Kaitlyn Rhodes (0:00)

What's up, everybody? Welcome to an episode of Call Her Creator powered by Stan. I am your host, Kaitlyn Rhodes, and today we have some burning questions that you guys have sent me. Whether it's been in the DMS or emails, I've went and compiled them all together so that I can answer them here for you on the podcast. Because I get in the DM so much and I give out all this free advice, and I know, like, that's what you're supposed to do. Provide value. Provide value. But I'm like, maybe I should start answering these on the podcast so I can get the people over to call her creator and then they can realize how amazing this podcast is and how much education I actually teach over here. So that is my plan today, is to attract you guys over to the podcast. So if you're new here, thanks for joining in. Make sure you download today's podcast, because when you download, you'll get notified next week when a new episode pops out. And you won't forget about little old me over here. So today I want to start off with a little story. Instead of, like, doing some Instagram updates, I just want to motivate you guys. So I have been putting together a presentation. I'm speaking in Orlando on Friday, and it's the first time that someone has asked me to do a motivational presentation. And I'm like, okay. Like, that is truly my wheelhouse. That's what I want to do in life. Like, if someone were to ask me, what do you wish you could do? I wish I could be a motivational speaker on the stage. Just teach. Teaching people that, you know, whatever past they came from, whatever story they had, whatever sad story, tragic story, emotional story they have, they get to choose their present now and what they do moving forward in life. And so today I want to talk to you guys about some of the stories that I put together for this presentation. So when I was researching for the motivational engagement, I started looking at celebrity stories. Cause I kind of wanted to see if there was any celebrities that had, like, maybe a hard start or maybe they went through adversity, or maybe not even that. Maybe they didn't go through any of that, but they just decided to go for it. They didn't let life happen to them. They happened to life. And of course, when I was doing that Taylor Swift pop up, and she is one of my favorite singers. So I'm like, let me see. What. What. What did Taylor do? Which I know pretty much everything about her anyways. I knew she didn't come from, like, a bad family or a tragic life story, anything like that? No, she's had a pretty good life her whole life, in my opinion. Obviously, I don't know her personally, but as I started to kind of read through her journey, I realized, like, Taylor is a billionaire because she goes after what she wants. Like, since a young age, she has had in her head what she wants to do with life, how she's going to get there, who does she need to talk to? Who does she need to, you know, like, talk into helping her. Everything that she does in life is, I don't want to say calculated, because that sounds negative to me, but everything she does, like, gets her a step further in life. So, like, growing up, she knew she wanted to be a singer, so her dad got her guitar lessons. They ended up moving their whole family to another state, which I know a lot of us can't just be like, oh, I want to go be a fashion stylist in New York. So I'm just going to pick up and move. I know we can't all do that, but. But she did these little steps that got her to where she is today. She got guitar lessons, she moved, she kept writing her song. She's a great songwriter, and I think that's really what helps her stand out. And then she started reaching out. Her dad did, started reaching out to other people in the industry, getting her up there, getting her out there. She started saying yes to any opportunity that she could take to get in front of people, and she just built her way up the ladder. And I can kind of relate to that. Not that I'm a billionaire wish or I'm a singer, but I, I, I did have a hard childhood. In my opinion, emotionally, it was hard, it was tough. But I knew since a small age that I was gonna do something better with my life because I wanted my kids to have a better life, and I wanted a better life for myself as well. So I've just always been a very big go getter. I go after the things that I want. I take steps every day, little steps every day that will get me to the end goal. And I don't let life happen to me. I don't let life pass me by. I go out and I tackle it. So if you have your heart, a dream, a goal, sit down, sister, pull out that notebook paper, write down what steps you need to take to achieve that goal, and then start taking those steps slowly. You don't have to jump right into it. You could just do one little act every day that would snowball into that end goal. And so I just want to motivate you guys. Like, you do not have to be special, you do not have to be rich to become rich. I literally could not pay for my groceries. I got kicked out of my apartment because I couldn't pay the rent. I had to move back in with my mom. I was making 320 bucks a week working 40 hours. And now I've built like the successful social media agency. I've got three employees, I sell digital products, I'm a podcast host, I get to speak on stages, all of this stuff because I did not just sit down and let life happen to me. I happened to life. So