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Foreign. I am your host, Shannon McKinstry. Welcome to Good Content, the podcast where I remove the never ending content creation, guesswork and overwhelm so that you can actually enjoy being on social media again and growing your business with what has always worked. Good Content. All right, so I just sent an email out to my email list talking about how, like, I just had a really rough, honestly, few weeks. I've been kind of pushing it down, but I, like, couldn't really figure out why I was so emotional because I'm like, dude, I just had the most craziest, amazing four to five weeks of my career thus far, right? Like the pinnacle of it. Speaking of social media marketing world, everything's great, right? We brought on a co coach, my friend Sam, to help with the reels lab. Like, things are finally. I'm starting to have a little more free time to myself. I've joined, gone back to working out, taking care of myself, whatever. But, you know, Chloe's just graduated preschool. She's about to start kindergarten. All this stuff was happening. We went to Las Vegas. Da, da, da. Just went to the beach this weekend with my cousins. And now I'm like, I just had to let it all out. It's like it all came out. And it's from a woman named Teresa Stassny. She's the host of Becoming Obsessed. And she was basically put how I was feeling into words. And she goes, it's the white space after being so busy. So the white space on your calendar after all of a sudden you're like, whoa, what do I do now? Right? And as someone who you know, has eldest daughter syndrome as well as just, I'm a major people pleaser, empath, whatever you want to say it. Like, I just, I'm always worried if I'm doing enough. I'm always worried about letting people down. I'm constantly worried that people are mad at me. I'm one of those people. I'm just like, I could have met you once and you'll pop them in my head and be like, oh, gosh, did I say the right thing? Did I like, literally, even since social media marketing world, every day I have a obsessed over if it was good enough. It's what I do. It's tor. It's. It's like, I am my own enemy. It was funny. I saw a reel the other day that said, who's your enemy? Like, in quotes. And then under, it was like, me, when I think I can never do anything as good as it could have been done or something like that. Right. And I'm like, oh my gosh. I feel that it's this like perfectionism, whatever. And I'm not a perfectionist. We, like, we all know I'm type B. But when it comes especially to work and just like meeting people and even socializing, I just, I don't know. Right. Working on it in therapy. But I, I was like, yes, that's it. It's the white space after this full and we're about to be at the beach for a couple weeks. It's also like that content you see that says, oh, silly me, I almost forgot. I have everything I've prayed for and more. Like that's where I am. And I've been working on this again in therapy. Like, but you know, I've now learned people in this position and you might be able to relate and if you do, I'm so sorry. It's not fun. It's like when you get to this level of like, wow, I did everything I had in my, in my mind and beyond that. And it's like, okay, well what's next? And it's like, can't you just enjoy being here? So that's kind of the theme of this podcast because come June, it's the only month my girls have off of school because they are in year round school. We're actually gonna go to the beach for two whole weeks. Obviously I'm still doing Rails Lab, still co coaching in a mastermind, but like, other than that, I'm like, that's it, Shannon. Right? But like my inner self can't help but plan the next thing. And I am forcing myself in June to not try to launch anything new, to be okay with June. Just kind of Reels Lab as it is, podcasts as it is. Like, basically everything I'm doing now, but not changing anything. But in my mind I'm like, I need a new freebie. I need a new this I need. Right? And I'm writing this book and it's not quite ready yet. I thought it was. I had my manuscript done and now I'm rereading it and I'm like, it's just, this is. I am my own worst on me. So. And that's why I like think every reel I put out there, I'm like, it's gonna help someone, right? And I know you guys know that. You guys can tell because you're always so appreciative and I appreciate it. But I'm like, I really do try really hard and I just have to know that's who I am. But also, like, it's okay, Shannon, not to launch anything new, not to be available for things that, you know, I get DMS all day. Shannon, when are you gonna open audits again? I'm like, trust me, I love doing audits more than anything. I just physically can't. And I hate it. I hate letting people down. So with that said, that's the season of life. I'm about to go in for a whole month is just no new launches, not taking anything away, just vibing. We're just keeping things as they are because I now can work. I found a way to, you know, be present and all that stuff. But for many of you, you can't take a moment to slow down your business. Which also means how the heck are you supposed to get content up when you're trying to go to the beach, you're trying to go take a vacation, a holiday. That's not fair, right? It sucks. Like someone like me who is loves content creation. I love documenting everything. It is my jam. And it's been my jam since I was a little girl. I was documenting on big, huge 20 pound cameras. But that's been my thing, right? I have episodes where I've talked about it. A lot of you, you know, again, are bopping all over town. You know, because maybe you're contractors or you're working at home and you don't shut the laptop till 9pm because you're in hustle mode and growth mode. That's why you're here on this podcast. And I want to tell you something. It's really hard to be creative when you're not feeling creative. I am a firm believer. You can't force creativity. Yes, you can go on a walk and it will probably bring up some things. Yes, you can go on a retreat and it'll probably help. But if you're not feeling creative, you're not gonna be happy with anything you put out into the world. And yes, you're creative. I don't wanna hear it. All you need is the idea. And then you've got me. If you're in the Rails lab and I go, well, here's your. Here's. Here's how we make it creative and cute. But that's what this podcast is for too. And