[Transcript stars at 0:40]
Hello, hello, hello, my podcast people and thank you for joining me for yet another episode of
my favorite online business podcast. If you're tuning in, listening, watching on the drops, it is
Monday, March 2nd. Welcome to March.
And happy birthday to my lovely lady, Lex. Jimmy Salat. Go wish her a very happy birthday
today.
Hit her up on the gram. Lex Lancaster underscore. It is her birthday.
So today we're talking about Instagram. I'm not telling you what I'm doing for her birthday
because I don't want her to hear. I don't want her to hear, remember I've recorded this in the
past, that happens in the future.
She's right over there. So we're not going to talk about it. But today we're talking about
Instagram and we're answering the question, is Instagram dead? I know I've moved away from
Instagram coaching because in fact, I got a business announcement that is about my
messaging services.
But, and I am also pretty sure that I made an episode about this in the past because this
sentiment comes up every, however many years, cyclical. And we're here in the cycle again of
people being like, is it dead? It's dead. So we're talking about it today, but that business,
business update, like I said, I've moved away from Instagram, like as my front facing specific
offer, but I'd be doing messaging and yeah, what you say on Instagram, how you show up on
Instagram as part of messaging.
So it makes sense. But the messaging services are live. I did manage to roll them out last week.
We got five new messaging services, technically six. One is a retainer and that's only the wait
list right now. But we have five new messaging services.
One, the super simple messaging audit. I have a range of prices here and a range of touch
points. So the easiest, the lowest touch points, the lowest price point is the super simple
messaging diagnostic.
Send me your shit. I'll tell you what the messaging issue is. And it's all async, meaning there's
no meetings or anything like that.
I'll send you a report. Then we got the sales page messaging audit. Really fun one.
Again, no touch points. Send me your shit. I'll tell you what's wrong.
The messaging meeting, that is one-on-one. We're together for an hour talking about all the
things. Who's your avatar? It's usually the biggest thing that we cover.
And I said, what do I mean by that's usually the biggest thing that we cover? Why? Because this
is my maestro meetings. I've just rebranded it, right? And this is a part of messaging. It's a part
of marketing.
It's a part of saying things so that people can see, oh, then actually understand what's going on.
But in these calls, and I've done hundreds of them at this point, that's the number one thing
that we talk about is who's your avatar? Getting super clear on that. Because once we get clear
on that, then we can start thinking about, yes, their language, but what problems do they have?
What do they actually care about? What is showing up in a way that's congruent with your
messaging that's going to resonate with them actually look like? So that's the messaging
meeting.
Then I have a website messaging audit. That's all async. But that does have support in the back
end.
So that's two weeks of support with that. And there's two weeks of support with the sales page
messaging audit. And then there is the messaging month in your business, all up in your
business for one month.
But you can check that all out at the link. The link that's in the show notes. I made a whole
bunch of pages.
It's taken me about three weeks to do all this stuff. So you can check that out,
movingmyshow.com forward slash messaging dash services. But Courtney, thank you, Jojo.
Thank you. That will be linked for you guys. But I'm big stoked about them.
I am big stoked. They're big, you know, aligned. They're big aligned with what I do and what
comes naturally and what I really enjoy helping people with.
So if you want help, let me help you. Let me help you say the thing. Holler, as always, if you
have any questions.
But main topic for today, Instagram, is it dead? And why are we talking about this? Because I've
seen rumblings about it on threads and I've had some clients and former clients reach out
expressing, we'll call it unhappiness about their reach. Instagram, friends, it is an abusive
fucking relationship. It's an abusive relationship if the two things are true.
One, you expect anything from your efforts. And two, you look at the metrics. If you look at the
metrics and you're looking at the reach and all that shit, it's going to feel abusive.
If you expect to be rewarded for your efforts, it's going to be, it's going to 100 percent feel
abusive. Instagram is, and I've said it a million times, it is the Vegas slot machines. The house
always fucking wins.
Always. There is no way to game the system. Your best chance at winning is to do the max bet
mining post the most and to always be playing, pulling, pulling, pulling, pulling.
