Double Instagram Story Views with STD Hidden E — Step-by-Step Guide & Transcript

[00:02] Michelle Gford. She was the first person about it. She told me about it. I tested it out for myself numerous times and it is absolutely bonkers. So whether you're trying to use your Instagram stories to

[00:15] to have a message that more people see, or for whatever reason you just want to maximize your Instagram story views, the following strategy has been proven to do I do think it's very important before I share the strategy with you to share

[00:29] to kill your Instagram story views. Because to use an analogy, if our goal is to become the fastest sprinter in the history of the world, but you're eating junk food all the time, then even the best workouts aren't going to yield

[00:42] that I see people doing all the time that are killing their Instagram story views are number one, re-sharing feed posts to their Instagram stories, or really more broadly just re-sharing anything to their Instagram stories. It

[00:56] doesn't matter if it's a real, a photo, a carousel, a story that someone else story that someone else posted that they tagged you in and now you're re-sharing it. Anytime you take a different kind of post, feed or story, whether you made it

[01:10] and posted it or someone else did, and you share that to your stories, on average, that will get less views. The primary reason for that is that people don't really interact. When you post a reel, let's say that you just posted to

[01:24] your feed, and then you share it to your story, people's only way to interact with that story, is to click on the reel, thus leaving or exiting your story, which is a negative form of engagement. Or they decide that they're

[01:37] not interested in watching your reel, and so they skip the story altogether, engagement. And Instagram has learned over time that these negative forms of engagement are predictable. And so whenever you share something to your

[01:51] Instagram stories that isn't a story in and of itself, then Instagram dep prioritizes your Instagram story and you get less views because of it. The second story view killer is long video stories, but especially long talking head video

[02:07] history lesson, back in the day when Instagram stories first launched, they could be a maximum of 15 seconds long. And so it was really short. You had to be concise. And those short little videos were highly engaging, but people

[02:20] talk for longer. And so Instagram said, "Sure, we'll allow you to record for up to 60 seconds at a time, but we'll still break them down into 15-second segments." So, if you record the full 60 seconds, you will be posting four

[02:32] Instagram stories. But Instagram eventually decided, you know what, long video. If someone wants to record 60 seconds and post it, sure, let them do it. But as the user, it's not very

[02:45] the time of recording this, I had someone message me and say, "Brock, can you please reach out to the head of Instagram and tell him that we need more ways to interact?" And by interact, she meant control Instagram stories because

[02:59] to her point, there is no way besides skipping the entire story or rewinding stories. Yes, you can technically hold no way to fast forward. There's no way to rewind. There's no way to play at 2x

[03:14] bottom of the video to jump to a specific moment. And so if someone is recording and posting a long, especially long talking head video, then you're just kind of stuck as the viewer. Like, you better buckle up and just hope that

[03:29] captivating. Like, you have no way to fast forward. You have no way, if you're getting bored, to skip ahead a little bit. If you missed a word, you have no catch up on what you missed. You're just locked in. You got to sit there. And

[03:42] there's no like number. There's just like a vague little ticker at the top that lets you know approximately how much time you have left. And so because all of those things, it's not a very intuitive or easy or efficient thing for

[03:56] the viewer to consume. And so because of that, often times video stories, especially long video stories, especially especially long talking video stories just kind of get skipped. And as I previously mentioned, a skip is a

[04:08] negative form of engagement. And then finally, the third story view killer is using the link sticker on your Instagram stories. And I need to make sure that Instagram algorithm does not automatically lower your views when you

[04:21] use the link sticker. Instagram is not anti small business, at least not in sticker, it's not like the algorithm is like, uh-oh, they use the link sticker. or their link or their shop or whatever. We better lower their story views.

