Maximize Your Instagram Growth: Getting More of The Right Followers
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Welcome to the Social Media Marketing Podcast, helping you navigate the social media jungle. And now, here is your host, Michael Stelzner. Hello, hello, hello. Thank you so much for joining me for the Social Media Marketing Podcast, brought to you by Social Media Examiner. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner, and this is the podcast for marketers and business owners who want more exposure, more leads, and more success.

sales. Today, I'm going to be joined by Lucas O'Keefe, and we're going to explore how to get more of the ideal people following you on Instagram. In this interview, Lucas is going to share a cacophony, for lack of better words, of strategies that you can use, pick and choose at your convenience to really draw your ideal audience to you. Let's transition over to this week's interview with Lucas O'Keefe.

Helping you to simplify your social safari. Here is this week's expert guide. Today, I'm very excited to be joined by Lucas O'Keefe. If you don't know who Lucas is, he's an Instagram strategist who helps content creators and business owners maximize their exposure on Instagram and beyond. His newsletter is Understanding Social Media, where he shares social media tips and strategies. Lucas, welcome back to the show. How are you doing today?

I'm great and it's awesome to be back here for a second go. Yeah, it's super exciting to have you back Lucas. Today Lucas and I are going to explore how to get more of the right followers on Instagram. Lucas, so there are a lot of marketers who are using Instagram kind of on autopilot. They don't really have an approach that I would say is methodical and I know what we're about to unleash or reveal to everyone is a really systematic approach.

And I'm curious from your perspective, why is it important that marketers employ an approach, an intelligent approach, to

to growing their Instagram following. What's your thoughts on that? The thing that comes to mind is that strategy is what gets people to hit that follow button these days. It doesn't matter what platform you're on. Of course, we're going to heavily speak to Instagram today, but anything I'm sharing is going to just speak to the importance of strategy behind your social media. And it's quite simple because Instagram

People want to make sure they're hitting that follow button. I find people are very protective over their follow these days. They're less likely to hit that button and follow too many accounts. So if you want people to follow, you need them to trust that they're going to be able to rely on you creating good.

funny or relatable content that they're going to want to see. If you're posting randomly or posting without a plan, people are going to pick up on, yeah, I don't know what this account's about. I don't know if I'm quite ready to follow. So a strategy solves that problem. Very cool. So let's dig in to the very first part of your strategy. Start

wherever you want to start. Yeah, so the strategy that I want to share today is the GROWS, with an S at the end, GROWS, G-R-O-W-S method that is all about locking in the content that's going to get you these results I'm speaking to.

So again, I have five different types of content that I'll share today. The goal here is not to create all five types and to rotate through them. That's too much for you as a creator or you as a brand, even if you have a team, and also too much for your audience to really feel an identity to go with your content. So the content I'm sharing today, it's gonna be five key pillars. As you're listening, I want you to think of

two, maybe three that really will work for your brand, for your strategy and make them work for you. The more you show up with these, visitors to your profile are gonna say, hey, I know what I can expect from this account. I'm gonna hit that follow button and that's ultimately what we want.

So again, this grows strategy is all about the content that is going to be reliable and get the results you want. So the first part of the grows method is to create guide content. So looking for what is that type of content that's going to perform well, get people saving, sharing and hitting follow, creating guide content, which is how to's, tutorials, show someone how to do something in a series of steps.

is an excellent way to really carve out that identity as a useful account that people want to follow and know that they can count on. The great news is there's also an endless amount of tutorials and quick workflows or processes that you do every day as a creator, as a business owner for your brand that you can turn into bite-sized content. And that's what this first pillar guide with the GROWS method is all about. Okay, so...

Just let's unpack this a little bit. Let's give some examples of kind of how this works and just expand a little bit more if you don't mind. Yeah, so Instagram, whenever we're talking about it and content, we have to look at the content formats. And if we're thinking about this guide or education content and you want to think about what's going to work, I like to do two things. You can have a reel that is a tutorial video. Here are three quick steps to design your own logo.

And you break down, if you're a logo designer, you break down three key important questions or steps that someone who is hoping to be able to design their own logo would be able to follow from your content to get that outcome. Another great way to do it is through swipable carousel posts.

