[Fully Managed] Jenn Herman from Jenn’s Trends – Ep 107

Daniella (Host): Hello everybody. Welcome to hashtag AD by Penji. This is a podcast where we discuss everything influencer marketing related. We talk tips to help assist you in your influencer journey, and we also do so much more. I’m your host Daniella, and I’m Penji’s influencer coordinator. Today I’m joined here with a very special guest, Jenn Herman.

Hi Jenn. How are you? Sorry for the mispronunciations.

Jenn Herman: No, it’s okay. I’m good. How are you?

Daniella: We’re great. Very excited to have you on the podcast today. For people who don’t know you or who you are, what you do, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your platform, what you’re all about?

Becoming the Instagram Expert

Jenn Herman: Absolutely. So my name is Jenn Herman. I am known as the Instagram expert around the world. So to speak. If you ask ChatGPT right now who the best expert is for Instagram, they will tell you it’s me. So it’s not my own opinion. I have been teaching Instagram for over a decade.

It’s something that I started doing because I saw a gap in the market. I didn’t wake up one day and say, I’m gonna be an Instagram expert. I had a blog and there was a need to talk about Instagram marketing back when there wasn’t strategy involved. Over a number of months and into years, I started ranking number one on Google. I started being the person getting asked to speak on podcasts and conferences and things like that.

And so I’ve built up my business, my brand as an Instagram expert. I pretty much eat, sleep, breathe, all things Instagram. So when they drop updates, it’s like, oh, there goes my day. But it’s good. I’m lucky to have people around the world who get beta access to things or who get new features that they’re testing and they send me screenshots or show me how things work so that I can help bring that to my audience.

I actually have two science degrees, which is kind of funny, but I have two science degrees. So I come at Instagram from a very strategic, very experimental, very scientific approach. So rather than just saying, “Oh, well, you know, use this pretty picture,” I really break down the strategy. I break down why things do what they do and what the backend of the system is doing.

Adam Mosseri has been known to come out and say, you should do this. I’m like, don’t listen to him. Don’t do it. And I’ll explain why. It’s not just an opinion, but I’ll explain the science and the functional reason why you want to take certain strategies and tactics in your Instagram approach, and that’s what I think most people that follow me and connect with me appreciate because they know they’re gonna get that kind of approach to how to tackle Instagram.

Specializing in Instagram

Daniella: You obviously do Instagram, that’s your primary source of where your expertise is at the most. But I’m curious, was there ever a point where you were interested in dabbling in another platform? Or how did you end up choosing Instagram to be the only one that you focus on?

Jenn Herman: When I started, my company’s called Jenn’s Trends and it was Jenn’s Trends in social media. And so I literally had this blog about all the social media platforms and I didn’t care about Instagram. I literally was like, I don’t have time to learn another platform. I was all about Facebook back then, like Twitter was still a super big deal. I loved Pinterest, but Instagram had started coming onto the market from a marketing perspective.

And again, no one was talking about it. Like everything was so superfluous. There was no strategy, there was no credit for anything. And I like to take credit for the “Link in bio” strategy because I’m the first person that’s ever documented using that as a strategy that now is like the most worldwide recognized call to action probably.

But it was one of these things where I started doing it, and as I did, again, no one else was talking about it. So I kind of became the name and it was by default, it was just people kept coming to me for Instagram, even though at the time I would’ve much rather talked about Facebook and other things.

So it was definitely like a fluke of circumstances. And then as I fell into that niche, I really honed in on it. I really went intentional, strategic, okay, I’m gonna do Instagram. That’s gonna be my focus. And I’ve been able to make that kind of my wheelhouse to the point where now, yeah, like literally if you ask me Facebook strategy, I’m like super high level. I don’t know details about Facebook anymore, but that was my goal. Like I really wanted to niche down. I really wanted to know every single aspect of Instagram and that became my focus.

So that’s the thing. I always think even whether it’s podcast interview, whatever, I’m like, you really can’t stop me. I don’t need questions in advance. Just ask the question. I’ll be ready to go and I love being able to go off the cuff and answer those kind of questions because I really do understand the nuances, whereas Facebook, Pinterest, any of those nowadays, I’d be like, “Well, in general you could do…” I don’t know specifically.