Another option you have, slightly, is to play at a casino that is known to actually let people win,
right? Which is the equivalent in this case of having a that you know gets traction, which right
now would be a political account, right? That's getting traction. But there is literally no way to
fucking crack the code because there's no code to crack, right? What does well now will not do
well later. What did well before will not do well now.
You can do it with your own content. Repost it. You see, it doesn't do the same, right? But note,
everything can work.
And at some point, what works now will stop working. And then you go on to the next thing,
right? So seeing the question, I'm primarily seeing this question on threads, which is, is
Instagram dead? Should I move over here? And I'm like, that doesn't make any sense, right?
Yes, Instagram is dead in terms of the Instagram that we all know. It changes.
It always changes, right? The Instagram that we knew, you know, subitone still shots, dead. Or
the boldly captioned talking head reels, dead. It's no longer.
What's what is Instagram right now? What is alive? It's a dumpster fire. I'll tell you that much. It
is a fucking dumpster fire.
And also like, who knows? Do carousels, do reels, do longer reels. Everything has quote
unquote worked. And it has always killed me that people would say otherwise, right? No, this
doesn't work.
This always has worked, right? Carousels have always worked. Single images, they worked at
some point. That was all, that was the default.
Short reels worked, longer reels worked. Instagram TV, that didn't really work because
Instagram was having identity crisis, like didn't know what went where. But still worth trying,
right? Play around with the things, keep yourself on the platform long enough to stay on it,
excuse me, long enough to actually win, right? And one of the things that I think is so
frustrating, if anything, is that the algorithm does look to stifle and kill creativity.
It does reward you posting the exact same kind of content, which like is going to kill you. So
that is something to consider. But all the different types of content quote unquote work, right?
The real thing to understand here is that if you're trying to start an online business, or you have
an online business and you're trying to use Instagram, or rather you need a place where, let me
back it up.
If you are trying to start an online business, or if you have an business, you will need a place
where the people are at, right? You need a place where you can show up and show your
personality and build trust. Instagram is still one of those places, as frustrating as it can be.
There are absolutely other places.
You've just got to pick one and commit. Substack, right? If you like to write, that'd be Substack.
YouTube, if you like doing longer form content.
Podcasting, but then you got to like promote the shit out of it somewhere and like get into the
podcasting world, and I don't really even know how you do that. Threads, I don't think so. I do
not think that threads is a good avenue for your business, to be completely honest, unless
you're like a service, a business to business and you like do things for people, then maybe
because there are a lot of people on there that I see a lot of like people like me on there, except
these people like need someone to work for them.
But I don't think they're going to pay anyone. That's kind of the read I get, you know, like asking
questions and I'm like, red flag, you're not going to pay anyone. But you still need a place
where you can show up and show people your personality, right? They're all the same, all these
platforms are fucking same.
They're going to require the same level of effort, the same level of commitment, and they're all
going to come with the same level of guarantee of success, which is none. None. It is simply
about picking the platform that you enjoy the best, right? Do not be fooled by content creators
that have mastered one platform and they got bored and now they're chopping it up on a new
platform.
Don't let them tell you that the original platform is dead, right? It's dead for them. They don't
want to be on it. It's dead as they knew it, but people are still there.
I'm thinking about one in particular and she doesn't shit on the old platforms. She has moved
to a different platform and she's doing very well there and she's like, hey, I can teach you how
to do well over on this platform. Amazing.
But understand that she is bringing an audience from these other platforms. So it's not a truly
fresh start, right? She's in the same kind of thing and has moved over a year. So just
understand what ties into someone's success on a platform and you still got to fucking show
up.
She did a thread the other day actually when she was like, yeah, I'm making money with these
videos, but they take me like 16 hours to edit. And it's like, yeah, it's not two seconds. So me
saying that Instagram isn't dead, it's not me being naive.
Instagram can absolutely suck to be on, right? It sucks largely in my opinion because of what is
going on in the United States and what's going on in the world. But the complete and total
cowardice epidemic that we're in the middle of in the United States, it's fucking terrible. There is
no escape from how shitty things are and the fact that extractive capitalism and corporate
capitalism is going to come and kill us all.