And that's personally my favorite type of content. That's how I've grown my account to what it is today. In a carousel post, less so thinking of like the typical like photo dump, which is a bunch of photos and you're just kind of swiping through it like an album. Instead, if you use a tool like Canva or Adobe Express or Photoshop or Illustrator and you design your carousel posts, you can make each post like a mini e-book.

For example, I posted last week how to find your niche on Instagram. That's the first slide of the carousel. And as someone swipes through, they get my multi-step process with details about how to find their niche on Instagram. And that's all packed into one super educational post.

Okay, so what I'm hearing you say is the first strategy is to be the guide, it sounds like, right? You are guiding your ideal target audience towards a resolution, presumably to a problem that they face. And I would imagine if we step back a little bit, all these things are intentionally strategically built together.

to attract a specific audience, right? It's not just like you're randomly putting one day Instagram topics, the next day YouTube topics, the next day like house cleaning topics, right? I mean, you specifically have some sort of overarching strategy that's layering into all this. Is that correct? Exactly. And let's go back to my example I gave, which is a reel that could be about, you know, how to design a professional logo in three core steps.

If someone is a brand designer or if someone is a graphic designer who regularly designs logos or regularly carves out greater brand packages for businesses and clients, most of their content, if we zoom out, is going to be a series of small, quick steps that goes into this person's everyday job. And the goal here is someone coming to this channel, following this person. Maybe it's a graphic designer they really look up to, so they're going to follow them

They're learning the bite-sized chunks that go into that person's work, that go into their brand or go into their business. And that keeps that graphic designer top of mind. It makes them an authority in their space. A great thing to do with this educational content is, as we know, you can teach people how to do things in small bite-sized chunks, right?

do it for free with free value carousels or reels but then if you sell courses or if you do actual logo design or graphic design someone who is you know enjoying your bite-sized educational videos might look at it and say this is awesome i've learned a lot but at the end of the day i

I want to hire this person to do greater projects or bigger things for me, or I want to buy their course. And that trust comes from the bite-sized educational guide content in the first place. What do you want to say to those people listening right now that have this objection inside their mind? Yeah, but I'm teaching my methods to my competitors or I'm teaching people how to do this on their own and therefore they'll never want to work with me. How do you overcome those objections? Yeah.

I say time is money, right? If you can teach people how to do it and those who are going to do everything themselves and learn that slowly piece by piece by going to your grid and watching this reel and then scrolling through and finding the next reel that goes with it to complete the second step of the process and then jumping all over the place. People who are going to do that because it's, you know, maybe they can get that value and learn from you for free. They're going to do it. But

But most of the time, the people who will become possible clients or customers, they're going to say, yeah, I learned a lot from this person's logo design video. I want a full brand identity carved out for me. I like how they showed off this logo. Looks like all of their process is really smooth. I want to work with them. And that's usually what happens next. I love that. And I think it's really important for people to understand that

When you demonstrate your insights and wisdom to other people, it does a couple of marketing things that a lot of people don't really think about. Number one is it demonstrates that you know what you're talking about versus them just going to a website and seeing a bunch of logos on a website versus them seeing the craftsmanship that goes behind it. This is something that can basically establish a little bit more know, like, and trust versus

In addition, if someone does learn how to become a graphic designer, a better graphic designer or a better logo creator as a result of following your stuff,

They might attribute that down the road to you. They might say, hey, I learned all this from Lucas O'Keefe, and that is another form of branding and marketing. So this is just kind of a reframing for some people that don't want to reveal, quote unquote, the secret sauce. And just because you show what goes into it, you don't have to show all that goes into it. Would you agree? Exactly. A hundred percent. Okay. So we've talked about the first part of your strategy, which is the guide. What's next? Now,

Next up, our part of the GROWs method is to create relatable content. And just like you said, we live in a time where, as you were describing how people want to learn it from you, they want you to become the person they learn from. Likewise, we live in a time where there are so many

powerful AI tools that can create tons of content, generate tons of content ideas. So it really comes down to the who behind the content, less so the what that person is talking about. And our next one, relatable content, which is the R, is super important for this.

So if you are looking at your overall industry, looking at your possible community that you want to speak to online, remembering that the GROWS method, I'm giving five pillars of content, and the idea is to find two or three that work for you.