that is my motivational spiel for you. I really hope that encourages you and motivates you. And if you have your own story that's similar to mine or to Taylor's, I'd love for you to email me or send me a DM over on Instagram. I'd love to talk to you more about your story and just walk through it together. If there's any way that I can motivate or help you, I am here. I'm your friend. So like I said, today's episode is about frequently asked questions. I get over in the dms. I'm here to answer them for you on the podcast. And they're all pretty much about either social media marketing or Instagram growth. So I've got a couple here. I don't know how many we're going to get through depending on the time, but let's just dive into it, will we? So the first question, which is probably the easiest question, and I talk about it a lot, so if you've heard this question, feel free to press that little 15 second skip to the next one. But this one is what is the best way to optimize your Instagram bio to attract your ideal client? How can you optimize your Instagram bio to. To attract the ideal client? Not just anybody, but the ideal client. And that is where you are going to lean into your niche. Who are you speaking to? What is the language they talk? Go over to ChatGPT if you don't know and kind of type in. I want to reach X, Y, Z audience. What kind of language, what kind of things should I include in my Instagram and see what that kind of gives to you. That's going to help you fill out your bio. But for me as a strategist, I would tell you first thing first, use that page name, write your name or your Business name and then also put a keyword phrase there. Like if someone is looking for podcast hosts or social media agency or wellness coach or soul coach or you want to get nitty gritty with it. Really, I think wellness coach actually is a little too generic. So you'd probably want to do like, I know there's wellness coaches out there that really like working with a specific type of audience. So use that specific type of audience in your keyword phrase. And again, if you need ChatGPT to help you with that, he's very good at giving you examples or at least giving you a starting point. I do not recommend copying, pasting what ChatGPT says, but if you could use that as your starting point, I think that'd be a really great way for you to start writing that bio. So write the page name, figure out your bio, and then think about your username too. I still am seeing these crazy username over on Instagram and it's not helping you get discovered at all. If your username is like genie in a bottle 96, shout out to Christina Aguilera. Unless you are a genie in a bottle. That username, no one's gonna be searching for that girl. So you need to change it to whatever makes sense for you. I recently changed mine to my first and last name because I'm trying to build my personal brand. It was social marketing queen for a long time, since 2014, but it was time for me to push through my boundaries, my ceilings, and expand my personal brand. So I am my first and last name now. But I really want you to think about that username, that page name, and then sprinkling in some keywords in your actual bio. All of that is going to help you attract the right followers. When someone lands on your page, they're going to see these things that says, oh my gosh, she's talking to me. Let me follow her. So that's the answer to how to optimize your Instagram profile. I do have a six point checklist, a free one that you can grab. I'll drop it in the show notes for us. But if you want to go through that, you can truly optimize your entire profile, like down to your story highlights using that free checklist. So I'll send that or I'll put that in the show notes for you guys. The next question we have is how do I structure my content strategy to get more consistent growth on Instagram? So I am a big believer in two different strategies when it comes to posting on Instagram. You've either got a growth strategy or you've got a sales strategy. So sometimes I'll be in the season of oh, I need to grow my followers and I will post heavily this particular type of content. Or if I'm like, hey, I really need to sell more digital downloads, I need to go more harder on my sales strategy. So for this particular question, we're talking about growth. So when it comes to growth, there's a couple things you want to keep in mind. Frequency. You want to be posting regularly. That means truly, like if you're talking to me about, hey, Caitlin, I want to grow before the end of the year. I would tell you to post every day. If you're really feeling jiggy with it, I always assume that phrase. I would tell you to post twice a day. It's not so much quality, even though I want you to still post really good content, but quantity, when it's the beginning stages of you growing your Instagram. Because here's the thing, guys, when it comes to growing, you need to figure out what is your audience even going to resonate with. So if you're posting consistently quite frequently, then you're going to see what content works, what content bombs, what content gets the most conversions. You will start to learn so much with that data. I would give it at least 90 days when you're doing this to really see what works and what doesn't. I was testing this over on my personal personal account for a little bit. I was posting daily, but I then realized I