Crypto Instagram Marketing [Everything You Need to Know] | Ep. 42

Ty Smith0:04

What is up, guys? Welcome to another episode of the Crypto Marketing Show. I'm Ty Smith, with me as always as of lately is Liz. Today we are going to discuss Instagram for crypto. So, I would say this is one of those questions that we get asked pretty frequently, especially with all the social media work that we've been doing, if Instagram is actually important for crypto brands, where we would prioritize that in the scheme of social media as a whole versus other platforms, and then how to implement an Instagram strategy correctly for crypto brands. So, let's dive in. Liz, as always with these social media stuff, I'm going to defer largely to you on this because you are the social media expert here at Coinbound. What do you think as far as Instagram? Is it important for crypto brands?

Liz0:26

I think any level of social media can be important for crypto brands and branding as a whole, as long as there is a plan and it's goal-oriented and it's properly maintained and fostered. It can be great, but would I make it your mainstay of a strategy that I create? No. I definitely think that there's other stronger platforms out there with stronger communities and especially the way that people in crypto interact. I definitely don't think that Instagram is the best place to be or the only place you should be.

Ty Smith1:22

Yeah, I definitely would never say Instagram is the only place you should be. I have always found, and we've tried both for our agency as well as for clients, to build something on Instagram that's impressive and generates good results. It's honestly been quite tough, especially as compared to other platforms. Organic reach is not what it used to be, like as was years ago on Instagram. I mean, Liz, you have a pretty solid following on Instagram with a lot of the cannabis stuff you've done and lately crypto. Have you noticed the organic reach going down significantly over the past few years?

Liz2:08

It's so tough with Instagram because it has so changed. Every month is something new. And so, what I would tell you about content today would never apply even just a few months ago because it was so, Instagram was built on photos and photo sharing. And now they're delving into more short-form content, long-form video, they want to push people to do live streaming, they're building out a store area. They have so many other different components in the app that didn't even exist a year ago. And so, to say, it's really tough because...

Liz3:00

...I personally have actually grown my account more than I ever have before and faster because of Reels. And that's been really, really helpful there in getting on the discover feed because Reels has its own space now. But it really depends how you capitalize on that content. It's definitely something that's short-form, trending, and are people going to find really meaningful information there? I don't know, probably not. I think they're more using it for entertainment and stuff like maybe more toward like cannabis or something of that level.

Liz3:25

So, but when I have looked at other people's organic reach, it has definitely gone down, especially if people post photos. I mean, you're not going to get almost anything. It's crazy. Like people that I know would get thousands and thousands of likes on something are barely hitting those old marks. And the type of content on Instagram has just so wildly changed. It's really, really different...

Liz4:06

...and you always want to, this applies to any platform, but anytime something is new that's being released, you really want to capitalize on that because they need to make sure that they can show in their back end, 'Hey, this is working and something we should continue working on.' And they want to make it so that people are using those new features. So, I definitely, if you are using Instagram, definitely use Reels, go live. Don't post photos. It's probably not going to get anywhere near the reach it used to. And so, I don't want to say that organic reach has necessarily gone down as a whole. In a way it has, but it really depends on how you're using the app.

Ty Smith4:27

Yeah, it's gone down if you're applying like the traditional Instagram posts of photos. Yeah, I personally, and this is totally not even important, but I personally think Instagram is just doing too much these days as far as all different types of content you can post. It's becoming a little bit of overload. In my experience with crypto content, Instagram, I mean, it's not the place I'm ever looking for crypto content. That's the feedback I get from most people. I don't think it's honestly a high priority for most brands.

Ty Smith5:12

The one exception to that, I would say, is NFT brands because there is, obviously, the choice of social media platform that you're spending time on is a reflection of the audience that's on each platform. On Twitter is where all the crypto people are. It's just top priority. We've talked about this at length, and it's the bulk of what we do for clients is Twitter management when it comes to social media. When you go to Instagram, it's a little bit of a different audience that, for whatever reason, isn't so into crypto, at least with the type of veracity that they are on Twitter. So, I've honestly never found it too worthwhile.

Liz5:35

Well, also, just the way that people, you can build community on Instagram, don't get me wrong, because I've done it. But the type of community that crypto is and all the different sub-sects they have, it's very informational. There's a lot of text-heavy things to talk about. It's not as visual. You can make visual content, of course, especially like the how-to's we were talking about just a few moments ago and different ways to purchase crypto or things that you want to identify, different things you want to explain. You can, of course, do visuals and video for that.

Liz6:25

But to foster community, it's so much more accessible on Twitter. It really is because on Instagram, you have to actually put together a post that's going to get engagement and that's going to like be released into the ether of Instagram and people are going to actually see it, and you're going to have to foster stories, and you're going to have to really work for that reach, where on Twitter, the community is there. You can use social listening. You can follow certain topics. Twitter itself is its own search algorithm basically. And so, to be able to also find people, like have you tried to search something on Instagram? It's awful.

Ty Smith7:13

I just did actually recently for the first time, and it, yeah, I mean, it's not like Twitter. You put it great. I think it was an episode you said, or maybe it was a phone call, I don't remember, where you just said like Twitter is just like an amazing social algorithm for content.

