Have you ever thought Instagram could be your secret weapon in the classroom? Learn how this social media platform can transform your role as a substitute teacher, helping you earn the respect and admiration of your students. From my personal journey of building an engaged Instagram following, I'll share practical tips on setting up a public account and crafting posts that make your teaching presence unforgettable. Discover why Instagram offers a safer and more engaging way to connect with students compared to traditional methods like Facebook or text messaging.
Unlock the power of social media algorithms to maximize your reach and influence. Hear about my adventures, including a hilarious solo trip to Disney World and the surprising success of my rap videos, which helped grow my Instagram community. You'll also gain valuable insights on using hashtags effectively, managing comments, and the magic of cross-posting on Facebook. Whether you're a social media novice or a seasoned user looking to enhance your online presence, this episode is filled with actionable advice to make Instagram a vital part of your teaching toolkit.
Have you ever thought Instagram could be your secret weapon in the classroom? Learn how this social media platform can transform your role as a substitute teacher, helping you earn the respect and admiration of your students. From my personal journey of building an engaged Instagram following, I'll share practical tips on setting up a public account and crafting posts that make your teaching presence unforgettable. Discover why Instagram offers a safer and more engaging way to connect with students compared to traditional methods like Facebook or text messaging.
Unlock the power of social media algorithms to maximize your reach and influence. Hear about my adventures, including a hilarious solo trip to Disney World and the surprising success of my rap videos, which helped grow my Instagram community. You'll also gain valuable insights on using hashtags effectively, managing comments, and the magic of cross-posting on Facebook. Whether you're a social media novice or a seasoned user looking to enhance your online presence, this episode is filled with actionable advice to make Instagram a vital part of your teaching toolkit.
Greg:
Greg Collins Substitute Teachers Lounge. It is July 2nd 2024. Do not turn off your podcast. I know some of you are already thinking this is going to have nothing to do with me, because it's got the word Instagram in the title of the podcast. Stay with me.
Greg:
I was the same way you were just a few months ago and then I realized what I could do with this tool. So it's not going to be a tutorial on instagram, like you see on youtube or whatever your favorite sources are. This is actually going to be substitute teacher specific and it is going to let you know how you can gain the respect of your students. You can become I hate to use the word popular, but you can continue being popular with the students, at least from the standpoint of them enjoying having you in the school. So stay on this episode we're going to talk about how Instagram is a powerful tool for a substitute teacher. All right, so I get it.
Greg:
Some of you have hopefully most of you have listened to the last podcast, in which I interviewed Reese and Maya, but I closed by telling you what I had discovered about Instagram and how it has just shocked me, of how it works, how powerful a tool it is, and we're going to talk about that Now the reason. I know that you're going to say well, greg, I listened to your last Instagram and I might have watched it on your Facebook page or your Instagram page and that's just not my personality. I can't act as goofy as you and goofiness comes naturally to me. Maybe you don't want to get on there and do a rap. Maybe you don't want to get on there and just say some stupid things to get your students' attention. Well, I'll tell you one more that I've added to the bunch. But even if you're not that kind of personality, you don't have to be. You can play it seriously and maybe just inject a little humor because, just like in the classroom, when you inject some humor or some let's call it the entertainment quotient into your lessons while you're substitute teaching, those students are going to remember you more. They remember you more. They're going to talk to the teachers more that you are substituting for. When that happens, you go up that teacher's list because they know perhaps with you in the classroom, they won't have to worry about whether or not the lessons going on, the students are having a worthwhile day, all that kind of stuff, because these students have gotten to know you through this Instagram tool that I'm getting ready to talk to you about today. It's nothing new you about today? It's nothing new, but I'll bet that you didn't realize it can do the things it can do. Now, I used to be and I still am, especially since I have this podcast. I still follow Facebook.
Greg:
For the most part, students don't follow Facebook anymore. I hate to break this to you, but they don't follow Facebook that much. They might have an account, but they don't follow it that much. They don't post on it that much. And guys, they don't say LOL that much anymore.
Greg:
For some reason, we as adults do those things and think it's something that's going to be popular with the kids. Well, it isn't. Plus with Facebook, you have that little tracking mechanism. You'd like to popular with the kids? Well, it isn't. Plus with Facebook, you have that little tracking mechanism. You'd like to interact with the students. You'd like to keep up with, maybe, their sports activities you can see how successful you've been and talk about it in the classroom that day. The other thing you could do and I'm telling you right now, don't do it is text messages. You don't need to know that student's phone number and they don't need to know yours Now in some teaching situations. Of course, the parents you're going to have all their numbers anyway. The parents are going to have your number. You will interact with them A lot of you, especially if you're like one of those full-time substitute teachers. You'll interact with them all the time. So those numbers are necessary.