do not have time to grow my personal account and my business account. So I'm just gonna stick to my money making account. But for a little while there, I was posting frequently every day and I was getting pretty good traction. I gained like 700 followers within the first couple of weeks. So if you are looking for growth, you need to up your frequency when it comes to posting. You also need to provide as much value as possible. And that doesn't mean you have to educate. It just means bringing something to the table. Maybe someone connects with you on a personal level. Maybe they needed to hear that message that you had to share. Maybe they needed to learn how to do the thing that you teach people. All of those are considered value driven post. So value and frequency will help you grow your account. All right, this question is really good. What are some key elements that you can do to make your reels go viral? I know everyone is talking about viral reels over on Instagram, but these are three important key notes, key elements that I want you to remember. Okay? The first one is making sure you move within the first three to five seconds of that video. Attract people in, okay, movement, transition, different angle, something. Second one is your hook. Actually, I would flip flop those. I would make your hook your biggest thing. I literally write all kinds of hooks down in my notes when I'm thinking of a real idea. I'll have like 10,000 hook ideas for that one reel and then I'll finally be like, boom, that one's it. So really good hook. Make sure you're. You've got some movement or a transition within the first three to five seconds. The third one, I would tell you guys, is to remember that a lot of people watch reels with their sound off, so they need to be able to understand what your reel is about without the sound. So if that means you have to use the caption sticker, if that means you have to use text overlay or maybe you're demonstrating how to do something with a product, whatever it is, just make sure that people can still understand what your reel is about without the sound. Those are three key elements, I would say, for reels. Bonus points for that. I've been playing around with short form video and I've been playing around with like 30 second video lately. My 30 second videos are actually getting more traction lately. And I don't know if it's because I'm standing out a little bit more from those other people that are just doing seven second reels right now, or maybe it's because I'm like really expl. They're mostly explainer talking heads from my podcast, like this, a little snippets. So it could be the content that's inside of them. I'm gonna do some deep diving research into seeing why. I think those reel snippets are getting really good traction, but those are some of my top tips when it comes to creating reels that will work for you that will go viral per se. The next question we have here is the close friends feature. Why should I use it? How does it work? How can I engage my most loyal followers with it? So there's a girl that I follow that does a really good job at using the close friends feature. And I keep saying, oh my God, I need to start doing that. But then I get lazy and I don't do it. But basically she adds a crap ton of people to that close friends list, and then basically she adds a bunch of people to that close friends list, and then she uses that close friends bubble to sell. Like, it's usually like, hey, I'm doing this secret sale. You're invited to it. I'm only offering it to my close friends and I know it makes her a lot of money because she then talks about it later on. So the thing with the close friends feature is that it feels very exclusive to your followers. Like we don't. We rarely see the Green Circle whenever we're swiping through stories at the top. So one, I think it's a psychological thing, but two, it just makes you feel very exclusive to that person so you want to follow it. Billie Eilish did this a couple months ago, maybe it was a couple years ago and got a crap ton of engagement from it because people were like, oh my God, I'm on Billie Eilish's close friends list. Let me go watch this. That was a strategic move, guys. She, she doesn't think that you're a close friend, but it was so smart of her or her marketing team, whoever did that. And so it's something that we should all be testing out to like put together a close friends list and then start first nurturing them. Don't just start hard selling, but first just start nurturing them, letting them know like, hey, green Circle people, one of my friends or hey close friends, you're here because I like you. You're here because I want to share exclusive tips with you. Start nurturing them maybe for like a week or two or three. And then you could really start selling to those people. Once you nurture and create like that community with them, it's super important too. If you are getting replies back with that Green Circle friends list, make sure you're replying to them in the dms. Make sure you are talking to them, letting them know that you're home. That is how you are going to build trust and loyalty with them. So then when you are ready to say, hey, I got this special offer, do you want to work with me? They'll be more likely to say yes because they truly feel like they're your close friend. So if you have not tried the close friends feature yet, now's the time to