[Transcript starts at 1:05]
Hello, hello, hello, my podcast people, and thank you for joining me for yet a another episode of my favorite podcast. If you're listening to this or watching it on the day that it drops, it is Monday June 17th, the month is flying by, our lives are flying by. Hopefully you are enjoying every day. So today we're going to be talking about how to manage your Instagram comments and DMs.
I got seven specific tips coming your way. Uh, I received an Instagram question, a DM. Surprise, surprise, very meta, um, about this. And I was like, at first I was like, I don't think this warrants a full episode. And then I was like, you know what, I'm going to make a full episode. So I answered that person. And also here we are with the full episode, but, um, as per always a few quick announcements, and then we will hop on into the full episode.
So it always feels kind of weird when I do a guest episode, because then I have like a week in between where I'm like not recording anything. Um, but here we are. Hopefully you listened to last week and enjoyed last week's guest episode. That was with Dr. Alyssa Olenick. Chick is just, she's next level. That was like the title of the episode, right?
When, about being [00:01:00] too much, right? When people call you too much. Um, that was episode 587. I had a blast recording that one and I'm really, really happy with how it turned out and just, the reason I have this podcast is for connection. It is to share my ideas. Uh, but it is really cool to, to bring people on and share their stories, right?
Not just have them talk about their expertise and teach about their expertise. So that is typically part of it. Um, but I, when I started this podcast and I, you know, decided to have guest episodes, it was so that I could bring people on and humanize them and you, the listener, the viewer could really get to know that person.
And that's what we got to do that episode. And, and Alyssa brought that up and she was just like, I haven't really done this in a lot of podcasts. And I was like, great, love it. So if you haven't tuned into that. Uh, definitely check it out. Uh, yes, it is a bit longer of an episode, but Alyssa talks even faster than me.
So you won't even notice. Uh, uh, we got one short announcement and then we'll hop on into the episode. So I've decided to run a free 100 [00:02:00] percent free training all about the foundations and fundamental fundamentals of starting an online business. It's going to be Thursday, June 27th. 4 p. m. Pacific. Um, it's 100 percent free.
I'm not pitching anything. I'm not selling you into anything. There's no time shares at the end or anything like that. I am running it because I've had some folks reach out saying that they were interested in moving into the online space, um, and eventually offering services and they legit had no idea where to start and I was like, Oh, I actually don't have a specific episode, like a specific singular resource about this, so let me make one.
I thought about making it paid and I was like, you know what? Fuck it. I'm just going to make it free. I will probably turn it into some sort of lead magnet. Um, but I was like, I'm going to run it for free the first time and see the questions I get, and then I can go from there, but it'll probably, probably be between 90 minutes and two hours.
Um, just give it time for question and discussion. I'm going to run it on zoom. Yeah. Yes, there will be a recording that's sent out afterwards. There always is folks, there always is. But as always, the real magic happens by being in the proverbial room. So you can ask the questions. So if you ever [00:03:00] thought about starting an online business, you're thinking about moving into the online space, you maybe want to, at some point, offer your services online, right?
You want to create digital products and offer those online. This is going to be the thing for you. So, uh, Again, this training is going to lay out how to get started, what you'll need in terms of tech and the time and what you can realistically expect in terms of timelines and outcomes. I'm just, I don't want to say I'm so sick of this shit out there, but also I'm so sick of this shit out there.
Like it's just not that good. I don't think you should have to pay a million dollars to kind of figure out what you want to be doing or if you want to be doing it. And I also, I want to set people up for success. I want to manage expectations and be like, yo, this is how long it's going to take. This is the, this is the basics that you need.
Now go and get started. And then if people want to go spend a million dollars to go get coaches or whatever, they can do that. But you know, for me, I want to create this resource, so I'm doing it. Uh, so if that's something that interests you, uh, the link for that to save your [00:04:00] spot will be in the show notes.
Thank you, Courtney. Um, or if that's not something that's interesting to you, or you've already moved past that, cause that's a good number of people watching this, a good number of you folks in my audience. I had folks when I, when I first pitched this on social, they were like, this isn't really for me, uh, but I have people I would want to share it with.
So if that's you and you're like, yo, I want to share with people, that would be amazing, would love to have you send it to them. I just want better resources out there for people. That's it. All right. So let's hop into the episode. So like I said, this question or this episode was inspired by a question that I received in my DMs.
