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What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of Call Her Creator, powered by Stan. If you're a content creator or a business owner or just someone who's trying to build your online influence, today's episode is going to change the way you look at Instagram forever. Because over the past few months, I don't know if you guys have noticed, but there's a. There's a noticeable shift in how Instagram is measuring performance. And one metric is standing out above the breast. And guess what that is. I'm sure you know it is views. So I recently came across a report, and I've also heard Adam Mossery say it directly, that Instagram is encouraging creators to track their views more than their likes, more than their comments, more than their shares. And if you've been wondering, does that mean views matter more than engagement does? Views equal money? How do I actually grow my views? You're in the right place. I'm going to break all of this down for us. I'm going to be breaking down what Instagram views actually measure, why Instagram is pushing this metric, what it means for your growth and your income, and then 10 strategies to increase your views starting this week. Now, if you were here last week, you know that we are starting the Reinvention Challenge, and I'm going to be coming on here each week to get us in reinvention mode. But I thought that this was really important to touch on this week because a part of the Reinvention Challenge is showing up and making yourself visible. And for all of my social media girlies, my Instagram gurus, like, this is going to be your blueprint. So sit back and relax, Go grab a cup of coffee, grab your notebook, and let's get into it. Hey, friend, welcome back to Call Her Creator. Powered by your all in One Creator Store, Stan. Stan is the easiest way for you to make money online. All of your courses, digital products, and bookings are hosted within your link in Bio. If you're ready to start your free trial, visit my show notes and click my affiliate link to get started today. All right, let's get into today's episode. So before we get started, I think it's super important to understand what views actually mean. And what I've noticed too is I can have a reel pop off or even a carousel pop off with a lot of views. And like, sometimes the engagement is. Is not as great as the views, but we have to understand that people are so quick these days on Instagram. They might see your stuff, like it, but just not really engage. And I think that's why Instagram is using views as their most important metric versus engagement. But we'll get into that. This is just my theory, but an Instagram view is any time that your content is seen. So that could be someone watching your reel, that could be someone scrolling past a photo and seeing the photo. That could be a story, tap a profile, visit a carousel, swipe. Okay, they're visiting and seeing you. You are being shown or making that connection. Views measure visibility. So not necessarily engagement, but that visibility that reach that awareness, which if you're new here or you're new to marketing, that's the very top of the funnel. That is where you make connection with them. And this is where creators get tripped up. They judge content based on their likes or their comments, when really views are what's telling us, like, did my content even get seen in the first place? Because people can't like or follow or comment or buy from you if they never see you. So if they're seeing you, you need to mark that as a win. Views are that top of funnel. Engagement is that downstream result. If you only look at your likes, you're measuring the middle of the funnel and not the top engine. And we need to always be focused on that top of funnel because you want to always be bringing in people to your funnel. Now don't get me wrong, we still need to nurture that middle of funnel too. But you need to always have something out there that is capturing attention for new people. That's how you grow your audience. But if you only look at your likes, you're measuring the middle of the funnel, not the top. And Instagram very much cares about the top because that's what's going to get people onto their app in the first place. You creating content is what's going to draw people to use their app and become users and become engaged and want to come back every time and time again. So that top of funnel is super duper important. Now don't get me wrong, likes, saves, comments, shares, those still matter. Like, look at your views as the gateway metric, right? So think of it like this. We're looking. Imagine a funnel. Like it's like an upside down triangle, right? So at the top is views, that's attention. And then after that, attention equals interest, interest equals engagement, engagement equals building a relationship. And then what happens next? You have that relationship and you can turn that into a sale. You can't skip the first step of this huge upside down triangle because you're not going to get people down to that sales, you have to make them feel something to want to buy from you. So that very top of funnel is the views where you grab their attention. So when Mossery says track your views, what he means is if something is being seen but