THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Elise Darma: Really short reels did really well. Like two second reels, they would have text on top and they would just loop over and over again as you were trying to read the caption. So Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, has already said that they are noticing this as more of a tactic just to get a lot of views. And it’s not necessarily favorable to what they want because they want a better quality viewing experience, not just getting 10,000 views. So I am seeing already three second, five second reels kind of dying down.
Speaker 2: It’s The Inspiration Place podcast with artist Miriam Schulman. Welcome to the The Inspiration Place podcast, an Art World insider podcast for artists by an artist, where each week we go behind the scenes to uncover the perspiration and inspiration behind the art. And now your host, Miriam Schulman.
Miriam Schulman: Hey there! Welcome back to The Inspiration Place. I’m Miriam Schulman, your curator of inspiration, and today I’m sitting down with my friend and social media strategist, Elise Darma. It’s her third time as a guest, and she is one of the sharpest voices in online marketing. Elise and I met years ago. Oh gosh, when was that? 2018? We met years ago in a mastermind, and I still credit that experience for some of my most lasting business friendships and collaborations. So today, Elise is back to share her five Instagram predictions for 2026. From what kinds of videos will dominate to how to use storytelling and DMs to build real relationships with your audience. Whether you love or hate social media, you’ll walk away knowing exactly where to focus your energy next year. And since we’re talking about masterminds and strategic growth, if you’ve been craving more personalized support, applications are now open for my 2026 Inner Circle. It’s my High Touch coaching mastermind, where artists scale to consistent six figure years through one on one strategy, small group coaching, and an elite cohort of other artists who are also working towards the same goal. To see if you qualify. Go to SchulmanArt.com/Apply. Now let’s dive into my conversation with Elise Darma.
Elise Darma: I can totally see your cool summer tones now too. Okay, here are your fellow cool summer lady, right?
Miriam Schulman: Yes, that. That is actually what I planned on talking about first. So we are officially starting the podcast.
Elise Darma: Perfect.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, so when I was a teenager in the 80s, they did have the Color Me beautiful color thing.
Elise Darma: I was born in the 80s, grew up in the 90s.
Miriam Schulman: Elder millennial. Yeah. So they had this Color Me beautiful thing, which you had to find your season. And I didn’t know my season like I thought I was, was I a winter was in autumn. I never could figure it out. It’s like, oh, screw it. None of this works. So Elise was posting content about ChatGPT can figure out your season. Is there like a post we should be? Is there something they can DM you to get it from you?
Elise Darma: Yeah, I can link you the post. You just comment, you know, a certain keyword on it and I’ll DM you the ChatGPT prompt I use to find out my color season because I was obsessed for months. And then I realized I can just ask ChatGPT and I think it’s accurate. So yeah.
Miriam Schulman: It’s totally accurate. It’s so accurate. I’ve never been happier. Like, hello.
Elise Darma: I know it’s like looking at a mirror right now. As I look at you, I’m like, oh yeah, we do have the same coloring and vibe and I can understand why we’re both the same.
Miriam Schulman: We are. We are both. Are you a cool summer? Do you know the actual summer distinction? You are?
Elise Darma: Yeah. Chatgpt says I’m a cool summer, which I believe is also known as a true summer. But I haven’t dug too deep into that. But I’m a cool summer.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. And did you, like, change your hair tone? Because I had the discussion with my hairdresser. Yeah.
Elise Darma: I just.
Miriam Schulman: Did.
Elise Darma: Like a few weeks ago. I had, like, yellow blond for ten years.
Miriam Schulman: Golden. I was like a golden thing and it was washing me out. And every time he’d say, oh no, we just have to redo it. I was like, no, we have to have a different conversation here.
Elise Darma: It’s wild. And my hairdresser said, I’m actually a dark blond. So I was thinking I’d go brunet. And then she’s like, no, you’re actually just a dark, dark blond. And so she gave me a much more flattering tone. And even when I look in pictures now, I’m like, wow, yeah, this is way, way better than my washed out gold from before. So yes. Era.
Miriam Schulman: So those of you listening who are not completely sure what we’re talking about, especially if you’re listening. Elise and I were wearing the wrong colors. Some of the time. Not all the time. Like, I mean, I would wear that bright green color we have like in our branding pictures. Like we would choose the same wrong colors, like, yeah, that’s the other thing that’s funny.
