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Happy New Year. Welcome to a new episode of Call Her Creator, powered by Stan. Today we're going to be talking about what every creator needs to do this January to maximize your visibility on social media. Now, I'm recording this episode before the end of the year, so I don't know if the TikTok ban has happened or not, but this. This information that I'm going to be giving you guys can honestly be used for any social media platform out there. But I'm really going to be leaning into Instagram. But if there's TikTok still out there, baby, you can use this guide, shall I say, for TikTok as well? All right, if you are new here, I would love for you to download the episode. That is what measures the success of my podcast and lets me know that you guys are liking what I'm putting out there. I'd also love for you to give me a review. There was a time here when I was sharing some of the reviews, and they were so sweet and awesome and they really made my day. So if we could get back to that, that'd be awesome. Leave me a review. Put your name in there. I'll give you a shout out, and it lets me know again that you like my podcast. All right, so 2025, is it gonna be the best year of your business and your Instagram growth? Yes. Yes, it is, because you're gonna follow along with the things that I'm about to teach you. So January is the perfect time to reset and refresh the Instagram strategies that you guys have for yourself. People are motivated with fresh goals. The algorithm favors creators who show up early in the year. I don't know how true that is, but that's what I read. And it's an opportunity for you to get ahead of your competition. If you are coming right out of the gates a blazing, ready to go, you're going to set yourself up for success. So we're going to go over a couple different steps that you need to take to set yourself up. Easy to implement. I'm going to give you guys plenty of ideas to have so that you can leave this episode feeling empowered, feeling like you got a plan of action. So let's get into it. The first step of maximizing your visibility this year is going to be to refresh your social media profile, obviously. So your Instagram bio, it's time to give it a little loving. Go in there and update your bio, clearly state who you are, what you offer, how they can connect with you. If you've got some accolades that you could add in there for the year previously. Let them know. Like for example, I was voted top instagram coach for 2024. So I'm leaving that in my bio. I want people to take me seriously. So if there's things that you've been awarded or maybe you've helped X, Y, Z people reach a certain goal, tell them in your bio you've got only a few characters in there, so you might have to paraphrase. But if you need help coming up with a really good bio that stands out, just go into Chat GPT, kind of lay out the law of who you are, what you do, who you've helped. Here's some of your awards or certifications. And then ask Chat GPT to make an Instagram SEO optimized bio for you and he will come up with a great refreshed bio that you can put in there. And what that's going to do, guys, is just help people when they do land on your profile, it helps them make the decision if they want to hire you or not or follow you or not. Pro tips here. Make sure that you add a call to action in your bio that aligns with your goals for January. So maybe you are doing something this month to attract new people to your business. So let's say like for instance, I did an Instagram growth reset challenge. And so, so maybe you're doing a weight loss challenge or a yoga challenge or I don't know, something to do with health, like a new health challenge. Whatever it is, if it's timely, go ahead and use some of the characters in your bio to point people down to your link and get them to make the next move. So grab my free guide, join my free challenge DM me for xyz, whatever it is, tell them what to do next and then for your link there. I'm hoping that you guys have jumped on the stand train by now. It's the easiest and best way to sell digital products and have all of your stuff in one place. I do have my Stan link in the show notes here if you want to go ahead and do that. Like if there's one thing you're going to do for yourself this year, sign up for Stan so that you can make sales with your content. Now, the next step in charging yourself up for this year is to plan and batch some of your content. So when I say batch, I don't mean that you're going to set aside two hours and batch create your entire month of January, like whether we like it or not. That's just not going to work. What I mean when I say batch is I want you to batch like 50% of your content, and then the other 50%, we're going to like post that during the week when it's timely and trendy. So what I do for my own account, if you've watched my posting habits, I try to post two times a day, one in the morning, one in the evening. So what we do here is I have Darby assist me with editing and she'll schedule half of my content and then I will post the other half of my content. So some of it is just evergreen content that it does not matter when it gets posted. It's just like general tips value or an offer that I already have. And then the other side of that is like new offers or maybe it's a timely trend that I saw that I could jump on. So batch content creation, it's not that hard if you just do a little bit of batching, not the whole month, but a little bit. And what you could even do here too is like maybe you just batch the first two weeks of the month. You don't have to do the full 30 days, but just take some of that weight off your shoulders and record it ahead of time and schedule it right inside of the Instagram app. Now, speaking of scheduling, scheduling is something we do here at Influence Marketing Studio. Obviously, we have a ton of clients. We can't post live for everybody. I like to personally use Metricool. It's one of my favorite scheduling apps. Not only can you schedule content, but there's also really amazing analytics inside. Another thing I like about Metricool is that if a post doesn't post or something goes wrong, they will email alert you. Believe