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Build Your Tribe | Grow Your Business with Social Media
The REAL Reason Your Niche Isn’t Working And How to Fix It! - 823
00:20:26
So, you’ve picked a niche… but why isn’t it working?! Is it too broad? Too saturated? Or maybe—brace yourself—it’s not your niche at all… it’s your social media strategy. In this episode, Chalene breaks down the biggest mistakes...
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Breaking news T Mobile Network outperforms expectations in all sectors because T Mobile helps keep you connected from big cities to your hometown on America's largest 5G network. Switch now keep your phone and T Mobile will pay it off at the $800 per line via prepaid card. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com KeepAndSwitch up to four lines via virtual prepaid card. Last 15 days qualifying unlock device credit service port in 90 plus days device and eligible carrier and timely redemption required card is no cash access and expires in six months.
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So you've niched down, but is it the right niche? Is the problem your niche? Or is the problem how you're applying your niche in social media? Is the reason why you're not getting results because you've picked the wrong niche? Or is it because you're applying the wrong strategy to your niche when you're promoting it in social media? This episode of Build you'd Tribe is for you. If you already know the importance of niche, you you don't need to be convinced of that. What you're not sure is if you've chosen the right niche. If you've picked one that's maybe too narrow, maybe your niche is oversaturated, or maybe the problem is your approach to social media. Hey, I'm Chalene Johnson, co host of Build you'd Tribe and the other half of this team is my son, Brock. Brock and I do this podcast together. We kind of go back and forth with content, try to give you a couple different perspectives. The other thing that we do together is we coach people with their strategy on social media, specifically Instagram. So we have a coaching membership program. It's called Insta Club Hub. And the reason why I mentioned that is because Brock and I were recently auditing our members and we discovered something very interesting that I think is going to answer a lot of questions for you and I'm going to break it all down for you in this episode. But what we discovered is that for some of almost 50 50, when we were auditing our members, we do a complete review of their account. And this is something that we do for our members. When they sign up to become an annual member, they get a review of their account. And recently we discovered people fell into three different groups. Number one were the people who they just hadn't figured out their niche yet. That's not you. Number two were the people who had figured out their niche but had probably selected the wrong niche. And the third group of people were People who had chosen the right niche, but their strategy in social media was missing the mark. So in this episode, what I want to do is give you a really simple way for you to do your own audit to the best of your ability. Now, it's kind of hard sometimes to look at your own content and realize what mistakes you're making. Sometimes we're too close to the problem to see the solution. So what I want to do is take you through a series of questions first to determine if in fact you have chosen the right niche. So you just simply answer yes or no to these questions. Number one, are you aware of other people who have been successful in the same niche? When you have free time, do you naturally want to learn more about this topic? Do you find yourself excited to talk about this in real life, not just in social media? Outside of social media, do people ask you questions about this topic? If there was no financial payoff, would you still be excited to post about this type of content in the arena? In the area that you've niched down, do you have kind of a unique perspective or a kind of a different way of looking at it, or maybe even your own personal experience? It doesn't have to be like groundbreaking, but like you've got some kind of unique take on this particular topic? Do you have a relatively unique take? Something that's a very personal reason why you're interested in this niche? When you're creating content or talking about this topic, does it get you energized or do you feel drained? Do you have a never ending list of ideas and things you want to talk about as it relates to the subject? Are you truly passionate about helping people related to this subject, this niche? Do you have strong opinions about this subject? Are you drawn to other types of content, whether it's on TV or research or. I guess it depends on your niche. But are you drawn to this type of content, this subject, outside of social media? And not that you need to be the person who's the most knowledgeable about this particular subject, but do. Do you feel very confident when you're discussing this subject? And lastly, do you feel like there's a solution or a way to help people in this specific area? If you answered yes to 80% of those questions, there's a very good chance that you've got the right niche. One thing you don't have to worry about is your niche oversaturated. I promise no matter what your niche is, there's enough people in the world for you to make a viable living from this to attract the right kind of people on social media. I