So if you are listening to this and that was your question, thank you. You know who you are. So basically this person asked for my approach to managing comments and DMs as they were finding them to be overwhelming. Personally, so the TLDR, like the too long, didn't read, or I guess it should be the TL D L too long, didn't listen is if you're building a personal brand I think you have to find a way to figure it out. [00:05:00] We are in the business of trust and having direct communication with your audience is fucking gold. It's absolute fucking gold. If you're not building a personal brand, like you're running a business, right?
I think you have a huge opportunity to treat this as if you're building a personal brand, but you can outsource that actual direct messaging and things to somebody on your team. Right? So. Building a personal brand, I think you have to figure out a way to do it yourself and enjoy it. So with that in mind, figuring it out means identifying what works for you, what is healthy for you, and what is feasible for you.
I think it also needs to be consistent and congruent with the messaging of the brand, right? Like, you cannot expect audience interaction when you don't want to interact with your audience. There's a lot of bullshit out there about like, I'll say it, there's a lot of bullshit out there about boundaries.
And I'm like, you're not, that's not having boundaries, you're just being a bitch. Like it's annoying. Right. And then you can't just be like, Oh, my audience never writes to me or, but like, you're not trying to engage with them or you're only talking to [00:06:00] them when you're selling, when you're asking for something from them.
Right. So in my opinion, only showing up when you're selling, man. That's not it. That's not the best look. So, real talk. I love this shit. I love being on social media. And Instagram, really. I love, you know, responding to comments and DMs. I don't find them overwhelming, right? And it's not just because I love them, but also because I have zero problem you know, managing my energy and placing realistic expectations on myself when it comes to social media.
I'm not shoulding all over myself like, Oh, I should get back in five seconds or else people are going to hate me and never buy from me ever. Right. And then I get mad because they're asking me things like, I don't, I don't have that. Right. For me personally, I do do my best to get back to all the comments and all the DMS.
I will use names for the comments and I do this all the time. Right, not just when I'm launching. It's like if there's a new person, especially since it's a name that I haven't seen, yes, I know the people there, like I don't know them on, [00:07:00] you know, I shouldn't say I don't know them on a personal basis, that's what I'm talking about right now, I don't know them personally, but I look to go to their platform, go to their page and be like, what is your name?
And then use that in the comments, just, I don't want to take that extra second to do that. I enjoy it. I, I truly do. I love being on social media. I love being on Instagram. I love connecting with people in that way. I love that I can put up the boundary and be like, no, I'm going to say, you know, answer this now or no, I'm going to answer it later, whatever.
I am not overwhelmed by the inquiries. You know, I'm not getting thousands upon thousands of them by any means, uh, but the ones that I do get, uh, But people are also really good about how they interact with me and, uh, you know, the things they say, which I'm going to talk about because we can create that, right?
So getting back to as many possible DMs and comments really isn't an issue for me. I have also been doing this for almost 10 years, so I have a good reputation. Uh, people are going to default to thinking the best of me. And I have like purely organic growth. I've never gone, when I say organic, I should say I have purely slow growth.
I've never [00:08:00] gone viral. And we're going to talk about going viral, but I've never gone viral or had like a massive influx of people. Like people like to slow drip. They've been in for a bit and been with me. So like, they know what to expect. They're going to give me the benefit of the doubt. Right? So all these things, I, I, I consider these things as I dispense this advice.
All right. So seven tips for managing your Instagram comments and DMS: number one turn off your notifications. What are we doing? Why we got push notifications on? That is like the worst thing ever. I'm gonna say it objectively. This is my podcast. Worst fucking idea turn them off. You don't need to have little things fucking popping up. Go online when you go on and I say go on- go on Instagram when you go on Instagram and then be off Instagram when you're off of Instagram, right?
You do not need them. Turn them off right now. Pause this episode, go turn it off, take a screenshot, post it or send it to me so I know you did it. Tag me, whatever. Text me, 310 737 2345. Go turn them off. You don't fucking need them, okay?
Tip number two. [00:09:00] Treat all interactions as opportunities, not opportunities. Obligations, right? Yes. I absolutely coach to people to respond to every DM and every comment, but because it's an opportunity to build rapport and to build trust, right? From a business perspective, it unbalances the relationship. You're providing value every single day. And then you're giving them your time by responding to the comments and using their names.
Holy shit. Yes, they're gonna buy from you at some point or they're gonna tell their friends about you at some point. You don't have to write a whole ass essay. You can just acknowledge the comment. You can acknowledge the, the, the comment. It's the same thing. You can acknowledge the comment, you can acknowledge the DM.
Danielle Pascente stays slaying with this. She is just so good with just interacting with her community. And her success is not a fluke. She's incredible at what she does, the actual training. But her interaction with people. Fucking phenomenal. Phenomenal.
