What Is an Instagram Static 9 Grid (And Why It Might Be Your Favorite Business Move)

Your Instagram doesn’t have to run your life.

I’m breaking down how a static nine grid lets you look like an active, legit business on Instagram without constantly posting.

In this episode:
0:00 What a static nine grid actually is
2:01 Why it frees you from showing up on Instagram constantly
5:00 What you can include in your posts
9:34 How to showcase your offers without being weird
18:39 How to post it in the correct order and how many you actually need

Spoiler: you might only have to do this once. 👀

Learn more about static 9 grids:
https://deannaseymour.com/static9grid

Hire Deanna to create your staic 9 grid:
https://deannaseymour.com/staticgrid

Hang out with Deanna:
https://deannaseymour.com
https://jointheplayhouse.com
https://instagram.com/thedeannaseymour

Check out the free community at jointheplayhouse.com

🪩 Join my FREE community with tons of fun events + 200+ creative business owners at jointheplayhouse.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Hey, what's up? It's Deanna Seymour here, and I want to talk about Instagram static 9 grids. And the craziest thing is that I feel like I've been in so many different communities and taught about this, and I've been on so many different podcasts and taught about this, and I've never recorded a solo podcast of my own talking about this. So, here we go. If you already know what a static nine grid is and you don't want to hear me talk about it, you better get to stippin'. Just kidding. Who knows? Maybe some new little nuggets will come out in this episode. But I basically just want to walk you through what it is, how you can make one. Obviously, you can hire me to do your design, your strategy, all the things. I would love to work with anybody who wants to work with me. But also, you know, you can DIY it. But basically, I just want to walk you through what it is and the different parts of it. What things you can start kind of start thinking about. So, a static nine grid is essentially just nine posts that live on your Instagram feed, right? We're talking about not reels, it could be reels. I get in the weeds, okay, because it's like they can be as complicated or as simple as you want them. So let's just go with the simple version. So you're just thinking about nine posts, graphics. We're gonna call them graphics in this, okay? The most traditional way to do it is kind of like a little collage that I chop in to nine different pieces, and they all live on there like a little storefront, okay? I call it a mixtape sometimes. Remember in the 80s and 90s when you would like have a crush on somebody and make them a little mixtape? So this is your mixtape. This is your little love mixtape to your audience. It's gonna tell them where you're hanging out if it's not Instagram. Sometimes people want a static nine grid and they keep making reels and they keep them over on their reels tab. But a lot of people put up a static nine grid and then just leave Instagram altogether. Okay, that's what I did. And now I do dabble in reels sometimes, and I like hanging out in stories and DMing. I'm gonna give that a go again, but it frees you up from the pressure to perform there. And one thing I don't want you to have is if you have kind of put Instagram on the back burner or like a little bit given up on Instagram and you're just not giving it the attention you should, I don't want people to find you there and think that you've like gone out of business or you're not doing what you're doing anymore, or they're just questioning like, is this person even in business? The static nine grid lets you not be there, but look like a legit active business while you're off doing whatever makes you happy. So if hanging out on LinkedIn makes you happy or mostly focusing on threads makes you happy, YouTube, your podcast, your blog, do the things that make you happy. If it's networking, that takes time, you know? Like it's hard to do all the things. I'm even forgetting, like, if you're over on Facebook, if you're on TikTok, wherever you are, be there. But you put up a static nine grid so that you don't have to focus on Instagram anymore. And when people find you there, they are like, oh my gosh, this person's so cool. Let me go find them where they're hanging out. Because a lot of people are on both Instagram and LinkedIn. Maybe they're on Instagram for fun stuff, but they do business stuff over on LinkedIn. So if your Instagram static nine grid tells them, hey, I mostly hang out on LinkedIn, come find me, they can do that. If they love listening to podcasts, they've been looking for a new one, they find your static nine grid and you're saying, hey, I'm not on Instagram all the time. I don't love it, but I do love my podcast, and I have a new episode that comes out every Tuesday. Come check me out. They go and they follow your podcast. Because they also know that if they like you and they think you're cool and you're straight up saying, I don't hang out here. If you want to hang out with me, you have to come here. They are more likely to do that if you're saying, I'm not gonna be here, reminding you all the time to come listen to my podcast. You know what I mean? There's like a very like honest and boundaried and like kind of like you're looking like a boss by saying, I'm not here. Here's where I am. If you want to come hang out with me, come hang out with me. And it releases all that tension from you and that pressure from you, and it tells them very clearly where you're hanging out. Okay, which I like better. I think listening to a podcast really gives me a lot more know, like, and trust with whoever I'm listening to. I think when people listen to my podcast, they're like, oh, she's cool. It's a lot more than I can do on social media. I just don't love short little bursts. It kind of feels to me like social media is like small talk and things like blogs and YouTube videos and podcast episodes are more long form content, is more like a real conversation, which I enjoy more than short little snippets. Okay, so let's talk about what goes on it. You're