don't care what it is. The only, only thing you might want to consider is could you niche down even further? So the more competitive your particular niche is, the more important it is for you to niche down even further. Let me give you a perfect example. And by the way, you can change your niche all the time. I will say that right now, my niche on Instagram specifically is helping menopausal women who want to live vibrantly, who need help with their hormones. Well, guess what? There's a bajillion people in this niche. Menopause is literally having a moment. But my specific niche, the way I've niched down even further, is I specifically help women understand how they need to exercise and eat in order to help manage the chaos of their hormones. That's how I've niched down even further. So I'm not just speaking generally about hormones or generally about menopause. I'm speaking specifically about adding muscle and what type of cardiovascular workout you need to do and how you need to change your approach to nutrition. So that's my specific niche. I help people specifically by showing them how to do that, helping them through that process through my digital platforms. So what is your niche? Because oftentimes when, again, I'm auditing. Brock and I are auditing some of our members, and we're looking. They've selected a niche, if you will, but they're still so broad, and their broad category that they're niching down in, if you will, and that broad category is highly saturated. Let me give you an analogy. If you're a realtor in New York City and you simply say, I sell condos and apartments and homes to people who are looking to purchase, you don't have a specific neighborhood, and you don't have a specific clientele, AKA an avatar. In order to truly understand how to niche down even further, you need to be more specific. And we're so afraid to be very specific with our niches because a lot of times we feel like, well, if I just say I am someone who specializes in the Upper east side, well, then aren't I going to miss out on the opportunity to represent a buyer or a seller on the Upper west side? I mean, New York City is a big city, but by selecting one specific area, think about it, you're able to farm, as they say, that area. You know, the square footage, you know, the person who wants to live in that area. You know, a incredible price is. You know, how to help a Seller price their property, you know how specifically to offer so that your clients are best represented. When you're trying to buy a property, like, you're able to really identify who it is you want to help and how it is you're able to help them. When we go too broad with our niche, we don't really expand our market. What we do is we limit our ability to stand out. And if you want to stand out, you got to niche down even further. Now, if you answered no to 20% or more of those questions, my friend, you've got some work to do in the area of niche. Maybe you're bored with it, maybe it's just not interesting to you anymore. Maybe what you think you've done is selected a niche, but really what you've done is you selected an opportunity, something to sell, and you're thinking about the industry as opposed to defining your niche, who it is you want to help, how it is you want to help them, how the type of content that you want to niche down with. So if you're confident you've chosen the right niche and you're pretty sure you've niched down enough, know this. You will benefit from tightening your niche even more. You want to be the go to person. You want to be the standout person in a very broad market. And the only way that's going to happen is if you're the first person that comes to mind when people think about this topic. If someone were putting on a big event and they're looking for an expert in your niche, what specifically would they say? Like, oh, you gotta call Chalene Johnson, you gotta call so and so. You want to be that person who you're like the go to. You are the expert for this very specific, exact thing. You can't speak on a whole bunch of things. You are the go to on this very teeny, tiny microcosm of your niche. The more you niche down, the more impact you're going to make, the more you're going to stand out. All right, having said that, let's just assume moving forward that you're like, no, okay, I'm so niche down. It is so tight and I'm excited about it. I answered yes to most of those questions. So, Chalene, why isn't this working? Why aren't I making money? You probably fall into that third category that we talked about, that person who's got the right niche. They've niched down far enough, but the problem is their social media strategy isn't landing. How do you know if that's what's going on with you. Now I'm going to take you through a series of questions to help you figure out if in fact it's your strategy, it's your application, frankly, it's your social media skills that are killing your business, frankly, it's your social media strategy, it's your social media skills, or lack thereof, that's killing your business, it's killing your growth. All right, let me take you through some questions and the first one is really simple. Do you suck at social media? I mean, because I feel like a lot of people know, they're like, I'm horrible. I can't get any engagement, I'm not getting any likes, nobody's sharing my content and I know I suck. Like, I know my content. I wouldn't even watch my content. If that's your answer, you don't even have to go through the rest of questions. We