Major Instagram + LinkedIn Changes! 👀 Jay’s SCOOP | Ep. 383

Jay Schwedelson: We are back for do this, not that podcast presented by Marigold and I wanted to share two new big things going on, one on Instagram and one on LinkedIn that are pretty significant in terms of having an impact on engagement and performance and all this stuff. And sometimes we don't really pay attention to some of these new rollouts, but these actually have a huge impact.

Jay Schwedelson: So I wanna rip through them really fast. So first, let's talk about the Instagram one. In the last few weeks, a big change is that Instagram is now fully searchable. What does that actually mean? That means when you go to Google now and you search for anything, oh, you know, new restaurants in the Miami area.

Jay Schwedelson: What comes up now in many cases, is Instagram posts, along with everything else that they wanna show you, but Instagram posts, I'll actually show you the images of these Instagram posts and you can now click through to the Instagram posts. You don't need to log into Instagram. You don't even need to have an account on Instagram.

Jay Schwedelson: It's basically making social content, right? Part of the searchable internet. Now, if you are not optimizing your Instagram posts thinking this way, then you are going to be leaving. All the traffic on the table, 'cause this is where it's all headed. As a matter of fact, Hootsuite came out with some data about this new change and posts that are optimized for this Instagram search using keywords and, and all this stuff.

Jay Schwedelson: They're seeing a 30% higher engagement rate. Those posts that are optimiz. So basically Instagram is getting indexed by Google, and that means your posts, your reels, your carousels. Now they could show up in Google search and Google confirmed this. This is not like, oh, somebody found it out there. This is actually real.

Jay Schwedelson: So for the first time ever, your social content is basically search content. So what does this mean? What do you need to do? So now when you post things, you can't just have captions in your post on Instagram that are like a vibe. Okay. You can't just have them be a vibe. Like if instead of saying, you know, you post something, you go Sunday scaries with emojis.

Jay Schwedelson: No, you need to have it say something like, here's how I manage Sunday anxie anxiety and reset for the week. Three steps that actually work. You wanna be thinking whether it's for your company page posts or your personal brand post. You wanna be thinking about searchable keywords in that first line of your caption.

Jay Schwedelson: 'cause that is what Google is looking for. So instead of weekend vibes, it would be Best Brunch spot in Fort Lauderdale. Here's what to order at whatever cafe. The formats that are working the best are very simple, uh, similar to the other like listicle formats you see on other platforms. So things like how to solve this problem in this location, or you mentioned your niche, you know, whatever it is, your niche tips for your audience.

Jay Schwedelson: Okay? Um, and you wanna always, this is really important. Always tag the location, even if your post doesn't even really have a location. It's just a generic. Uh, area that you are in. Google favors, posts big time in their search that have any kind of geo data and certainly any type of keyword data. So howtos tips, lists.

Jay Schwedelson: These are the posts that are ranking better, um, with the Google search. On all the Instagram stuff that's going on out there. And you may be sending yourself, I don't wanna do that. That's not what my Instagram's all about. This is where it's headed though. Instagram is becoming part of the searchable internet, and if you're not playing the game, your content is going to be left behind.

Jay Schwedelson: And this just happened in the last few weeks, so this is a big one. The other big one is happening on LinkedIn, and everyone's gonna sleep on this. Every time you connect with somebody on LinkedIn, whatever, you get another, uh, notification that says, Hey, do you wanna subscribe to whatever from that same person?

Jay Schwedelson: And you're always like, well, I don't wanna subscribe to that thing. Why would I wanna subscribe to that thing? But here's why that's happening. So LinkedIn newsletters, this is when I lose half of you, but you, uh, you really sh you should really dial in on this. Starting a LinkedIn newsletter is the biggest no-brainer of all time, and there's a big shift that LinkedIn just announced that makes it even more important.

Jay Schwedelson: Why do you wanna have a LinkedIn newsletter? And a LinkedIn newsletter is not the same thing as just PO posting long articles on LinkedIn. It's actually. Having a newsletter as part of your feed, and you, the reason you want to do it before I get to the big change is that when you launch a LinkedIn newsletter, first of all, you already have the content.

Jay Schwedelson: You already put out your other newsletters, your company. You do this on your company page, you do this on your personal page, you already have the content, okay? And there's no newsletter. Police. Your newsletter could be a hundred words, 500 words. It doesn't matter. But there's a reason you wanna start a LinkedIn newsletter.

Jay Schwedelson: Even if you don't publish it weekly, it doesn't matter. The reason you wanna start a LinkedIn newsletter, even if you don't have a huge following, blah, blah, blah, who cares? Okay? When you publish your first LinkedIn newsletter on LinkedIn, okay? And it's really easy. It's like you do a post, but instead of a post, you change it to, uh, a, a newsletter, okay?

Jay Schwedelson: And when you do this, you hit publish on that first post. What happens is every single person that follows your page, your company page, your personal page, or is connected with you. Every single person gets a notification saying, Hey, do you wanna subscribe to this thing? It is the only thing in social media that beats the algorithm because it goes to every single person that follows you or is connected with you or your company page.

Jay Schwedelson: It says, Hey, do you want to, do you wanna subscribe to this thing? Now, great. You put it out there. Believe it or not, on average, and this is pretty wild, on average, about 20 to 30% of your following is going to subscribe to your LinkedIn newsletter in the first 30 days. That's awesome. Now, here's the game changer.

