69: Instagram Growth Hacks That Work in 2025 (part 1)
Welcome to Part One of my three-part mini-series on Instagram growth hacks that work right now in 2025. Instagram has changed a lot since I first recorded this episode last August, from new features like trial reels to essential updates in strategy and messaging. In this episode, we’re kicking things off with a back-to-basics reminder of what’s still working, plus new insights to help you grow faster and more strategically.
If you’ve been frustrated with slow growth or content that’s not converting, this one’s for you.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
[01:11] The 3 timeless pillars of Instagram growth that still matter most
[03:59] Why narrowing your focus makes your content stronger and more effective
[07:11] Why you are the it factor behind your brand (not the algorithm)
[08:29] How to do market research that actually improves your messaging
[12:40] What trial reels are and why they’re a must-use growth tool in 2025
[14:32] The surprising mindset shift trial reels unlock for overthinking creators
[15:57] A real-life example of A/B testing a hook and what it revealed
[17:22] The truth about redundancy in your content (hint: it’s a good thing)
Key Takeaways:
Consistency is still queen. The more reps you put in, the better your content (and results) get.
Niche down your content. Narrowing your focus doesn’t box you in, it makes content creation simpler and more strategic.
Market research is non-negotiable. If you want engagement, you need to speak in your clients’ words, not your expert language.
Trial reels = your new BFF. Use them to A/B test messaging and visuals before posting to your main feed.
Redundancy isn’t a problem, it’s a strategy. Don’t be afraid to reuse hooks or test different stories with the same message.
Links Mentioned in This Episode:
Apply for a Free Instagram Breakthrough Session
A Truth You Need to Hear:
“Many creators are still writing from their expert brain instead of their ideal client’s language.”
S3 Ep69 Transcript: Instagram Growth Hacks That Work in 2025 (part 1)
00:00
Today is part one of a three-part mini series on Instagram growth hacks that actually work in 2025. This is a refresh on an episode I did back in August and Instagram has shifted a lot since then. There's new features, new updates, and of course we're gonna go over the mindset and strategy shifts that you need to implement if you want your content to convert and drive more leads and sales. Are you ready? Let's go.
00:32
Welcome to Strut It, a podcast about creating bold visibility on social media with zero apologies. I'm Elizabeth Marberry, your host and Instagram marketing coach. I help small business owners get seen on Instagram and monetize their offers so they can make more money doing their sole lead work. If you're tired of spinning your wheels on Instagram and you're seeking simple, proven Instagram marketing strategies that actually work, you're in the right place.
01:01
Let's dive in.
01:11
Welcome back to the show. I'm so thrilled that you've joined me for part one of this three part series on how to not only grow your Instagram, but drive more leads and sales with your organic content, meaning no paid ads. My goal is to make it fun, simple, and wildly effective for you and your brand. So I wanna kick off this series with a couple things that have not changed in the last.
01:36
six to eight months on Instagram and continue to be really important. And then we're going to get into some things that have shifted and are really important keys of strategic growth on Instagram moving forward. If you don't know these basic fundamentals of Instagram growth, you are probably feeling really frustrated with your lackluster results on Instagram. So let's start with those fundamental pieces that have not changed.
02:06
Number one is in order to be successful on Instagram, in order to boost your brand visibility and drive more leads and sales, you absolutely have to be consistent. Consistency not only keeps you top of mind for your ideal client or customer, but it also, when you're creating content from a place of strategy, which we'll get into in a minute, it's
02:33
establishes you as a thought leader in your space, as an expert in your space. And the coolest part about when you are consistent and you're showing up imperfectly, but you continue to show up nonetheless, your messaging gets more refined, your video quality gets better, your hooks get better. Because consistency is really just a way of saying, you gotta get those reps in to build that strength. The byproduct of being consistent
03:02
is that you are putting in lots of reps. It's like going to the gym. When you first go to the gym and you're lifting weights, everything feels really hard. You're incredibly sore the next day. You hate it. You don't want to go back, but you you go back and you keep lifting and it gets easier and you get stronger and you can lift, you know, heavier weights. And PS, it's really funny I'm using this example because I personally hate going to the gym.