This relatable content, which can be things like reels that are funny and going to make people share it or memes that are single images or carousels of memes. Anything that shows you're a human, you get the same problems or understand the same issues in your industry as the customers you're reaching out to. This is a super important type of content to be human and to stand out with. Okay, so talk to us about how...

This is different than what we just talked about. Maybe by giving an example of maybe what you do for yourself or what some of your students or clients do, just so people can grapple a little bit with what you mean by being relatable and revealing the who behind the company or the person. Yeah. And to answer that, I like how the first two letters of this framework are guide and relate because...

because we always talk about getting people to follow you on social media as being as simple as giving value, right? You give value. And when people think of value, it's easy to consider educational content. You teach people stuff, you show them how to do something. People watch YouTube videos every single day to learn. People read blogs every single day to learn. Now we're doing it on social media in bite-sized chunks. So we've always known value comes from that content and

Well, where I like this relatable content is value doesn't have to be education. Value can be making someone laugh. Value can be giving someone something to share to their best friend and say, this is totally us, this post. And that's the example I can give. If any creator listening right now, whether it's their business account or their personal account,

go into your DMs on Instagram and look at the content you've recently shared to your best friend or your closest colleague. And chances are, they're not educational content. They are relatable posts. So a good example is,

you know, POVs about your favorite sitcom that you might be watching or your favorite Netflix show. Whenever a big show comes out, people like to talk about it. People like to make jokes about it. We saw this with shows like the white Lotus where people were having all these like viewer parties and talking all about it and sharing memes related to that. We saw this with the show severance, which was a great show for wondering what's going on. I love that show. Oh, it's so good. It's so good.

All sharing in this collective confusion of not knowing what's going on. And that relatability, especially if you're a brand or a business, really brings you down to earth. And instead of trying to sell people on stuff all the time, you become that core aspect of, yeah, we sell you stuff, but we get it just as much as you do here in the industry. And that's where relatable content's valuable. Okay, so this is where it can get a little...

confusing potentially, because if we talk about severance, which is a great show, what does that have to do with my target audience who's into marketing? The reason I asked this is because there might be other relatable things that I could share that are not

Not necessarily cultural moments, but might be the common challenge faced by the audience. For example, algorithm changes, you know, would be the obvious one that we could talk about. Is that relatable or is that not relatable? Help me understand how we can delineate between maybe cultural entertainment phenomenons and laughing and entertainment versus stuff that maybe is relatable for anyone in the niche that we're in.

So the best part about relatable content is that it brings those two things together, right? You take the cultural moment, you take the super industry relevant thing, like for example, stressing out about the Instagram or social media algorithm and you put them together, right? You get a common like still frame image or like a GIF, a video GIF that's like a clip of one of the severance

and the characters on Severance, right? You know, they're working at their computer desk. They don't know what they're doing. The whole point of the show is in Severance, these workers don't know what the purpose of their work is. So you, you know, you get a clip of one of the actors on Severance typing away at their computer, looking confused, and then you make the caption,

marketers trying to figure out the latest Instagram algorithm. And people who watch Severance go, oh, my favorite brand just used my favorite show to communicate an aspect of my industry that is stressing me out. And yeah, I am stressed out about the algorithm. So I'm going to share this post to my friend in my industry who also watches Severance. And there's a lot more overlap than people think.

Well, and I'm thinking about, for those that haven't seen Severance, these people come out of an elevator and they have no idea how much time passed or even what just happened. And I could see the elevator opening and

as a kind of analogy to AI forgetting everything you just told it, you know, like this is something a lot of marketers face where like you've been working with AI for a while and then it's as if it just doesn't even know who you are. And it's like it started from scratch, which a lot of marketers deal with when they're inside of a chat GPT thread and they've reached the limits and all of a sudden it starts acting completely different.

So, okay, I think I understand what you're saying, but does all relatable content need to be culturally relevant or can it also be niche relevant by just maybe talking about the struggles of entrepreneurship if you're trying to target that particular audience? That's a great question. And no, it doesn't all have to be culturally relevant. There are some like

Ageless memes too that will always kind of work and are cyclical and cycle back. Something that we're seeing a lot of right now is people are using the new ChatGPT image model to generate like full on cartoons, right? Like little mini four panel comics. And yeah, it might be like a typical comic style in the illustration and you can prompt ChatGPT to make sure it has that style.