Elise Darma: For a while. Yeah. Because I just thought Bright Colors was best. But now when I look back, I think we kind of instinctually knew we were better off with like the jewel tones that were a bit softer, a bit more muted. Yeah. Like, I love wearing pink all the time, like what you’re wearing now as well as me. So yeah, I think we kind of knew instinctually, but it was good to have that validation understand like, okay, apple green, not my vibe or bright orange, not my vibe.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. And now I literally just take a picture of anything I want to shop. And I have a project in ChatGPT that I upload it. I said, what do you think? And it’ll say, oh yeah, that’s good. And lipstick, same thing. Which, you know, I’ll send a screenshot of like all the lipsticks. Oh yeah. The roast. Get that one.
Elise Darma: Exactly. Charlotte Tilbury pillow talk is my favorite tone for writing in summers. That’s my favorite go to lipstick. But I do the same thing every time I see all the colorful Adidas shoes, the sambas. I take a picture and I ask chat. Which because I want the bright colors. But chats always like no, go for the gray, go for the blue, go for the light pink. And yeah, I’m going to follow. I’m going to I’m like on on a mission for the next year just to make these decisions based on my chat GPT color theory thread.
Miriam Schulman: And then I got rid of all my black clothes.
Elise Darma: Um.
Miriam Schulman: And my New York friends were like, you can’t live here anymore.
Elise Darma: I know, it’s.
Miriam Schulman: Like, too bad, I.
Elise Darma: Know. And we’re in the fall season right now and everything is brown. Everything’s chocolate, everything is like, like muted. And I’m like, I can’t wear any of these. We’re looking for the navies. We’re looking for the Burgundies. I’m just waiting for the day where a fashion brand either organizes its collections by the color seasons or they launch based on the color seasons theory, because it’s a pretty hot topic right now. And I think, I mean, that would be such a much more efficient way to shop. And I would personally love that so well.
Miriam Schulman: There are influencers who like, show you like capsule collections based on season. Have you found them?
Elise Darma: Yeah, I follow a TikTok account where she’s literally just the cool summer girl, so I follow her.
Miriam Schulman: Who’s that?
Elise Darma: I think her TikTok handle is called cool Summer edit, so her whole vibe is just like, here’s how you dress as a cool summer. I know it’s brilliant. I mean, what I would love is to go to like the Cezanne Cezanne website or wherever you shop, and I’m always filtering by color, but I’d love for them to just organize a collection just for the summers or something like that. I would.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. All right. So you are in the Three Timers Club, very rare for my podcast. My listeners love you, I love you. We were just talking about you yesterday. Paddy Lennon and so Paddy Elise and John Lennon and I were all in a mastermind many years ago. And so we all still buy your products at least. I don’t know if you were aware. Yeah, that all three of us, we think we just think you’re so brilliant. And we were like, yeah, we’re at least has something new. Let’s go get it.
Elise Darma: That’s super nice of you. Paddy’s name sounds very top of mind right now because we are running a program, and I think I’ve seen her in it. And you know what? I think it’s because I keep launching low ticket offers, and they’re lower commitments and easier for people just to stay in my world, stay warm. And it’s an interesting business model that I’ve taken because I probably have launched like 50 low ticket products at this point, and some people have gone the opposite route. Some people just have like one high ticket offer, 5000, 8000, $10,000. And that’s all they do. And it’s just a it’s an interesting way for me to compare my business model to that. But the low ticket world works best for my lifestyle. I like launching low ticket offers on the fly and it keeps my warm people.
Miriam Schulman: You are being very modest and this is now going to sound like a huge commercial for you, but I’m going to make you deliver on all the Instagram stuff too. So my listeners, don’t worry, I buy from you because how organized your program is and how much value I get from it, I would definitely pay more money for your programs. They’re really good. So the ones that I’ve purchased are the YouTube one. Um, I mean, I’ve purchased other ones in the past, but that is one that, like, is still very relevant. That’s why I had you on a year or two ago with YouTube, and then I just bought your carousel slash vault thing. Now what is it called? The carousel.
Elise Darma: We just launched one in the summer, called One and Done.
Miriam Schulman: So I got that and I told my friends, go get it, go get it.
Elise Darma: It’s good you are implementing it. Please keep me updated on your results because.
Miriam Schulman: We’re going to link these crazy results. No, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to share I’m going to share them with you right now. Elise. So the people who are watching, I mean, these are like crazy. So artists, these are all things you can do. A lot of things. We’re talking about low ticket. High ticket. Yes. It applies to sort of. Not really. But doing a carousel. Anybody can do a carousel no matter what your business is. And they are performing the best right now. And my editor will have to.
Elise Darma: I’m excited that you’re able to show me on the fly, because I’m waiting for people to come forward and be like, I implemented XYZ and look at the results.