03:30
But I like this analogy because it's the same thing with content creation. It's like the consistency not only is smart strategically, but it will help you to become a better creator as you refine your craft and you get those reps in. The other Instagram growth hack that has remained the same is the idea of narrowing the focus of your account. So it's really important with your
03:59
Content and when I say your content, I'm not talking about Instagram stories Instagram stories is a place where you can go wild you can show Personal stuff business stuff, whatever feels aligned for you Okay, but what I'm talking about is your feed posts your reels your carousels your static images all of that It's really important to go narrow and not wide because Instagram is really saturated with content
04:27
And so in order to stand out, you have to be super specific. And if you are struggling with growth on Instagram and getting in front of the right people, it's probably because you're being too general with your messaging. And the more specific that you can be, the faster you'll grow on Instagram. The other cool part about narrowing your focus of your
04:56
content and really what you want to become known for in your space is it makes content creation so much easier because you're not talking about 10 different aspects of your business. You're talking about like two or three and that makes content swifter, quicker, easier, more repeatable, right? And
05:21
There's definitely nuance to this and I know every business or marketer that's listening has questions about this, right? Because there's not any one business that's like, I literally just sell this one thing. Actually, that's not true. If you're new here, you might not know that I own a brick and mortar dance studio in Denver and we sell one thing and that is private wedding dance lessons. And that's it, that's it.
05:48
And actually we also sell music editing, but our bread and butter is that one thing. So I guess it's not true to say not every business sells one thing, but most of us have multi-dimensions of what we are offering. I want you to think about the impact that you want to make on social media. Let's say that you are an accountant by trade and you're working to
06:15
grow your visibility on social media so you can get more clients. Maybe your mission is to make accounting fun and playful. And maybe you have like a really fun sense of humor and maybe you grew up in the theater and then you totally pivoted and now you're an accountant, but you can take those skills from theater and put them into your content. I'm just making up this idea.
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But the whole idea is like, okay, you can take what you do and think about like, what is my angle? What is my unique sauce? Because at the end of the day, what is going to get you seen on Instagram is you. You are the it factor behind your brand. And it can also be a team, right? If you're listening to this and you're a member of a team or you're a bigger organization, there's still like an.
07:11
it factor, there's still a mission and value and belief and vibe to your company, right, to your team and a personality. You know, I once interviewed someone who said, Elizabeth, I'm not funny, like humor is not my thing. So I just go all in on educational content. And she's done really well with that. So it's not that you have to
07:37
be any one way. If you don't want to be performative, don't be performative. There's so many different ways to grow on Instagram. And I've said this before and I'm going to say it again. If you ever hear like, this is the only way to do it, it's just not true. There are so many different ways to leverage this platform. And it's really about taking some time to think about, okay, what is our focus? What is our angle?
08:06
What can we bring to the market? And honestly, sometimes when you're having those thoughts and conversations, it's good to put your blinders on because it's so easy to stop yourself and be like, well, but everyone else is doing this or, I already saw that, okay? You don't need to reinvent the wheel. You just need to start showing up, be imperfect and...
08:29
You will learn over time what content resonates with your target audience, and then you'll create more of that. So you got to be consistent. You've got to narrow your focus. And then the third piece that has remained the same is target market research. And this is the step that most businesses skip, or they did target market research like years ago, and then they realized, oh, shoot, it's not the most fun thing, so I'm not going to do it.
08:58
Why is this important? So when we're thinking about Instagram, I want you to think about your messaging and where does your messaging show up on Instagram? Well, it shows up in the words you choose for your hooks, right? We all know that if you want someone to watch your reel or your short-form video, you absolutely have to hook them within the first few seconds of the video.