But these are completely brand new images and looks. They don't have any kind of cultural relevance. We're not like generating SpongeBob comics or anything like that. It is a completely unique cartoon or comic and people really have that freedom to make it about whatever they want in their industry. So that's a great way to continue to create relatable content and even kind of

have your own branded comic or cartoon that is just really beginning because of how powerful that new model is. Okay. So we have five possible options in this strategy. We're revealing this grows strategy. The first one was guide where you be the guide and you teach or educate your ideal target audience on how to do the craft that you're specialist in. Second one is relate. And we talked about how relate is this opportunity to connect to

memes or popular television or entertainment or even just relevance that's happening inside of the industry. What is the next example? Yeah. And O stands for observe. And that perfectly follows how we spoke about relate as listening to what's happening in the wider pop culture around the world, maybe in your industry as well. But the O standing for observe is basically looking at

what news is coming out in your industry, what trends are coming out in your industry and acting quick to be the source of information and news on those changes. I love this content personally. It's one of my main pillars that I use because as we've mentioned before, Instagram has tons of changes. The Instagram algorithm is updating with new features, new ways content is or isn't being seen.

then people understandably want answers. Or if there's a new feature, they want to know how it works or how to find it. I try to be really quick to the point to being able to share my first impressions of those new updates, of those new features. And it's a great way to have my audience trusting me and relying on me because they know

I might be that source of information. People might turn on post notifications for me because they know I share very timely and urgent information in my content. And if all the things I'm mentioning, of course, lead to people hitting that follow button too. Okay, so this one, I think needs just a little bit of explanation because this one requires you to be like Johnny on the spot for lack of better words, right? You have to be quick. And for some people that's gonna require time

them to be constantly any tips on how to do this? Because I can imagine like a couple hours feels late in this kind of an environment, right? You're right. Yeah. If you're reporting on something, you know, eight to 12 hours later, let alone 24 hours or more, you're probably too late because you probably saw it from someone who does a better job reporting

posting observational content or reactive content is what you could call it as well. But this is why I love this framework. Of the five types we're sharing today, I keep saying it's important to just find two to three. And the reason for that in this specific example of observational or trend content is because the

there isn't always going to be news, right? I personally feel lucky because I'm in this Instagram social media industry, which changes fast and has a lot of new content and new features. But in maybe slower industries or industries where you don't have access to as much of a news network to

find things out really quick, yeah, this probably wouldn't be the pillar of the strategy to focus on because it really does require a lot of listening and ear to the ground in your industry, whether that's through other creators who are regularly faster than you, having inside connections who you can reach out to, and also just having a strong blog network that's going to quickly report on stuff because

I find print and publishing online is usually faster than video and whatnot. So there is a lot that goes into it, which is why for some people it might not be the ideal pillar. And luckily they have four others to choose from. Well, if you haven't been tracking, there have been some major AI updates over the last month and the changes just keep coming. I know this feels overwhelming, but what if I told you you can actually thrive in this rapidly evolving AI frontier?

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Just a couple of thoughts as a guy that runs a media company and we do cover the entire space. So what we used to do, and this is for longer form content. So this would be like if you have an Instagram live show, I know there's plenty of people that go live and cover kind of the news of what's been going on in the last week. This gives you a little bit more time if you want to do like a weekly recap of

of here's kind of the main things that happened in the last week, because maybe people don't care about like literally same day news. Maybe they just care about the total recaps. Is that an option where you could get away with something like that, like in a weekly update of important news inside of a carousel or something like that, instead of having to do it instantly, that way you can interpret it, decide which ones are the most important and then have like a weekly post update. What's your thoughts on that?