Miriam Schulman: So I sent one to your team. They should have showed it to you. So full disclosure, one of them we did put money on, but I think most of these were organic. So this one says you do realize that cheaper isn’t easier to sell, right?
Elise Darma: Recognize that hook I.
Miriam Schulman: Like it, this mistake kept me broke. As an artist, cheaper isn’t easier to sell. This is using a second hook, which is Lisa’s technique. You might think that lower prices equal faster sales, but that mindset kept me broke.
Elise Darma: Good. Good copy.
Miriam Schulman: The truth collectors want art that is reassuringly expensive. Would you hire the cheapest babysitter or vet? No, of course not. Sears collectors aren’t looking for cheap art. They’re looking for art that’s worth collecting. Underpricing is just one of the five most common mistakes that keep artists broke. And then I put a call to action to my boot camp. And then the carousel. Thank you. And thank you. That’s why you’re here today? Because I was like, this is something worth sharing. Okay.
Elise Darma: Look at those non-followers reading it. That’s what you really want to see, too.
Miriam Schulman: I think this one we did not spend money on, we got 10,000 views, 50% from followers, 50% from non-followers and crazy number of saves.
Elise Darma: Interesting. Yeah.
Miriam Schulman: Yep. Yep. I wanted to share the next one.
Elise Darma: I’m so glad you’re implementing it, because sometimes it feels like you create trainings in a vacuum if you don’t hear anything back. So thank you for sharing. Thank you for sharing with my team as well. And this is so insightful to see. Oh I see another one.
Miriam Schulman: Okay. Yep. This one. This one. Even before we put a single penny on, it started like working. I was like, wow, this is crazy. I’m also reading the copy out loud because, you know.
Elise Darma: Listeners.
Miriam Schulman: Okay. Because listeners. All right. If your family doesn’t take your art seriously yet, don’t worry. Mine didn’t either until they saw the sales click through. And just so people who are listening and not watching the pictures I use are all related pictures of me like, like kind of in a theme, either I’m all wearing the same outfit or I’m doing the same activity. I don’t think they have to be. You could probably use the same picture over and over again. Do you have any Intel on which works better?
Elise Darma: I just go for variety. To be honest, I like that you’re finding a photo that matches the vibe of the copy. And sometimes we have so many B-roll clips of me on video, we’re not afraid to take a screenshot of a video. And even though it’s a little bit more granular sometimes and low quality, that’s okay on Instagram now. So yeah, so I would just go for variety and whatever does match your storytelling, that’s perfect.
Miriam Schulman: Okay. At first I didn’t believe I could make a living from my art, so I painted on the side and took a Pilates job to help pay the bills. My Pilates job taught me how to sell personal training packages. That was my aha moment. Sales strategies can sell art too. When I applied those selling strategies, everything shifted. I raised my prices, treated my art like a business, and collectors started buying. And then I kind of do. Then this is what works. You know, start doing this. Stop doing that. I don’t think I’m going to read everything out loud because that might be a little bit boring, but we will link to this in the show notes. Lisa smiling because you can see, oh, this is what I taught. The sales added up. My family stopped doubting me and so did I. And then now I have a call to action. You want to learn the same sales strategy? So what I learned from you, Elise, is you do teach, you do give them an aha moment in here and then you lead them to basically for more. Yeah.
Elise Darma: And you’re doing such a great job with the storytelling. One thing I would say is do you have a DM automation flow set up so that people can comment?
Miriam Schulman: I do what I did for this because I was launching at the time. I didn’t want to put any advertising money on something that says comment or DM on something that’s going to be shown on Facebook, that’s going to work differently. And so just making sure the listeners understand. So what I did was I put a comment, the first comment says comment bootcamp for the link, and that does have a mini chat automation behind it. So anyone on Instagram, we’re able to do that. And I’m just instead of reading this one, this one is if I only had ten hours a week to do my art, here’s exactly what I would do. And that really spoke to my listeners, especially those who, you know, they have kids or they’re working full time and they want to quit their day job. This one has 1575 saves.
Elise Darma: So good. So many non-followers reached. Even if you did boost that with ad spend that is I love did.
Miriam Schulman: Boost with ad spend. But you know you can boost something bad with ad spend and not get these kind of results.