start doing it. Maybe this week you just make your close friends list and then next week you start working on the content that you could be sharing in there. The next question is, how do I build a strong content mix between reels, carousels and static images? This is a really good question and I think the best way to do this is to do a little planning when it comes to your content. So for our clients here at Influence Marketing Studio, we Plan our content for the month so that we can be diligent in putting together a mix of formats. So we'll kind of break it up. Like, week one, two, three, four. Week one, we're going to do two reels in a static. Week two, we're going to do two reels in a carousel. Week three, we're going to do three, two carousels in a static. Whatever it is, but we mix it up. But that way you're kind of laying it out for yourself to see visually, and then you're not forgetting to do it. Like, for me, I told myself I was going to start posting more carousels, but reels are just so easy for me at this point, and I just can push them out like that. So I've really kind of got behind with posting my carousels. But when I sit down at the computer and I'm like, okay, let me plan my content for this week, that's when I'm diligent about, okay, I'm going to do a reel this day, a carousel that day, a reel that night, carousel this morning, and then I'm able to visualize it all and plan it all. And when you use a mix of all of their features, Instagram likes that Instagram wants you to use all of their formats. I still am a huge firm believer that Instagram favors reels. But I've also read on Instagram, I've heard Adam say it, the CEO, that he wants a mix of formats for Instagram that they love any content as long as it's speaking to your audience. So whatever one you're good at, that can be your like. Like, you can do mainly reels and then sneak in some carousels and static. But do play around with the formats. Don't just stick to one. Try playing with a lot different ones and see what resonates most with your audience, what gets the most traction. And then you can keep using that over and over again each month as you gain more data from your analytics. This is a great question, but how can you use your Instagram insights for your Instagram growth strategy? So I love using my insights. I love going in and kind of determining what's working, what's not working. I'll go in weekly and I'll look up content that I've shared before, and then you can play around if you want to see what was shared in the last 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, the entire year. But I'll go write down, like, maybe my top five performers for the last 90 days. And I will go into Canva or go redo my reels and basically do like another version of those. Because at the end of the day, only a small percentage of people is going to see what you're even posting on Instagram. So if you already have data that this type of content or this post idea worked really, really well, more than likely it's going to work really, really well again. So you can either revise it, revamp it, or you could do a part two, three series. I have been seeing series do really well because it keeps people coming back for more on your Instagram page. So that's the kind of data that I look for. Obviously I'm always in there looking at my followers too, just to see how they're growing and not growing. I will also look at the Interactions tab, so I'm going to pull it up for me while I' talking to you guys. So the interactions basically says like how many people interacted and engaged with your content? And I love that it splits it up for me based on followers and based on non followers. So like for the last 30 days I can see that I mostly reached 60% followers in 40% non followers, which is a pretty good mix. I like that. It also then breaks it down by what type of content got the most engagement. So was it real stories videos? If you keep scrolling down though, it then breaks up your content type by interaction. So I can see my reels, how many likes I got, how many comments I got. I can look at my post likes comments. Holy crap. My difference in my reels interactions versus my post interactions are crazy Again. That's why I like to do reels over static and carousels. My it shows me. Okay, this is weird. Okay, it has IGTV videos over here. Maybe that's because it's. I don't know if that's still showing like old videos that I've posted or maybe it's Instagram live videos that got saved. Maybe that's what it is. That would make more sense. But looking through all of this, this is really good for you to be able to see like, okay, this type of content works best on my page, so you need to lean into it. It also shows me my top post based on likes. So I can see for the last 30 days what post got the most likes and engagement. And then my audience is down there as well. Their gender, age range, countries, cities. So don't sleep on your Instagram insights. They are filled with so much information for you to really grow your account. Someone asked me, are Instagram collabs worth it. And I say a resounding yes. Now here's how it's worth it. First of all, you want to collab with an account that is either similar to you as far as followers go, or they have more followers than you. The thing about the follower count is if, say, for example, like sometimes I will do a lot of collaboration reels with myself and