I think that's the point that folks are missing when they're like, is it Instagram dead? It's like, no,
it's that it feels fucking weird as shit to be posting about this thing when you're just like, look at
all of this terrible shit. And nothing's happened. Nothing's happening.
People aren't being arrested. People are being stolen from the streets. People are being shot in
the streets.
Justice is not being served. Chaos is reigning. Billionaires are getting more billionaire-y, moving
into trillionaire territory.
It feels objectively weird to be like, buy my thing. Feels fucking weird. That is the biggest issue.
And so then you add that to the fact that people are, some people aren't talking about stuff.
And then people are just talking about the stuff that they sell. And you're like, this is fucking
weird.
You're not even acknowledging the fact that this is happening. And also you just, a lot of people
move to the online space. And so it feels like all these posts are like, buy my thing, get my code.
And I'm like, it doesn't feel fun to be on there. And I fucking get it. I do.
I do think that there's an opportunity there then to like, not post like that and play a really long
game and be like, I'm just going to show up and share. That is how I started my account. And it
was the best thing I could have done.
I just posted for like four years before I even asked for anything. I was like, I just got shit to say,
just to talk about. The platform is not dead.
I have clients that are growing on this thing. It's not, and they are, they are growing and they
are attracting clients and they are converting clients. It's not dead.
Is it easy to grow? No. Do the posts get the same reach that they used to? No. Are people still
growing? Yes.
I'm not making this up. I have, I have people that I work with and they are growing. Are posts
still getting reach? Yes.
Yes, they are. So my advice, the action item for this episode is if you want to be on Instagram,
right? And first off, if you're like, I want to be on here, but like, it's just like a lot right now,
fucking take a break. Go ahead.
It's fine. But then when you come back, post and ghost, baby, post and ghost. All right.
I've said it since day one and folks don't want to fucking listen. And then finally, eventually they
come around to it, ignore the fucking metrics. In the off chance that the metrics are even
remotely helpful, they will stop being helpful and they will become harmful for your mental
health, right? Because what once worked will stop working.
And then you're going to be sad and you're going to be like, you know, you're going to, I've
seen it a million times. You're going to show up and do a post proclaiming that you're no longer
chasing the algorithm. And you're just going to post what makes you happy.
Just start doing that right now. Just start doing that right now. All right.
Play the long game, and invest in index funds. I could do a whole fucking episode actually on
the fucking moral dilemma that it is to be like in the stock market. And you're like, I'm propping
up the bullshit and perpetuating the bullshit.
And also the stock market is just run by men and men are the emotional ones. They're so
fucking emotional. You should not be in charge, but we'll see that for another episode.
We'll see you for another episode. Play the long game. Don't be a day trader.
Don't be a day trader from Instagram. Don't be a day trader in the market. Don't be.
All right. Play the long game and stick around long enough for it to maybe be your turn to win
one day. Maybe.
All right. I will say, if you must try to game the system, the number one way that I recommend
to do that is to start a new account, right? If you think your account is dead, or maybe you
fucked it by, you know, you fucked it up by buying followers, or it's just totally the wrong
audience, start a new account. Nobody wants to hear it, but it's true.
All right. I'm running out of time. Let's keep this one short.
Let's wrap this up. Let's wrap it up. Then you can go make a post, right? Hopefully I wasn't too
much of a Deb, Debbie Downer, but I'd be saying the truth.
I've been saying this, screaming this for years, and here I am still saying the same thing. None
of the platforms are dead as in there's no point in trying to use them. It's all about finding one
that you enjoy and playing that long game for every single one of them.
And realizing that your likelihood of winning is very small, but what the fuck else are you going
to do? All right. Go check out those services. Those are the messaging services.
If you're looking for some help with messaging. And as always, folks, I am grateful. You listen to
me rant and it does mean a lot.
So if you need anything, notify me and let's do our usual sign off. Endlessly, endlessly. One
more time.
Endlessly appreciative for every single one of you. Until next time, friends. Maestro out.
Watch this episode on YouTube!
Check out all of my brand new messaging services!
Catch me on the socials: Instagram | YouTube | Threads | TikTok | Facebook