Elise Darma: Exactly. I love posting something organically and you can see very quickly the curve. Now we get our insights. We can see if it’s performing faster than our average posts, and then that’s a good sign that you can throw some ad spend behind it and get it seen by your larger, warmer audience or people that Facebook will find thinking that they’ll be interested. So yay! I’m so excited. Thank you for sharing those results. And I’m going to make you a case study for one. And done because you are you are doing so good just taking the strategy and translating it to your brand voice, your brand story. And I think I’ve, I’ve noticed from the last time we talked, actually, you’re really embracing storytelling and you’re not having to do it on video. You’re using text and carousel posts to do so. And that’s just one way that you’re differentiated in the sea of artistry. So I love that.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. And I do plan on like going through the rest of your course to see the other ways to do it. But that’s what I’m saying. Just applying this one strategy. And you teach carousels Cells.
Elise Darma: One type of real, one type of story, and then that DM flow that I asked about, that’s basically the one one, one one method. There’s four ones that you need to know. And that’s just like the simplest Instagram strategy I’ve ever come up with that I had to out of necessity once I became a mom, and now I’m pregnant with baby number two, so I’m not spending full time hours on my business anymore. So this is my more efficient system, and it’s working for other people too, which is awesome.
Miriam Schulman: Yes, and mazel tov on baby one and baby two. So the title of this episode is going to be Instagram Predictions That You Need to Know for 2026. So prediction number one.
Elise Darma: Prediction number one that I have is not too long ago really short reels did really well. Like two second, three second, four second reels. They would have text on top and they would just loop over and over again as you were trying to read the caption. So this isn’t really a prediction. As much as Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, has already said that they are noticing this as more of a tactic just to get a lot of views, and it’s not necessarily favorable to what they want because they want a better quality viewing experience, and they want people to be spending more time in the app, not just a creator getting 10,000 views, because people need to watch that video 20 times over to read the caption, if that makes sense. So I am seeing already three second five second reels kind of dying down. It was a really effective technique two years ago now not so much. And all platforms, Instagram included are moving towards longer form content. And what’s interesting is whenever I did experiment with longer form content. So by that I mean a 45 second video, a 62nd video. Just a year ago, I wouldn’t see great results and maybe there was a viewer retention issue, but it just felt like Instagram was not prioritizing that type of content. And now I see them prioritizing the longer form videos, just like TikTok. Right. We’ve seen this on TikTok, so they’re kind of deprioritizing the really short kind of engagement baity type of videos, and they are showing more of the storytelling based videos, the longer form based videos, I’m seeing more of those in my explore feed. So that would be my first prediction. We’re going to see more story based, longer form videos in our feed.
Miriam Schulman: Okay. And let’s just redefine what longer form means in this world. We’re talking 60s 90s 60s.
Elise Darma: I would say 60s maybe up to three minutes, like up.
Miriam Schulman: To three minutes.
Elise Darma: Yeah. I still haven’t seen a lot of three minute videos in my Instagram feed, but definitely in my TikTok feed they can be five seven minute long videos as someone is just doing their makeup and ranting or sharing their opinion or going through a bunch of steps, whatever the case may be. It’s funny, my user behavior has changed now because I do scroll TikTok more, but when I come across one of these longer videos, between 5 and 10 minutes, I just hit play and I’ll do my own makeup and I’ll listen as if it’s a podcast. So it’s kind of become a new podcast player for me.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, so that is that’s a really good takeaway. All right. So number one is the the length. All right.
Elise Darma: Especially for you as a podcaster is there.
Miriam Schulman: A way to.
Elise Darma: Repurpose your clips. Yeah for TikTok.
Miriam Schulman: So just don’t don’t focus on the shorter ones anymore. The longer ones probably are better.
Elise Darma: I think when you have a media idea that you really are digging into and your audience is really resonating with, yeah, don’t don’t clip it down to 30s like allow people to go in depth. In fact, today I saw basically this mini documentary in my TikTok feed of a guy who analyzed the Sysco food company and said, you know, all fried food across the States is tasting the same. And he went to different states, and he really took it upon himself as a as a journalist to investigate this. And I listened to the whole thing like, I’m washing dishes and I’m, it’s, it’s playing in the background. So these meteor stories or these rants or these opinions, whatever the case may be, they are they are performing really well on TikTok. And I just think it’s a matter of time before they come to Instagram.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, I just noticed with my own behavior, I ended up subscribing to whatever it was, whatever the streaming service was, to watch Why Women Kill because I kept seeing and I forget if it was Instagram or it doesn’t even matter. And I pretty much had watched the entire episode in that short format, and I still wanted to watch the whole thing. Which said to me, as a content producer, you can’t give away too much.
Elise Darma: Mhm.
Miriam Schulman: Like, yeah, like I had seen it and I still wanted to consume it in full. So. All right, let’s move on. Prediction number two.