like, okay, Deanna, you sold me. It's super fun. What how what goes on it? What am I doing? First of all, I do always tell people it looks cooler when it is a big collage. We want this to be like a wow factor moment. We want them to land on your profile and be like, oh my god, who is this? If it's all just looking like a normal feed, you just look like everybody else. So for me, because I have an art background, I'm a designer, I think do not underestimate the power of kind of stopping them in their tracks, and they're like, whoa, what's going on here? That catches their attention. So let me just set up this scenario too. Let's say you are gonna put up a nine grid and step away from Instagram, but you were on a podcast, and that person posts on Instagram all the time. So they have tagged you in a post, they have tagged you in stories, they might have put out show notes that link to your website and that little Instagram icons on there, and people are clicking. You have been on a podcast, which you enjoy doing, and people are finding you through that, and they're ending up on your Instagram profile. What are they gonna see? So when they get there and they see this really cool collage, and they're like, Oh my gosh, what is this person doing? They start reading. And I always recommend that your first post is a very nice photo of you, your favorite headshot. Okay. And in the caption, you're saying, hey, Instagram's not my favorite. Some people go all out, they're like, This capitalist BS machine, I'm not gonna be part of it. You know, some people are like, hey, I just don't like hanging out here. I really like focusing on blah, blah, blah. We're gonna explain to them in the first caption why your grid looks different. So you're like, hey, I'm not here. Here's where I am. Read through these next nine posts to learn more about me and my work. And, you know, keep reading. Okay. So then step two, post two, graphic number two, we are gonna sort of let them know what you're about, right? Like, I call this your big idea. Maybe it's your, like, what am I trying to say? What's that word? Not your formula, like your signature framework. For framework. That's what I was like for, not your formula, your Einstein. E equals M C squared. Now, what what's your catchphrase? Like, what do you believe? What would make people know what you do? You know, let's just say you're a bookkeeper, but you work with neurodivergent people. So you want it to just be like bookkeeping that works for your brain, bookkeeping for creatives, bookkeeper for neurodivergent folks, or whatever. Like, you want them to immediately know what you can do, you know? Tips for overwhelmed parents. Oh my gosh, that's me. You know, or they're like, oh, that's not me. I don't maybe need to keep going. So number two is your big idea, and that is gonna tell them, like, yes, you're in the right place. I see you, you're amazing. Just a quick note if you want to continue doing reels, post two is a great place to mention that because right above post two on their phone is gonna be that reels tab. That's kind of where you would keep those. Okay? Usually, and the take all of these with a grain of salt because what I do when I work with clients is I just have you answer a bunch of questions about what you have going on. Do you have a podcast? Do you have a YouTube? Where do you like hanging out? What are you doing? What are your offers? What are your opt-ins? You know, I just ask you for all of it, and then we plan it in the most strategic way for you. So take these like numbers with a grain of salt, because it really depends on your goals in your business and all the content that you have. Usually, not always, post three will be your best opt-in. So I know we all have a tendency sometimes to crank out lots of opt-ins. So I want you to try to choose your best one. So, like I was saying, for some people, it might be, you know, I want to send them straight to my YouTube. That might be your most valuable content. Usually I love email marketing, I like to grow my email list. So I would say somewhere early on, you want to try to get them onto that email list. So, you know, if you have a quiz, a PDF, a free course, like it looks different for everyone, but you definitely want to highlight your most valuable opt-in. Then we're gonna talk about your offers. Okay, we've already said hi, it's me. Hello, hello, nice to meet you. Here's what I think, here's who I help, this is my big idea, here's this really cool free thing, whether it's like your podcast, your YouTube, an opt-in. Like you've given them three, one, two, three posts of value and humanity. We're gonna sell your stuff, okay? Because the whole point of having a business is to sell your stuff. And I think when it comes to social media, people are very trained to keep making content that is educational or entertainment or you know, gives them something, and it makes people nervous to sell. So we are gonna sell your stuff because this is a mixtape. This is your billboard, your storefront, if you want to think of that. This is you saying, Here I am, here's who I help, here's some cool free stuff, here's what I do. So it could be posts four, five, and six, it could just be post four as a carousel. You want to get your offers in. So, like for me, I have a design offer, I have the playhouse, my community, and right now I have a branding offer on that row. That's posts four, five, and six of my nine. So I'm using three of my posts on this grid to showcase my offers, and that is okay. We're kind of building a mini website here, so we need to have our sales pages. We need people to know what we do. So you're gonna want to put your offers in. And don't be shy about it. You want people to know how you can help them. It's not about selling, it's like, hey, if you are a tired parent, if you are a neurodivergent business owner who's stressed out about their finances and their bookkeeping, here's how I can help you. So that second row, four, five, and six, are probably gonna be offers somewhere in there. Then if you have a podcast that you either are doing now, or maybe it's a capsule