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What's up, everybody? Welcome to the last episode of 2024. Today, I'm going to talk to you guys about analyzing your Instagram strategy so that when 2025 makes its way into our new year, you are ready to go. So we're going to be going over everything that you can go through and check from this past year, things that you can change, things that you can pivot or optimize so that 2025 can be your best year yet on Instagram, on social media. I'm really excited about this episode. I'm going to go through my exact strategy that I use here at the Caitlin Rhodes, also our social media agency for all of our clients. Now, before we get started, I've been talking to you guys about my little self mentoring that I'm doing, and today's chapter was really, really, really good. I'm not going to read the whole thing to you guys, but there's some parts of it that I want to highlight. So, like, with 2025 coming in, I know you all are going to be making these big goals for yourself, things you want to accomplish for the new year, yada, yada, you know, new year, new me, all that stuff, which I am, too. That's how I roll. It's actually crazy. Like, this month I've been getting back into the groove of, like, my health and everything. So, like, I started yoga and Pilates and. What's the other one? Tabata. And I don't know, there's like something internally in my body that's like, okay, you're getting back healthy. You're getting back in the groove. And it' like my body knows that it's about to be a new year. And that's just what you do in the new year. You start new traditions for yourself, new healthy traditions, new things for your business, whatever that might be. So I don't know why I told you that. I guess I'm just trying to encourage you. Now's the time to really start getting ready for things. You don't have to wait till January 1st. You can start doing it now if you want. Go sign up for a Pilates class. It truly has changed my life, by the way. Mentally, I've told y'all that I struggle with depression and anxiety and, I don't know, the Pilates and the yoga give me. Not only do they give me something to look forward to, but also when I'm there, it's just like, it's all I'm focusing on. It's good for my body. I'm producing endorphins from the exercise, but also just like the mindset of everything has really been amazing for me. So highly encourage you to start something new if you haven't or if it's just walking, like getting out and doing some kind of cardio for yourself. Whatever it takes to get yourself moving and grooving. It really does help our bodies. Okay, so the little mentoring tip that I want to give y'all, it, it says, remember that small steps make giant gains. And it's so, so true. Like those small, daily, seemingly insignificant improvements, when done consistently over time, lead to stunning results. And it's so freaking true because I started my social media agency back in 2021 and it's like little steps that I've taken. Now we're in 2024 and I've built like a seven figure agency from taking little steps. I was not like that my first year. It took me four year. What, 21, 22, 23, 24. Four years to get where I'm at. But it. I, I didn't get here, you know, overnight. I, I got here from taking small little steps at a time. So a truly wealthy life happens more by evolution than by revolution. It's those constant small micro wins that when done daily, evolve into a tsunami of victory. And it's so freaking true. So there's this little story, y'all know, the seven Wonders of the World. Well, the Great Pyramid of. Gosh, now I feel really stupid. It's either Giza. Yeah, Great Pyramid of Giza. Giza. I'm. I'm going to say Giza, but what I learned is that pyramid, that great pyramid, it took 20 years to build. And I don't know if y'all have ever seen it, but it's this huge pyramid over in Giza. Gosh, I hope I'm saying that right, because now I don't want y'all to get upset with me if I'm not. I'm. I'm a dodo sometimes when it comes to pronouncing words. So if I'm saying that wrong, I'm super sorry and I will go find out as soon as I get done with this episode. If I said it right and if I didn't, I will apologize on my stories, I promise. But what I want y'all to know is that huge pyramid, the Great pyramid, it took two and a half million stones, 50,000 workers to do that job. And that's just so astonishing to me. Like, One of the seven wonders of the world took 20 years to create so you're over there, like, upset because you've put in, like, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, maybe you've been doing Instagram for a year, and you're about to give up. Okay, well, Those people took 20 years to build one of the greatest wonders in the world. So don't give up on yourself so quickly. What they said about the pyramid, the monument was made by placing one block of stone upon another block of stone and another block upon another block over and over and over. The focus wasn't on the pyramid, but on the constant act of placing the walks. The attention was on the process, not the goal. Now, I know they always say it's not about the. The destination, it's about the journey. Someone said that the other day while me and my husband were. I think we were at the movies or something, and I was laughing and making fun of him, but he was really right. Like, yes, we want to get to the goal, but it's that process before that really means a whole lot. And, you know, consistency truly is the mother of mastery. And the little things that you do daily are so much more important than the big things that you might do annually. So really, just take your time, reflect, and think about, okay, what can I do in the next 30 days to get me to my goal? What are the little things that I can do? The last thing, thing that I want to close out with for this little mentorship segment. I. I've circled this really huge in my book. It's. It's from the Wealth Money Camp by Robin Sharma. I've been talking about it on the past couple episodes, but he closes out this chapter with, oh, and when those around you don't get you or are not really interested in supporting you, criticize you, make fun of you. Recall the words of prominent author Dale Carnage. Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain. And most fools do. Which I really liked that, too. Like, while you are doing these little things and planting those seeds to build that big, you know, goal of yours, you might have people criticize you among the way you might have people make fun of you. But any fool can criticize or complain and condemn. Most fools do. Don't be that fool. Okay. Hope y'all liked that little segment. I do want to know, do y'all like when I do these little mentorship intros on these episodes, or are you like, okay, girls, stay in your lane. You don't need to be talking about this. Let me know. Like, motivation is. Is a passion of mine. I want to be a motivational speaker. One day. All right, how to audit and analyze your Instagram strategy for 2025. So step one, I'm going to go through steps with you guys. This is not going to be hard. This is going to be easy things that you guys can do. So first step is to analyze your analytics. Duh. Now, I used to use Instagram Insights, and I still do sometimes, but my favorite and easiest way to look at my statistics is honestly to go through Metricool. That's an app that I use to not only schedule my content, but we use it for all of our clients. And it has really good analytics that are just easy to understand. They summarize them for you. I will make a note here to link. I might write this down, link my metrical for you guys so you can check it out. But it's just really easy to understand my analytics if I use that versus Instagram Insights. So there's a few key metrics that I look at when it comes to analyzing my performance. So first I'm going to look at my engagement rate. What type of posts, got the most likes, got the most comments, got the most shares. That's going to tell me what content is actually working, right? And then I'm going to look at my follower growth. Did I see any spikes in growth? Did I see any slow periods? Did I see any unfollows? I will note down when those unflow follows happen or when those spikes and follows happened and then I'll go back and look at what I posted. Now, Instagram recently, like you can get super nitty gritty with this. They recently on actual post, if you click View Insights, you can scroll down and see exactly how many followers you grew from that specific piece of content. So like right now, I tested out a piece of content the other day that was me speaking to the camera. No trending audio, nothing like that. It was just me talking. And that reel is blowing up right now. I don't want to say blowing up because it's not hit a hundred thousand views yet. Okay, but it's like at 70,000 views, I posted it last week and it's already got me a thousand new followers. So since then I have tried to make more content that is very similar to that. And my profile is kind of going back to normal because I told y'all a couple weeks ago, months ago, I was really struggling. Like I was losing a lot of followers. I went from 170, 73,000 to 170,000. So I lost 3,000 followers like within a couple months. So I don't know there was a cleanup. Instagram did have a cleanup because they were trying to get rid of bot accounts and all that stuff. But it just makes me feel better like maybe it, maybe it was my content. Maybe people are tired of the same thing and me doing this new type of talking content, maybe they resonate with it better. I don't know. I'm still figuring it out. But it's really good to look at the engagement rate on things to good to check your insight, see how many people followed you from that. You can also look at your reach verse impressions where your posts being seen by new audiences or they just being seen by people who follow you. I also like to look at top performing posts. So I will go into metrical and I will filter out my post. Like so metrical splits it up by post and by reels. So I typically look at my reels but I'll also look at my post. But let's just say I'm looking at my reels. I can filter it to where my top performing reels are at the top of the list and I'll look for patterns in my content. Was it a certain format? Yes, it was reels. Was it a certain topic I was talking about? Was it a certain style? Was I talking or was it trending audio? Was there a green screen? I will literally compare like those top five posts and write down what the post was about. What did my hook say? What did my text overlay look like? What was I using? B roll? Was I using? Was I talking? Using a talking head? I will write it all out so that I can really get good comparison between them all. And then I'll also under analyze my underperforming post. So I'll go and look at the worst post that I've ever posted at the very bottom of the list. And then I'll kind of, you know, write down, you know, what was the cta? What was my hook? What was it about? So then, you know, you can look at this stuff and be like, okay, here's what's working for my audience. Here's what's not working. So let's lean into the type of content that is working. And then you can also analyze your audience who is engaging the most with your content. Are you seeing more FEMA? Are you seeing more males? Mine is definitely like 70% females, 30% males. Probably not even that. It's probably like 80% females. But with that in mind, I will sometimes change my language to where it says like hey girl or hey sis because I Know that women are mainly looking at my content. I'll also look at the age range. Are they in their 20s? Are they in their 30s? Are they like at the age where they probably have kids? Are they retired? So you can look at all that. Mine is mainly my top age group is 35 to 44. So