74: Instagram SEO: How to Get Found on Google From Your IG Content
This month, Instagram dropped a game-changing update: your content can now appear directly in Google search results. What does that mean for your small business?
More visibility
A longer shelf life for your posts
And a brand-new, organic traffic channel that doesn’t rely on the algorithm alone.
I’m walking you through why this matters, how to take advantage of it right now, and five practical steps to fully optimize your Instagram for search, including how to find your best keywords, where to put them, and why speaking your dream client’s language is critical.
Plus, you’ll learn why this shift is about so much more than hashtags… and how it can help you finally build visibility that compounds over time (not just for 24 hours).
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
[02:41] Why your content can finally show up in Google (and why it matters)
[05:04] The simple setting you must toggle on to get indexed
[08:52] Three big reasons this is a massive win for small businesses
[14:11] What keywords actually are and how to find yours
[20:21] How Instagram’s algorithm now reads captions, voiceovers, and text on screen
[23:55] Real-world example: turning vague “elevated modern bride” messaging into SEO gold
[25:53] Five key places to put your keywords (and what not to do)
[29:34] Why this makes Instagram more like Pinterest, YouTube, and blogs (and why that’s awesome)
[30:00] How I support clients in implementing this inside Hot Reels, my 12-month content lab
Key Takeaways:
Instagram isn’t just an app anymore. Your content can now show up in Google, reaching people who aren’t even on Instagram.
Keywords = the phrases your dream clients actually type into Google (think “Hollywood waves Denver” vs. “elevated modern bride”).
Use your keywords strategically in your name field, captions, hashtags, text on reels, and even alt text.
Instagram’s algorithm has evolved: it now “reads” captions, on-screen text, and even your voiceovers to decide who sees your posts.
People who find you via Google search have higher intent, they’re actively looking for the solution you offer.
This isn’t just about visibility. It’s about turning traffic into sales. Your sales funnel, DM automations, and optimized bio all matter.
Links Mentioned in This Episode:
Get the free Instagram Visibility Jumpstart Kit or DM me KIT on Instagram
Join the Hot Reels waitlist for early access & bonuses: DM HOT or visit ElizabethMarberry.com/hot
A Truth You Need to Hear:
“If you want new results, you must take new actions. And showing up consistently with clarity, strategy, and the right keywords is how you get found beyond the algorithm.”
S3 Ep74 Transcript: Instagram SEO: How to Get Found on Google From Your IG Content
00:00
This month, Instagram dropped one of the biggest updates yet, and that is your Instagram content can now show up in Google search. This is a huge opportunity to get your content seen by more people, get more followers, and of course, drive more leads and sales even outside of the app itself. In today's episode, I'm going to share five strategic things you can do right now to make sure your Instagram is fully search engine optimized so you can maximize visibility,
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Traffic and yes sales. Are you ready? Let's go
00:37
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.
01:06
Let's dive in.
01:16
Welcome back to the show. As always, super thrilled that you have joined me for another episode of Stread It every week. I show up determined to simplify Instagram and teach you only what you really need to know about the platform to grow your business or brand. There is so much conflicting advice out there about Instagram and social media growth. And I take this position, I sit in over here very seriously to be your guide and just know that
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everything I teach you is coming from my direct experience in growing both a brick and mortar brand and an online business, as well as coaching and mentoring hundreds of other business owners. So really my goal is to demystify Instagram so you can feel less overwhelmed and more clear on your next action steps because if you wanna use Instagram to grow your business and it's not working for you yet,
02:14
If you want new results, you must take new actions. You're already doing that, my beloved listener, because you're here investing in yourself and just appreciate you so much. Before we dive into what I think is going to be one of the biggest game changers that Instagram has ever dropped on us as businesses looking to use this platform to grow our audience and of course, get in front of more of our ideal clients and customers, I wanted to let you know that
02:41
I have put together a new guide to really support you in positioning your Instagram to attract more dream clients and of course drive sales without paid ads. That is my free Instagram visibility jumpstart kit. Now this guide is super pimp. I give you the exact strategies I use to grow two of my brands, generally over 5,000.