Greg:
But the great thing about Instagram you can set up these accounts and you can either subtly mention that you have an Instagram account while you're in the school. They can search for you and automatically like you. They don't have to wait. It defaults to a non-private account. It's a public account. So if they like you as a substitute teacher you never can tell Students will search for you and then start following you. They'll give you a follow. Now I'm not going to recommend that you follow them back. Some I have. Most of the ones that I have followed back I knew were already 18. It just makes me kind of paranoid outside of that realm, but I'll just say it that way. Or maybe I know their parents really well and I'm following their parents too. But the great thing about it is that you don't have to share personal information like phone numbers, like you would with the text you follow them, or I should have said that backwards. They will follow you as soon as they know. Now I'll be honest with you.
Greg:
The reason I picked up it was this time last year, the reason I picked up so many new Instagram accounts. I'm up over. This isn't a huge number, but I'm up over. There's 401, I'm looking at it right now. There's 401 people following me. I have figured out some things that there's a couple of websites, even non-teaching websites, that I hang out on, that I have figured out a way to let them know that Substitute Teachers Lounge is out there. That has helped some. It's mainly students, though, that have followed me. Maybe they say we like Mr Collins, we like Mr G, let's just go out there and we'll talk about algorithms, and you don't have to seek out those students so that they can watch what you just posted. They're going to find you through the other students.
Greg:
Now what I was getting ready to say is this time last year, I picked up a lot of new Instagram followers. Would that be followers? Yes, I picked up followers, those who are following me because I was working with a high school volleyball program and I was going to be their assistant coach and for that reason they started following me. Some of them were following me anyway, but they started following me and I've already told you I won't belabor what I said in the last episode. Just remember that I mentioned I had done two Instagrams and the comments are just through the roof, at least in my book. I don't have a million comments, I don't have a million views, but I have enough to get me really excited and enough to let you know that everything now that I post, they're going to see. Every time I post something new, I get new followers.
Greg:
Let's talk about algorithms first, and you know, I've got something in my mind right now and I'm afraid if I don't go ahead and say it, I'll forget about it. So let me say this first. This is about actually how you use it. You probably know and I'm one of the most critical people that why do people take videos with their phones but they keep them in a vertical position? You need to turn your phone horizontally to take videos. That is a YouTube mentality and I'm here today to tell you this. As a general rule, you turn your phone horizontal when you're shooting a video for YouTube. It works out better if you leave it vertical when you're shooting a video for Instagram. So that's what I have done.
Greg:
I hope you didn't just listen to that audio last episode. I hope you went in and watched the video. It's on YouTube, it's on Instagram, it's on our Facebook page. In all three cases, all you have to do is search for Substitute Teachers Lounge and you'll find it. So got that out of the way.
Greg:
The algorithms. Here's the way they work. I mean, it's the same thing for everything. In fact, youtube is probably the most aggravating because they're also the most powerful. I clicked on something the other day that was famous celebrities who have lived into their 90s. I thought that was a fascinating topic and I flipped through there. Well, I mean, it might have been a day later. I got back in there and then I had all these listings of similar type items, like presidents that I don't know what their favorite candy was. They knew that all the way back to George Washington. The only one I ever remembered was Reagan eating jelly beans. But anyway, youtube's is very powerful. Instagram will? It's also very powerful. But let's suffice to say that this is the way it works. If Su suzy q, it's a good old credence clearwater revival song, by the way, suzy q, I'm using that as a fictitious name.
Greg:
If they just watch your video that you just posted on instagram, their friends start watching or start seeing that you watch the video. It starts showing up on their friends start watching or start seeing that you watch the video. It starts showing up on their friends list of things to watch, even though they are not friends of yours or I keep saying friends. I'm going to say that back and forth. It's really follower is the proper term with Instagram. So the algorithm works great. It works for friends of friends. So once they see that this person listened to it, they say, oh, mr Collins, put something out, I'm going to go listen to it. Then they become your follower. Then maybe just some of their maybe some of their followers haven't seen the video, but they might start following me just because they now know I have an Instagram account and they're start looking at my latest Instagrams. I have people liking Instagrams with me now.
Greg:
Back that I did months ago and it's really kind of a crazy thing ago and it's really kind of a crazy thing. I told you the one that last week that got 500 views in less than an hour. Well, it went over a thousand just after I recorded that. So almost a month ago now, it went to a much higher number. So you can record these videos and let me tell you how I do it Now. You heard most of the story I did. If you have that silliness quotient, that goofiness quotient, that's what I hear the most about the serious ones. I don't quite hear as much about the ones where I start rapping and they call it a. They, everybody, every all the students were saying who is that disc video about? Those are the things they remembered. I just got back.