09:23
You can do that through a visual hook or a text hook on screen or ideally both. So the words you choose for your hook or the words you choose for your caption or the word you choose for your call to action or maybe it's the messaging in your Instagram bio. All of these words should be spoken from the perspective of your ideal client, meaning they resonate with the messaging.
09:52
And many creators are still writing from their expert brain instead of their ideal clients language. In marketing, of course, we talk about highlighting a pain point or a struggle of an ideal client, right? But what we often do is we describe their struggle or their pain point the way that we as experts would describe it instead of the way that they would describe it. So when
10:22
you are thinking about your hooks and your messaging in your content, it is so important that you have done that target market research. And I'm going to give you a couple really quick examples. I have done other episodes that are much more extensive on how to do target market research, but I'm just going to give you a high level place to start, is number one, you can look at client testimonials and see how they describe their transformation.
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you know, literally copy and paste their words into a Google Doc. You can look at other creators in your niche on Instagram if they're really successful and they're getting a ton of comments on their, let's say they did a thought leadership post and they're getting a lot of comments on that post. If you read through those, you'll see that they're asking questions where they're confused, right? Or they're wanting to add to the conversation. That's a great place for target market research.
11:17
Of course, you can use AI and ChatGBT. I did a whole five-part series on how to use ChatGBT in your marketing, and there's definitely ways to do that. My absolute favorite way of doing target market research takes the most time, but it is so incredibly effective, and that is hopping on Zoom with previous customers or clients and essentially doing a target market research interview with them for 30 minutes. You could offer them
11:45
course, a gift in exchange for their time or whatever it is. But getting on Zoom with them, you record it, write down their exact words and really like where they were before they hired you. Like what were they struggling with? How did they describe it? What was it like working with you? What was the transformation? What were their results? Why did they want what they wanted? How has their life changed? All of these things are pieces of messaging that you can put into your Instagram.
12:15
and captions and calls to action and all of that. So those pieces of consistency, niche, really focused account and of course target market research, those are still king on Instagram. Those things have not changed, they remain the same. Now, I wanna get into a couple pieces that have shifted in the last few months and just know that this is.
12:40
the tip of the iceberg, we're gonna go much more in depth into the actual Instagram growth hacks and strategies that you can implement moving forward. One new Instagram feature that hit the scene recently that has been working really well for many of my clients and small businesses is that Instagram released a feature called trial reels. And trial reels are a perfect way to A, B test your content.
13:09
One of my clients, she came to work with me, she had 2,500 followers. And after using trial reels really strategically, she's at over 58,000 followers. It is a really powerful tool. Of course, it's not this one magic tool that's just gonna completely transform your Instagram. Of course, there's nuance to this. But if you haven't yet played with trial reels, I really recommend that you
13:38
test it out and see how you like it. And essentially how it works is trial reels show your reels to people who don't already follow you. This is effective for a couple different reasons, but one is an unexpected reason why it's effective. I found for a lot of my clients is if you are a person that kind of like overthinks your content or you're just like, oh, well, I don't know if I want people to see this, I'm scared.
14:04
For some reason, there's like a mindset shift of when you share it via trial reels, it just feels less scary. Like you're like, oh, the people who know me aren't gonna see this. So people who don't already follow you are not gonna see it. There's something there. And if that is you and that gives you permission to create with more abandonment and bravery, then please do it. Like creative bravery is so important on Instagram. And if trial reels is that permission slip for you, then I say go for it.
14:32
So that's kind of an unexpected piece of it. But the strategy behind it is that because the content is shown to non-followers, you can A-B test your reels and see what is most resonant in terms of video, in terms of messaging. I'm gonna give you an example of a way that I recently did this on my feed and I was really blown away by what a difference it made to test this out.