03:08
email prospects on my list and boost revenue by 84 % in 12 months, all organically. And what you are gonna find inside of this guide is a step-by-step bio refresh formula to really help you optimize your Instagram profile. And we're gonna talk a little bit about that today because there's certain aspects of your Instagram bio that need to be search engine optimized. And with this new update that we're gonna dish on today,
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it's never been more important to position your Instagram from a search engine optimization lens. I also share some keys to creating scroll stopping content that leads to sales so you can really understand the connection between your content and your Instagram sales funnel. And I share an easy DM automation system to help you turn those viewers into leads while you're offline.
04:04
hanging out with your kids, hanging out with your partner, maybe on vacation or working in your zone of genius. It is one of my favorite guides I've ever put together and it's my gift to you. It's totally free. So we will link it down in the show notes for you. But if you wanna hop on over to Instagram, make sure you're following me already at Elizabeth Marberry, M-A-R-B-E-R-R-Y. And if you wanna DM me the keyword kit, K-I-T,
04:34
I will have my robot assistant. She's so lovely. She will send you over the link to grab that free Instagram visibility jumpstart kit. Again, go over to Instagram, give me a follow and DM me the word kit, or you can check the show notes and we'll be sure to link that guide below. I hope you find it super helpful. So as of July 10th of 2025, Instagram made a huge update and it's the kind of thing that you
05:04
do not want to miss because it's gonna be a game changer for us as entrepreneurs and business owners and marketers who are wanting to use this platform. And that is that your Instagram content can now show up in Google search results. So that means that your Reels, your carousels, even your photo posts, if you have a professional account and it's set to public, can now be indexed by Google, which means new eyeballs, more visibility,
05:32
more followers and yes, potentially more leads and sales if you have set up your Instagram strategically. So let's break this down. First, we're gonna explore what changed and why it's a big deal. Next, we are going to dig into why this actually matters for your business. And we're gonna close out with five steps to optimize your Instagram for search. I hope you're pumped because you know I am.
05:59
Okay, so what changed and why is this a big deal for you? So before this update, some Instagram content could show up in Google, but it was super inconsistent. And when it did happen, it was kind of like a happy accident. And I'm not gonna get into all the technical stuff, but now what has really shifted is Instagram has officially said, hey Google, index this content. So they really,
06:27
gave permission to Google to index all their content, which they hadn't fully before. And if you've got a public business or creator account, your content can intentionally show up in search results. So that means that your posts aren't just trapped inside the Instagram app anymore, they're becoming real searchable assets. So you can think about blog posts or YouTube videos. Like if you...
06:54
Go on Google right now and you type in interior design ideas for a small space. You're going to see YouTube videos populate and show toward the top of the feed. So that is going to start happening more and more with Instagram content, which is so exciting. That means that your content is gonna live longer, it's gonna reach more people, and it's gonna work harder for your business. And that's what we want.
07:24
Right, if you're gonna put in this effort, you want your content to perform and drive leads and sales or move the needle toward the goal that you're trying to reach for your account. So before we get into the details of why this matters for your business, I want to make sure that you have your account set up to take advantage of this update. So first of all, you have to have a professional account on Instagram. So what that means is a business or creator account,
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You have to be over 18 and your content has to be set to public. And if you're listening to this podcast and you're working on growing your brand or business, I would assume that your content is set to public, but of course, double check. And your settings need to have the search engine indexing turned on so that Google can index and display your content and search results. So it's super easy to check your settings. I'm gonna walk you through it right now. So you're gonna go to your Instagram profile.
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and you're gonna tap the three lines in the top right corner. Then you are going to go to account privacy. And then it's super simple, just make sure that allow public photos and videos to appear in search engine results is toggled on. Easy peasy, you're done. Okay, now let's talk about why this update is such a game changer.