now know that's the problem. Okay, but let's continue through this because maybe you're just being hard on yourself when you look at your last 10 to 20 posts on Instagram. Let's use Instagram specifically. How often are people sharing your content? Now you've got to look at your insights. And of course, in order to see these insights, you need to either be a business or a creator account. So take a look at your insights. How often are people sharing your content? If it's not happening on a regular basis, then, my friend, you are not creating share worthy content. You're not creating the type of content that's attracting that specific niche person who's looking for the solution that you have. This could mean, it could mean that your content isn't specific enough. Maybe you've decided how specifically you can help people, but your content's too broad. If you're not creating content that people are like, ooh, I need to save this. Now I want you to look at the insights related to your saves. If you're not creating content that's like, okay, this is super interesting. I want to remember this later. I want to revisit this later. If people aren't saving your content, that means it's just not interesting enough to revisit, which is a strong indicator. The problem isn't your niche. The problem is your social media. Next, when you look at comments and engagement, how often are those comments and engagement from relatively new people or people who specifically have this problem? How often is that happening? Or is it more likely that you're going to get comments from people who already know you, friends and Family, people who've been following you for a long time, or worse, you're getting comments from bots. If the case is the later meaning you're getting comments from people who already know you, friends, family and bots. That means we're not attracting, we're not speaking to you, we're not creating content that your avatar is specifically looking for or you're not creating content that's engaging. So either way, the problem isn't your niche. The problem is your social media. I mean, I know this is some tough love, and for some of you, like I said, you already know the problem is your social media. So I guess the question I have for you, which you need to answer this, Are you willing, are you able, are you excited enough about your niche and about your business to put in the work to get good at it? Because I'm telling you, social media, it's just a skill. It's a skill which means anybody can get better at it. Anyone can. You just have to put in the effort, right? There's a lot of things, like, even technology, there's so many things that the first time you do it, you're like, oh, this is really hard. I don't know if I'm good at this. But if you do it enough and you have a why that's strong enough, you're going to get good at it. And if you believe in your message, if you believe in the solution that you have, if you not just believe in it, but you, you know that it can help other people and you need it to, like, this is your mission, this is your passion, this is your purpose. This is why you are posting on social media, then you gotta get good at it. Like, why waste time creating subpar content? Are you following content creators in your niche who are killing it? Specifically the type of content creators where you're like, okay, I could do something like that. It's pointless to follow people where you're like, for example, If I'm following Dr. Mary Claire Haver, who is the author of the New Menopause, and she's obviously in the same niche, but she's a doctor and she specifically is looking at research and breaking it down and talking about her clinical applications, she's talking about treating women with hormone replacement therapy in real life. And if I'm just watching her content and I'm like, oh, she's killing it, man, she's got millions of followers, I gotta do something like, it's pointless for me to even watch her content for that inspo, because that's not my specific niche inside of our bigger niche of menopause. So I need to be following people who are killing it in my very unique tight space. And I promise you this, you will find them. You need to look harder if this is important to you. Success leaves clues. And this doesn't mean that you copy their content exactly. But if you're watching people in your niche that are doing something that you can't do, you can't replicate, like, let's say, the person who you most admire, and they're killing on social, and they do a talking head video every single day, and they're a phenomenal storyteller. And you're like, I am terrible on camera. Well, unless you're planning on getting really good at that, you better start watching somebody else who's creating the type of content that you can reproduce. Maybe it's B roll content where we're just hearing your voiceover, right? So you're teaching something very remarkable, something that people want to say, something people want to share. It's interesting, it's entertaining, it's valuable for people. And so they're like, oh, this is the solution I was looking for. You can do that by creating a voiceover and just putting B roll on top of it. There's other ways for you to kill it in your niche, but you got to get better at creating reels, at creating carousels, at understanding, like, what is entertaining, what grabs people. Get good at creating hooks. When people see a post from you, if you don't grab and hold their attention in the first two seconds, you're