← Call Her Creator with Katelyn Rhoades
Call Her Creator with Katelyn Rhoades
Ep. 63: Why Most People Stay Stuck in 200-250 Reels View Jail (And How to Break Free!)
00:18:29
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Kaitlin Rhodes
What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of Call Her Creator, Powered by Stan. I'm your host, Kaitlin Rhodes, and today we're going to be talking about Reelschale. Now, I get a lot of DMS all the time from people who are trying to grow on Instagram, trying to, you know, get as many views as possible utilizing reels, because that's all I talk about on Instagram. But we're still getting some people who are getting stuck in that 200 views jail, is what I call it. So today I'm gonna go over different strategies that you can use to get yourself out of reels jail so that you can start hitting thousand views, ten thousand views, millions of views. You can go viral. You know, we always wanna go viral. That's not what this is about. Today's not about going viral. It's just about getting more views and little simple tweaks you can make to your content strategy right now that will help you make a better video tomorrow. So stay tuned. I'm really excited to talk about this stuff today. Now, now, before we get into it, I wanted to note some changes going on over on all the social apps right now. One, I've been reading from social media today that TikTok is getting close to making a deal with the US government. So we should be in the clear there soon. I'm assuming they're gonna fix that and everybody's gonna just be all jolly and back to TikTok without any worries. There's also some information over here. Down data shows that longer clips are gaining more traction over on TikTok. Now, I'm not a huge TikTok person. We do have a team account over there and I was having one of my employees repost my call. Her creator reels over to TikTok. But I'm not really a big, huge user over there. But they are saying that longer short videos are now gaining more traction. So they're still not super duper long, like 10 minutes, but they're longer and probably in more detail. I'm gonna hop over there sometime this week just to kind of get more information on this so that I can come to you guys with it. But I think the same thing is kind of happening over on Instagram too. You know, we were seeing seven to 15 second videos be the best of the best and gain the most traction, and they still do really well. But I've noticed that if I want to just go off the chart and do a talking head video on Instagram and it maybe lasts about 30 seconds. It's not completely going down the drain like it used to. Usually when I would do those longer videos, they just would not perform at all. I'd barely get over 1200 views and I have a pretty large account, so that wasn't good results at all. But I've started playing around with it again and testing out the longer talking head features. Not features but reels. And they're, they're doing okay. So test it out. Ask ChatGPT to do some scripting for you. If you're not sure what to say, put in the pain point of your audience, talk about your expertise and then ask ChatGPT how you can put that in a 30 second or less relevant video for your viewers and just see how it performs. Good test, good test. All right. So why are you stuck in reels jail and how do you get out? So there's a few main reasons that people tend to get stuck in that 200 to 250 view range. I actually was having this problem on my own account for Call her creator. It was a new account. We're finally gaining traction over there and getting followers. But there was a time when I could not really get out of I just 2:12 keeps popping out at me and I feel like my videos or reaching 212 views and then they just die off. So we started looking at what was being posted, how is it being presented, how long was it, what was the hook? And all of these things play into a successful reel. So the first mistake you're making if you're stuck in reels jail is that you're being inconsistent with what you're posting about. Maybe one day you're posting about, you know, mom life and one day you're posting about fitness and then one day you're posting about social media marketing and then one day you're posting about mrr. Like you have so many different content themes going on that you're not niche down enough. People don't understand who they're following or why they're following you. So I typically tell people, you know, what are you most passionate about? What do you know in your heart? What are you good at that you want to teach other people about or tell stories about or bring awareness to. And once you have that subject, then you can have some sub clusters under there, right? So for me, my passion is social media marketing. Now I've niched down a little bit more on Instagram to specific teaching Instagram marketing tricks. But as far as my, my content themes go, it's Instagram marketing. And then there's maybe learning how to grow on Instagram, learning how to create good reels. So there's growth, there's reels, there's making money, and then there's like optimization, optimizing your profile, SEO, getting on the explore page, all the things. And then I even have