08:52
Number one, you now have an additional organic traffic channel. So your content can now reach way beyond just your current followers or Instagram users. It really opens up this brand new free channel for discoverability via Google. So this is clearly huge for small businesses who are trying to reach new clients outside of Instagram's bubble. The second reason why
09:21
I'm obsessed with this update is longer content lifespan. So one of the biggest frustrations I hear from business owners is, oh, Elizabeth, I put so much time into creating content and then it feels like it just dies after 24 hours. And first of all, I just want to highlight that's not totally true, okay? I've had reels that flopped at first and then popped off weeks later.
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or someone finds and shares a post from like three months ago and it's starting to work again. So I just wanna highlight that. That's why I always tell my clients like don't delete your content. Adam Ozari, the CEO of Instagram actually today just shared that Instagram won't penalize you if you delete or archive your posts, but I would tell you as a person who is doing this work every day,
10:19
and there's so much potential for content popping off later. I don't recommend deleting your content to me. Any engagement is good engagement and you can always hide posts from your profile. You can hide reels from your profile if you don't want them to be right there on that front page. But I just wanted to address that myth that your content only has like a 24 hour shelf life, because that's not always true. Okay, back to this longer content lifespan. So,
10:48
What is so cool is now with Google indexing your content, the potential for a longer shelf life is even greater. So I don't know if you have learned about Pinterest. I had a Pinterest expert on the pod several months ago and I remember part of the appeal of Pinterest was that these pins would last two, three months, six months, right?
11:16
Same thing with YouTube. You can post a long form video on YouTube and it's gonna keep driving traffic for months and months, especially of course if it's a solid, high quality piece of content. So now, just like a blog post or a Pinterest pin, your Instagram post can keep driving traffic months down the road. I mean, that is the potential of this. So you're really finally getting rewarded for your consistency and
11:46
And to me, that's where it becomes even more important that we're strategic about the quality of the content, we're strategic about the messaging, and we've really thought through, what is my Instagram sales funnel? What is my Instagram customer journey? And we have all those backend pieces in place. So that way, when we do have a piece of content that shows up on Google, we can really take full advantage of that visibility spike.
12:15
So if you needed a little hit of motivation, I hope this is it to get back on the Instagram horse if you fell off and really commit again to showing up consistently and constantly refining your content so it can really work for your business. And of course, that is the work that I do with my group mentorship program, Hot Reels, and my private mentorship clients. And to me, it's the most fun.
12:44
If you're feeling a little bit lost with Instagram, make sure that you have joined the Hot Reels wait list. Hot Reels is my 12 month Instagram content lab. It's a high touch group mentorship where you will learn how to create the most scroll stopping reels and content that will of course boost your visibility, help you to grow your followership. But to me, even more importantly than that, you will start to really understand how this content
13:14
is gonna help you achieve your marketing and business goals. If you're curious about that program, your next step is to join the wait list. You definitely wanna be on the wait list because wait-listers get early access and the best bonuses that are not available to the public if you decide to join. So to get on the wait list, it'll take you less than 30 seconds. You can DM me the word hot, H-O-T on Instagram for the program info and wait list link.
13:42
or you can go to Elizabeth Marberry, M-A-R-B-E-R-R-Y.com slash hot and definitely join that VIP list there. The third reason why this update matters to businesses and entrepreneurs is the people who find you through Google search are actively looking for the solution that you offer. Okay, so it's high intent.
14:11
discovery. They're not just scrolling for fun. They're not just like zoning out. They're searching with intent. And that's a totally different energy than someone who stumbles across your content on their explorer feed, right? That's someone who's ready to take action. So whether that is they're going to follow you, they're going to click the link in your bio, they're going to inquire about your service or by your product.
14:37
It's a really powerful shift in how someone is going to find and consume your content. So if you're creating content with clarity and purpose, you're going to start seeing even better results. All right, let's get into the five steps to optimize your Instagram for search. Number one is get clear on what keywords are and how to find yours.