podcast, like you've created a little series that you want people to know about it's like your body of work, is what I call it. I came from an art teaching background. So where is your best stuff? Like I was saying, is it a blog? Is it a podcast? Is it a YouTube channel? Do you host summits two times a year? And people need to know that. And you need to kind of say, like, get on my list so you can know when I'm looking for applicants, when I'm looking for sponsors, when I'm actually doing the summit. Get on my email list. We want them to take the next step with you, whatever that may be. And you have a couple next steps in your ecosystem, right? It could be they just go straight up and buy the thing because now they know what you do and they want to buy it. Could be a low-ticket offer, could be an event that you're hosting, whatever. So we definitely want if you have a podcast, if you have a YouTube channel, like wherever your body of work is housed, and if you have a podcast and a YouTube channel, you can absolutely put give each one of them a square. I still say square because I'm old school, but you know what I mean. A post, a rectangle post. Until they change it again, probably. I would like for you to think about having a post that is for client testimonials. Now, this could be its own post and it could just be one on the front. Like if you're wanting the most simple version of an Instagram static nine grid, it would be one testimonial on the front and you're not making any carousels. Of course, with any of these topics, you can go as deep as you want. You can start adding posts, you know, make these carousel posts. So if you did do your podcast and you wanted people to swipe through a couple of your most popular episodes, and then the last slide would say, like, search for, you know, big fun small business wherever you're listening, wherever you listen to podcasts or whatever. Click the link in my bio to subscribe. You can absolutely turn any of these into testimonials. I like to, with my offers, kind of go through a couple slides of either examples, because I'm a designer, so that's a very visual thing, right? So I have examples of things I've made with testimonials on those pages. So if I have a carousel of static nine grids that I've created for clients, people can swipe through, see some examples of static nine grids, see what the people have said about working with me on static nine grids, and they get a real great idea of what that's like. So testimonials can either be their own post if you're keeping things simple, or they can kind of be tucked into different things. You could put comments from your YouTube channel that show, wow, these videos are great. You know, like you have you do kind of have testimonials or reviews even on your blogs, even on your podcasts. So anytime you want to add testimonials is great. If you want to keep it simple, I highly recommend you having at least one testimonial as a post. All right. Another thing that I really like to do is make sure that last post is like a final call to action. So I always say something like, if you've made it through all nine of these posts, oh my gosh, like we are best friends. Like, make sure you follow along for any updates. Follow along for my stories if you're gonna keep doing stories, follow along for my reels, whatever. And also for me, growing my email list, as I said, is important. So I want them to join my email list. That's where I hang out the most. Blah blah blah. Like, come hang out in the playhouse. There's a free tier now. Like, whatever, wherever you want them to go. We need to like wrap it up with a bow and remind them at the end, here's what I want to do next. If you have a podcast, I'd love to come talk to you, like DM me, let's chat, anything like that. And I usually recommend that people put another headshot. So we're gonna want at least two headshots of you because we want them to feel like they know you by the end of this, right? And it also ends up on a more human note because when we're making these nine grids, we're going hard. We're like, hey, give me your email address. Like, I am constantly like every CTA of each post is like, click the link in my bio to learn more, click the link in my bio to sign up, click the link in my bio to join my email list, click the link in my bio. We're selling, whether or not it's something for money or email address or subscribe, subscribe to my YouTube, subscribe to my podcast. We are asking them to do something the whole time. So ending on that like human note of like another wrap it up, thank them for reading through it, thank them for being there. I hope you liked what you saw. If you made it all the way here, like tell them. If you made it all the way here, we should be friends, like we need to connect. Hit me up, do something, right? And I've seen people also use, you know, many chat and things where they can drop a comment and it will automatically send them something. Because if you're leaving Instagram completely, you don't want to say send me a DM if you're gonna just like leave them hanging. So I've had people saying that, don't DM me. I don't want your DMs. You have to come email me because I am literally leaving Instagram and not coming back. So just kind of treat it like a really cool journey that they're on and let them know what you're doing. And let them know, like, be honest. Like, I have these up here because I want to take a step back, because I want to leave, because I want to focus on reels and I don't want to do these. So this will just show you everything I'm about, follow along for more reels. Whatever it is, it's impossible for me to tell you like exactly what goes on your grid without me hearing about all the things in your business and your goals in your business and what the point is. You know, everybody has different goals, everybody has different likes and dislikes when it comes to where they're gonna be and what they need people to do. So it's always different. So, like I said, take all the number things with a grain of salt, but those are definitely some basic ways to stand out. Oh, one more popped