a fifth cluster that I've started implementing about a year ago was my podcast. Because I want to push the podcast and get as many people as possible to listen to this podcast. So stick to those four to five content clusters and post about them over and over and over again. You'll get tired of posting about the same thing over and over again, but your audience won't. And here's why. Only 20% of your followers are even going to see your content. So you think that you're posting about this one topic so much and people are getting tired of it, but most people aren't even seeing it. So you have to remember that so that you can continue to talk about it over and over again and not be embarrassed that you're going to get on people's nerves. This is why I also tell people to create a separate business account versus your personal just because we subconsciously care about what our friends think or what people think about us. So when you start this business account or this creator account, you can post without worrying about what others are thinking and post consistently. The next mistake people make is in those first three seconds of your video. You need to have a very strong hook in those first three seconds. And I talk about hooks all the time, so I'm blue in the face. But hooks are so important for your reels to perform well. And there's actually three different hooks that go into it. There's that text hook at the very top of your video, whatever you're about to talk about. There's the video hook, showing them what's going on in the video. And then there's the caption hook, which is down in the caption. And you want to make sure you're hitting all three of those to really create a really good video that grabs attention right away. So a strong hook, text wise, sounds kind of like this. We've got three examples to give you guys. One, stop doing this if you're always tired. Whoa, wait, she just spoke to me. I'm always tired. What do I need to stop doing that's going to stop this Girl number two. Here's three reasons why you're not losing weight, and I bet it's not what you think. Ooh, doesn't that kind of get you like, oh, I bet it's not what you think. How do you know what I'm thinking? Okay, let me listen to your three reasons why I'm not losing weight that's going to stop this girl. Number three is a negative hook, which negative hooks are super popular. Like, stop doing this or you're not blank because of this. You want to hone into that negativity side. And there's something in psychology that makes us stop the scroll and listen when it's negative feedback or negative critiquing. So negative hooks are really good way to stop the scroll. I'm just going to ask ChatGPT give me three negative hooks to use on my next reel. Let's see what he says. Oh, I like this. Okay. These are specific to me as a social media manager. So if you go into ChatGPT and give your your title or industry, you can get negative hooks that are related specifically for you. But the three that they have for me is one, this is why your reels keep flopping. This is why your reels keep flopping. So you're talking about, oh, my gosh, my reels are flopping. How does she know? So for someone in the fitness industry, it might be something like, this is why you're not losing weight. This is why you're not growing abs. Do you say growing, Gaining? I don't know. This is why you're not hitting your protein intake. You're talking about what you're not doing. And then you need to tell them what to do in place of that. Number two, stop wasting your time on Instagram doing this. I like this one a lot. Cause I think any niche could use this. Stop wasting your time on blank doing this. And then you go into detail talking about that bad habit that they're doing and what they can do to fix that. And then number three, you're losing followers because of this mistake. You're gonna highlight a common mistake that they're making and then explain how to fix it. So, you know, for any niche you're losing blank because of this mistake, you're losing your confidence. You can always type in a ChatGPT to get examples for these three specific negative hooks. But negative hooks are where it's at. I want you guys to test them this week. They work and they help stop the scroll. Next reason that your video is only hitting 2 to 200 views is probably because you are lacking clear value. They don't really understand what you just posted, what it means, why you posted it. It was Just like probably some fluff that you posted, or you weren't taking time thinking about the content you were posting, or you were just trying to rush it and you just posted what you could. And I used to be a believer, and the more you post, the better you'll grow. But I've slowly started pulling back on that and more so providing value over posting as much as I can, just because I don't one, I don't want to put bad content out there. Not that I think that there's bad content, but I do think there's lazy, rushed content out there that just won't perform. So if you really focus on providing as much value as possible, making someone feel something or making someone learn something new, helping them in a way, entertaining them, making them laugh, you don't