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So one of the most important parts of optimizing for search is using keywords. A keyword is basically the phrase that your ideal client types into a search bar to find someone like you. An example would be wedding dance lessons near me, right? Or vinyl record stores near me or crochet for beginners.
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Right, so what are the words or phrases that your ideal client or customer is typing into a search bar? Now, you don't need to guess. Here's where you can actually find and do the research to discover the words that your dream clients are already using. And in marketing, we really simply call this target market research. As a marketer, your number one job
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is to know your dream client or customer like the back of your hand. And when you do target market research, that's when you're discovering, of course, what your ideal clients are struggling with, what are their pain points, what do they want, why do they want that, what solutions are they seeking. I've done extensive episodes on target market research, so that's not what this episode is about, but I wanted to highlight that when you're doing that research, you are writing down and you're getting the
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actual words that your dream clients are saying. So you're not like summarizing what they're saying in your expert lingo. You're writing down exactly how they describe their problem. That's key. So here's some places where you can find those actual words that your dream clients are saying. And those are the words that you want to use in your content. So number one, if you have a place where your clients give you testimonials or reviews,
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of their transformation or their experience, that is marketing gold. You can see how they describe their experience working with you, why they came to you, what the result was. And you can essentially like copy and paste those, put those into Google Doc for your target market research. Another way that you can find the actual words of your dream clients is if you use contact forums on your website, like contact us.
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or if you have a coaching business and you have people fill out applications to work with you, essentially you can kind of think about that first step in a sales conversation. anything written down, like an email to you, asking questions, frequently asked questions, or this could even be like a sales calls. But essentially what you wanna look at is what questions are they asking? What are they searching for? How are they describing their problem? What do they actually want?
18:00
and even like how they would describe the solution they're looking for. Of course, target market research interviews on Zoom with past clients, of course that requires more effort, but I find that sometimes those are so helpful at spotting you on your blind spots. Last but not least, using AI tools like ChatGPT or Answer the Public. So ChatGPT can totally help you
18:30
with target market research and you could even assign a persona to chat GPT. Like you could build out different client avatars within your chat GBT and that can help you to discover keywords. Now the other tool that you can use is answer the public and this tool is really cool. It analyzes like the exact words that people are searching for.
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And so you could type in, like for example, I could type in wedding dance lessons and it would come up with all these different keywords and sentences and things that people would be searching in relation to that topic. So those are a couple online tools that you can use. And of course there's so many more. In fact, I should probably do a whole episode on how do you discover keywords, but.
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The thing I want to highlight for you is that these keywords are going to be important as I talk you through how to incorporate them into your Instagram strategy. But this is not just SEO, right? This is not just like, oh, we want to be found on Google, so we're going to just plug in these keywords. This is messaging gold. When you use the words of your ideal client or customer and not your own words, not your expert
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positioning, but the words of your ideal client and customer, it will land so much better with them. It will resonate with them and your content will be so much more effective. So I can't emphasize this enough. I think so many businesses skip over the whole target market research. What are the keywords my people are using? Because it's not the most fun work, but it will really help.
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all of your efforts that you're using on Instagram to go so much further when your messaging is really resonating with your ideal client. So step one, you're getting clear on the keywords that your ideal client is typing into that search bar. Number two, you need to understand how Instagram's algorithm has evolved. So old school Instagram relied mostly on hashtags to categorize your content. And there's kind of been this like funny hashtag battle on Instagram.
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in the last, I don't know, six to 12 months where, you know, there's all this click bait of like hashtags are dead and then it's like, no, hashtags are alive. And it's just kind of funny. And I just want to explain to you exactly kind of how this has evolved. In the past, Instagram wasn't as search engine optimized. And so the algorithm at that time really had to rely on hashtags to categorize the content, right? To help your content be put in front of the right people. Now,
21:16
Instagram is so much smarter, right? The algorithm now can analyze the text in your caption. It can analyze and read the text on screen in your reels, or let's say you record a voiceover. It knows the words that you're saying. And even visual elements, like let's say you had a video of a beautiful mountain, it would know the keyword mountain. It would be able to identify that from the video.