not engaged with, you need to fix your hook. What's hooking them in to get that attention. And then if you've got the intention, but there's not any type of engagement, then you need to fix how you are sharing that content. So the goal is not to just get eyes on your content, but eyes that turn followers into fans into customers. So let me break down for you why views are worth paying attention to. So the first one is the more views you have equals the more audience growth. Every view is someone discovering you, right? So more views equals more awareness, equals more potential followers. So views are that number one goal. If you are just getting started in content creation, you want to get as many views as possible. And I've talked about this in previous episodes too. Like, when it comes to creating content for myself for clients, we're usually like, okay, what's our, what's our strategy this month? Is it growth or is it nurturing and sales? Because it's two different avenues that you want to do. If it's growth, then you're trying to get as much views as possible. You're sharing more relatable content that reaches the mass. The masses. And if it's sales conversions, then you're sharing more content that a little more deeper, a little more like call to action Y making them do something, creating some type of FOMO to make them buy from you. So it's very different avenues that you go when it comes to your strategy, depending on what your actual goal is based on your goals. The second reason why views matter is views lead to more engagement, so people can't comment on what they never see, right? So the more views you get, the more that opens the door for more likes, more comments, more shares. You're giving yourself the opportunity to get seen and to build that engagement. And then views drive brand visibility too. So if you're pitching brands, this matters for you. Brands care about your reach. They care about your audience size. They care about your visibility. A creator with 200 comments but only 800 views looks a little less scalable than a creator with 120 comments but 50,000 views, right? So views equal your reach and reach equals that influence that you have. And at the end of the day, that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to Build the influence, build the views to get more people to see your content, interact with it, and turn them into paying customers. Now, whether you want to believe it or not, views indirectly lead to money. They do. Now, it's not like Instagram's going to pay you for views. And I have seen those people that post reels saying Instagram paid me because I reached so many people, blah, blah, blah. Totally not true. Like, there was a point when they were paying bonuses and they still are for, like, if you get enough views on a carousel or reel, they'll pay you. Yes, but that, like, that, that's not offered to the masses. For one, you have to be a creator. You have to get approved for that program. And it's not for everyone. They don't just hand out money for views, but it can indirectly lead to money. So, like, if I'm having a chat with a friend or someone I know, and they're like, how do you make money from Instagram? Like, does Instagram pay you? No, not necessarily. I've been paid bonuses before, but I can't. You can't count on that as money. What happens is I share about my product or talk about my business, and then that indirectly leads to a sale for me because people see me, they trust me, they buy from me. Right? So Instagram, just for the record, doesn't pay for views, but views can lead to brand deals. So, like, this past month, I had a really cool brand deal with Adobe. We were paid to post about their product and then there was bonuses included. If you reached so many people. Same with, you know, last, what was another one that I did, many chat and video. All of these brands, they typically will give you like a set amount to post about their thing, and then they'll offer bonuses if you reach a certain amount of views. Now, there are brand deals out there too, that, that will offer you money based on views. I typically don't take those because you never know, first of all, how the algorithm's gonna respond or what type of content, like, they're making you create. Because some brands will literally make you post content in their voice. And my followers know, like, that is not Caitlin's voice. I am very turned off by this. This is an ad. I'm not gonna pay for it. And then what? That just doesn't do anything for me. My views end up being less, and then I don't get paid enough for what I posted. Sponsorships. The same with brand nails. You'll get sponsors sponsored to post about a certain something. The reels bonus program when that first had came out and this was around like 2021, I did make some good money there. I probably made a couple thousand dollars posting reels and hitting those bonuses because one, not everybody was posting reels. Two, they were trying to make me post reels so that others would post reels. So I had a better chance there. But again, I think the last bonus program I was in was actually for threads. But the threshold is like you have to reach like hundreds of thousands of people, sometimes millions to make that full bonus. So it, it's not easy to do. It's not just