Liz7:21

It really is. And you can share video to Twitter. Like there's tons of stuff that breaks those barriers of being home to one platform. People will share content they love on Twitter. And that's when I know that something is doing really well, too, because like you'll see a video and people will be like, 'I love this TikTok,' or something like that. But on Twitter, it's just so much faster to communicate, and it's really like those real-time moments, where as much as Instagram is pushing for faster content and more authentic things, it is a little more produced.

Liz8:04

It takes time to do video. It takes time to put all of that together and look a certain way and really do something that's going to be worthwhile because there's a ton of people that put out content on Instagram that, I'm sorry, it's not worthwhile at all. It provides absolutely no value. And so, it's a lot faster on Twitter to get that out in words or to get it out in a graphic that might be more home to that platform. Like you can't just constantly use the same content on different platforms. You're never going to find success that way.

Ty Smith8:26

Yeah, and just the information that is usually being communicated by marketers in our industry is largely informational, it's tech-intensive. It's not the type of content that like an image can define in a way that is going to drive engagement because, at the end of the day, doing well on social media is driving engagement. It's getting people to click a button, leave a comment, whatever it is.

Liz9:12

And mostly driving traffic to what, again, like what is the goal of this piece of content?

Ty Smith9:15

Yeah, but I mean even before that, just getting like, if you post something and no one likes it in the first five minutes, it's not going anywhere.

Liz9:36

Probably not. Well, okay, I actually, I have a caveat for that. The way that the algorithms are working lately on mostly TikTok and Instagram, I have found that they're starting to feed people in different places different content. And so, there is some content that's more video, it's all more video, but the way that they're feeding it to people, I've gotten engagement on really old content. And sometimes something will pop off weeks later. It's really crazy. But again, that's like a Reel. That's not an informative piece of content, honestly. And like for clients in crypto, it is very text-heavy, and it's very, it's a lot of information, and also it has to go through legal a lot of times because there's certain things you can't say or you have to say in certain ways. And you have to really work within those limitations to make sure that you're giving people the correct information in a way that is digestible but also not going to get you in trouble.

Ty Smith10:18

Yeah, and just, I mean, the time commitment of creating content that works on Instagram is significantly higher than that of Twitter.

Liz10:36

Also compared to the return you're going to get from it.

Ty Smith11:01

Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, there's just, there's just a ton of reasons why I don't personally spend much resources on Instagram, nor do I recommend it. But I mean, back to the point on NFTs, though, like I said, it really comes down to the audience on each social platform. And NFTs, in my mind, are like this collaboration between crypto and art. It's digital art. It's art that is done now in a way that didn't exist before. Obviously, with NFTs, there's a lot more than just that, but that's kind of what's hot at the moment. The whole art community, I mean, think about it, it's visual. It's actually nothing but visual for the most part. That does really well, and that whole community is on Instagram already. So, we have seen that it has worked well, Instagram, for NFT companies.

Liz11:16

Yeah, again, like it always feeds back to your goals. What are you trying to do? Who are you trying to reach? What's going to be the best way to do that? And that's why I just, I never want to say like don't do one thing period ever. Like maybe it might work for you and your brand, but historically, I have personally just seen so much more success on Twitter. The community is there. It's really easy to engage in conversation.

Liz11:35

And if you only have resources for like want to do really well on one social platform, I would heavily recommend it be Twitter, just because for all the reasons that we've listed and probably more. But if you do want to use Instagram and you have an NFT or you have a brand that might be more visual or you want to be more visual, sure, go for it, or have it be secondary to what you're doing on Twitter. But yeah, I would I would never make it first and foremost what you should be doing.

Ty Smith12:17

Yeah, I 100% agree. Anything else you want to add? I think that's a good place to wrap up this episode, though. Long story short...

Liz12:22

The only thing, the only thing that I think Instagram has that's really great, but there's a ton of other ways to do that now, too, is live streaming. Your audience always gets a notification whenever you go live. It's a really easy way to interact with your audience. I do think that Twitter still has some work to do when it comes to their, I think it's called Spaces, and they just got rid of Fleets. So, that is one thing that Instagram has over Twitter is live streaming. But again, like how important that is to your brand, I don't know.

Ty Smith13:05

Yeah, I agree. All right, let's wrap it up then. As always, if you found any value in this podcast, review us, please, and recommend us to a friend. Follow us on Twitter. I'm @TyDanielSmith, and I know Liz, we record these episodes back-to-back, and you just told me your Twitter handle, but I've already forgotten it. It's, all right, wait, no, no, don't tell me. I'm going to get it. That's Bizzy, right? That's and Bizzy is spelled B-I-Z-Z-Y, correct?

Liz13:20

With two N's, yeah.

Ty Smith13:22

Okay, great, great, great. This job is very rewarding. I'm working on my short-term memory.

Liz13:25

Wonderful. Thank God.

Ty Smith13:26

Yeah, thank God. All right, cool. Let's wrap it up then, and we will catch you on the next episode. Bye.

Liz14:03

Bye.