I love that idea. And the whole point of the strategy too is to make it predictable and reliable in what you're creating and sharing. So yeah, a content creator could absolutely share a lot of guide content or share a lot of relatable content. And then once a week, one of their posts is an observational collection. Here's what you missed in social media this week, right? Here's what you missed in fill in the blank. Anything, any industry can really go there.

this week and that's a great way to do it. In fact, the official Instagram at creators account, I've been seeing more and more. They do like a, I think monthly, but maybe every week they do a monthly like creators digest of like, here's what you missed on Instagram this month. They might even do like a weekly

here's what's trending on reels this week, which is valuable because it shares trends on their platform. And it also gets people inspired to create more reels and content on Instagram. So they use that really well. And yeah, it's a great example of

Why it's important to have two to three pillars from this strategy, because you won't be able to post industry recaps or observing industry trends every single day. It could fit perfectly into a Friday recap. It could repurpose easily into your weekly newsletter, which is something I like to do, or it could play up to a longer form YouTube video that someone is creating. So there's so many interesting options here.

As you can probably tell, this is why Observe, the O of this, is my favorite. I love it. But, you know, another thought for people that don't want to be chasing news, it's one thing to report the news. It's another thing to interpret the news. And I feel like people actually place more value on what's your view of this item and is this something important?

That could be a short little video like Instagram decided to add this new feature. Is it worthy or not? Here's my take. What's your thoughts on something like that? That way you don't have to be the first on it, but you need to be the best on it maybe because you're going a little deeper. What's your reaction to that? I love that. It comes down to, you know, what is your special sauce, right? And like you said, if someone's maybe not the fastest, but they're the funniest. There you go. Right. They're giving some funny...

Pardon? I like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Be the funniest, right? You don't have to be the fastest. But if you are like, if you have a way with words and making people laugh, that's almost like, again, a combination of take the relatable pillar and take the observational pillar, smash them together. And you now have this unique type of content. I don't know if I've said this enough that sometimes

series content. So series based content is really big on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube shorts, most social media platforms right now, because again, you want people to know what they're coming back for. Your weekly comedic commentary on the latest social media trends can be a series that people look forward to. And as you pointed out, it also removes the need for urgency because yeah, people will say it faster, but people might not say it as funny.

Okay. So we've got disclaimer, we've got relatable content, we've got observational or observed content. What's the next part? So the W is similar to G, which was guide, but this is when, and pretend

particularly, it didn't fit in my acronym, but it's quick wins. And quick win content, just to explain it, is think about the fastest outcome or value you can give to someone. It sounds funny to say because everything feels fast on social media nowadays, but the guide example I gave earlier, which was like three tips to mastering logo design, three tips to a

takes too long in today's day and age. So when I say quick win content, I mean a visual checklist or a visual routine. I like this as like infographics and single images, not a carousel, not a reel, just a single thing that someone can look at, scan, get some value from right away,

ideally share that post because it was consumable and valuable for them. So they're going to share it to their network. This is another great pillar that can also save time and also be a good extension of your guide content. Because if you are sharing more, more fleshed out guides, three steps, you can also turn multiple posts into a

quick little checklist or routine. They're super easy to make and you can share that for your audience pretty regularly. So let's give an example so people can understand what something like this might look like. Again, I always think my favorite examples are content that I've seen, not content I've created, but content I've seen and shared or seen my friends or family or colleagues sharing. And I think quick win content is done really well in the food and nutrition space. So

I'm sure people listening will have seen something like this, but it's just a single checklist and it says something like eight inflammation helping foods. And then it's just a quick little image of like designed in Canva. And it's just like four different icons of those foods on the top row, the other four of the eight on the bottom row. And it's quickly telling someone, oh, these are foods I should maybe cut out to help my inflammation. This is cool. I'm going to share this to my audience. I'm going to save it.

Yeah, sometimes we all save stuff and don't go back to check it. But that's the real goal of this content. A quick routine, a quick checklist, almost like a shopping list that you can turn into a single post and put out there for people to see and save and follow you with. Is this generally a image?

And not a video? Can this be done in video? Yes. Okay, it's not a video. Okay. It can be done in video. You know, with so much content, people get creative. I do find it's best with images, but I've seen more graphic...

design oriented reels these days where it's just like animated and you see like the text appear on screen, right? It might just be B-roll of someone like working at their computer and then superimposed text over top of like a nine second reel. Not my most favorite type of content, but I see this work for many creators where with that B-roll of them working at their computer, it'll be like, here are my five techniques to stay more productive during my workday.