me, I got a ton of email alerts whenever Instagram crashed the other day. And that's one thing that, like, Meta Business Suite, which is free, they won't alert you when things don't get posted. So if you do decide to move to Metricool, I promise that. Well, I don't promise, but I really think that you'll like it. I think you'll like all of the things that, that it has to offer. And you can also schedule reels in there. If you want to schedule a reel and you wanna put a reel cover on it, I believe you can even tag people. I don't know if you can collaborate schedule on there, but I know if you really wanted to, you could schedule a collaboration reel in the Instagram app. But literally, like, take the weight off and schedule that stuff. Guys, it will save you so much time. You think that it. Oh, I don't have time to schedule. Well, do you really have time every day to post? Maybe you don't. So schedule that supplemental content. All right, so I've got some interesting post ideas that you guys can put together for the new year. All of these are kind of wrapped around the new year, new me, fresh mindset, stuff that's gonna inspire people. So let's see. I want to start. I put a couple different ideas out here. Let's start with this one. So the first post idea I have is either a carousel post or a real. And it's three ways to start the year strong in your niche. So three ways to start the year strong in social media marketing. Three ways to start the year strong in orthodontistry. The orthodontistry dentistry. Think about your niche and think about three ways that people could start the year strong. You want to share actionable tips that are related to your business that your audience can implement right away. So an example caption for that would be something like, want to kick off 2025 like a pro? Here's three things. Here's three ways to start strong right now. And then from there, they can watch your reel. Couple tips when it comes to your reels. If you're not using DM automation at this point, I mean, it's 2025, guys. It's. It's time. And let me tell you why I've started, um, really making DM automation, like, top of my list when it comes to my post. Because at the end of the day, getting people to comment a word is getting people to comment on your reel. Getting people to comment on your reel shows the algorithm that your post is performing well and it's going to keep sending it out to more and more people. In fact, I had a reel the other day. I literally recorded a reel after Pilates. I was sweaty and gross and yucky. But I did this talking head reel where I talked about how they can make money online. And then I said something like, comment the word power and I'll send you the strategy over that reel has already gotten 132,000 views. 7,337 comments, 269 shares, 2,662 likes and I really think that it's because I set up that DM automation. I have people commenting a word and it's taking care of it for me. I'm sending them value, but I'm pushing people. I'm. I'm pushing them With a call to action, to comment, a word. And they're doing it because I have value to offer and it's allowing the real to get shown to more and more people and it's going off right now. So moral of the story is utilize DM automation whenever you can. Okay, the next post I have for you guys is to share something motivational. Especially with the new year, new mindset fresh motivation is what really gets people grooving. It's also share worthy and shareable. When people read something that inspires them, they're more interested to share it with others or share it to their stories because they resonate with it so well. So 2025 can be something about like sharing how you're going to start fresh with X, Y, Z. Or maybe you're talking about getting rid of something that you were doing in 2024 and now here's what you're doing in 2025. You're basically like showing people like a, almost like a transformation, I guess, from this to this. So your idea around that is like a transformation. And then your call to action there in your caption could be like, yes, you could do the comment the word and set up your DM automation, but you could also have a call to action that's like if this inspired you, share it to your stories for 2025 and then you get people sharing it to stories and then more and more people are seeing it on stories and it's gaining traction, it's gaining views and it, it blows up for you. The next post idea I have is to highlight a product or a service that you're offering. So I always tell the girls when we're creating content for clients, like, think of one main goal that you really want to drive for that month and focus most of your content around that. So this post could be something like how X, Y, Z can help you achieve ZYX in 2025. So how my reset challenge can help you grow your Instagram in 2025, how my weight loss reset can help you lose 30 pounds in six months. Whatever it is that you're trying to do, that's what you're basically saying like, here's my offer, here's how it's gonna help you achieve this big goal that you want. And then of course your caption can just go into like 2025. It's all about the goals. Grab my X, Y, Z to help you make this happen. Really pushing their pain point and making your offer the, the saving grace, the hero in the story that's what's gonna help you sell on Instagram? Without sounding too salesy, you're honestly, you're more, you're more worried about their pain point and solving it than you are like, hey, I've got this new offer. Like think of your mindset that way when it comes to highlighting your offers and your services. Next post idea has to do with stories. Using the poll sticker. And the quiz sticker works really well in stories cuz it gets people clicking. So what you could do in there is kind of think about your audience and you know, what are your top goals for 2025? Or what's your New Year's resolution this year? And then you give them choices to choose from. Now polls and quiz stickers work a little bit better than question stickers because they don't have to really do any thinking. When you ask the question sticker, people really have to sit there and think like what can I type here? Whereas the polls and quizzes, like you've already given them