[04:34] what's actually happening is you put the link sticker and your viewer, again, let's always keep the audience as our focal point, not the algorithm. And when the audience views that link sticker, they're left with really only two

[04:48] in the link, and so they're going to skip the story altogether. Negative form of engagement, or they are interested in what you're selling, which even at best is going to be less than 50% of people. They are interested, they click on the

[05:02] link, and now guess what? they've left your story, which again is a negative link sticker, best case scenario, people that is a negative form of engagement, which means your story is going to get

[05:15] less views. So with all of that being said, what is the strategy to actually maximize your story views? I've shared something similar before, and if you are a longtime subscriber of the show, or if you're an Insta Club member, you're

[05:28] familiar with my STD formula. That is today. Or rather, I should say that is not exactly what I'm going to be teaching you today. Instead, this new formula, this new hack, this new

[05:41] strategy builds off of the initial STD formula. But to give you a crash course, the initial STD formula stood for single text heavy DM automation. Or to expand on that a little bit more, the way to maximize your views in the past was to

[05:56] post a single still image. So just like a single photo or a single text post to your Instagram stories, have t a lot of text on that single image and then end

[06:08] it with a call to action that includes DM automation. This new formula, however, is what I'm going to call my STD hidden E formula. And let me break it down for you. The S no longer stands for single, meaning just one singular

[06:23] Instagram story. It now stands for still. meaning that instead of posting a video story, you are going to post a still image or again a text post to your Instagram story. Here are some examples on the screen while I'm talking. But

[06:38] this essentially relies on the strategy that we talked about earlier where you have a video story and how those are not very effective or engaging and how instead what we want to use is still images or photos. Then the T in the STD

[06:53] hidden E formula still stands for textheavy. You still want to have a good amount of text on your Instagram stories. You don't need to overload your stories with paragraphs upon paragraphs of text, but you also don't want it to

[07:06] effective strategy that I've seen a lot of people use is the PSA strategy where service announcement. Sometimes literally saying PSA or public service

[07:18] it is that they want to share. giving some sort of lesson, teaching some tip, sharing some statistic, talking about a hot take, whatever it may be. Then the D still stands for DM automation. And you cannot have an STD without the D. The D

[07:33] is by far the most important part of the STD hidden E formula. And the D is again DM automation. DM automation is where you're having people respond to your story with a direct message and then you are automatically replying to them. It

[07:48] is that exchange. It's that interaction that Instagram deems as the best form of engagement, the most effective form of engagement, the holy grail and the entire focus of what Instagram wants on Instagram is direct messages. And so

[08:01] when you can get people replying, also known as direct messaging you from viewing your Instagram stories, that is the creme de la creme. That is how you are going to be reaching more people. And the most effective way to get people

[08:13] open-ended question like, "Tell me about your biggest childhood trauma." No, no, no. It's asking people to respond with a specific keyword, one specific word in order to get something specific in return. You've been on Instagram for a

[08:28] If you follow me, Brock Leven Johnson on Instagram, then you have definitely seen DM automation. It is by far the most effective strategy for increasing your story views. And the most widely trusted, most popular provider of DM

[08:42] that I've been using and recommending for over 5 years is none other than Manyhat. Manyhat is trusted by well over 1 million creators and small businesses with them for a long time because since day one, I've seen the vision. I've

[08:57] gotten the message. And I know it feels like if you're in the creator world, if probably feels like, oh my gosh, everyone's using DM automation now. And definitely true that a lot more people I mean I just said over a million people

[09:12] are now using it compared to just a few years ago when almost no one was using it. But that's still hardly scratching the surface. That's less than 1% of 1% of everyone who uses Instagram. And so I know in our little bubble it feels like

[09:25] everyone's using DM automation. It's oversaturated. But it's that heavily used because it works that well. And in the broad picture, on the broad scale of things, most people still aren't using DM automation. Most people still hardly

[09:37] have any idea what it is. So, if you want to check out ManyHat for yourself, I will link them up down in the show notes below. And if you use my link, you can get one month of ManyHat Pro for free. You can do a lot of what we're