Tip number three, teach and tell people [00:10:00] how to treat you.
If you don't want any DMs, then say that you don't want DMs. This way they're not piling up. But also, remember, like, we can't expect that give from people if we're not willing to give. But if you don't want them, don't ask for them, right? If you're responding to DMs in a, you know, super delayed and you've just been like traveling a bunch, Go ahead and tell them that or say like when you go in your stories, just be like, Hey, it takes me a long time to get back to DMs.
I see them. I'm grateful for them. Like if it's super important, shoot me an email or whatever way that you prefer to correspond and then go from there, but just acknowledge it. All right, let people know how you want them to contact you. I just did a post about don't fucking email me. I don't want an email.
I never share the email on, on this podcast because I don't want an email. You want to text me? Go right ahead. You want to DM, you want to DM me? Also, go right ahead. You want to email me? I'm gonna call the police. Actually, I'm not even gonna call the police because i'm not gonna fuckin' even look at it. I don't want an email.
You call me, then I'll call the police, right, so. Tell people how you want them to communicate with you, right? If you don't want people to ask certain things, tell them. [00:11:00] Say, don't ask me about these things, right? LCK, Laurie Christine King, she does that. It has no problem with it. Uh, if you want people to read the caption before they ask something in the comments, say that, write it in the caption.
And then when they ask a question that was already posed in the caption, you don't say anything. Or you could just be like, Hey, it's in the caption. Please read it. All right. Like you get to teach your audience how to treat you. If you get a lot of unwanted comments and it's causing you a lot of stress and you're like, man, these DMs are bad.
I'm getting these comments and I'm like, they're from strangers. You can go into your settings and you can limit the comments. Limit comments to people who follow you. Because it's always going to be the trolls if anyone's saying anything, right? So, or you can like mute certain words so that those comments don't even show up, right?
So you get to really curate your experience, right? Teach and tell people how to treat you. Curate your experience, the comments and such that you are receiving.
Tip number four, give it 24 hours. So what I mean by that is I am quote unquote focused on responding to comments for the, uh, that are on a post for like the first 24 hours.
After that, [00:12:00] if they're there, I'll get to them if I do, if I don't, I'm not like mad about it, right? If I have free time one day, cool, I'll just go scroll to that spot. Go to those posts and like respond to things. But it's just for 24 hours that I'm like, all right, cool. I mean, I'm invested. That's it. And I'm, I'm posting twice a day now at this point.
Um, so it's just within the first 24 hours. As far as DMs go, I am checking them throughout the day, but typically it's like at the morning in the morning. And then the first thing when I wake up and then in the evening, if I miss one I miss one. I absolutely will see like a, you know, respond to one of my th-
someone will respond to one of my stories, which shows up as a DM. And I'll, I'll go back in the thread and I'll be like, holy shit. You wrote to me six months ago. I missed that. Sorry. No one has ever been like, how dare you! Because also they're DMing me again. So people are okay that you're not getting back to them in five fucking seconds.
Like it's okay. I turn off the notifications. It's okay. Do your best to get back to people but also It's okay. Have realistic expectations for [00:13:00] yourself, right? And know that people don't hate you if you don't get back to them right away.
Tip number five, if you are building a personal brand, don't outsource your comments and your DMs, right?
Especially in the beginning, like if you're going to ever, then like this should be years and years into it. Which brings me back to Alyssa's episode, right? That chick gets a shit ton of DMs and comments, and she's in there answering them, and she's figuring out the ways and the systems to best be able to do that.
And the reason she continues to get them is because she was the one responding to them in the beginning. Alright, and building that rapport and establishing herself as this approachable resource for her people. Alright, if you listened to that episode, go check it out. It's really good. She turned off her story replies for quite some time.
She's just turning them back on. Um, but when it got to be too much, she was like, Yo, no, I'm just turning them off. Like, I can't manage this. And she's still doing fine. Her business is doing more than fine. It's fucking booming. Right? You get to figure out how you can actually show up and what is feasible and sustainable for you.
But I firmly believe that having it be [00:14:00] your voice is so, so, so valuable for as long as it can. If you have to outsource it at some point, all right, but I'm going to really encourage you. Let it be your voice for as long as possible.
Tip number six, batch if needed, automate when advantageous. So batching.
Uh, I'm just speaking about responses here, meaning like set a time or a day. And that's when you go through and respond to the comments, right? Or you respond to the messages, whatever, just do them all at once. I will say that. In theory, the algorithm does like engagement, does favor engagement. So I think it's a good thing to be on after you post.