I am mostly talking to people that are like, you know, in that middle age range, kind of around my age. It just helps me to make content for them. So it is important to really look at who your audience is. So that is step one, reflecting on your content for 2024. Step two is to audit your current strategy. So that will lay into your profile optimization, your content pillars, your posting schedule, your engagement strategy. So the first thing that I like to dive into is my profile. If you guys follow me very closely, you'll see that sometimes my profile changes. Whatever my bio says, I'll update my profile picture. I'm actually going to note a free profile checklist in the episode notes for you guys if you want to go through an audit what your own profile says. But I'm constantly thinking about what my audience sees when they land on my profile and updating what that bio says. So we just want to make sure it's clear, it's compelling, it's offering them something that makes them want to follow me. And are there keywords in there that relate to what I want to be found for when people search? Sometimes I'll update my highlights. I haven't updated them in a while, but it is worth noting that if you've had the same Instagram story highlights for like, ever, it might be time to update those, whether it's the COVID photo or the information inside of them. Take your time there as well. And then content pillars. Are your content pillars still aligned with your current goals and your current audience? You know, did you start off growing your Instagram account with content pillars that you no longer align with? Like, that's worth noting as well because you need to go back in there and adjust based on who your current audience is. You also want to make sure you have a really good balance between like educational content, entertaining content, and then your promotional content. Are you posting too much promo content? Could that be why you are not growing your following? Because you're just being too salesy all the time? Or are you boring your audience with educational content that they could just find off Google? These are things to ask yourself and really go through as well when you are considering your content pillars. And then I'll also just kind of check myself with my posting schedule, am I still posting consistently? Am I missing days of posting? Do I need to adjust my schedule so that I can handle it? Do I need to adjust my posting time to where it aligns with my audience's activity? For example, let's say like, you've always posted at 12pm Noon every day, but you one time Posted at like 8:00 at night and you saw that that reel performed way better. Maybe that means that you should start testing that evening post because maybe your audience is online more at night than you think they are during the lunchtime when you were posting. So that's something to consider as well. I also have, like, engagement. I look at my engagement just to make sure that I'm responding to my dms, my comments in a timely manner. I'm engaging and following up with people. If you don't have an engagement strategy, you definitely need to get one in place for 2025. I am going to link a document to this podcast episode with like a summary of everything I've talked about today. And inside there, I've highlighted my 5, 55 engagement strategy, which you guys can use in the new year. And that basically just goes over, like, how to engage with new accounts, how to comment on other posts from other followers, what to be looking for in your Explore page, and then interacting with other people in stories as well. That typically takes like 15 minutes a day, and you can do it as many times as you want during the week. We try to stick around five times a week that we're doing that, but really it just depends on your schedule, obviously. So now that you've kind of looked at what you did during 2024, what you did, how it worked, did it perform well, did it perform bad? Can you take some of that content and repurpose it for the new year? Then you want to go into setting your strategy up for the new year of 2025. So there's a couple things I want to go over here, go over with you. I've got your goals, your content plan, your engagement plan, and then tools and resources to help you with that. So the first is with 2025 right around the corner, I want you to take out a notebook and write down one or two big Instagram goals that you have for yourself. I don't want you to overwhelm yourself with too many things on your plate. So if you just take out that notebook, I'm going to do it too. Right now, as I'm recording this, and we're just going to write down Oh, I can see my son scribbled in my notepad. Okay, going to write Instagram 2025 and number one goal. So my goal might be silly to you guys, but mine is going to be follower growth. I'm at 172,000 right now. I would love to grow to 200,000 followers in 2025. Now I know that I always preach like, it doesn't matter what your followers are, you can still make money from Instagram, blah, blah, blah. And I still believe that, but just personally for myself, I just want to kind of give myself a numeric, numeric, numeral, numeral, numeral, goal for myself. So that will just kind of have that giving, like setting like a number kind of helps me each week to look back and be like, okay, how many followers did I grow this week? How many should I be growing to hit 200 by the end of the year? So 200 minus 172. I don't do math anymore, but that would be 28,000 new followers. So then I would take that 28,000 new followers and I would divide that by 12 to see then how many I would need to grow each month, which again, I do not do math. Let me pull up my calculator on my phone. Do to do. If we're doing 28,000 for the year, divide that by 12. So I need to grow around 2300amonth. Month. So then that would be my monthly goal. And then from there I would honestly go into chat GBT and