like, oh, you're gonna get paid 500 to post this thread. Like that's not how it works. Affiliate sales are another one. Trying to think, oh, there used to be, oh my gosh, I can't remember it now. It was like when I first started Flip Stick, I think it was called Flip Stick and it was this sticky phone holder thing that you could put on the back of your phone and it would stick to whatever. It would stick to trees, walls, plastic, whatever so that you could record reels. I actually really loved my Flip Stick. I'm pretty sure that's what it was called. They paid a like a one time fee and I think it was honestly like 500 bucks. It wasn't a lot, maybe it was a thousand. And then you'd get paid a percentage of sales that you sold. So if a lot of people ended up buying the Flip stick, of course I can make a lot of affiliate sales. But if, if they didn't, then you know, that wasn't the greatest sponsorship to work with. So affiliate sales are always hard. It really depends how much you put in for you to make money over there. If you see people posting about manychat, DM me the word mini chat and I'll give you a 14 day trial. That's affiliate sales. You sign up for a trial, they're going to make an affiliate amount based on how many people sign up for that free trial. Manychat's going to pay them. So a lot of different affiliate sales programs out there. There's something called partner Stack if you ever want to dip your toes into affiliate marketing. What they do is they partner you or pair you up with different brands that offer different affiliate programs and you can pick and choose who you want to work with. I'm in there with manychat Later. I work with later, the scheduling tool, which is where I found a lot of this information. By the way, shout out to Later's blog. They have some really good information on there. And I, I've read this blog and I was like, I have to talk about this on the podcast. What else do I do? Printify. Printify was another one. So there's a ton of them out there. And the affiliate amount you make will change based on how much the brand is willing to pay you. And then the last one is digital product sales. So I'll get on and I'll talk about Club Influence, my creator membership where we send you weekly reels, trends and Canva templates and all that jazz. I will post like every Friday. We do a what's trending carousel and we share different trends that are happening on Instagram. And then my call to action at the end of that is join Club Influence, our membership. We'll send you real prompts just like this. And then if people want to, they'll click on my link and they'll go pay to be inside of our membership. So couple different ways here that I just listed that you can make money indirectly from your views, but again, no one's just going to pay you for posting. Views are the engine that fuels that monetization though. So you want as many views as possible. At the end of the day, do views equal money? Because this is just where a lot of people misunderstand. But again, Instagram doesn't hand you cash for views. But if you have views and then you're building this audience, you can leverage all of that to create revenue for yourself. More views equals more people discovering you. More discovery equals more followers. More followers equals more trust plus more sales. And then you can think of your views as that top of the money funnel. You need the traffic before you can convert it. All right, so we've talked about what views are, why they're important, why you need them in your strategy, how to monetize them. But how do you get more views? That is the winning golden ticket question is how can I increase my views? I'm stuck in 200 reels, view jail or my carousel are only reaching 500 people and I've got a list of 10,000 followers. This is the hundred dollar question, how do you get more views? And I'm going to give you guys 10 different strategies that we use and that a lot of other creators use to help you increase your views. So let's see the first one in my tried and trusted this is the reason I created Club Influence actually. And that is creating trend based content. So trends fast track your visibility. And let me tell you why. Trends usually means that there's an audio trending or there's this trend that everyone's doing. People recognize it, it's fun, it's interesting, so they watch it and that increases your views. So when we learned that trends were really big and that they were helping people get more views, I was like, oh my God, I should do the research for people and send them trends to their inbox so that they're not having to scroll and look for trends on a weekly basis. Because when you're looking for trends it can be a very boring job. You're literally scrolling Instagram just doom scrolling over and over on what type of content you can find that's trending. So we do this for you and we send it to you every single Monday so you have timely reels trends sent straight to your inbox. If you want to join Club Influence, I'm going to link it in the show notes for you guys here. It's 29 bucks a month, super inexpensive. If you break that up, it's less than a dollar a day and we're doing the work for you. So so you get the trends and then you'll know exactly what to create and post for your brand and get more views.