I can literally look at your data. I can look at your content, I can look at everything and I can tell you like, you need to be doing this on Instagram. I really understand all the nuances of the platform and so I love having the expertise in a very limited capacity and then being kind of a generalist elsewhere.

Instagram’s Evolution

Daniella: So Instagram I think has had a very interesting journey throughout the years. I remember first using Instagram was back in like 2013, when it was a lot more casual and different than what it is now. And it was certainly not a marketing platform, right?

Jenn Herman: No. Just a social media app for pictures.

Daniella: Your dinner. Like we put Valencia or Lo-Fi on it and call it a day.

Jenn Herman: Right. And it’s both like, who looks great? My salad looks really cute or whatever.

Daniella: And I think throughout the years we’ve seen Instagram go through different phases of different sort of moments in time. I think youth has been carrying the way that Instagram evolves. I think in general youth, the younger generations usually are the ones that are setting trends and the way that social media is being operated.

But a very interesting one has been the surge of short-term video, which came directly from TikTok. And then I think Instagram just kind of stole from that and YouTube has stolen from that. And I think everyone is turned out to copy. But Instagram is very popular for learning how to steal things and making it their own.

With all of these changes that have been coming from outside sources that are not Instagram, how have you been handling that? Or how have you been giving people advice? Because I think it can be very overwhelming for someone who is not on TikTok to all of a sudden have to understand TikTok, even if they don’t want to, and they want to be on Instagram.

Adapting to Platform Changes

Jenn Herman: That’s the thing, like, I mean, stories were the copying of Snapchat, right? Like that was a hundred percent a stolen, copied type feature. Reels are absolutely a knockoff from TikTok. And Instagram has the advantage of the Meta family behind it. Meta owns Facebook, owns Instagram, owns WhatsApp, and they’ve got a lot of money. They got a lot of resources. They got a lot of things they can do.

So of course, when a competitor comes up, they’re gonna go hard. They don’t want to lose their market share. And so Reels is absolutely a copycat, like inspired by the world of TikTok, but they are very different platforms. I think that’s one of the hardest things for people to grasp, especially as marketers, as business owners, like we only have so many hours in the day.

And you’re like, great, I did this little short form video. I made it for Instagram, but I’m gonna put it on YouTube shorts, I’m gonna put it on TikTok, I’m gonna put it on LinkedIn and you build it for one platform and then you kind of sprinkle it everywhere else, which is fine. I’m guilty of doing the same thing. People, it’s totally fine. We all do it, but that’s not ideal, right?

Because what works on TikTok isn’t guaranteed to work on Instagram reels and vice versa. So terminology is different. Like you might say, share this reel. But if you say that, you put that on your TikTok video, they’re like, well, you clearly made this for Instagram because it’s not a reel on TikTok. And if you say share this video, then you’re like, but did you mean to put that everywhere? And it’s not on Instagram? So there’s just little nuances like that that are different.

The algorithms are very different. I mean, that’s the whole reason TikTok is so massively successful. It is the “For You” algorithm that is very powerful. It’s very unique. That’s like the whole copyright protection under all the current US litigation over TikTok. They will not give up that algorithm.

So Instagram’s had to learn their own algorithm and it has evolved over the last four years. Like it is very different than it was when it started. And so I think it is something that people do have to remember. If you’re focusing on Instagram reels, focus on Instagram. Make your content for Instagram, if that’s your primary platform. Build your reels around that algorithm. Build your reels around those video links and those stickers and those editing features.

Don’t use the TikTok box on the front of your video if you’re putting it on Instagram reels. If Instagram’s gonna be your dominant platform, format using Instagram editing tools, then throw it up on TikTok. If TikTok is your dominant platform, great, build it for TikTok. But realize that when you take those things that are very clearly TikTok editing and labels and stickers and text boxes, and you bring it over to Instagram, it might not perform as well.

And where a 32-second video on TikTok could be bang on, it may not work. It may be too long for your audience on Instagram or for new audiences because it’s too long at 30 seconds. It may be too short. There’s that. You have to realize that the platforms are different and so don’t take one strategy and just assume you can transfer it to the other and have success.

Measuring Success on Instagram

Daniella: Yeah, definitely. I think while recycling content, like you said, is great, it’s definitely not applicable for everything that you do. And if you want to see success in one or two platforms or a specific one, you have to sort of curate it to that one specifically.

