is it after the kids go to bed? And I blocked out that time.

Then you go to my business goals, do that. I know I’m rewriting right now the Dotcom Secrets and the Expert Secrets books. I’ve got to block out 3 or 4 hours a day to be able to do that. So I just take my calendar and look at the priorities and block out the most important priority first, that becomes sacred time. Then I’m like, what’s my next priority? And I block it out, and I keep doing that until the calendar is filled. And then literally, I just come in and I work off of my calendar.

I have a system. I’m like, “Melanie, what’s the plan today?” She’s like, “Here’s all your calendar. You’ve got this, this, this, this and this.” And I go and I do those things. So for me, that’s kind of what it is. And it’s something that’s always changing because like wrestling season soon for the boys will be done right. Ellie just finished soccer season. When her soccer season comes back in, then I make that time and move things around. So it’s a fluid thing where every month or two I’m sitting back down and re-figuring out my priorities and my biggest goals, I re-dedicate out sacred time for the kids, for the family, things like that, and then I move other things around, figure out what my goals are now, and block them in.

And for me, having a goal is great, but if you don’t have the structure of here’s the hours in the day you’re going to go accomplish that goal, it never actually happens. So I’m very big at figuring out what it is you want, and then blocking out that time inside the calendar so you can make you get it done, as well as everything else you’re trying to get done. So that’s how I do it. I hope that helps. And for everybody who’s listening, don’t forget my favorite quote, “No success can compensate for failure in the home.” So no matter how successful you are, make sure the first thing you do is block out time with your wife, your spouse, your kids, significant others, whatever it is for you, because that time you can never get back and it’s the most important. All the other success things we do are just fun to keep our minds busy while we’re waiting for them to get out of school. So that’s all I got. I hope you’re doing good, and we’ll talk soon.

Alright, welcome back. So there’s how I answer my questions. So I’ve got a test for you guys. I want you guys to actually, because this isn’t just a listening exercise like most of my podcasts, I’m going to make you guys go do something. So I actually want you to go to Instagram. I’m going to do it with you right now. Go to instagram.com/RussellBrunson, it’s all one word, Russellbrunson. Or open your Instagram app, which is even smarter, and just open Instagram and I want you to go to my thing, make sure you’re following me , if you’re not yet, go click on the follow button so you’re following me. As of right now there are 577,000 people following me. I want to be over a million because all the cool kids have a million, so if you could go subscribe that would be super cool.

Anyway, I want you to scroll down, and there’s a bunch of them that I’ve done that way. As I’m scrolling there, I see one right here where the title at the top says being focused is overrated. If I scroll down a little bit more I see one that says, what do you do when you’re feeling alone. Scroll down a little bit more I see one that says, why you should surround yourself with the right people.

But start looking for these. Scroll down and look for them, I want you guys to see the model. And then as you’re scrolling through my instagram feed, notice all the different things. We are always testing all sorts of different things on Instagram, just like you guys should as well. And I don’t care if it’s instagram or whatever platform you’re on, we’re testing different things. So notice all the tests I’m doing. I’m doing tests of these little quote cards that look like somebody tweeted something. I’m doing pictures with my family, pictures where I’m in Kenya, just cartoons, and if you notice, hover over those things and see how many are liking, how many people are commenting, what’s happening.

And right now, instagram is funny because engagement is literally dying. Back a month ago I was getting 10,000 hearts on every single picture I post. Now it’s between 1 and 3 thousand. But what’s cool about it is if you scroll over these, or you look at them, you’ll see which ones are getting the most, the most like, hearts, and the most comments. And that’s our judge. We’re literally just throwing out hooks, testing different things and seeing what happens, seeing which ones get more likes and hearts and then the ones that have the most success, we do more of that.

So the same thing is true for you. You can do it yourself, just start posting stuff, or just go look at mine, go look at people you model and you follow, and look at the style of what they’re doing, and see which ones are the ones getting the highest engagement, and then you’re like, oh my gosh, this one’s getting the highest engagement, that’s the kind of thing I should be modeling, when I’m doing my post, my things like that.

So there’s some funnel hacking from the Traffic Secrets book to kind of share with you guys. And that’s just me doing it here on Instagram, but the same thing is true on any of the platforms. Go play with it, go test it, and have some fun. I hope that helps and I hope this gives you some ideas for some cool content you can post on Instagram or other channels of your own as well. And with that said, I’ve got to get back to writing the Dotcom Secrets book, so thanks again for listening and I’ll talk to you guys all again soon. Bye everybody.

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