done. I'm sorry. It's just the way I don't make the rules. That's social media, friends. It is literally the first second, maybe even two seconds. So you've got to do that with your verbal hook or your visual hook or something that's on the screen that people are like, I can't scroll. This is for me. Or I want to know what this is. I'm entertained. I'm curious. What is this? You've got to grab them, and that's a skill. How are you filming and editing your content? Frankly, today, if you're not great at editing, if you haven't mastered a few of the apps that we talk about here all the time, like VideoLeap and Capcut. You need to. It's kind of like learning a second language. And they're all available on your phones. There's tons of videos on YouTube. Some things you want to look at is your engagement climbing. Don't worry about likes so much. But are you getting new followers? If your content's great, you would be getting new followers. If your content is good, you'd be getting shares and saves. You'd be getting engagement. That's not irrelevant. It's engagement where people are asking you questions and wanting to go further in the conversation, the direct messages. If these things aren't happening, then I need to give you some tough love and it's something you probably already know. You've got to get good at social media and you have to stop telling yourself the story that you just don't have what it takes. Yes, you do. You just haven't learned the right strategies. You have to stop to saying to yourself, well, I don't look this way or I don't speak that way or I don't have this, you know, whatever fill in the blank belief you have in your head. It's all false. And I can disprove every single one of those with somebody who's killing it, who has the same thing you have that you're considering a limitation. The thing that's holding you back right now is your mindset around social media. It is something you can get much, much, much better at. And in doing so, you can grow your business. You've got two alternatives. You can get a lot better at social media or you can pay for paid advertising. And frankly, it's really hard to get good at paid advertising unless you're gonna pay an agency, because paid advertising is dependent upon you creating content that you can run ads to that people will actually wanna watch. So even if you're just paying for advertising, even if you don't have a following, if you don't know how to create great social media content, then your ads are going to suck, frankly. So you'd have to hire an agency which is even more expensive and you can do that. I don't want to dissuade you. I know people. I have a friend who's built a multi million dollar coaching business and she's horrible, horrible at social media. And she's like, I don't care, I don't, I don't have to be good at social media. I'm paying an agency, they create the ads, I'm just reading the scripts, I'm giving them the content that they need. But like, I don't want to get good at social media. But the trade off is she's got to pay for the advertising and I'm just giving you some tough love and telling you that is an option. The other option As I said, is you getting a lot better at social media. Now, obviously, you know that Brock and I love helping people to grow their Instagram. I would love for you to try Insta Clubhub. You can do a trial for $7 and if it's not right for you, you can just cancel. But what I think you'll find while you're doing that trial is you can binge tons of content and figure out what it is you're doing wrong. Like when you become an Insta Club Hub member, even if you're doing the trial, you're going to take a quick assessment so you can figure out, like, where are you missing the mark? What level are you at? How much more growth? What do you need to learn in 2025 so that you can kill it so that people find you? And the solution that you have as it relates to your niche. Listen, I believe in you. I know you can do this. It's fun. I mean, it's why you chose entrepreneurship. You love the challenge of this. I know you do. So think of it as a competition against yourself. Promise yourself that you're going to get better at social media. Pick one thing at a time. Like maybe this week the only thing you're going to work on is hooks. And maybe next week you're going to work on your call to action. And all of these things, including editing, including your engagement, all these things, we break them down step by step by step inside Insta Club Hub. And of course, I would, Brock and I would love to have you as a part of our community. You can check out the link below this episode or just go to instaclubhub.com instaclubhub.com hey, thank you so much for joining me today on this edition of Build you'd Tribe. It is my goal to be brief, to be bright, to be fun and then done. And now we're done. Bye. See you next time.
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Breaking news. T Mobile Network outperforms expectations in all sectors because T Mobile helps keep you connected from big cities to your hometown on America's largest 5G network. Switch now keep your phone and T Mobile will pay it off up to 800 per line via prepaid card. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com keepandswitch up to 4 lines of your virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days qualified unlock device, credit service report in 90 plus days device and eligible carrier and timely redemption. Required card is no cash access and expires in six months.