I'm gonna share some hooks for you so you can have some quick wins. But I want to assure you, when I share those hooks every single week on inst. Every Monday, I share a week's worth of hooks. Use that this summer. Like, look, just go, okay, here Comes my content plan for the week and just use it and run with it. Other thing I want to give you permission to do is repurpose whether it's June, July or all of August. Because even this morning at the my Pilates class, there's a couple in there and they're like, we're gone for the next month. Like, I know a lot of people are in that mode right now. Now you can do what a lot of people do. They just disappear from Instagram for a month. If you're going to do that, just put in your Instagram bio on vacay till X date. Have a pinned post about it, pin it, be like, we'll be back. In the meantime, comment this for that. Get them in the email list. It is okay. Your people are not going to leave. And if they do, bye, bye, see you later. You'll probably gain followers. I mean you will. If you've been creating content, your content from two months ago is still getting engagement. Right? If the algorithm's pushing it out. Which is why you listen here. Because the content ideas I give you get pushed out for months and months at a time. So I promise you I didn't post it all over the weekend and I was feeling really anxious about it. Or was it last weekend? Either way, I think it was last weekend. I was so like, it's fine. It's just my own brain. And no one noticed, no one was mad at me, I don't think so. That's why you have to lean on things like manychat. I'm a firm believer that manychat will change your entire life because I hope you do the content. Manychat helps you get people in your DMs and wanting your stuff. I've had clients who it's completely changed their lives. One of my clients just bought a house. She took her kids on a vacation she never thought she could all within six months, 12,000. I've told her story a bunch 12, 000 followers to 85000 followers and made her entire salary of 2025 in the first three months of 2026. And she's still going. All because we made some tweaks to her content and she posts. I want to say she might post every day. I think she only posts five times a week though. Not only. Right. And then she puts like three to four stories every day. Little bit behind the scenes. What she's doing, she puts the link to her products and then she's off for the day. And she's got kids We've all got a lot going on and now Summer. So with that said, I'm blabbing, but you got two options. One, just take a break. Cause you need it. And it's totally okay if you do put a post up. Say, see you guys soon. Second, if you want to show up, repurpose, go back to all the content you did three, six months ago, find the ones that did best or ones that didn't do well. And you're like, you know what, I could probably make this better. Let me see what hooks Shannon might have or other creators on the Internet. With that said, I'm going to give you some really easy ideas. Whenever I'm in a rut and I find this to actually work really well for me. One of those things where like, if I'm not feeling creative, this kind of gets the juices flowing and it gets my brain working again. I borrow from familiarity. For you, that might mean giving us your five new favorite finds at Aldi. It might mean the playlist that you're addicted to right now as xyz, the new Canva, fonts that look like Summer or whatever it is right in your niche. Borrow familiarity from other brands, Right? But another way to do this for someone like me, this is what I do. I did it recently and it did really well. I did a reaction video to Gary Vee. These reaction videos and these green screen videos are the best freaking content to help you get content out there. First of all, if you're reacting, half of the video is just you acting like you're watching the video. Right. There's a lot of ways to do this. Again, you can green screen it. I have my Gary V1 from a few weeks back on my page if you want. What I do is I literally screen recorded. Right? You can screen record if you're on Apple iPhone. You literally in the top right corner of your phone, drag your finger to the bottom left. Yeah. And then it like opens your control center, I guess they call it, and you'll see a little screen record there and you can literally just screen record if it's not there. You can go in your settings and put it on your. Is it called Control Center? I'm sorry, guys. I only know Instagram and TikTok Linked everything else. Don't ask me about any thing in life. So that is what I'm going to be leaning on a lot because I know I'm still going to want to show up and create content every single day I'm on vacation. It's just I Can't do it. I can't not pose. One, it's my creative outlet every single day. Or, you know, I always take at least a day or two off during the week, the weekend. But two, I just want to show up for y', all, and I love what I do. And I, you know, I don't spend more than an hour on my content every day. And that's why I'm so passionate about helping you guys, because I just put a real today in five minutes. And literally the whole point was like, you can do this in five minutes, too. So just remember, lean on my page for help. But one of the best things you all can do this summer, this month, this week, find something in your world, whether it's a real, that you can give advice based off. I'm telling you guys, they go. They're crazy. They do so well. Because not only are you able to borrow the familiarity from the celebrity talking, maybe it's Mel Robbins and you want to push back or agree with what she said. Or maybe it's a Harvard study that just came out and you can green screen the article and break down what it says about your world, your industry. Maybe it's about right. If you cover sports, you can screenshot and green screen tons of tutorials online. Just go to YouTube. Or you can do a reaction video like I did, where I just simply recorded the video, used it as an overlay in edits, put it in the corner, and I had already recorded a video of me pretending. Well, I was watching it on my phone, and I had my husband's phone recording me, and that's how I did it. So husband's phone was recording me, and then I'm actually watching it on a phone so that I'm reacting in real time, quote, unquote. And then I put the video screen recording in the corner. I hope that makes sense. Again, go