And it has like the Pomodoro technique or it has other techniques that they follow. And then maybe the caption explains it in more detail or they can look at your other content for more detail. But yeah, it can be done in video as well. Okay. So it sounds to me as if the quick win is one of the harder ones to pull off, right? Because we're kind of restricted intentionally to creating something that's simple and

and precise and ideally can be put into a square image, right? I mean, it's not kind of what I'm hearing you say. It is, but again, people want to scan like the brain obviously registers so much visually that just communicating with those visuals. I say this all the time because it still wows me. The content I put so much detail into and it's like a carousel and I'm like, wow, people are really going to get so much value out of this. This one's going to be the winner.

it doesn't do as well. And then I really have to like tone things down, as you said, to squeeze it all into a single image, almost to the point where I feel like it's not enough. And that post often does really well. I have one I posted this week. It already has 500,000 views because now we get views on photos and carousels similar to Reels. It has 500,000 views and the whole post is how to spend an hour on Instagram. Or it's like,

only have one hour on Instagram question mark. And I break down, it's a pie chart of an hour. And I break down, do this for 10 minutes, do this for 15 minutes, do this for 10 minutes, do this for five. It adds up to the full 60 and it's just a single image and it's

doing super well and growing my audience. Love that example. Okay, what's next? Last, we come to the S, which is showcase content. And I really added this into the framework to shout out the artists, the designers, the people who maybe feel like

Instagram of late or of the last few years, ever since it's shifted over to being very reels heavy, hasn't served them as well. These are the artists and creators who, you know, used to post a photo of their work and get a good audience following from there. Photographers who of course had beautiful photos to share and to grow their audience with.

Many of those creators are finding it difficult to carve out in this whole real centric environment we've been in with Instagram. So showcase content is really about, yeah, show off your final piece, show off your photo, show off that logo you designed, show off that beautiful art you drew,

But make it a video, make it engaging by showing the whole process that went into it as well. A good way to do this is to kind of to show the finished piece first and then show how you got it. Because then someone's going to be going to grab their attention by the finished piece and say, wow, I really like that photo. I've been trying to get my photography to that level.

oh, they're showing me how they set up that shot too. This is great. I'm learning and I get to see this really cool photo. So many of these I feel like I've seen are like sped up. Maybe it's a one hour process that's sped up in like 60 seconds. Is that kind of what we're talking about? Yeah. I see a lot of these crazy arts related things where they take like, I don't know, a pine cone or something crazy and they make it into a piece of art, you know, or a stub, a log or whatever, you know,

So is this the kind of stuff where we're talking about kind of like all the little with almost like no voice, right? It's just got a music track behind it and showing the whole thing. Is that right?

Exactly. I love that example because it's like, what's this pine cone doing on screen? Oh, he's turning it into something very cool. And you can really play. As you said, you don't need voice. You can really play with text hooks. Right. Watch me turn this pine cone into X, Y, Z. Like a candle or something. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Someone's going to see that and go, wait a second. I had no interest in this before a second ago, but I didn't know I needed to see this. And they're going to watch the video. Yeah.

And these are videos you see photographers, artists, designers doing very well with, often going viral too, because if you can really master this format, yes, it's hard and time consuming to film, but if you can master this format and really make it work for you, it's one of the most

growth potential types of content out there. Well, and I feel like there's a little ASMR going on on some of these too, where it's like there's a drawing and there's a, it's an artist with a pencil and you can hear the pencil and the eraser and all that kind of stuff. Is that part of what's going on here as well? The sound effects and stuff like that? Exactly. Yeah. It's so versatile. And I love how all these examples are coming to you, right? Like we've all seen it. Right. And that's,

And that's the core message I want to share with this content is all the examples I've seen today. Again, if you look at most content that you like, that you save, that you share, if you can find all that content presented in front of you, you could probably sort it into all

All of these categories would probably cover all of the content that you like, save and share. And that's why it's so good to grow with. And there's also a wealth of examples out there to learn from and make your own. Okay. So you kind of hinted a little bit about how you compare some of these things together. Why don't you expand a little bit about how these things do not have to operate on their own. And by the way, just for the record, go over all five of them and then let's talk about some pairings.