[09:49] talking about today on the ManyHat free basic subscription. But as a business is one of the best, most effective tools that you could ever use. And I do recommend upgrading to their Pro subscription. And the cool thing is,

[10:03] again, like I mentioned, using that link down in the description, you can get 1 month of Pro for free so you can test it out, try out the capabilities, and see the real difference that it will make in your views. But again, to recap exactly

[10:15] where we are right now, we have posted one Instagram story that is a still image or a photo or a solid color background. It has a good amount of text on it. And that text ends with a call to

[10:28] with a certain keyword in order to get something in response, something that you think they need, not something that you think they want, but something that you know they actually want. Then before you post that story, there's one last

[10:42] little part and it's the hidden E. And hidden E is a hidden emoji. I want you to pick an emoji and make it real small. It needs to be small enough that it's just open up your Instagram story, my

[10:56] not be able to easily be like, "Oh, why is that emoji there?" It should be small enough that it's not obvious, but it still needs to be visible. The smaller and the more hidden you make it, the less effective this strategy will be.

[11:09] But also, if you make it too big and too obvious, well, then it also won't feel that fun. Because basically what we're going to be doing with our second story is we're going to be telling people that we hid an emoji on that first story.

[11:22] to create a buzz, an excitement, and people are going to tap back from your second story to your first story to look for the hidden emoji. That also means that not only does the emoji need to kind of walk this line where it's hidden

[11:36] but not too hidden. It's visible and findable, but it's not too obvious or in your face, it also needs to be an emoji that people can easily find in their own different colored hearts or the different face emojis can be pretty

[11:50] the front and easy for people to find. I wouldn't recommend using some random in their keyboard. I know that you can search in the emoji keyboard, but not everyone knows that. not everyone will be able to find it. I have used the

[12:04] alien emoji. I have used the train emoji in the past because I feel like those are two kind of recognizable symbols and even if someone couldn't find the exact emoji, they at least know that it's a train or that it's an alien. But the

[12:16] reason that this works is again the first story is following the classic STD formula. It's getting a lot of people to respond. People are sending the keyword. that the first story will have boosted views. But now the second story is

[12:29] directing even more eyeballs to the first story. Anyone who views the second story is being told directly to go hunt for that emoji. But the final thing that I didn't mention is that when they find the emoji, you want to reward them for

[12:43] doing so. You can go all the way to the extreme and offer something that's like enter them into some sort of random giveaway or raffle. I've even seen people say that if you find the hidden emoji, you'll pick a few people to win a

[12:57] $5 Starbucks gift card. When I use this strategy, I oftentimes tell people that randomly pick a few of them to win a one-on-one coaching call with me or even a profile review done by me. This strategy also also works because when

[13:11] story to the first story, that's a really strong positive form of interaction. Basically, the Instagram algorithm is thinking, "Wow, this first story, this first frame must be really engaging. It must be really captivating.

[13:25] It must be can't miss because all the people who are viewing the second story are tapping back to go rewatch the first story. So, wow, this must be really And so, that first story gets more views. It reaches even more people. Even

[13:38] at the bottom of the story. Then, They're tapping back. And it's just a really positive feedback loop that can cause your story views to absolutely skyrocket. But by far the most important

[13:50] part, the ingredient that you cannot miss in this recipe is the DM into my laptop right now and show you how I set this up. It's actually super you. Okay, so here we are in my Minihat

[14:04] automation button up here in the upper right hand corner. And then I'm going to select what the first new trigger is going to be. This first trigger is going to be for the first story, the one with the typical plain old DM automation. So,

[14:17] I'm going to press new trigger. I want it to be a sends a message to be the trigger. So, Instagram message when a user sends a message. Okay. And then I want it to detect a specific word in the message. And then you can insert

[14:31] definitely recommend choosing something that's simple and easy to spell, easily make a typo. But also, you want to be careful using a word that might come up in a normal conversation anyways. Like, while the word real is

[14:44] easy to spell, hard to make a typo and easy to remember, it's also going to anyways. And so, instead, I might do something like fish. Let's say that I was a fisherman and this was a guide uh to getting started fishing in the

[14:58] Pacific Northwest. So, if the message and I can choose contains the word fish, a lot of people are going to be sending messages that contain the word fish. So, message is because that's kind of like

[15:10] the message is and only is. So, if it says fish are biting, well, then that even though it starts with the word fish, it includes other words and so it won't include it. So, I'll do fish. I'll do a typo like maybe there's an extra H.