That kind of measuring of success – how do you actually measure whether your Instagram is doing well or not doing well? At Penji, we have a lot of business owners who are trying to have that social media presence and a lot of them start through Instagram, interestingly enough.

I think Instagram has more reach because it has a wider variety of audiences, whereas TikTok is very youth-oriented. So if your product is not for young people, TikTok might not be the best avenue. So we have a lot of people who want to have a very successful presence on Instagram and don’t know how to do it, or mostly I think we’ve also seen people who don’t even know how to measure whether they’re successful or not. Is it a million followers? Is it 200 followers? How do you actually use these analytics that you get and all of the tools that Instagram’s currently giving people to see that your profile is doing well?

Jenn Herman: So there’s a couple metrics that I specifically look at as a primary source for indication. But what I do want to stress is that, first of all, things are drastically different now than they were two years ago, and drastically different than they were four years ago.

So four years ago, pre-pandemic, the world was very different across the board, including social media and especially Instagram. I could retire if every time I heard the phrase, “I just want my reach back,” I’d be a millionaire. That’s all people complain about on Instagram right now is their reach. Like reach is down. It’s hard to get in front of people. It’s hard to grow your audience. It’s hard, it’s hard, it’s hard.

And it’s different, but everyone’s in the same boat. So it’s not like you’re over here struggling and your competitor’s over here eating cake and taking it easy. We’re all in the same boat. So we all have to be strategic in how we approach things.

So it’s not about your follower count. You could have 200 followers and generate tens of thousands of dollars in business. You could have a million followers and generate nothing in business. It’s not the follower count. It’s about making sure that it’s the right audience and that you’re selling the right aspect of your business.

On Instagram, if you’re trying to sell a $10,000 coaching program, Instagram may absolutely be the right place for you. Maybe not, maybe you should be on LinkedIn and Instagram is more about just building your brand and not selling. That’s okay, but it’s setting that expectation for what you’re trying to use the platform for.

Because if it’s just brand awareness, then yes, it’s gonna be more about growth, it’s gonna be more about reach, it’s gonna be more about that sort of stuff than about actual conversions. If your goal is to sell an actual product, not a service, that may take a longer period of time.

If you’re selling shoes, if you’re selling cell phone cases, if you’re selling makeup or whatever it is, you can absolutely use Instagram, and in that case, sales is what matters to you. Like you’re using this platform as your sales vehicle. You want to get website traffic, you want to get sales, whether it’s through the Instagram shop, through your website, your e-commerce, your in-store, whatever it is, that’s gonna be your focus.

You’re gonna use exclusive coupon codes, you’re gonna have link tracking. You’re gonna have things in place that allow you to say, yeah, sales are up 28% from Instagram this quarter. That’s progress. You may have not grown a single follower, but you’ve increased sales 28%. It’s more about knowing what your base goal is.

Key Metrics to Focus On

And then from there we look at metrics. So one of the things I do look at most in terms of post performance is gonna be your post reach. And why I say reach is because engagement can be misleading. I have posts that get like 18 likes on them. And I’m like, that is statistically impossible. And I’m like, I literally have 28,000 followers. How did only 18 people like a photo? Like did it die and go underground? Nobody ever saw it.

But if that generates 32 website clicks, which generated ebook sales, which generated website traffic, which generated people checking out my membership program, to me that’s a win because I got the website clicks more so than the engagement.

So reach becomes my barometer of how I expect that post to perform. And so I look at reach across the board, I look at reach for photos, I look at reach for carousels, I look at reach for reels, and reach is always going to be a number that nobody else can see. It’s in your insights. It’s in your personal account. Nobody can see that. That’s not a public figure.

So if your average reach is 3000 over the last year – don’t go back more than a year cause data’s changed too much – if you have a post that reached 5,000 people, why? That’s what we want to know. How did that post reach almost twice as many people? Was it the time of day? Was it the content? Was it the message? Was it how short the video was, how long the video was? Was it the caption? What was it that made that post excel? Let’s do more of that.

If your baseline is 3000 and your post got a thousand, what did we do wrong? Where did we miss the boat? All the same factors, but in reverse. Let’s not do that. So reach becomes your barometer of how many people are seeing it and is it doing better or worse than usual.

From there, then we start to know, okay, well if it reached 5,000 people, it should have more engagement, it should have more website clicks. So that becomes my kind of primary metric.