choices and all they need to do is click. So try running a poll or a quiz, asking them simple questions about the new year. You could also do like a this or that new year edition and maybe show off like planners versus an app, or big goals versus small habits or growth versus money, like what are your goals for 2025? And then give them choices. I think that's a really cool idea and I actually am writing it down right now in my handy notebook because I'm going to use it for myself. National holidays. There is a holiday in January, national get to know your customer day or get to know your client day. And for that day you can post something that gets to know them. So like show up in stories and maybe do the poll sticker that says something like what do you want to see more from us this year? Or what's one goal we can help you with in 2025? And then give them choices. You could also do this as a real idea too. The poll, the story idea. Obviously you're going to give them a poll. Well, if you think about it actually guys reels now have the poll option too. So what you could do is kind of take your, your idea, whatever it is that you're asking, and do it into a real form and then tell them to answer the poll in the caption and there you go, you've got, you're driving more engagement on your post as well. So I like, I like that idea too. Trends for 2025, no matter what industry you're in, there are going to be new trends that people should be watching out for. So you could do something like top five trends to watch out for in 2025. And then underneath that, real estate edition, social media edition, small business edition, jewelry edition, whatever it is, necklace edition, style edition, it doesn't matter. But do some research. This one's gonna have to do a little research. And this is one that you could batch create because it's giving a lot of value in the video reel. So you don't technically have to worry too much about your trending audio for this, because you're. You're really. I don't know how to explain this, but you're. You're still being trendy because you're giving them trends for the year that they should watch out for. You're not having to worry about trending audio. So just. You could put whatever audio you wanted with this. But do some research, find some trends. Five might be a lot for you. So if you want to scale it down, you could do, like, top three trends to look out for in 2025, or what's in and what's out for 2025. There's these twin sisters. I cannot remember what their Instagram handle is, or I would shout them out. But they style Millennials with Gen Z fashion. And I love it because they always do something like this, like, what's in for Gen Z, what's in and what's out. And they're comparing Millennial, what we used to dress up as and what you can do now with kind of the same items that you're wearing. And they just switch them out, but they literally just set the camera up, like on a table, and they're in front of it, like, showing how to style yourself versus how. How it used to be and what it is now. So that would be a really cool, real idea, too. If you can't really show something off, you could always, like, stand there and point and do the text overlay. If you don't want to show your face, then you could always do B roll and then just put text overlay that pops up. Trend one, trend two, trend three, trend four, trend five. I know y'all probably seen the reels that say in and out. So it's B roll. And then they have a text overlay that says in and a text overlay that says out. And then they've listed with the text overlay tool, like things that are in and things that are out. And those reels perform really well, too, because people are sitting there reading what's in and what's out? And the video's looping because they usually use, like, a short audio clip, like seven seconds. So it's taken people longer than seven seconds to read the whole thing. So the video's looping. They're getting more views, driving more engagement, getting pushed to more and more people. All right, and the last idea I have. Well, I've got a few. Which one do I want to show y'all? There's two. I'll just. I'll tell you two. One is, like, customer wins. And this isn't like your typical, like, testimonial where you just take a screenshot of a review and share that. It's more so, like. Like, let's think about. Maybe you got pictures sent in from your clients. For example, like, you're a realtor, and you helped these people buy homes this year, and you've got pictures of you guys at the closing table or at the house. That's your quote, unquote testimonial. And what you're doing is you're sharing these pictures like a photo dump, but each picture has a piece of text on top of it. Like, we helped so and so find a new home. We helped so and so sell their home. Or maybe you're doing weight loss journey, trying to think of, like, out of the box ones. That would be hard. Okay. Think about a bakery. They probably don't have, like, a testimonial of before and after, really, but they could show off the cookies that they made in 2025. Like, these were our top sellers for 2024. What do you want to see in 2025? And then they do a picture of a cookie, and then the text overlay is on top of it. The snickerdoodle, the cookies and cream, the strawberry shortcake. And then, like, the caption you're asking people, poll, what flavors do you want to see in 2025? So you're still like. Like, it's not so much a testimonial, but you're still like, it's kind of a customer win because they were your top seller cookies. You see what I'm saying? Like, you got to kind of think outside of the box to really have a good testimonial. Perform well. I tell people all the time, like, testimonials don't typically get the best engagement, but they are essential in your social media strategy because they show that you know what you're doing, and they kind of help sell your services and your product on their own because they're showing actual, like, Transformations or actual, what's the word I'm looking for? End results, I guess. Results in general. The last idea I have for you guys is talking about what 2024 taught you. We can all think back to this past year and kind of reflect self reflection, business reflection. Maybe