[15:24] Maybe someone put it in quotes. Uh, capitalization doesn't really matter. As you can see, it's not case sensitive. So, I'll do those and that should be And then, as you can see, this is the automation. When a user sends a message

[15:38] that says the word fish or fish or fish in quotes, then you can see there's an arrow. It goes to whatever the first step will be. Well, we're on Instagram, so I'm just going to select Instagram. Send the message. Hey, here's the free

[15:53] Send the message. Hey, here's the free uh guide to getting started fishing in the Pacific Northwest. And then I can add a button. I can say click here. Maybe I'll even add a fish emoji to that button and then open website and then I

[16:09] and that's done. Now, of course, there's a million more complexities. There's a build and automations and all that, but that's not what we're talking about Okay, press set live. We're good to go. Now, I can post an Instagram story where

[16:23] it's like me and I'm holding up a fish or something and I'm saying public in the world is in the Pacific Northwest, but most people don't even guide to show you what you need to know in less than 10 minutes. Reply with the

[16:36] word fish and I will send you that free guide. Cool. Then last step, of course, before I post that story, I need to hide an emoji somewhere on the story. For this specific example, I am going to use the train emoji. Again, you can use any

[16:50] emoji you want. And then I will show you in many chat how to set this up. Again, all I do is go to my main automations, click new automation, follow the same step as before. What's the new trigger? The trigger is when someone sends a

[17:03] message, detect a specific word. And because I'm using the train emoji, I'm going to do message is. And I'm going to include the word train here because some people will just type the word of what the emoji is. I might even do like choo

[17:17] choo train or something like that. But then I can also click on this emoji button and I can insert emojis. So I'll search for the train emoji and I'll put going to put in like the wrong train emoji, which I feel like would be really

[17:32] mistakes. So, I'll include a couple other trains as well in case people uh have a different train emoji that they prefer to use. We'll use this one, whatever. Okay. And then I click create. Then I again drag then Instagram

[17:47] Then I again drag then Instagram Instagram story. Good eye. You want to reward people. You want to compliment them for finding the emoji. Nice catch. The hidden emoji was Oops, spelled the emoji wrong. Hidden emoji was a train.

[18:02] emoji wrong. Hidden emoji was a train. You are now entered to win a free bait package. I don't know, something that a fisherman might sell. Or maybe you are fisherman might sell. Or maybe you are now entered to win a free uh one- on-one

[18:16] now entered to win a free uh one- on-one coaching call. Or you are now entered to coaching call. Or you are now entered to win a uh free Starbucks gift card. I don't know. Or maybe you are now maybe they don't even they're not even entered

[18:29] something. I'll delete this and I'll say for finding the hidden emoji. [snorts] Here's $10 off my full fishing course.

[18:45] $10 off my full fishing course. And then uh there's a discount link. And then uh there's a discount link. Discount link, right? And then you can them whatever you want. The more exciting, the more enticing, the more

[18:57] desirable this free thing is, the more likely you are to have more people going to get in total. Getting signed up for ManyHat takes less than 5 minutes ManyHat Pro for free by using the link in the description below. Make sure to

[19:11] get signed up today. Use the STD hidden E formula and report back with how many views you got compared to how many views you normally get. And I bet you'll double, if not more, your normal average Instagram story views. Thank you so much

[19:24] for watching today and as always, happy networking.