in my head just now. One post I like sometimes if you need it, or if you have some really impressive things to brag about, is like what I call kind of an authority boosting post where I've had clients who have been featured in the Wall Street Journal and Forbes and whatever. We want to get those little logos on this collage somewhere. So if you have some of those or you've been on some awesome podcasts, or you just want to show, like, hey man, I know my stuff. Some people I've done this for are speakers, right? And so we do include a picture of them speaking on stage, right? That's an authority booster. So when someone comes to their profile, they're like, wow, this person is like doing their thing. So think about that too. And that is something that I talk to clients about too when I make their grid. So some people think, well, okay, I made it. How often do I have to change it? Whenever you want to. I've let them go for almost a year. If you don't change your offers and you don't change, you know, the name of your podcast or things haven't really changed, you don't need to change it. It's only when you start to notice, oh, okay, I need to do some changes. So for me, this podcast that you're listening to, I have actually recently rebranded into big fun, small business, and I'm calling it an audio sketchbook because I change and experiment with my audio with my podcast all the time. So on my static nine grid, I do not have a picture of the cover because I know that I'm gonna be experimenting with that and I'm gonna be changing it. So anything you think you might tweak, rely more on visual imagery and symbols. So mine has like a cool old-timey podcast mic and a lightning bolt, and like it still looks fun and it still shows people, oh, she's a podcaster, without me slapping the cover on. You know, if you know that you're gonna rebrand and change your lead magnet or you're like gonna switch things up, make the graphics something that is like a catchphrase that you know you're not gonna change, and then the caption can talk about your lead magnet, and you can always go back and edit captions whenever you want. If you want to change the graphics, you have to archive your old ones and re-upload new ones. So another important thing while I'm talking about posting is that if you do this, you have to post them backwards. So it's almost like building a brick wall, right? We have to start in the bottom corner and go nine, eight, seven, and then we go to the next line. Six, five, four, and then the top line, three, two, one. Also, you can have more than nine. You could have 12 if you really needed it. But I want to warn you that this is like your best of. This is a mixed tape. When you make a mixtape for somebody you have a crush on, you only have the certain amount of time that mixtape holds. And when people are on social media, the attention spans are not, you know, infinite, right? And it's not even really the intention spans. I think sometimes it's just like we're scrolling social media when we're doing something else. Like we're at the dentist waiting, and then they come out and call your name and you have to put your phone away. So it doesn't even mean if they go away, they lost attention, like you didn't do a good enough job. It's just that people pick up Instagram and scroll in between activities. So then when that time comes, like a kid jumps off the couch, bumps their head, and you have to put down your phone and go get them, they're off. So we don't want to go too far. So I would not recommend going more than 12, but I have had ones that are 12. But I find that when you really just get serious about like what is my best stuff, that's what's gonna get them to your website, to your email list, over to your podcast. So try to really be strategic and you know, like specific about what you want them to do. Pick your best, like make it your best of collection and not your like kitchen sink collection, not your box set. Okay, I think that's all the things. I do have offers where I will just help you plan it and I will create the nine grid on the front, which is honestly really the part that you really want to pack the most punch with the visuals. And then there's templates I have where you can create the rest of the carousels and stuff. So I have lots of packages. I have actually stripped down my Instagram package to be very buildable so that people with smaller budgets still have access to it. Because I love making the nine collage on the front, it is like my favorite thing to do ever. So that is sort of my base package, and you can add on from there. Like if you want me to do carousels, if you want me to do other stuff, but I will absolutely help you plan this and make those nine posts for you, and it is not that much. So head to Deanna Seymour.com slash static grid and check it out and hit me up and let's make your grid, you know? I think it's gonna be really fun. But hopefully this episode has been inspirational and you see the future of what you could do with an Instagram static nine grid and how it could really free you up to work on the formats that you really like so that you don't have to post on there all the time about your podcast if you don't want to, you know what I mean? Like you can still pop it in stories with no caption, tag the guest, and be in and out in two seconds. Like, I personally cannot stand writing really long captions. So just hanging out in my stories helps me not have to like make a whole thing about it. So, anyways, everybody it works different for everybody. Some people who love Instagram will. Not want this. They like showing up on Instagram consistently. That's not for them, but I will quickly say that I can also make you some pretty bangin' three-pin posts because I still believe the strategy of immediately letting people know who you are, how you can help them, and your best free resource is great for anybody, even if you're still hanging out there. So those top three posts, I can like upgrade those real fast and make them look super cool. So I will talk to you soon. Hit me up, let me know if you have any questions. All right, bye.