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Now, the clearer your messaging, the more signals you're sending to the platform of, okay, this is my target audience, this is what I post about, and then they're gonna show your content to more people who are consuming that. So the example would be, let's say I am obsessed with Porsche 911s, and all of my content is just showcasing different Porsches and their features and.
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the community and the vibe and the culture of people who drive Porsches, okay? There's gonna be a lot of keywords in there and the algorithm's gonna understand, okay, this content is for people who are also obsessed with Porsches or they love car content or they love sports car content. So I'm gonna show it to more people who love that kind of content. When we talk about the algorithm, that's what we're thinking of is like, you want your content to be seen by the right people.
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And so this is why it's so important to be really specific in your audience, your niche, who you're talking to, because vague captions or trending audios with absolutely no context, like you have to think about, know, most of the time when you're creating content, you're creating it for a total cold audience that doesn't know you. It just isn't gonna perform well. You have to have clarity.
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All this to say, this is why it is so important to use keywords in your content, is that the algorithm will be able to show your content to more of your ideal prospects. And now Google will also be able to analyze your content and show it to the right people. So you've gotten clear on your keywords. You understand how the algorithm has evolved, how it's much savvier now and how it can read.
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the caption, the onscreen text, your voiceover, it's reading that content even if you didn't use hashtags, which by the way, I do recommend you use those, but we'll get to that in a minute. The third step is what we've already touched on, which is speak in the language of your Dreamboat client. So let me give you a real example so you can understand how this.
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piece of speaking in the language of your dreamboat client directly correlates with search engine optimization of your Instagram content and how it's going to help you show up more on Google. So I was doing a private Instagram audit for a Denver based hair and makeup artist. And at that time, her bio said, for the elevated modern bride, specializing in enhancing your natural beauty. And I said, OK, but what is the elevated modern bride?
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I don't even know who that is. Like it doesn't seem like that's how that person would describe themselves. you know, it was just not clear. So we dug in and discovered that her style for makeup was soft glam. Okay. And she did these gorgeous Hollywood waves and her brides were into like this boho vibe. So we updated her bio to say soft glam and natural makeup.
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for the modern bride, Hollywood waves and boho romantic hairstyles. So you can hear how clear and specific and full of keywords that brides would actually search on Google and Instagram for, right? Like if I'm getting married and I'm obsessed with Hollywood waves, I'm gonna type in Hollywood waves. I'm not gonna type in elevated modern bride. What the heck even is that? Right, so this is what I mean about
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Not only is that messaging going to actually be effective for her marketing, right? But it's going to help Google and Instagram index her content and put it in front of the right people so it's discoverable. Number four, I want you to use keywords in these five key places on Instagram, okay? So you've got your keywords, here's where you're gonna put them. Number one, your Instagram profile.
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I've been saying this for years now, your username and name field need to be search engine optimized. Let's say your name is Ashley Miller and you're a Denver bridal hair and makeup person, okay? Oftentimes in the name field, we would write Ashley Miller, but instead of that, I would rather you put some search engine optimized keywords in there. So,
26:20
your name field could say Denver bridal hair and makeup, and then it could say Ashley, right? So you can hear how I'm intentionally adding those keywords into the name field on Instagram. And if you're curious about how to do this and like what I'm talking about, if you're a visual learner like me, definitely get that free Instagram visibility jumpstart kit because I go through
26:45
like visually and I show you line by line exactly what I'm talking about and where to update it. The second place to add keywords is your caption. So put key phrases early in your caption. And of course, this doesn't mean that you just stuff keywords in, like don't do any keyword stuffing where you're like typing out a giant list of keywords. Definitely don't do that. You will be flagged by the spam filters, but weave in those keywords.