Elise Darma: Prediction number two is that the whole idea of hosting a series of videos, a series that continues on across multiple episodes, will only continue to grow in 2026. So I’ve seen a lot of content this year around, you know, everyone needs a series idea. And, you know, here’s ideas for you if you’re an artist or a baker or whatever. But I do think that this is content that, again, continues to keep viewers hooked in the app watching longer, which is essentially what the algorithm wants. So when I talk about a series, think about back in the 90s, we would watch sitcom series full House, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, whatever your your choice of series was. But you knew that every time you tuned into that show. Same time, same place. It was going to be a similar vibe, a similar feeling, similar branding, similar music. It became comfy and cozy because people like that familiarity, especially when other parts of their life can feel out of control. Or if they read the news and they feel like overwhelmed. They like coming back to something that feels cozy and familiar. And I’m seeing, even in the algorithm on Instagram, the idea of a series and people’s series being pushed into my feed. So. So essentially, you’re going to come up with a mission for yourself. It could be a challenge. It could just be an ongoing topic that you talk about on a regular basis, and you turn that into a series of videos. Sometimes you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, right? Sometimes you make one video. It does really well. There’s your series idea right then and there.
Elise Darma: Or it could be, you know, I’m in the business niche, but it’d be like come along for the next 30 days as I prepare for my mat leave to take two months off. So you’d come up with a tagline, maybe come up with a name. There’s one person in my feed whose series name is very simple. I think it’s just called My Millionaire Year, and she’s documenting her path to creating her first or next million in the next year. So she’ll post a video maybe once a week, and she’ll just talk about the latest that she’s done and the reason why I think Instagram is going to favor this is we’ve already talked about longer watch time keeping people in the app, but they’ve also just released a new feature that allows you to connect one reel to the next. So when you’re posting a reel, you can actually link another reel. And this is a perfect way to link to your previous video in your series. So when you’re watching that video in the bottom left corner, there will now be a pop up and it will give kind of a link, a sticker to your related reel. So if you publish correctly, you can kind of lead people from one reel to the prior one to the prior one to the prior one, and you’re hooking people in even longer so they’re binge watching your episodes. Similar idea would be like a playlist on YouTube. You get them hooked in through to one and then they’re watching the rest. So series are only going to grow in popularity, I think.
Miriam Schulman: Amazing. Okay. And I just want to make this super actionable for people who are visual artists. When you’re creating a collection and you’re creating content around promoting that collection, think of that as your series, like bring them into your inspiration. Bring them into your process. If you’re getting ready for an art show, that could be your series. So this is never doing anything in addition to what you’re already doing, you’re just letting them into your world. Beautiful. Prediction number three.
Elise Darma: We will continue to see a rise of interest in founder brands. And again this kind of comes back more towards storytelling. But I also think it’s a way to counteract AI content, because I was just reading about the new app Sora owned by OpenAI Chatgpt’s company. And the whole idea with Sora is that it’s a social media feed of only AI generated content. So that in itself is a separate topic of whether that’s a good thing for us or of interest. But that’s his whole shtick. You don’t have to question whether it’s AI content, you know, it’s 100% AI content in your feed. Whereas right now on TikTok and reels, you see something and you’re like, hmm, is this is this AI? Okay, you can kind of tell when some when there’s a talking head video, but sometimes when something’s so visually stunning you don’t know anymore if it’s real. So I think a way to counteract that is we are seeing already on TikTok and it’s only inevitable that it comes to Instagram. We are seeing a rise in highlighting the founders story, the founders life. So this isn’t too different from just being a strong personal brand on Instagram. But I think as an artist it’s just an opportunity to show even more of you, the artist behind the art, how comfortable you are sharing your day to day. Like you said, get ready with me for an art show or help me prep my canvas for the day. Or let’s organize my studio together. Like, whatever the case may be, I think the more you can show up on camera, a real person even showing your process of creating your art, that’s something we’ve talked about in previous episodes. People love to see the creation come to life, but the more you can show the real stuff and maybe talk about your artist’s story, talk about how you got into this space that you’re in now. The more people are going to maybe connect with your art, but connect with you as the artist a little bit more and believe the content that they’re seeing in their feed.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah, it’s really important as artists that you I’m talking to my listener. Distinguish yourself if you’re a ceramicist from every other ceramicist and so or whatever it is that you happen to be, and the only way you can do that is by being a little bit vulnerable and sharing some of those personal stories. And that doesn’t mean you’re talking about things that maybe are very heavy right now, but it could be something that happened five years ago. It could be something that happened in your childhood, something you’ve recovered from. Nobody wants to see a trauma that you might be going through right now. Save that for therapy. But they do want to get to know you just as you would show up for a friend. Okay.