say, okay, my goal is to gain 2300 new followers every month. Can you help me set up a 30 day plan for myself each month to make sure that I hit that goal? Chat GBT is not going to be able to tell you exactly how to grow 2300 followers a month, but he will set you up for success as far as, like making sure that you've got a content plan in place, an engagement plan in place, make sure making sure that you're using the tools and resources that are available to you, which I'm gonna walk you through anyways. But just know that you can always fall back on that if you listen to this podcast and you're still feeling like, oh my God, I just listened to her explain all of this to me, but I still don't know where I'm starting at. ChatGPT can help. So for the content plan, maybe what you can do there is try to define trends or strategies that you can implement in your content. So you could write down like, I wanna focus on a healthy Amount of carousel posts and reels. I want to make sure that, you know, 50% is trends, 50% is storytelling. I want to focus on high quality content rather than quantity. You have to decide what's important to you. Do you want to be very intentional with your content? Do you want to produce high quality content? Whatever your goal is, you're going to want to write that down in your notepad with your monthly goal. And then of course, your engagement plan. Do you want to try to do 30 minutes a day? Do you want to try to do 30 minutes a week? Then you could break that up by five times a week. What's 30 divided by five? Six. So six minutes a day, five times a week. Whatever it is that your goal is, you can break those up into tiny little goals. Which again, this all ties back to my mentoring segment this morning. I gotta rename that something else because I can't keep saying that. But they talked about little tiny wins each week will add up to this huge overall win at the end of the year. So that's what you want to focus on right now is these little micro wins for yourself. So that's why I keep saying to split it up by 30 days so you're not giving. You're not like overwhelming yourself when you hit 20, 25. You're not like, oh, I'm gonna grow 28, 000 new followers this year. No, you are going to focus on adding 2, 300 people a month to yourself so that near the end of the year you've reached that huge big goal. Just kind of breaks everything down for you. And it takes a little bit of that pressure off, which is what I wanna do. I don't want you guys to be overwhelmed by all of this new year, new me crap. Like, no, let's dumb it down into little tiny achievable moments that I can celebrate at the end of the year. And then with that is tools that you can use to analyze and improve your strategy. I told you guys I love using Metricool for analyzing content. Other tools that I like, I use Instagram mostly for my reels editing, but I sometimes will use end shot if I want to do like a voiceover with B roll or add really cool transitions or something like that. Those are two of my top tools that I use on a daily basis as far as content goes. And then just to wrap all this up, actionable tips that you can use to stay on track with yourself. So monthly check ins with yourself or quarterly if you can't do the monthly thing like Maybe this is not your full time job like me and you can't handle checking in with yourself every month. So then set up a quarterly check in, put it on your Google Calendar, and during these quarterly check ins, you're going to reflect on the content that you posted in that quarter. And from there you can, you know, highlight your top performing, your worst performing, and adjust your strategy with that information. You can also like make a spreadsheet if you want, or a Google document, whatever will help you to track those KPIs regularly key performance indicators. That's going to help you stay on track and then be ready to pivot with trends if they pop up or if the algorithm changes. You gotta be ready to pivot with that and that will be easy as long as you're following. Call her creator, because I will be sharing those trends and algorithm changes with you whenever they happen and helping you to adjust those into your strategy. All right, so to recap, you will be reflecting on your 2024 content for the year. I'd love for y'all to do this before the new year comes. So like anytime between now and the end of the year, sit down with yourself for a little bit of time. I really like 30 minutes is fine. Sign up for Metricool. If you don't have it link your account. Honestly, the reason I'm saying that is because it will break up the information for you so much easier and make it super fast for you. If you don't want to sign up for Metricool, fine. Use your Instagram insights and you can kind of go through things manually. And then from there you will take what you've learned and create your plan for 2025. But remember, to create that plan, you have to have a goal. So whether that's growing your following or maybe that's making your first thousand dollar from Instagram, or maybe it's just, you know, networking on the app and making new friends with people. You know, that's still very valuable in business as well. I've. I've made some really good connections on this app, so I don't think that that's a bad goal to have either if you're just trying to maybe like expand your audience there too. So. Okay, hopefully this plan helps you guys. If you have any questions, feel free to send me a DM over on the Caitlin Rhodes or call her creator account, whichever. Don't care. I check both of them and I will see you guys next year. Thank you so much for listening and if you have not left me a review, please leave me a review over on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Don't care which one it is. I just want to hear your feedback and download this episode so that you get notified for the next episode that comes over. Thanks so much. Bye guys.