to YouTube. I'll make sure to actually do some of these tutorials for you guys for the summer. That would be really fun. I know I have a green screen one, but I'm telling you right now, one of the best things you can do when you are out of creative juices, you're like, the kids are home, everyone's asking me for a snack. You just got a new dog. Hello, me. You're just like, I'm like, I. I can't borrow familiarity. Borrow something they already recognize. I promise you, your views will skyrocket because people already recognize the brand, whether it's you walking through Whole Foods, whatever it is you at the car dealership, we're gonna stop cause we recognize it. Or it's you breaking down an article from whatever it is. Or like me with Gary Vee. Also, like I said, what's a great way is just look online. Google something that people are talking about that's a hot topic. Or you know what else is kind of fun? This is actually my favorite things to watch on, especially on TikTok. When interior designers, fashion bloggers, like, they'll talk about the history of something. They'll be like, did you know pockets were only in men's shorts? Because, like, I am addicted. You tell me the history of a piece of clothing, the history of a town we're locked in, and you can green screen all this. So literally all you're doing. Okay, I know what. You guys know what that all means. If you don't, like I said, just go on YouTube, go on to search green screen. It's so simple. But that's one of my go tos when I'm filling, jaded, stressed over, it reaches down. I'm frustrated. Oh, I suck. Everything sucks. Because you can tell from my content. As of late in the past month, I'm tired. I've leaned a lot on lazy content. And that's okay. That is okay. May got me good. But guess what? I still grew. Actually, let's see, I posted less than normal and I was just not. I don't know, I'm just. To be honest, I just wasn't really happy with the content I put out the past month or so. But now I'm, I'm back. I'm getting back in the groove. But let's see if I grew. All right, I grew over 4,000 followers. So actually for me, that's not a lot. But guess what? I still grew 4,000 followers. Like, and that's okay. I survived. May, we're rhyming now. So I just want to let you know that's kind of. And that's why I did the Gary Vee video a couple weeks ago, because I was like, I literally have nothing to say. And I was like, I'm bored with my own content right now. So I go through it too. I was just literally in survival mode and we all came out surviving. And you can do it too. So there's your options, obviously. Lean on the content I share, lean on the ideas I give you guys in the podcast, but definitely start practicing those green screens. And let me give you. And that's what I was going to do, is going to give you a couple hooks. So if you're doing it like I did with Gary Vee, or it's like a video of a podcast, a video of an interview, let it play and you're just in the corner agreeing, nodding, or thumbs downing. You can do that as a green screen. Or you can do, like me, where I did a reaction video where I was kind of more so there. And then right when I went into it, I just said my piece. I think I talked for about 15 seconds. Because you've already grabbed them, the celebrity, the person they know, the brand has done the hard work for you then. But make sure. Right. Don't go rambling. I know it's hard not to do that, but I did a whole post about how to yap without rambling. So I'll put that. Make sure it's in the show notes. And then the other one to do, like, if you're doing a green screen and talking about an article, I would start out with the B E N S method, which is big, easy, new, safe. So something like there's a brand new. Right. You could just make it like Harvard just came out with a new study that confirmed what we've all been suspecting. No, it's not this. No, it's something like that. Let me play one kind of similar real quick so you can hear it. Here we go. New status symbol for dads in their 20s and 30s isn't the big house. It isn't the number in the bank account, and it isn't the title on their LinkedIn account. It's the ability to play with their kids at 11am in the middle of summer. So when you watch this, it's in the show notes. It's a green screen and he's in the corner and he's using images and he goes, the new set. I'm telling you, if you use the word new, the new blah, blah, blah. This new blah, blah, blah just came out. We're in because we don't want to miss out. Other way to do this. Right. So there's one hook for you. The new this or a new this just came out. Other way to do this is describe the moment they can relate to. Ready? You know that moment when you get to the end of your meal and suddenly you feel like you just want to keep going, like you want to go back to the pantry and get more bites, more snacks, or you just want to finish the whole thing? All right, I won't. Again, it'll be in the show notes. But if you go, you know that moment when you get to the store and you're not sure. Da da da da. And then it could be a voiceover or it could be a talk to camera like hers. What I love about this reel is she's casually at her kitchen counter and eating a sandwich in the middle of the day. This is the yapping video. Perfect, Perfectly done. So that's in the show notes. That's another way to do it. And then here's another one I wanted to show you. It's a doctor reacting to her video and then it goes to him talking about. So I just want to make sure you guys have examples so you know what I'm talking about. So his says it's a video of a girl on Instagram and it's of her video, but he's green screen in the bottom left corner. And it's funny because even though people may not know her, so it's not like really borrowed familiarity, they're familiar with the food she's eating. The video is really well done. So it says if peas get their marketing right, they will be the next cottage cheese. High protein, high fiber, delicious and inexpensive. And then the doctor reacts. This is the type of content you borrow other people's. You make sure to shout them out, of course, in the caption. And there you go. I just find it's one of those hacks to kind of get you out of the creative funk. The jaded, the. The just. I suck at this. You got this. So start out. Casually, conversationally react to something. I know you got this. Keep listening. We're gonna have a great summer. I love you, friend.