always have to go in there and give them a tip. But if you make them feel seen or heard or you evoke some kind of emotion on them, then you're gaining like you're giving value to them through your video. So the ways to give value you could share, practical tips step by step guidance, relatable stories that your audience connects with. Those are all ways to gain value. Another really good, strong, valuable type of content is like motivational quotes. And I know that sounds super lame and cliche, but whether you're doing it as like a carousel or a reel, sometimes people need to hear that, motivating information to keep going, and it is valuable to them. So don't sleep on those. You know, I feel like we've kind of gotten away from the motivational Monday or motivational tip, but they actually still really do work. And they're powerful as long as you're not being generic. Right? So you need to make it specific and you need to make sure it's created for a specific audience. All right, next mistake. Low engagement on previous posts. A lot of people don't understand this, but if you are consistently getting low engagement on your content, you are going to trap yourself into a cycle with the Instagram algorithm that just goes in a circle. You're never going to get out of it because the algorithm just says, oh, she keeps posting crappy content. Why should I show her new content to anyone else? Nobody likes it, nobody engages with it. There's no comments. This is probably a dud too. Let's just keep it in this cycle. So this is where you gotta break that cycle. So there's a couple different ways for you to break the low engagement cycle. I actually was having some difficulty with this at the end of Last year, until I started doing more talking head videos and telling people to comment a word to get the rest of my explanation. Like I was basically explaining something like a certain subject or something. And then I said comment guide and I'll send you the rest of my tips or whatever it was. Those videos started blowing up. People were commenting the word guide. I was getting thousands of comments. One of the reels is close to a million views right now that I posted. This was back in beginning of December. It's almost to a million views at this point. It's gained so much engagement and I could tell when that video started performing well, my videos after that started performing well. So there is definitely a direct correlation. If you're posting crappy content, it's not you, it's. I mean, I don't want to say that you're posting crappy content, but if you're just, you're not being cognizant of what you're posting and your call to action is not clear and people don't know what to do next, that will signal the algorithm that it's not good enough content and it's not going to get pushed out. So you have to be specific about what you want people to do. And it's not always going to be comment the word X, Y, Z. Maybe it's share this with your spouse or share this to your sister or tag your best friend. All of those are calls to actions too that are going to make people take an action on your post. And when they take an action on your post, that signals the algorithm that it's performing well. So a couple examples that I've seen this, I've seen some where it's like tag your ride or die, that would be with you forever and ever. Or something is like something with best friends. And it makes me want to tag my best friend and send it to her because it lets her know I'm thinking of her. I connect with it and guess what? It gets that person engagement because I'm tagging my friend in the comments who's then getting alerted and she's going to look at that piece of content. So those work, obviously using DM automation and telling people to comment a word. Stan, by the way, has just launched their DM automation tool and it's super duper easy to use. If you are a Stan user, I highly, highly encourage you to go check it out right now. It's easier than manychat, in my opinion. Super simple. You put in the word and then you tell Stan what to send to the person and it's all set up. When I get into many chat, sometimes I get a little overwhelmed with everything that it gives you. Like it's nice to be given all these tools, but sometimes it's overwhelming and we're busy business owners and we don't have time for all that. So Stan kind of dumbs it down for you and makes it super simple. Not getting paid to say that, I just genuinely believe it, but call to actions that you guys could try. Save this for later. Tag a friend who needs this. Would you try this comment below? Or again, use DM Automation Another mistake that people don't really understand that they're doing, but they're doing is posting content without any context. So 90% of users are watching reels with their sound off. So if your video is explaining everything with the audio and they're watching your video without the audio on, they're not going to understand what it's about and they're going to keep scrolling. So I always tell people to 1. Make sure you have that big text overlay at the top. That's your hook that tells them what they're about to watch. Use closed captions if you can. There is a closed caption sticker right in