Greg:
I took a crazy trip for a week down to the Disney World area in the Orlando area. I did not even go to a park and I went by myself because my wife was on a vacation with some hiking friends and I said well, I have some vacation points, I could essentially go down there without it costing me that much and I just goofed off for a while. I made another goofy video down there that I stretched the truth, but they know that I'm going to do sarcastic things anyway and it was really popular. It wasn't quite as popular as my rap. Given that, I now know what I'm going to record as my next Instagram video. In fact, since this is July 2nd, it's probably going to come out about right now I'm recording this a couple of days early, but it'll be the week of July 2nd. It's probably going to come out about right now I'm recording this a couple of days early, but it'll be the week of July 2nd. I hope you follow me. I say all that to say this.
Greg:
A couple of the vacation planning Facebook pages that I hang out on. I told them about my trip, about how, if they were ever considering, I'd call it a split stay because I was at three different resorts over five days. I'm obviously a senior citizen. I also was solo. All three of those are unusual. Packaged together, they're really unusual. So I posted a little quasi travel report about it and the people loved it. I got a lot of likes, I got a lot of new Instagram followers from that page and that's not even a substitute teacher page. I had people comment to me oh, I'm getting ready to be a substitute teacher, this was so cool, I'm going to try it with my students. So, substitute teacher, this was so cool, I'm going to try it with my students.
Greg:
So here's what I'm going to mention, some things to you that you need to keep in mind when you're doing an Instagram. First of all, I'm going to walk you through this rule. I don't want to give you an Instagram tutorial. I just want to tell you the only thing you need to do to do this. If you open up your Instagram, this would be easier if you follow along and pause as we go, install the Instagram app. Once you have done that, you set up your account and all that kind of stuff, and I know what I'm maybe I did say this before and I'll probably just start repeating.
Greg:
I got a lot of followers last year because the volleyball player started liking my Instagram account and then other schools students there started liking it too, because they saw that one of their friends was now following my Instagram. So here's what you do, here's the way I do it, and some people do it differently because they're better at it. I haven't gotten good yet on superimposing text over top of my video. I'll get there. That is a traditional Instagram. In fact, my, my daughter-in-law could teach me that she uses it all the time for her business, and I have to get with her, maybe make mine better, but in my case, I've gotten to the point that I feel like the students are. The goofier I can be, the better. We had a volleyball scrimmage last night from ages eight all the way through about 14, and I had more kids come up tonight and talk about some of these, or I should say last night, talk about some of these Instagram videos. So it's pretty crazy how popular they got so quickly.
Greg:
So you're going to open your Instagram account. If you go to the bottom I'm doing this from a phone because I just think it makes more sense If you go down to the bottom, you'll see that little plus sign inside a square. That's the one I use. I'm hitting mine right now. It might end up playing something by default in case you hear something in the background, and what it will do? It will pull up the most recent photo or video that you have saved to your phone, assuming that's the one you want in your Instagram post. So I do my recording outside Instagram, that video that I made where I was rapping. I just did that a straight video through my phone, using just the default app that comes with it, the one that is called Photos, at least on my phone. I did it on there first as a video. And now, when I pulled that up, if I had just recently done a video, it would default to that one, assuming that that's what I want to do.
Greg:
Now, you don't always have to talk. In fact, one of the things you can do is just if you want to do a still, maybe a display, and have you standing next to the display, that's fine, and you can even have it play music in the background and things like that, and so it's all up to you. So when I got to that, it defaults I choose a video to post. Now, one thing I can do and I did it the last time, the one I recorded at Disney World was actually two videos that I wanted to play back to back the way that you do that. If you go about, just over halfway down on your phone, you'll see a little camera on the far right and then to the left of that. It almost looks like a copy icon, but it's actually. That lets you use more than one video, so if you click that, it then has you.
Greg:
You want to choose your videos in order. I actually recorded my second video first. It had to go before the other one, so you can choose videos in any way you want to. Once you got them set, you click next and you're good to go. You're going to click next a couple of times, it's going to go. You're now to the point where you can write a caption for your video. You can even add a poll. You can add music. I do that when I'm not talking, okay, just because music always just adds something to it.