Podcast: Good Content with Shannon McKinstrie
Host: Shannon McKinstrie
Date: June 2, 2026
In this episode, Shannon McKinstrie provides practical, stress-free content ideas for those times when creativity seems out of reach—perfect for busy business owners, especially during the summer. She openly shares her personal struggles with burnout, her ongoing battle with perfectionism, and how to embrace “the white space” after periods of intense productivity. This episode aims to help listeners repurpose, simplify, and find fresh inspiration for their content without the pressure to always create something new.
Shannon talks candidly about experiencing a slump after a whirlwind of career highs and personal milestones. She credits Teresa Stassny for describing this feeling as “the white space after being so busy.”
Quote:
“It’s the white space on your calendar after all of a sudden you’re like, whoa, what do I do now?” (03:05)
She opens up about her pressure to be productive even when she’s scheduled downtime, relating this to her “eldest daughter syndrome,” people-pleasing tendencies, and perfectionism.
Shannon shares her intention to not launch anything new in June, focusing on enjoying the current moment and giving herself permission to just “vibe” with existing commitments.
Quote:
“I am forcing myself in June to not try to launch anything new, to be okay with June just… podcasts as it is… everything I’m doing now, but not changing anything.” (06:42)
Recognizes that not everyone can slow down business, especially when travel or family obligations ramp up during summer.
Encourages authenticity: if you’re not feeling creative, acknowledge it and don’t force content.
Quote:
“It’s really hard to be creative when you’re not feeling creative. I am a firm believer you can’t force creativity.” (13:10)
Emphasizes the importance of giving yourself permission to take breaks or repurpose old content as needed.
A. Two Main Summer Options (16:40):
Take a Break:
Repurpose Existing Content:
B. Borrow From Familiarity (22:25):
Share favorites and current obsessions (e.g., Aldi finds, playlists, trending Canva fonts) that relate to your niche.
Create reaction or green screen videos using well-known personalities or trending topics (e.g., Gary Vee, Mel Robbins, Harvard studies).
Quote:
“These reaction videos and these green screen videos are the best freaking content to help you get content out there.” (24:51)
Step-by-step, Shannon outlines how she creates these, including simple technical tips for screen recording on iPhone, and how she sets up the shot for a green screen or reaction video.
C. Lean on Automation (18:57):
The “NEW” Hook:
Relatable Moment Hook:
BENS Method (Big, Easy, New, Safe) (36:25):
Memorable Quote:
“Let the celebrity, the person they know, the brand—do the hard work for you… Don’t go rambling.” (38:13)
On Perfectionism:
“I am my own enemy. I saw a reel… ‘Who’s your enemy?’—me, when I think I can never do anything as good as it could have been done.” (04:18)
On Permission to Repurpose Content:
“Other thing I want to give you permission to do is repurpose whether it’s June, July or all of August.” (14:40)
On Audience Retention During Breaks:
“If you’ve been creating content, your content from two months ago is still getting engagement… The algorithm’s pushing it out.” (15:50)
On Being Human Behind the Brand:
“It’s okay, Shannon, not to launch anything new, not to be available for things… I hate letting people down.” (08:47)
Client Success from Manychat:
“I’ve had clients who—it's completely changed their lives…12,000 followers to 85,000 and made her entire salary of 2025 in the first three months of 2026.” (19:45)
Shannon is candid, encouraging, and empathetic, modeling both practical strategies and vulnerability. She empowers listeners to show up as they are—imperfect, sometimes unmotivated, always human. Through step-by-step suggestions and examples, she demonstrates how “easy content” can be both authentic and impactful.
Closing encouragement:
“Start out, casually, conversationally react to something. I know you got this. Keep listening. We’re gonna have a great summer. I love you, friend.” (End)