the Instagram reels editor. Easy to use. You press it, it reads everything and puts it in captions at the bottom. Or you can just write your own text too, using the text overlay tool in Instagram. Now I will be honest, I've seen other apps with better closed captions stickers. Instagram's is very generic and boring. If I'm going to use the closed caption sticker and make a story out of what, like what I'm talking about and have that text there, I want it to look good. So I'll go edit it over in Inshot. Some people use cap cut. Whatever you want to use, it's up to you. But I'm just letting you know that Instagram's a little boring on that one. Silent viewers often rely on these this text that you're putting on the video, or at least the caption. So if you don't have either one, you can say bye bye to getting a bunch of views on that video. Because people, accessibility wise, they don't know what you're saying. So make sure that you're paying attention to the context that you're giving them. Next one. Skipping trends or audio that's too niche. If you're always using outdated trends or music that's too unfamiliar, either one, it can limit Your reach. So I'm really big on following trends. I feel like they work. I feel like there's a way to tie them into any business. I really do. That's why we have club Influence. If you were ever wondering, like, okay, I hear all this trending audio, but I don't know how to use it for my own business. Club influence is where it's at. I'll put a link in the show notes here. But we find that audio for you and we deliver it to you in your email and explain exactly how to use it. The thing with trends is that you want to make sure that you're hopping on them early enough. If you're getting on a trend too late, you're going to be like a needle in a haystack trying to find your video on the audio page of that trending audio. It's, you're too late. So we try to get on trends that are kind of early. And I typically say, like, 10,000 uses or less is going to be a good spot to stay around. If the audio has been used more than 10,000 times, I'd keep skipping it unless I really like the trend. There are some times when I will hear a trend and I'm like, oh my God, this is perfect for my business. And it will have over 200,000 views. But I still use it because I have a really good video idea for it. And then when I do use it, it was a good video idea that I said I was thinking, and it performs well because it was a good video. But if you're just trying to jump on that trend, to jump on it and you don't have a very good idea that's going to make you stand out and it's 200,000 uses, I'd skip it, keep going, Go find an earlier trend. The last mistake I want to talk about to people is posting at the wrong time. And I know people will say there's no real magical time to post, and there isn't. Like everyone's audience is going to be different. But you do need to use common sense when it comes to posting your reels or your content. Think about your audience. Are they on in the mornings? Are they on all day long? Are they on in the evenings? Is there a specific time when they're on? Think about them. Put yourself in their shoes when you think they're logging on and post around that time. There's also apps out there that can help you kind of see what's the best time to post. I know Metricool, which is our scheduler. We use that we can actually see when most of our traffic is online so that we post at that time. So take advantage of those analytics before posting randomly. Now, I'm not saying you can't go and test out your posting time. Sure, do that. But do it for at least 30 days before you decide. Okay, 8am is when they're most active and I'm getting the most engagement. Let me stick to it. 8am posting time. All right, so just to recap, we're going to post consistently using content pillars that we have, predetermined based on our industry or our niche, so that people aren't wondering what the heck we're talking about. We're going to use text overlays, closed captions for clarity so that people can understand what we're posting about. We're going to include clear call to action so they know what to do next so that we get some type of engagement on the post. Because bad engagement on previous post set your next post up for failure. And then we're going to stay consistent. It usually takes two to four weeks with an improved strategy for you to even start seeing results. So making these little tweaks, give yourself grace. Give yourself two to four weeks to see what happens after that once you start making these little tweaks. Now, again, if you want to break out of jail from 20250 views, I highly recommend joining Club Influence today. I'll put it in the show notes. We give you everything you need to blow up on Instagram, whether it's reels, whether it's Canva templates, whether it's our monthly content calendar, whether it's our trainings. We've got all of that inside of Club Influence. I would love for you guys to join today. If you use the code podcast, I'll give you a little special deal, some some percentage off of your your monthly fee if you want to sign up today. All right, guys, hope you liked today's episode. I'll see you again next week.