Greg:
Now some people get aggravated with Instagram videos that have music behind it because a lot of them are silent and then, all of a sudden, if they haven't silenced their phone and they're looking at this in a public place, that music starts playing as they're watching it. So you have to be careful about that. You can tag people. It's going to default that your audience is everyone that you're actually Instagram face. You know Instagram that follows you on Instagram. There's other things in there. Probably the most important thing before you hit the share button at the bottom is to write a caption and then go down to the bottom. One of the features says share to Facebook. Now, I choose not to do that from Instagram because I put enough stuff on Facebook anyway. I can't even remember that might default to share to Facebook. So look at that and if you don't want it shared to Facebook, just tap it to click it off. You're good to go, and then once you have to be careful not to share this, once you hit the share button, then whatever you have created has become public and those students can now watch it.
Greg:
Okay, now, I'm not going to give you ideas. I thought of an idea that I'm going to do next week and I'll you know. Maybe I'll post it on the Facebook group and, of course, the Instagram. Follow me now, please. If you're listening to this, follow my Instagram account. If you don't have your notifications turned on and you don't want to watch it, you don't even have to have it. Bother you. From this point forward, you can just turn the notifications off. But I would like for you to see what I'm doing and then follow me, and if I can tell you're a teacher or a substitute teacher, I'll follow you back because I want to see what you're doing.
Greg:
But basically, I recorded the video. I have that little goofy keyboard thing that I got free for $20 worth of Amazon points that I mentioned in the last. I should have mentioned this. If you didn't listen to episode 261 from June, you probably are a little bit lost. You might want to go back and listen to that as well, so you can see. I actually played the audio portion of that video, but I would recommend that you go watch the video.
Greg:
So Instagram is a great tool for you to get seen by those students. Watch some videos. Watch some teacher videos. One thing you want to do and this will probably be how we close I can't tell you what to record. I can just tell you to record you, be you, try to be a little entertaining.
Greg:
And if you're an extrovert, or maybe not even an extrovert, if you want to just slip and say oh by the way, students, I've got an Instagram account. I would love for you to follow me. I post teaching things on there all the time. I don't have to know your personal information. You don't have to know mine. They're going to look it up, even if they don't like you yet they're going to look it up. They're going to see what in the world is this teacher going to post that? She thinks he thinks that I'm going to watch. So there's ways to get the word out there, but it will multiply. It's like dominoes the dominoes. Once one domino fall, they go off in all kinds of directions and you'll have a lot of followers before you even know it. So give it a try. Polish your video.
Greg:
I'm not going to tell you how to edit videos. Your iPhone would tell you that. I'm not going to tell you how to go into deeper Instagram production. There's plenty of tutorials out there for you. I'm just going to tell you if you want the students to keep track of what you're, or just keep your keep you in their minds as a substitute teacher, you need to do this Instagram thing. I hope you like doing it as much as I do I've already.
Greg:
Every time I hear something goofy, I think I'm going to make an Instagram, a similar Instagram to that. I don't even have to be on Instagram. I thought of one that I'm going to. The one I'm going to do next week is because I heard a slang word that I had to look up and I'm thinking, hey, that gives me an idea for an Instagram. That's the one I'm going to put out next week.
Greg:
So, guys, do it. Let Instagram be your friend. It can be as simple or as complicated. You're going to start maybe with just a handful of followers and you'll be surprised how many followers you'll have by the time it's over. You know about hashtags, probably already. I do use hashtags when I do Instagram videos. I'll do hashtag substitute teacher. I'll do hashtag substitute teach. I'll do hashtag teach hashtag teacher. Once you start typing them, a bunch of them will come up. You probably already use them for other things, but that's how you can get. That's how I've gotten some extra views. And again, posting to that non-teaching travel Facebook page, I got several views there. So good luck to you.
Greg:
Get your Instagram on and I think you will find you'll be saying I think you're really going to be saying the same thing as me Can't believe how easy it is. Why didn't I do this before? And I'll close with three quick things I almost forgot about. Once you're published your video, if you need to edit or you decide you want it to delete it, you just go bottom right hand corners, got your little profile icon. You hit that. It'll pull up your most recently published post and you hit those three dots and you can either edit or or delete completely.
Greg:
The other thing that's important when you are on your home, if you hit your home screen of instagram, there are some students that sent me private comments because they didn't want it to be public. They do that by hitting that little. It looks like a little messenger icon right next to the heart. So they hit that. Their message to me is private because some of them asked me who are you talking about? Their message to me is private because some of them ask me who are you talking about? If they want to make a public comment about it, you know you can do the same thing. As you scroll down videos, you can hit the little bubble that looks like a cartoon bubble and make a comment about that video. So remember that's two different ways those students can communicate with you. Or maybe you see them being successful or something and you want to communicate with them. You can do it in either a public or private way. So again, go get your Instagram on.