27:14
as you naturally would speak in your caption. Don't make it weird, okay? The third place to put your keywords is your hashtags. So yes, hashtags are not as effective as they were years ago, but they still do matter. People do still search and look up hashtags. So I recommend that you still use those. The key with those is that your hashtags should be super niche and super specific.
27:40
So an example of that would be if I, for my wedding dance coach business where we offer first dance wedding lessons, I don't ever do hashtag wedding because it's way too general. That hashtag right now I'm looking on Instagram, it says it has 294 million posts with hashtag wedding. I don't wanna be competing with 294 million posts. I don't know about you, but I'm not up for that. So for my business, I would type in wedding dance
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Lessons, right? That has 25k posts. Or first dance lessons. Or wedding dance choreography. You can see how much more specific those hashtags are, so that's super important. So again, your keywords are going to be found in your hashtags. Make sense? And then number four is your onscreen text in Reel. So like your hook or your closed captions, it's...
28:37
awesome if you can include relevant search terms there. And then lastly, this is kind of like a bonus going above and beyond. Honestly, I don't do this because I'm all about just like getting my content done as quickly and effectively as I can and moving on to all the other things I'm doing in my business. But we're all at different places. Some of us have big teams supporting us. So I wanted to include this. You can also add alt text. It's in the advanced.
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setting when you're posting if you click advanced settings, but you can write a short description using your keywords. So an example would be bride doing first dance with groom at a local Denver wedding, right? And of course alt text is great for improving accessibility of your content as well. I hope you found that helpful. Remember just find one or two things that you're going to start shifting. You don't have to do all this at once. I hope you're
29:34
excited. This update is a huge win for those of us who are committed to Instagram for the long haul. You're not just playing the algorithm game anymore, right? You're building long lasting visibility, just like you would with a blog or a podcast or YouTube channel. I think this is the best news ever. And here's the thing, knowing what to do is one thing, executing it strategically is another. And that's exactly what
30:00
I help you do inside of my signature mentorship, Hot Reels, the 12 month Instagram content lab. I know I already mentioned it before, but I'm gonna mention it one more time. We're officially opening the doors on August 18th to my VIP wait list peeps only. So if you are not on the list, definitely DM me the word hot on Instagram so you can join in this high touch group mentorship with me, which includes live group coaching calls every month.
30:27
You're going to learn how to create reels that get way more engagement than you're getting right now, but you're also going to learn how to refine your messaging so your content is so much more effective in driving conversions. And the feedback I get from my clients in there is they just love the ongoing coaching and support from me for an entire year. It is such a game changer for you if you struggle with consistency or you feel like you're doing all the things but nothing's working.
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I would love to support you in just using this tool to help you achieve your dreams, like for your life, for your business, right? That's what we're here for. Inside Hot Reels, you also can access plug and play templates. I have a Hooks Vault, all this good stuff. So you definitely need to be on the wait list because those bonuses for the early birds are killer. They are so hot, you're definitely gonna wanna get on the list. So hop on over to Elizabeth Marberry, M-A-R-B-E-R-R-Y.com slash hot to add your name or DM me on Instagram, hot. And if you're listening to this after August and you're like, oh shoot, I missed it. No worries, you can always get the latest info or join the next round at ElizabethMarberry.com slash hot. Thank you so much for tuning in today. If this episode helped you, share it with another business owner, marketer, entrepreneur.
31:50
or snap a screenshot and tag me on Instagram at Elizabeth Marberry. I'll be sure to share it with my audience. I am so grateful that you are here. I hope you got so much out of today's episode and you're feeling so fired up about creating content on Instagram that will actually move the needle for your business. You're awesome and I cannot wait to start it with you next week. Thank you for listening to Strut It. If you're ready to start leveraging Instagram to grow your business,
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then you're gonna wanna grab my free Monetize Your IG Guide, 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 ElizabethMarberry.com slash freebies to get my Monetize Your IG Guide.
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If you got some incredible value from today's episode, be sure to leave a review and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. And I cannot wait to start it with you again next week.