Personally for me, I look at saves as my other barometer of success. I care about website clicks. Yes, I care about engagement, but saves, because I create a lot of educational content. Most of my content is tips, tutorials, information, Instagram updates, news you need to know.

So when people are saving my content, that tells me that it was of value to my audience. Dan Levy from Instagram says shares are a big deal. He’s over here going, it’s all about shares. And shares are great to get in front of new people, but people typically don’t share educational content as much. They share entertainment. Like you see a funny dog video, you’re gonna share it to people, but does a dog video help me sell people into my membership? No.

So for me, saves is the metric that tells me that my content is of value to my existing audience. That it matters to them. That’s my metric to say I’m hitting the right note. If one got a hundred saves, this one got three saves – that means more to me.

So again, it depends on your business and what your goal is, whether you’re doing sales and that sort of thing. But you want to look at those metrics that reflect what’s working for your business with your target audience.

The Value of Saved Posts

Daniella: That’s really interesting because I think a lot of people underestimate how saves are a really huge deal because that means that that person, even if they didn’t interact with your video whatsoever – they didn’t like it, they didn’t share it, they didn’t do anything except save it – that means they want it for something later on. And that means that they care about it. And I think we tend to underestimate the silent viewer a lot, or that person who’s interested, who doesn’t want to show it.

Jenn Herman: And this is also true in the B2B space. I have a lot of B2B clients. I’ve worked with clients in the legal industry, in the medical industry, and no one wants to publicly like a post from a divorce attorney. No one’s gonna publicly be like, “Yeah, let me showcase that I’m supporting divorce attorneys” and let me hint I’m wanting a divorce. No one wants to do that and give away their presence on certain content.

Saves tell you that yes, people are seeing that and that’s information they actually do care about because this is information they need. It’s that silent visitor. It’s the silent viewer. It’s the people who are following everything you do and they’re ready to buy from you in a year, two years, whatever it is.

They’re not giving you engagement. I have people that come up to me at conferences all the time and go, “Oh my God, I’ve followed you for five years.” Great. What’s your name? What’s your Instagram handle? I have no idea who these people are. I’ve literally never seen them engage with my content, but they’ve followed me for five years and they love what I share because they’re one of those silent lurkers in the background, not publicly proclaiming on comments and likes that they actually want my content. But they also provide a lot of value, even if they’re that silent watcher.

Recent Instagram Updates

Daniella: I wanted to ask as well, you are always sort of up to date with all of the newest trends that are coming out on Instagram and new updates and changes. I don’t use Instagram for business purposes, so maybe that’s why I am not necessarily on top of every single change that they do. And I’m always blindsided.

I was talking about on a podcast earlier today about how I had no idea that you can make close friends posts now. I thought that you could only have close friends Instagram stories. And then I saw my friend had posted something and it had the little green thing, and I’m like, what is this? And apparently it was only for her close friends and it was a post. I had no idea this was a thing.

What are some of the updates that you are more excited about or that you’re seeing that are happening on Instagram?

Jenn Herman: Before I answer that, I’m gonna totally shamelessly plug my newsletter. I have a newsletter that goes out the first Wednesday of every month. It’s my Jenn’s Trends newsletter. And I literally list out every update that happened on Instagram from the month before. So it goes out the first Wednesday, recapping all the updates from the month before.

And typically we see anywhere from 10 to 12 updates per month on Instagram. That factors in things that they’re testing or maybe things that Adam Mosseri has said or whatever it is. This is my job – to track these things and make it so that people can stay on top of what matters for them and their business. So if you’re overwhelmed, by all means, please sign up for my newsletter to have that resource for you.

But some of the things – Instagram’s constantly testing and trying new things. One of the things they just rolled out this week, but I’ve had it in a test mode for a couple months now, is the new fonts on Instagram stories. So way more font options as well as effects. There’s the sparkle effect and I use the sparkle one all the time. So it takes your text, it puts little sparkles all over it.

Daniella: I hadn’t seen like all of these fonts.

Jenn Herman: Yeah, the rollout was literally just this week. But like I said, I’ve had it for a couple months. I have a lot of other people that were in the test group. So from a branding perspective, there’s so much more variety. We don’t have to use the same font every time. Or you can add a little more stylistic approach to your text boxes and things like that on your Instagram stories, so that’s great.