15:01
Okay, so there was a trend going around a few months ago and the text on the screen said, almost forgot that this is the whole point. And the idea around this trend was just like reminding people of their why. And of course you could take that piece and tie it into your brand or your marketing. You just have to be creative about it. But that text on the screen remained the same. So.
15:27
almost forgot that this is the whole point. I took that text and I tested it out with three different videos, three different videos, totally different vibes. One of them, my husband has a Porsche 911 and I was in the Costco parking lot, like loading up his frunk. So there's like not a trunk, there's not like a back, there's like a front trunk on the Porsche 911. And I was like putting groceries in and the idea behind that one was like,
15:57
I almost forgot that like the whole point of everything I'm working so hard for is the freedoms that it provides me and my family, that we can achieve our wild goals and ambitions for our life. And then there was another video I did where I was like just laying on the floor and my hands were on my heart and it was more of like, I almost forgot the whole point was like coming back into my center. The details don't matter, but what was interesting about this is that it was so they were all the same hook.
16:27
but different stories were told. And one of those, the one of me laying on the ground got, I wanna say over 6,000 views. The one of me with Portia got like 4,000 and then the other one got like 500 views. And so I ended up actually publishing to my feed, the Portia video and the one of me laying on the ground. So I was just like, I love both of these, like who cares? I never second guessed myself. know.
16:55
Redundancy is actually a good thing in marketing and my followers aren't even gonna notice that it's the same hook, but like a totally different story. But that was like really good information because that other video that I thought was fantastic only got 500 views. So you can A-B test your reels, you can change up the video and keep the hook the same. You can keep the video the same and change the hook on the screen.
17:22
Ideally, of course, with A-B testing, you only wanna change one factor so you can really see what is working. But it's a really cool way to, let's say you decide you wanna change the hook on the screen, to see what messaging is going to relate and what words are gonna be resonant with your ideal people. So if you haven't yet tried trial wheels, I definitely recommend that you do it. And essentially what you do is you share it as a trial.
17:51
And then you can decide if you want to publish it and post it on your feed to your followers. And that's totally your choice. You don't have to. So I think it's a really awesome tool for marketers and brands who are wanting to just create the most effective content while also studying what is resonant in terms of their target audience. So I hope today was helpful for you. Some really good reminders of foundational aspects of
18:20
Instagram marketing that you just want to have really dialed in that have honestly remained this way for quite a while because it truly is marketing at the end of the day. It's just packaged up in a different way on social media and Instagram. And there's that new feature, trial reels. And in the coming episodes, we're going to dive into more details of what is really working right now. We're going to explore how brands are using DM automation.
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the impact of AI on Instagram and content and how that is changing the landscape and so much more. I'm super excited. Thank you for being here with me today. If you got something out of today's episode, do me a favor, share it with a business bestie or colleague who is also just trying to understand how the heck Instagram works. I really appreciate your support. And if you haven't already, please take a moment, rate and review the podcast.
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that helps us with the podcast algorithm, get in front of more incredible businesses and entrepreneurs like yourself. And if we're not already connected on Instagram, what the heck are you waiting for? Hop on over to Instagram and give me a follow over there at Elizabeth Marberry, M-A-R-B-E-R-R-Y. Send me a direct message. Tell me you're here. Introduce yourself. Tell me about your business. I respond, no joke, to each and every direct message.
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I love hearing from my listeners. It completely makes my day. It's a high likelihood that you'll get a voice memo back from me, because I love sending voice memos. So get ready for that. Thank you again for being here, and I can't wait to strut it with you next week. Thank you for listening to Strut It. If you're ready to start leveraging Instagram to grow your business, then you're going to want to grab my free monetize your IG guide.
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where you'll learn seven simple and proven ways to finally make money on Instagram. You can grab your guide at ElizabethMarberry.com slash freebies. That's ElizabethMarbury.com slash freebies to get my monetize your IG guide. If you got some incredible value from today's episode, be sure to leave a review and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.
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and I cannot wait to start it with you again next week.