Elise Darma: Can we. Yeah. Two more and just one more note about that.
Miriam Schulman: Oh, yeah. Sure.
Elise Darma: Well, one more note about that is I do see artists, especially on TikTok, sharing some of the challenges of running an art based business too. So it’s up to you whether you want to share that or not, but I’ve seen candle makers show how bigger corporations have ripped off their designs, and what that does is it really bans your community, bans your audience behind you, and they want to support you. They want to support the small business owner. So anytime you know you do talk about these challenges, I know it feels vulnerable and it feels like this is a business thing. I should keep it off my socials. When you’re an artist and you’re you’re a human behind the art and you’re creating this art, you’re putting yourself and your vision out there. When you do share about those moments, it just makes you that much more real. And I do think it makes people want to get behind you and support you even that much more. So that’s something to consider. Of course, it all depends on how comfortable you are, but it might be worth trying one day to share the real stuff.
Miriam Schulman: Oh yeah, I’m not saying to be fake, but sometimes there’s like a boundary that I know. Some of my artists are confused about whether or not they cross it, like if they’re going through a divorce. Well, while you’re going through a divorce, that may not be something you want to be sharing, but at least this example is perfect. I mean, talking about what it’s like when you’re a new mom and you don’t get a lot of sleep. That’s something a lot of us can relate to. So there are things that you can share even when they’re hard. All right. When we come back, Elise is going to give her prediction number for. You know, one of the things Elise and I have in common is that neither of us built our businesses alone. We both grew through community and mentorship, through masterminds, just like the one where we first met. Now, if you’ve been listening and thinking, hmm, I’m ready for that next level of support. Someone to help me map my strategy. Hold me accountable and actually reach six figures and beyond, then it might be time to apply for my 2026 inner circle. It’s my high touch coaching mastermind for artists who are done doing it alone. And maybe you want to go beyond a course. You’ll get one on one strategy with me. Elite small group coaching and the kind of community that accelerates your growth faster than you can imagine. Applications are now open at SchulmanArt.com/Apply spots do fill up soon because there are many people who are in the mastermind now who are committed to doing it in 2026. Again, to see if you qualify, go to SchulmanArt.com/Apply. And now let’s go back to the show.
Elise Darma: Prediction number four is again, this is data that Mosseri has shared with us, but he has let us know that of all the features on Instagram, DMs are the most used. People use Instagram like private messaging app. And so we’ve seen Instagram invest so much more into the evolution of the DMs. We’ve seen tools like Manychat just blow up in the last few years. Manychat has been around for a long time, but I’d say since 2021 it’s become well integrated with Instagram and what it does is allow this auto DM feature for you to reply to people, even when you’re not on your phone. I know it’s can give some people the ick, but we can talk about that a little bit more if you want to to explain why it’s not spammy, it’s not promotional. But I think in 2026 we’re going to see more of a focus on Instagram, creating features to drive people to the DMs. So we already started to see this a little bit on posts. Now, when you’re on someone’s posts, there’s a button to just directly DM them from the post. We’ve seen it with the Manychat integration. We’ve seen it with stories already. Stories. You just reply to the bottom of the story and you’ve created a DM flow with that person.
Elise Darma: So I think we’re going to see more of an emphasis on getting the interested followers, the warmest followers over into your DMs. And that’s actually good news for all artists, for all business owners, because the DMs is where you have those private one on one conversations. And I really treat everyone in my DMs like a warm lead if they’re messaging me. Maybe it’s about my hair color, or maybe it’s about my business. It doesn’t matter, but it shows me that they are paying attention to what I’m putting out there. Just like you messaged me or commented about us both being a cool summer. I remembered that that was the first thing that came to mind when we kicked off this conversation, and that is the basis of a customer relationship. We’re friends. But there’s also, you know, this is how it happens with your real life live customers when they find you on Instagram. So if you don’t yet have a DM strategy, if you’re not yet checking your DMs every single day, if you’re not driving people to the DMs, I think you’re missing out on opportunities to talk to your warmest customers and help them make a buying decision.
Miriam Schulman: Okay. And I want to add to that, because I’ve been using this different types of DMs strategies for a long time. And one of the things I love about it the most is when you’re encouraging people to DM you. They’re initiating the conversation so it’s not a cold call anymore. So they’ve already bought into having a conversation with you. So when you start talking to them, it’s a completely different dynamic than you. Cold calling people. Do you want to say anything more about that?
Elise Darma: No, I think you’ve nailed it. I think you’ve absolutely nailed it.