you learn like the top three things I learned in my business last year and kind of go over them. I'd love for you guys to share losses or hard times because when you're vulnerable on social media, people like that, people want raw and authentic and there are way more people that are probably gonna resonate with you on a loss than they are on a win. So if you can just kind of dig deep into your last year and think of things that were harder for you, you don't have to tell like the low lows, but if you can just think of things that were a little bit hard on you and then maybe the caption talks about how you overcame those losses, I think that would be a really good post idea as well. All right, enough with post ideas. Let's talk about systems and what they mean for your business and for your growth. I truly think that systems are non negotiable and I'm always thinking about what I can do in my business to make things easier. And like, just having systems in place helps keeps things consistent, right? So like for us here at the agency, we have Asana, which manages all of our tasks. That's a system we have in place for task management Slack, we use that for communication with one another. We've got templates in place on Canva reels, post carousels, stories. Side note, if you are not good at Canva or you want to have Canva templates as a system in place for yourself, you can always join Club Influence. It's our monthly membership. We give monthly templates for Canva, a monthly content calendar that spells out the the month for you so that you have post ideas already at your fingertips. And then the biggest thing of that is we research trending audio for you each week so that you get fresh reels ideas every week. We send that to you every Monday. There's three to five real prompts and then we give specific industry ideas. So if you're a realtor or a coach or a candle maker, whatever you do, there's ideas in there for you to use. So if that's something that you want to get off of your plate, feel free to join Club Influence. I'll link it in the show notes for you all. But there's a lot of good Stuff in there. So templates are something that you need to have as a system in place for yourself. And then scheduling. Scheduling. Scheduling is so underrated, but it saves you so much time. We like to use metrical because of all of the extra stuff in there, like the analytics. You can schedule reels in there, you can schedule stories, all of it. But if you are not looking to pay for something right now, I do believe that Metricool has a free version for like one user. We obviously have like 25 clients, so we have to have a big system in there. So I have to pay for it. But if it's just one person using it for one account, I believe it's free. Don't hold me to that. But if you. I mean, there's. There's other ones that are completely free. Like Meta Business Suite is a free scheduling. Has a free scheduling tool. Is it good? No, I hate it. It's janky. The analytics are pretty generic to me. If you schedule a post and it doesn't go out, it will not warn you. But. But if you're new to scheduling and you just want to start somewhere, I would recommend it for like beginner beginners to have something to schedule their content. Okay. I think that's all the systems I had in place that you guys could put in place too. Yeah, I guess. Little ones too. Like if you had some caption templates in place, like fill in the blank captions, that's a huge time saver too. You can also write like short and sweet captions in your phone app, like your notes and pull those over too whenever you're posting something. And you don't want to write this long thing, like just kind of set some templates up for yourself so that you could easily just throw stuff together when you have to. All right, so we talked about refreshing your profile. How important that is to have an SEO optimized bio. Planning and batching content. We don't want to batch all of it, but batching 50% of it is going to make a huge difference in your life. Leveraging systems. Leveraging systems and how they can help save you time. Focusing on trends too, when necessary. Having evergreen content, but having trends in there too. All of this stuff is going to really set the tone for you for January. This is really the time to do it now. Taking action now, showing up consistently. It's what's gonna help you be more visible in the new year. One other thing, I didn't talk about the. That's what I was thinking. I knew there was something in the back of my head, I'm like, there's another system I want to tell them about. Honestly, Stan is a really great system that I put into place a long time ago for all of my digital offers, my coaching calls, my trainings. It has taken over me having like five different thousand platforms all in one. So, like, people can buy from me, they can schedule time with me. There's even email marketing in there. They're about to have DM automation as well. So that's something to look into for January too. If you are not a part of Stan yet, I'll put a 14 day trial in the show notes for you to try it out. But that is something that will truly transform your business. As soon as I put Stan into place, my conversions were so much higher because people had this just easy, effortless way to buy something from me. Before Stan, they would have to. How did I even do it? I think I made them go to my link in bio. They had to give me their email, then I had to send something through one system, then I had to send something through another. Oh, I had to invoice them through one system. Then they had this way to get the actual thing that they bought. It was just such a headache for me. So Stan is really, really, really transformed my business. So look into that if. If you're looking to make money this year. All right, that's all I've got for y'all today. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you got something out of it and I hope that you're able to use these content ideas that I gave you for January. So January is the time to really refresh, restart, revamp, and cheers to a new year. Cheers to you growing. Cheers to you setting goals and checking them off your list as we go. Thank you so much for listening. I will see y'all next week.