Pamela SapioWe heart Lauren Petrullo. There, we said it.
Every time she shows up, she drops these bombs of wisdom that leave us asking ourselves, “Well heck, why didn’t we think of that?”
In case you don’t know Lauren (and shame on you if you don’t), she is the CEO and founder of award-winning Mongoose Media—not to mention a social media rock star. She recently joined Kasim on an episode of Perpetual Traffic, where she revealed a massively impactful yet surprisingly simple Instagram growth tactic that you definitely want to start using. You can watch the video clip here or catch the full episode here, but this blog will give you a quick recap.
This strategy is one Lauren says she uses actively in her business, and it's something you can easily delegate to a VA or social media intern.
If growing your business and attracting new customers is important to you—which, of course it is—doing this one small thing each day can make a BIG difference.
“It’s really foundational and pretty basic,” says Lauren.
And the best part? It only takes 20 minutes each time, a few times a day.
Lauren has dubbed this strategy “potty time” because, well, the 20 minutes thing. So, if you find yourself with a little extra time, and your phone in your hand, it’s the perfect opportunity to try it.
Why Instagram?
Lauren says that in her experience, a lot of brands will spend too much time and overcomplicate a really simple process, thinking they have to spend lots of money on paid ads to grab new followers and boost sales, when this one simple Instagram hack can accomplish the same results in less time… and for free.
“Foundationally, if you know who your ideal customer profile is, if you know who your competitors are and where people are going that aren’t you, and you offer similar content or value-adds to content they’re interested in looking at … you can just start engaging with your competitors’ Instagram profile.”
Yep, you heard that right. Scope out potential new customers on your competitors' IG page.
It’s pretty genius when you think about it.
Lauren and Kasim use the example of t-shirt brands, specifically Cuts and True Classic.
“Let’s say you’re buying a black shirt from Cuts,” says Lauren. “And I’m True Classic and I want to go after Cuts’ Instagram audience. I’m just going to literally ask my VA or my social media manager to spend 20 minutes three times a day going through Cuts’ Instagram profile.”
What you want to do, she adds, is look in the comments section to see who is engaging with Cuts’ most recent posts. Why? Because those people are already super active on Instagram and showing behaviors that you want demonstrated on your profile.
Light bulb moment!
So, as True Classic, Lauren says she is going to start following and loving on all those people that have engaged with Cuts’ posts—but on their profile pages. (Not right there on Cuts’ posts, because that would be weird.)
Side note: Lauren and her team will use a highlight tool inside Google Chrome (this one) to track who they follow and then add those names to a Google Sheet. Later, they can decide whether or not to unfollow them.
Following people on IG gets their attention, and starts a conversation.
By giving them a follow, liking their posts, and engaging with them, you capture their attention. And what happens next?
They’ll follow you back—because they’re already following other eCommerce brands similar to you, and you seem interesting, so why wouldn’t they?
“The only people I want from Cuts are the people that are actively engaging on Cuts, because I want active engagers on our profiles,” clarifies Lauren.
One last thing!
Lauren adds that they don’t engage right away with the folks they follow.
“However, if they follow back within three days, then we’ll go give them some love, and then depending on if they end up starting a conversation with us or then it becomes a sales thing versus just an Instagram growth or TikTok growth strategy, then we’ll keep the follow.”
Pretty smart, if you ask us.
Ready to give it a try? Go forth and follow!