Miriam Schulman: That’s that’s why I’m always encouraging people, whether it’s from my webinars or in the Instagram feed. Dm me whatever the word is. So like today, you can DM me the word season and you’ll know that we were talking. I was talking with Elise and you can DM her that too. Just DM us. Let us know what season you are. We will be linking that ChatGPT post so we can find out. You know who else is shopping for the light teal and everything else. Like we are okay, we are. We’ve given them for. And I’m really impressed because these four. I did not know that these were what you were going to pick. Like, I have not heard any of them yet, but of course if we have four we have to have five. So our last one will be number five.
Elise Darma: And these are totally off the cuff too. Not scripted. These are just.
Miriam Schulman: Right. She had no idea we were doing this. I just had to trust that she would deliver.
Elise Darma: Notice that a lot of my predictions are based off data we’re getting from Instagram, but we’re going to see it play out in 2026. The fifth prediction is That stories which have been largely ignored in the last few years, especially when Reelz came really popular in 2020 onwards, stories are going to get a bit more attention because just like I said, that DMs are the most used feature on Instagram Stories is number two. Stories is the second spot where people are paying attention before they’re scrolling the feed or before they’re they’re scrolling the explore page, which I think is really interesting. So for your little story bubble, to make it to the top of someone’s feed and be addicting enough to watch that they’re always going to tap through. I think that says a lot. And actually that’s often my behavior when I open the Instagram app. I don’t jump to my DMs right away personally, because I’ve got so many messaging channels, it’s not my first place to go. But when I see those little bubbles lit up at the top, I’m watching a couple stories right away. And so the issue that we’ve had with stories over the last few years is people have complained that the drop off on views is massive, meaning they’ll get people watching their first story and then if they post three, 4 or 5 more stories, they’ll completely lose viewership and then they lose momentum and then they lose steam.
Elise Darma: And so I also noticed this with my account. That’s when I started experimenting with just posting one story and letting it run for 24 hours and then expire before I post the next story. And this is one of my strategies inside of one and done. And it was amazing because when I would post multiple stories a day, I would get, I don’t know, 600 to maybe 800 views per story, depending on how many I posted. When I switched my strategy to just posting one a day with text on, it was just a photo with text on top and a call to action to comment my keyword that connected back to my DM flow. My story views went up to 8000, 10,000, even 14,000. Yeah, it was wild. And it was because I was just posting one story. People were replying to it to get the thing that I was talking about in the story. And so the algorithm said, oh, people really are liking this and engaging it. Let’s show it to more people. And that strategy still works today. But what is interesting is that Adam Mosseri has said he’s called out this issue.
Elise Darma: He’s called it out just recently. He said, we heard you. We heard that your story views are going down. And he now says he claims, I don’t know what the reality is just yet, but he now says, if you do want to post multiple stories, Instagram is not going to throttle your views by lowering them right away. So there’s that. But I think what he’s saying is we want to keep people engaged with stories, because we see that it’s the second most feature after DMs, and it keeps people in the app longer. That’s all they want. They want us all to be in the app for ten hours a day, right? So I think picking up your stories again, if you’ve ignored them, testing out the strategy that I just mentioned. Even just starting with one story a day, letting it expire and seeing what it does with your views. I think that’s worth it because to be honest, I dropped making stories a couple not too long ago, actually, because I thought, why am I making content that expires after 24 hours, when I may as well just put all these clips together in a reel and let it sit on my feed for good, right?
Miriam Schulman: Like stories thinking the same thing. Like why? Why am I putting any energy into stories?
Elise Darma: Yeah, exactly. Because the content drops off and I love looking through my archive and seeing my old stories and like, oh, that was fun. That was funny. I shared a lot, but I wish now I just put them into a reel and they could live in my feed. And then when I discovered this story strategy of just posting one, and again, just a photo with text on top and a call to action with my keyword, it changed my views like crazy. Now of course you can go too far and become too predictable if that’s all you’re doing. So you still need to mix it up with your stories, but they are an amazing way to connect with your warmest leads again and again. If you can get people to reply to your story, that creates that DM conversation, which can also start a sales conversation.
Miriam Schulman: All right. Fantastic. I do have one last question. Regards with this whole story thing. And that’s the highlight reels because I thought I saw you say the highlight reels were going away. They’re still in the same place for me I think.
Elise Darma: Yeah, maybe they’re testing it out. And it’s funny when I’m on desktop, on Instagram, I still see the bubbles above my feet.
Miriam Schulman: Yes.