They keep making a lot of changes with reels, and as much as I hate reels – I’m the first person to get up on a mountaintop and say, I absolutely despise TikTok. I hate reels. I don’t like short form content. I don’t like creating short content. But go look at my Instagram – there’s a lot of reels, because they work.

And one of the greatest things is that when Reels came out four years ago, it was clunky, it was awkward, it was hard to edit. They were bad. They’ve added so much functionality to reels now, like it is a full-blown video editing app. I don’t create any videos outside of Instagram. I might film a video outside of Instagram, but I edit in app. I cut clips, I splice, I put transitions, I put text boxes, I put music, I put captions – whatever it is, I do it all in app because they’ve made that functionality so much better for the average user. You don’t have to be a well-versed video editor anymore to be able to create a reel. So that’s been one of the great things.

They’re testing a few things on the profile as well. One I’m not so excited about, but I feel like it’s probably gonna happen, is we may get away from this square thumbnail on the grid and go to a four by three.

Daniella: Wow.

Jenn Herman: I know, and that’s what everybody says. Like everybody hates it. The reason why I can understand why they’re doing it is you have reels that are 9×16, and then you have square photos. So the 4×3 ratio is the middle. So it crops your reel a little bit, but not the whole thing. It crops your square a little bit, but it kind of makes it more consistent.

So I can see why stylistically this would be something that they’re considering. But every post that I’ve had for the last 11 years has been square. I cropped to a square. I format to a square. Text goes to the edge of the square, borders go around the square. If they crop to a 3×4 or 3×5 ratio, it’s gonna be a mess. It’s literally gonna crop off text everywhere. It’s gonna crop off borders. You’ll have half my face.

So that’s one that I’m not excited about, but I’m planning for. I’m not changing away from a square yet, but I’m starting to format my content in the square to be a little bit more centered so you can still read the text.

There’s things like that they’re testing that we don’t always love. But in general, they’re trying to make the platform as user-friendly for consumers and for brands and businesses. As much as it feels like they aren’t trying to do that, that’s what they’re trying to achieve. And so a lot of the updates that they’re doing are meant to keep people on the platform longer, consume more content, and make it easier to create content.

Instagram’s Evolution as a Business Platform

Daniella: It’s just a whole different playground. Because I think before you didn’t need analytics or engagement, or insights or video editing skills or all of these things that now the platform has. I would say there’s an increasing demand for it because it’s not being used just for fun. It’s being used for business purposes, which makes it have to be like – I feel like Instagram is becoming a CRM at this point.

Jenn Herman: Absolutely.

Daniella: I feel like in a few years you’re gonna have to have Instagram knowledge as a requirement if you want to work for a social media team in companies.

Jenn Herman: Absolutely. And that’s the thing, right? I always tell people this too, especially if you have a team of people managing your Instagram, or if you are a business owner and you’ve outsourced it to an agency or to somebody who’s managing it for you, you need to know that whoever is managing that account and logging in daily is tracking the DMs and has the capacity as a customer service agent of your company to answer those questions on behalf of your company.

You have to be a representative of the company in those DMs. That’s where people will come in and be like, what’s the lead time on this item? Where do you ship to? Or it could be legal things. Are you versed in working with clients in this scenario? And they list like a legal scenario.

Does your person answering your DMs know any of those answers? If not, what’s the protocol? Are they reaching out to you to get that answer? And you log in and write the answer? Do you email them or voice text them and then they translate that and put that into a DM?

These are things you have to factor in these days on Instagram, because that is how the consumer uses it. They know they can get ahold of you, they’re gonna contact you and they want answers.

Daniella: That’s also why we’ve seen a rise of platforms like Zendesk that you can directly link to your Instagram DMs so that you can have the customer service people answer the customer service tickets there. So that you don’t have a person directly logging into Instagram for that specific reason.

It definitely is becoming a lot bigger than it was when it was just this thing for fun. Now you can connect it to other platforms. That is true, because I used to work in a company that was selling baby products and they would get a lot of questions from customer service teams through Instagram about “I don’t know how to fold this stroller” or “My seatbelt isn’t working. Where can I ask for a spare?”