And this is what I coach. Be on Instagram for the first 20, 30 minutes after you post to respond to any comments that you may receive. If you're listening to this and you're just like, I don't even get any comments and you probably don't even, this episode probably doesn't even really relate to you because you're probably real talk don't get enough to like be overwhelmed by it.
But suffice to say, if you are feeling any kind of overwhelm, consider batching it. But I would suggest being on Instagram for the first 20 or so minutes after you post so that you can go and respond to comments. [00:15:00] One of the things you can do then is just be, use that time to respond to other DMs or, or, you know, lean into that, responding to comments in general or in previous posts and things like that.
So you kind of use it as like a general batching response time. As it relates to automate, like I said, automate when it's advantageous. Advantageous for who? Largely for the audience. Also for you, but largely for the audience, right? So if you keep getting the same question over and over again, look to automate the response.
And I'm not speaking about using the autoresponder, because the native autoresponder for Instagram just sends out the same thing for everyone. You can use ManyChat, and I did a whole episode about that. If you could link that, Courtney. Thank you. Um, but you can do ManyChat automation. And if you get like the same question about products or something that you use, you could literally have it so that if the comment, the trigger for the many chat automation is like a word about products or something like that.
And then when that happens, it'll get, it'll kick them a DM and send them the thing that they're looking for. Uh, a person who has a lot of offers, right? So it's a little bit more of the advanced business owner. If you have a lot of offers, [00:16:00] set up a quiz. Um, Annie does this. Annie Miller does this. Um, Alyssa has, has one of these.
And I think, I think what they do is a little bit different in that I believe Annie uses something like Typeform for her, um, quiz. Which I'm going to get into. And I believe Alyssa does it through, Alyssa has one on her website. And I think maybe she might have one in, in ManyChat. I don't know. Um, but either way, if you have like a lot of offers and people are like, where do I start?
Send them into a quiz so they can just go and have those things respond, you know, I'm thinking about someone else, one of my friends, uh, and this is, I met her at a conference and she was just like feeling super overwhelmed with the inquiries. And I'm like, it's a great problem to have. Let's not pull you out of your DMs.
Let's, let's organize things, let's automate some things, like lean into ManyChat, right? Those trigger words and, and let it help you so that you can have more time to actually just like converse with people.
And that brings us to tip number seven. If you do go viral, again, I've never gone viral. I've coached [00:17:00] people who have many people, but I've never gone viral.
But if you do go viral, simply do what you can, and what you want. So my guy, Jamie, he's Regeneration Tai Chi. He's fucking the best. Jamie, I know you watch, Jamie, you watch a bunch of these, uh, you watch them on YouTube. Thank you. I have such big love for you, my guy. But, he went viral and he's, uh, This man is incredible.
And he spent so much of his time responding to every comment and every DM. And it was incredible. I fucking love this. And this would be my, I'd like to have this be my default. If I did go viral. The caveat being don't feed the fucking trolls. If you've got people that are assholes, just delete it. Move on with your day.
Or leave it and move on with your day. Again, personally, I've never gone viral, it's not on my bucket list, but if it did happen, I would really look to lean into gauging who was being kind and respecting my time, versus being who is greedy and demanding. Remember, I view these oper these, um, Um, comments and DMs as opportunities, not [00:18:00] obligations.
And so for the folks that realize this and they treat it as such as well, and they realize that this is just an opportunity, I don't, not obligated to respond and they realize that, Oh yeah, I am way more likely to, you know, chat and respond to them. So seven tips for managing. Your DMs, your comments, obviously do what you want to do.
It's up to you. Um, but again, the TLDR, the TLDL is if you're building a personal brand, I do think that, you know, you, I would like for you to find a way to figure it out. Right. We are in the business of trust and having direct communication with your audience is just, it's fucking gold. All right. So that in mind, of course, figuring it out means identifying what works for you, what is healthy for you and what is feasible for you.
Hopefully these tips kind of got the wheels turning and you can, can look to lean into, uh, you know, what, and lean in and identify what those things are for you. All right. All right. Don't forget it. We got that [00:19:00] free training coming up on June 27th. All about the foundations and fundamentals of building, starting an online business. If it sounds like something that would help you, would love to have you.
Uh, if not, you can send a friend. All the deets are in the link in the show notes. All right. All right. That's all I got for you. As always, endlessly, endlessly, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you. Until next time, friends, Maestro out.
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MOTM #587: When the World Says You're Too Much with Dr. Alyssa Olenick
MOTM #575: Automating Your Instagram Comments and DMs With Manychat
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