š² The Grid: February's round up
Freebies, post ideas, need-to-know updates, and a round up of the best booky, marketing-ish, social-media-esque advice I've found on the internet this month
š§ FREE workshops!
In case you missed it Iāve created two FREE workshops that address some of the most commonly reported barriers to writers and authors using Instagram effectively, confidently and sustainably.
If your problem is that spending time on Instagram makes you feel a bit rubbish or inadequate then my prescription is to write your own Instagram Manifesto:
If your problem is you feel like Instagram sucks up too much of your precious time, then try this workshop instead:
šØCalling historical fiction authors
The lovely pair at Time Hoppers,
and would like to hear from you if youāre a historical fiction novelist. They host a growing and highly engaged community of historical fiction readers whoād love to hear more about your book. If youāre a historical fiction author publishing this year ā trad or independent ā drop Rachel or Kat a DM via their Time Hoppers Instagram account to chat further.š”Post ideas for dayssss
Scroll down to the bottom section of this email to find some interesting post formats that Iāve found on my travels around Instagram this month. Looking at whatās working for other people is one way of getting the creative juices flowing BUT if you feel like what you need is something more bespoke to you and your readers, thenā¦
ā¦ the ā”ļøSPARK! workshop is returning for a third time! Over 40 writers and authors so far have spent 90 minutes with me to create a bank of bespoke Instagram post ideas to show their ideal reader why they should care about their book. Now itās your turn!
Come along and Iāll guide you through a set of prompts to generate approx 100 post ideas - thatās 6 months worth of posts if you post 4 x per week - that are tailor-made to attract and engage your ideal readers.
This is what previous attendees have said about the workshop:
āThank you for giving such a brilliant workshop today, I took so much away and am brimming with ideas for how to connect with readers and talk about my book. I've been to a fair few industry sessions and have a background in corporate communications and this was something completely different.ā -
, author of āCostanzaāāI found the prompts really helpful and they inspired a lot of ideas. I also appreciated the reminder to think of the purpose of each Instagram post, whether that's to entertain, to educate or to connect, and that authors should be posting for their ideal readers...not other writers!ā -
Williamson, author of āThe Language of DragonsāšPinned posts
This short clip from drbeckyatgoodinside feels pretty relevant to any writer or author whoās feeling sticky and uncomfortable in your marketing and promotion: resilience and success come from the amount of time you can tolerate not knowing what the hell youāre doing!
In this typically insightful piece from
she asks what if itās not the worst time to be an authorā¦?
Finally, I L-O-V-E-D this interview with left-wing technologist, Lou Millar-MacHugh and I recommend taking a look at their free resource, āA Leftistās Guide To Staying Off Your Phoneā. They say things like, āThat's the hook cycle. It [social media] wants to feed you little emotional nuggets so that you keep looking for those emotional nuggets subconsciously, and if you're able to, when you're caught in that cycle, recognize that it's happening, it loses its power over youā , which made me literally clap, fist pump, and do a happy dance in my desk chair.
š¬ Need-To-Know Instagram Updates
After ramming through a whole bunch of updates during January, February has been much quieter on the update front, but hereās one you might have missed that is really worth trying out, plus three more coming up:
Trial Reels: have you tried it yet?
Trial Reels is a new feature introduced by Instagram in January, ostensibly to allow accounts to test new kinds of content without it being shown to your existing followers. What canny creators quickly realised is that this features offers an opportunity to get your Reel in front of more accounts that donāt already follow you and Iām hearing reports of some pretty impressive growth numbers as a result. Iāll be honest - Iāve tested it on some of my best performing Reels and I havenāt seen any significant results from it yet, but Iām continuing to experiment because its a way to squeeze every last drop of value from your content, without expending much more effort (assuming you remember to save your Reel to your camera roll before you post it so you can easily reuse it!).
If growth is a priority for you might also be interested in upgrading your subscription to become a member of TOO MUCH INSTAGRAM as last week I started the šš»āāļøtraining sessionsšš»āāļø for a šš»āāļøGrowth Sprintšš»āāļø that Iām leading in March. Iād love you to join us šÆāāļø
Ones to watch out forā¦
you probably noticed the change to the vertical grid BUT did you know that one knock on effect is that Instagram are looking at moving highlights from your bio, into their own tab? Read the caption under this post for more details but if youāve been puzzling over how best to use your highlights, hold your horses because things could be about to change!
Instagram is testing a new dislike button for comments. I have this feature and this is what it looks like:
According to Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, āOur hope is that this might help make comments more friendly on Instagram,ā but theyāre looking to see how it works in practice before deciding whether to roll it out more widely.
Instagram is introducing a new post format: Reels Carousels. I havenāt been served any of these in my feed yet but I understand that, as the name suggests, they are multi-page posts, made up of multiple videos. The best case scenario is that this content format will combine the reach rates of Reels and the engagement rates of Carousels so theyāre definitely a content format to experiment with when it rolls out across your account.
š”Five post formats to try in March:
#wheremylorestarted single-handedly proving that hashtags can still be a useful way to group content so itās easily searchable šš». My personal fave of this trend is
ās who subverted the trend and sent me down a rabbit hole of 90s-00s Saturday night tv.17 posts and over 12.8k followers? Proof, in case anyone needed it, that simple, visual, relatable challenges can still cut through allllll of the noise online.
another fab stunt - although this oneās definitely from the heart - is this from
the day after her book launch party. It was Valentineās Day so the timing was perfect, the āvox popā style was super engaging and compelling, AND it was perfectly aligned to the subject of her book šš¼ PRO TIP: have a look at www.awarenessdays.com for the month of publication of your book to see if thereās anything you can piggyback on š½
it seems Iāve got something for content that feels very āin the momentā this month, which tbh is exactly where trends have been heading for a while: away from the curated and polished, and towards āslightly unhinged voice-note to my bestieā vibes. This impromptu story-time from author Jenni Bayliss nails it šš¼
if video still terrifies you though, why not flex some creative muscles with a āthe vibes I bring to the functionā collage like this one šš¼ from historical romance novelist Kate Clisson
If youāve found this email helpful or interesting, Iād love it if you would share it, either here on Substack, or anywhere else that you hang out with other writers šš¼ See you next month!
Can I dislike the dislike button?! (Thanks for this roundup!)