Elise Darma: Yeah. But with my feed and maybe this is a feature that they will roll out to everyone, but basically they’ve moved the bubbles. So now you see your profile picture your bio and then it just you just see a feed right away and your highlights which were the same bubbles. They now have your their own feed next to your, your you’ve got your your home feed. You’ve got your reels feed now highlights have their own feed. And it’s kind of interesting because because they were tiny bubbles on my profile before. Now with their own feed, they have a huge square cover. Every story, every highlight has its own huge square cover. So they’re actually taking up more real estate in the feed. And I do wonder what Instagram is planning for this. Like, why do they remove the bubbles, give them more real estate with their own feed? Again, I just think it’s one more sign that they will want to encourage people to make more stories and then save them as highlights.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, I’ll definitely have to check that out. All right, Elise, we are going to link to all your things underneath. You’ve heard me rave about Elisa’s training throughout this episode, and honestly, they’re that good. I’ve personally implemented her strategies and I’ve seen real results. So if you want to try her latest programs for yourself, head on over to SchulmanArt.com/Elise. That link will take you straight to her offers. And yes, we’ve now officially partnered as affiliates because I believe so strongly in what she teaches. Again, that’s SchulmanArt.com/Elise go check it out and see why I’m such a fan.
Elise Darma: You’re my star student from that program, so I can’t.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, I will I will send you all the links to because I would be happy to have my stuff anywhere in your audience. I want to thank you because.
Elise Darma: Yeah, because this is a relatively new program. I launched it in at the end of June, and then I went on vacation for two months. So I didn’t really, you know, follow up with my students like yourself to get to see how they’re doing. But it is a great program. We’ve got almost 800 people inside of it. And the whole point is, do you want to simplify your Instagram strategy? Yes. Duh. Do you want to know the one story, the one reel, the one carousel post, and the one DM flow that works the best? Yes. Well then that’s the strategy I teach inside of it. So thank you for being a star student and for shouting it out.
Miriam Schulman: Oh, thanks. I just like the way you organized it. It wasn’t like I had to watch a lot of videos to learn. It was like you just had the spreadsheet and I go through the examples, and I loved that. It just worked really well for me. So anyway, thank you. Is there anything else you want to share to our listeners? Before I call this episode complete?
Elise Darma: I would say the thing that I’m working on myself is what I would share with my students, and is what I would share with your listeners as well, is that especially when you are an elder millennial, millennial, a Gen Xer, a boomer, whoever, whatever, sometimes we are really afraid to show our true selves, and we’re actually afraid of visibility. We’re afraid of being seen because we’re thinking about the opinions of three people, you know, whatever. And the truth is, there are just billions of people posting content these days. The competition is higher. And I do think the way that you stand out is by removing the masks and the filters that we’re so used to wearing and being comfortable. Putting our more raw, real selves out there. Sharing those opinions, sharing content unrelated to your business. I shared about my color season experiment with ChatGPT. Nothing to do with my business. I wasn’t selling anything and it just makes me, I guess, more of a real person, a real human versus like an Instagram bot on your feed, right? So I do think that especially for all of us who didn’t grow up with the internet in our hands from birth, it’s a bit of an adjustment to show a little bit more of our real selves, show our opinions, and also be okay with people disagreeing with us or even being a hater in our comments. This is something that I’m working on myself, but I do think it’s the key to unlocking my next level and being comfortable on camera and being comfortable being seen on the internet because I want my business to keep running. I like doing this and I do think it’s it’s evolving. So that’s my little nugget right there is the more you can challenge yourself to remove the masks and the filters and get comfortable being seen, I think the more your business is also going to benefit.
Miriam Schulman: I love that. Yeah, there’s no money in the middle you have. If you want lovers you have to be welcome. The haters into. Yeah, just the way it is. All right. Elise, thank you so much for being with me here today. All right, my friend. Thank you for being with me here. I will see you the same time, same place next week. Until then, stay inspired. Bye for now.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to the The Inspiration Place podcast. Connect with us on Facebook at facebook.com/SchulmanArt, on Instagram at @SchulmanArt, and of course, on SchulmanArt.com.
Subscribe & Review in iTunes
Are you subscribed to my podcast? If you’re not, I want to encourage you to do that today. I don’t want you to miss an episode. I’m adding a bunch of bonus episodes to the mix and if you’re not subscribed there’s a good chance you’ll miss out on those. Click here to subscribe in iTunes!
Now if you’re feeling extra loving, I would be really grateful if you left me a review over on iTunes, too. Those reviews help other people find my podcast and they’re also fun for me to go in and read. Just click here to review, select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” and let me know what your favorite part of the podcast is. Thank you!