And it was through Instagram and they had connected it to other customer service departments so that they could directly answer that. Because what happened was that they had the social media team who was not a customer service team. So they were like, “I don’t know, I just make the carousel posts.”

Jenn Herman: They’re like, “I just threw up a quick witty caption.” And that’s the thing, if that’s what your social media person’s doing, you need to have a resource, whether it’s through a dashboard management tool, some sort of third party tool, something that will allow that connectivity so that other people can answer it, or somebody in charge of customer service is logging in that has access to answer those questions.

Like you said, if I’m the consumer and I know you’re on Instagram and I follow you on Instagram, and if I have a question, I’m not gonna go fill out your contact form and send you something via your website to go to your customer service team. I’m gonna message you on Instagram cause that’s where I am. And so you have to get used to that.

Daniella: Consumers don’t want to bother filling out contact forms these days. They just want an answer. I think we’ve seen a lot of companies on Twitter do that as well, where the quirky tweet is cool, but you have to have that knowledge of the brand as well.

Jenn Herman: Yeah, for sure.

Getting Advice from Jenn

Daniella: And you seem to have a lot of Instagram knowledge from before it’s out. So you learn about Instagram updates before they’re coming out, before the rest of us are finding out, which is great for people who are trying to get bigger on Instagram, to be prepared for all of those changes. Because I had no idea what you told me about changing from square to rectangle format.

Jenn Herman: Yeah, it’s scary. I’m like, please don’t do this. But that’s the thing. I’m very fortunate. I have certain resources that I follow regularly, whether it’s on Threads, Instagram, or websites. I have my sources for when something is being tested. They’re the first people that usually post about it.

So I can pull that information and start checking if I have the test functionality. Most of the time I don’t. But I’ll go in and look, and I’ll have people that I know around the world. A lot of times Australia is a test region, so they’ll roll out a lot of things in Australia before they roll them out anywhere else in the world.

And so I’ll have friends there that will message me and be like, “Have you seen this?” I’m like, “No. Send me screenshots. Tell me what happens if you do this.” And we then literally message and test things so that I can turn around and say, “Great. Here’s what’s coming. It’s a test only, but at this point, this is how the function works and here’s how to prepare for that,” whether that’s good, bad, indifferent, whatever it is. That’s what I try to bring to people.

Daniella: For anybody who wants to get advice or Instagram knowledge, or anybody that wants to grow their business through Instagram or just wants to amp up their Instagram profiles, you’re welcome to shamelessly plug yourself like you said. You can talk about your newsletter, podcast, your Instagram profile, whatever it is. Floor is yours.

Where to Find Jenn

Jenn Herman: Thank you. So it’s Jenn’s Trends. It’s J-E-N-N-S trends.com. It’s always two Ns in Jenn. And that’s my website that will take you to pretty much everything and anything you could possibly want to find out about me. My history, my blog, how to work with me, all my resources, books, everything else are all available there on the website.

Instagram is @jenns_trends. So @jenns_trends. Again, that has a link in bio that will take you to pretty much everything that you would want to do to work with me.

And if you’re interested in actually staying on top of all things Instagram at any time, I have a membership program called Profit Your Profile, which you can go to profityourprofile.com. We do live training every single month, one session with me and one with a guest, because let’s face it, you don’t need to hear that much from me, but when you have other perspectives in the world besides just the way I teach things, it’s valuable.

We’ve brought in experts from all around the world at all different levels. We’ve had the head of social media for Microsoft. We’ve had the head of social media for Taylor Guitars. We’ve had a celebrity TV chef, we’ve had a Meta certified trainer, photographers, small business experts in various aspects that come in and do guest training every single month to help you not only be successful on Instagram, but in all of your marketing ventures.

And we do live office hours where you can come ask me literally any question you have about your Instagram profile or your account or your strategy. That’s my favorite part of Profit Your Profile – office hours – because I can get to know you and get to know your business and I will literally help you strategically fix whatever’s going on, look forward to the future, all those sorts of things. So if you’re interested in that kind of regular resource for Instagram, check out profityourprofile.com.

Closing

Daniella: Awesome. I will be adding your links to the description of this so that everybody can go and check you out. They can go and find you if they have any questions for you. It was great having you here today, Jenn. Thank you so much for coming.

Jenn Herman: Of course. Thank you. It was wonderful.

Daniella: Everybody, I will see you guys on the next episode. Bye.