Jay Schwedelson: First off, these LinkedIn newsletters do really, really well. Every time you publish a LinkedIn newsletter, um, it gets about a 30 to 40% open rate, and it gets sent out via email, and you don't have to do anything. It costs you no money. Okay? This is a no brainer. You already have the content. I don't know why you're not doing this, but the kicker is okay.

Jay Schwedelson: Every time you connect with somebody, every time you, uh, get a new follower. They get asked, do they wanna subscribe to your newsletter? And this thing allows your newsletter to grow over time without you doing anything. If you never published another newsletter after that first one, okay, and you didn't publish it for a year, it doesn't matter.

Jay Schwedelson: It's going to be asking people if they wanna subscribe every single time. You connect automatically. And then when you are ready, a year from now, you're gonna have a newsletter that has a zillion subscribers on it. I did this and it worked so well for me, you need to go down this path. And if this is totally confusing, just go to CHATT and say, how do I start my LinkedIn newsletter?

Jay Schwedelson: And I don't care if you're not big on, on LinkedIn. This is huge. Now what changed? What's the new thing? The new thing in the last two to three weeks is that when normally when you publish your LinkedIn newsletter, you can have a static image. As the thing that people see in their feed, because when you publish a newsletter, it also goes into everyone's LinkedIn feed.

Jay Schwedelson: But the change now is LinkedIn is now allowing you to post a video as the primary image thing on your newsletter. They're allowing you to have a video, so when you publish your newsletter, there can be a like a five minute video, a three minute video, it doesn't matter, a video about whatever, as part of your newsletter.

Jay Schwedelson: And the reason they're doing this is they're heavily circulating. Anything with video, they're doubling down on newsletters because it works. Right? So I would go deep on LinkedIn newsletters. And the most important thing about your LinkedIn newsletter, if you do one, what you name it is critical. You can't just name it what you wanna name it, because the way that it shows up in people's notifications, the only thing that really shows up that they could see is like the first two to three words.

Jay Schwedelson: And the first two to three words of the name of your newsletter has to be incredible. Like I think mine is something like. Email tips and then I blah, blah, blah. You might want it to be something like, quick wins, blah, blah, blah. It can't be something generic, vague, and boring 'cause people won't subscribe.

Jay Schwedelson: The first two words of the name of your newsletter have to be the ultimate hook. So I would go deep on this. It's working really, really well. There's been a 10 x increase over the last year over the number of people creating these newsletters, and there's a reason it's the only thing that beats the algorithm.

Jay Schwedelson: I am telling you this is worth, uh, five minutes of doing this. So let's get into. Oh, the ridiculous portion of this episode since you didn't ask. So as I am recording this right now, I'm in the middle of my guy strip and, um, we do this every year and I'll be reporting back fully on how it all went down.

Jay Schwedelson: We're in Vegas, and um, yeah, I'm struggling, but here I am. I'm getting through it because, uh, I don't know. You know, we go, I'll go away with six of my guy friends every year, and we try to do this. We've been doing this forever, but some of my friends now annoy me. Hopefully they don't listen to this, but they, they actually annoy me.

Jay Schwedelson: So one of my friends at dinner last night, he goes, you know what? I deleted my social media and, uh, I don't even have Instagram anymore. And I'm like, what? Who cares? You're a nerd. And then he said, I just prefer to be present. I'm like, okay, great. You do you. And then he went on a rant of saying why we should all delete our social media.

Jay Schwedelson: And it's, and it, and it's a brain rot and all this stuff. And that may be true. Okay, but that's, that's your decision, dude. I do not like, uh, uh, I don't like people, people tell him, tell me what to do. Whatever, whatever. Who cares that you deleted your social media? You're a nerd. I don't know what your problem is.

Jay Schwedelson: Anyway, but the other thing, by the way, and this dude, I don't know, I, I may not talk to him for like two months after all this, even though he was my buddy. The other thing is he's a clown, and here's why he is a clown, and I hope he doesn't listen. So we're all texting, you know, uh, we're not together. We weren't together.

Jay Schwedelson: We're all over the place at this hotel, and we're all texting about dinner. We're trying to figure out where we're gonna go to dinner, okay? And, um, he goes, all right, he's the one who started the text sheet. He sends out the text to everybody. We weren't even texting yet. He sends out a text to everybody.

Jay Schwedelson: He goes, Hey guys, where do you think we should go for dinner tonight? All right. And then we all start chiming in. But then he doesn't text for 20 minutes after he opened up the, the, the discussion. 20 minutes went by. I, I was like writing. I'm like, where are you dude? What, what, what's going on here? And this is what he does.

Jay Schwedelson: Do you ever deal with people like this? They open up a text discussion. They ask you a question, you reply, and then they don't respond for like 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 an hour. Is there some sort of etiquette that like if you start the texting, you have to stay in it. You can't bail on it in the first 10 seconds.

Jay Schwedelson: I don't know why that, that really drives me up a wall. Anyway, I'll be reporting back next week on how the guys trip went. So far, everybody's annoying me, but that's just me. I, I promise. I think I'll have fun before this is all said and done, and you all rock and catch you later.