my Call Her Creator account, but that's because I'm trying to grow the Call Her Creator account. There's. There's like 2200 followers on my call her creator and there's 171,000 on my social Marketing Queen. So of course, Social Marketing Queen is probably going to get us more views versus if I posted it from Call Her Creator, it's going to show to my people first and then the Kaitlyn Rhodes people, you know what I'm saying? So you want to one work with someone who has similar follower account or bigger, and you want to post the reel from the bigger account first so you get the best traction. But I genuinely love collab post. I think it's a fun way to be creative with people in your space. I think it's a good way to get in front of other people's audiences. And I also like tying into collaborations. I love to do Instagram lives with other people as well. That's a. Another way to get in front of a different audience. It's a good way to have a conversation, like an interview type, style, or maybe you're bouncing ideas off each other. People love that. People love to be a fly on the wall watching two or three or four people interact. And with Instagram stories, you can have up to four people on. I'm sorry, with Instagram lives, you can have up to four people there. So people love watching that. So collaborations, absolutely. Do them, love them, they work. Next question, and this is a good question. How can I create shareable content that encourages my followers to spread the word about my page? So first of all, here's where you're going wrong even asking that question. How can you get them to share content to promote your page? Eh? Let's change your mindset there. How can you get them to share your content to promote your expertise? I don't know if that makes sense. How am I trying to say. What I'm trying to say is like, here we go. How can you promote content to as many people as possible so you can help as many people as possible? Right? So when you look at it that way, that makes you think, oh, I need to share More content that is going to one, make people resonate it, two, make people feel heard or seen. And three, they're going to want to share it with someone they love or know. Or maybe they're going to want to put it on the stories because they relate to it so much and they're so happy that someone else finally understands them. Those are the things that get people to share your page. If your page is all about you, you, you, you, you and you, just please promote my page. Please help me. Like, that's not going to get you anywhere. But if you're like, hey, guess what, it's your lucky day. You just found a girl who's going to teach you how to make money online doing XYZ, I'm more likely to follow her vs hey, I'm trying to grow my account over here. Can you go follow my page? You know, which one sounds better? Which one is more share worthy? Which one's more valuable to the audience listening to you, the last question I got is should I use Instagram ads? I. I don't use, I don't do a lot of ads over on my page. There was a time when I was pushing one of my freebies, so I was running some ads there because I was trying to grow up my email list. But as far as like promoting ads to promote my page, I don't typically do it too much. Now. Do I think there's a time and place for Instagram ads? Absolutely. If there's a certain product that you're trying to get in front of, more people definitely run ads. But at that point you're probably, hopefully should know exactly who your people are. Do not let Instagram target them for you. Do not ever do that. Make sure you nail down who it is you're talking to, how you need to talk to them, what kind of formats do they like, what's their pain points? Because once you really understand who your audience is, you'll be able to target them better in the back end. And I don't ever target from my phone. I will get into Facebook Ads Manager and I will go in there and use every setting that I can. Because inside of Facebook Ads Manager you're going to have the chance to choose the gender, the age, the location, interest. You're going to be able to say where you want it to show up. Maybe you don't want it to show up in the feed, but you want it to show up on the Explore page. Maybe you want it to just show up in stories. So getting in the back end of Facebook Ads Manager is way better than just doing it from your phone. Trust me on that. I do have an episode on running Facebook ads and Facebook ads and Instagram ads if you look back on my list of episodes. But these are some of the most frequently asked questions that I get as an Instagram growth coach and strategist. I hope that some of these helped you. If you have any questions for me that maybe I didn't get to answer, feel free to send them over in the DMs. And then the next episode I have or after that, whatever. Coming up, I can do another part two series of answering questions for you guys. Now. If you liked today's episode, I would really, really love it if you would go leave me a review. I want to start sharing reviews and testimonials back on the podcast again. I did that in the earlier days when starting my podcast and I think it was a really good way to make sure that you guys know how much I love you and adore you and appreciate all of the engagement and support that you give to me here at Call Her Creator. So thank you guys for listening. I will talk to you soon. Bye.