Yeah, so if we're looking at the overall GROWs method, the five pillars of content that I suggest taking two to three of are guide or how-to educational content,

Relatable content that's funny, super shareable. Observational content, reporting on industry trends or news. Quick win content, which is super visual, quick to the point giving value and providing an outcome. And then showcase content, showing the behind the scenes or showing the process that goes into creating something. Those are the five. And as I've said, most good content, I

out there today fits into one of those five baskets, if that's what we want to call them. And obviously, if you're looking at making a content strategy from this, combining a few of them is the way to go. Not just because your audience will probably get sick of just seeing the same thing over and over again, if you only have one. But as a creator, it's hard to do the one pillar over and over and over again, multiple times a week.

So I like to think of first and foremost of those five, what is the one that interests you the most? Thinking of your niche, your industry, your type of communication style, looking at examples that we've shared today or going online and finding your own examples,

Which one stands out as, yes, I can do it? Some common ones to start with are educational content, because again, someone's brain and communication style might lend to teaching something in the how-to tutorial style, or someone might find that they're really good at showcase content. They're an artist, they're a photographer. They really wanna show what goes into their process, or that just lends to what they do. So let's say we're starting with either of those. Someone does educational, or someone is doing showcase content.

Well, those posts probably take a while to make. Creating a tutorial carousel, a tutorial reel, or creating a time-lapse showcase post, they're going to take some time. So if you're picking either of those to start with, knowing that they're going to be pretty time-consuming, we want to pair that with at least one easy-to-make content. I like having relatable content come in here, so the R of the GROWS method.

Memes are pretty endless to make. They're super fast. Memes themselves have a communication style that kind of speaks for itself. So I love pairing that with one of the other two.

Also, if you're constantly educating people, it's nice to make them laugh every once in a while. Or if you're constantly showing your process, like you said, maybe these showcase videos are not a voiceover, they're just music. Well, let's put the human back into it with some relatable content. So I like relatable paired with educational or paired with showcase videos.

Another way you can do it, observational content is a great one to mix in with educational. You're regularly teaching how to do something. So let's also pair that with the new changes and the new updates and how that lends into some tutorial or commentary about it. Quick wins are another one that can kind of be mixed in wherever you feel it's good because if you're making educational content,

You can easily repurpose your tutorial post into a single image checklist that isn't as detailed. It doesn't explain the educational guide as much as that other post does, but it breaks it down into a simple to follow step.

An example I gave of that is I might do a post that is, here's how to engage on Instagram in one hour of time to really grow your audience and build connections. And maybe that's a reel where I break down all the steps I would do in an hour. Maybe it's a carousel and each slide is explaining a step.

Well, if I want to also turn that content, which takes a lot of time into a quick win post, I might take those steps, cut out all the details and make just a quick win checklist. I now have two posts about the same topic, which is a great way to think about pairing these as well.

Lucas O'Keefe, this has been a fascinating exploration. If people want to connect with you on Instagram, where do they find you? And if they want any more stuff from you, where do you want to send them? Yeah, so my Instagram is the Lucas O'Keefe, Lucas, L-U-C-A-S, O'Keefe,

O-K-E-E-F-E. And what I've actually done, if you're hearing all these, I love to take notes. So maybe some of the listeners are taking notes as well. But if you're taking notes or not taking notes and you want a paper or a digital copy of a planner that will go with this grows strategy to help you find what types of content you can use, go on my Instagram, go on any post of mine that you see on my feed,

Leave a comment and comment SME altogether, SME. And I will use automation to send you a link to a Google Drive where you can get a worksheet I've made that you can fill out to plan out these content types. Just a quick question. If they happen to put more than the word SME, is it still going to work or does it need to just be SME? If they put like a sentence and then put SME at the end, that's fine too. Yeah, it's okay. Okay, so if they say I heard you on Mike Stelzner's podcast and then SME or something like that, it would still work. Okay, cool. Exactly. Exactly.

Thank you so much, Lucas, for coming on and sharing your insights with us today. Thank you. It's been a blast as always.

Hey, if you missed anything, we took all the notes for you over at socialmediaexaminer.com slash 669. If you're new to the show, be sure to follow us. And if you've been a longtime listener, I would love it if you would share this with your friends and consider giving us a review. Also, be sure to check out our other shows, the AI Explored podcast and the Social Media Marketing Talk Show. This brings us to the end of the Social Media Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner. I'll be back with you next week.

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