Episode 2: Which Social Media Platform Is Best for Marketing? (And Why I Choose Instagram)

Welcome to holistic marketing simplified a podcast for health and wellness professionals looking to simplify their marketing. I'm your host, Molly Cahill. And this podcast is brought to you by holistic marketing hub, our hybrid program that supports you with personalized coaching caption templates and virtual classrooms. In this program, we teach health and wellness professionals how to fish but we also bait their hook, head to holistic marketing hub.com. To learn more, and use code podcast for $100 off, you can find full show notes, resources, and more at Molly cahill.com/podcast.

Hello, and welcome back to the holistic marketing simplified Podcast. Today we're going to talk about why I have chosen Instagram to kind of be the platform where I have doubled down and really just jumped in with both feet. So there are so many other platforms, right? Like there's so many other social media platforms. There's lots of different types of marketing strategies. Why do I just do Instagram. So first of all, Instagram likes to make a lot of changes all the time. So they have updates that are happening all the time on the back end. And in order for me to really be the best at my craft, I've really chosen to double down on one platform, so I can always know what's going on.
Because if I was trying to keep up with what was going on on every platform, then I would be doing you just serve us and I would definitely not be able to keep up with all that and give you like the advice of what's actually working. And then also we we still manage 25 Instagram accounts, we don't manage Tik Tok or Pinterest or anything like that. So any type of information I was bringing to you from those other platforms would be purely anecdotal or stuff. I'm learning from other marketers, whereas I'm able to bring you stuff that you know, information from what we're actually seeing with all of our health and wellness clients, the majority of our clients are chiropractors, but we do have some health coaches and functional medicine doctors and things like that. So other than the fact that Instagram is the seventh most visited website in the world.

Why else have I chosen this? Well, first of all, I just enjoy, I enjoy using Instagram. And if you have a toxic relationship with social media, in general, that I'm going to do a separate episode on that this is going to be a short episode or really just want to cover why you should really consider you know, kind of doubling down your Instagram efforts. So yeah, if you have a toxic relationship, and you just like find yourself falling in this comparison trap, and you just really hate it. And don't worry, I'm going to do another episode on that. Because I feel like that's a really important topic and something I see a lot as well.
So as I said, personally, I just like to use Instagram, I find it to be my favorite interface. Facebook makes me insane. As I said in the first episode, I could probably get a lot of business on Facebook, considering that a lot of my target market spends a lot of time on Facebook, but I just don't enjoy it. So I am a huge fan of as I said, the title of this podcast, holistic marketing simplified, is doubling down on marketing efforts that are going to work for you and your personality. And if every time you log onto an app, you hate it, then it's not, it's not going to work. But again, I just want to preemptively say if you heard that, and you're like, Oh, I hate Instagram. Give me a little bit to change your mind.

And so I'll do that. And like I said, one of the following episodes is going to be about transforming your toxic relationship. And I'm gonna give you some really good actionable tips there. So let me paint a picture for you how Instagram works and why it is such an important part of your marketing strategy. My best friend had migraines for years ever since college really, as long as I've known her, she's had migraines. And for the longest time, there really wasn't much that we could do to help her. I remember literally whenever she would get a migraine coming on, I'd go clean her toilet for her. So at least she could puke in a clean toilet, she would put frozen peas on her neck, I would rub her head until she fell asleep. And like I said, she just this went on for years and years.

So fast forward when I started working with all these wonderful, amazing, holistic health professionals. I suggested that she go to a chiropractor. And what is the first thing I did? Well, the first thing I did was I asked around in my network of people, and I sent her the Instagram profile of a few chiropractors in her area. I didn't send her the website, I sent her their Instagram profile, why your Instagram profile really is just less formal.
It really should feel more like a coffee date, where as your website tends to be a little more formal. And people aren't updating their websites daily or you know weekly or whatever, whereas people are updating their Instagram profiles more often. So Instagram profiles typically tend to reflect what's going on in your business a little more tight, like in a more timely way. And I'm telling you, so I'm 36 for reference. And I will give you some statistics in a bit of the demographics and age range of the people who use Instagram. But I'm telling you right now, this is how my friends and I communicate, we send each other Instagram accounts, we're like, Hey, I'm looking for a pair of joggers, people will send you an Instagram account, there's a funny meme that you see that relates to your friends usage of the Instagram account, I'm telling you this is, this is how we communicate.

And I'll also do another make, I'm gonna make a note to myself to do another episode on ROI, because it is really hard to measure your return on investment in any marketing venture, not just Instagram, because sometimes the customer, the new customer, or new patient journey is not super linear. So for example, let's go back to my friend with a migraine example.

Let's say that I was sending her I wasn't living in the town that she she was living in Birmingham. And I was not living in Birmingham at the time. So I was sending her Instagram profiles from recommendations I got from other people. But let's just say that I was in her town, and I was sending her the Instagram profile of my chiropractor, and I'm like, Hey, you should go to you know, to help with your migraines. When she goes to the chiropractor, and on her intake form, the How did you hear about us, she's gonna say my name right, her friend, she's not gonna say Instagram, which can be really frustrating because like I said, it can be really hard to kind of like you, if you're going to spend money on something or time you won't be able to pinpoint like, okay, it gave me X amount of patients or X amount of clients, new clients. And that's definitely definitely possible, you can just head on over to my website and click on the holistic marketing hub tab, which is my signature Hybrid Hybrid program. And see the screenshots of testimonials of some of my students who have had tons of direct Instagram referrals, meaning they put on their intake form, I found out about you via Instagram. So that does happen. I'm just saying sometimes it's a little more of a roundabout way that people get to you. But Instagram is the thing that actually helped them pull the trigger and see like, wow, like I can really relate to this person. So again, like I said, this is how my friends and I communicate. You know what, literally, we were at the playground the other day, and I should have taken a video of it. It was funny. We were still it was the last day of Christmas break. Or I was at the playground my mom friends and we're sharing Instagram accounts like oh, do you follow this account, they're really funny or bla bla bla. So truly, this is how we communicate. And remember how I said your website tends to be a little more formal.

Where as your Instagram profiles more like a coffee date? Well, 70% of Instagram users watch stories daily. So if you are already familiar with Instagram terminology, you know what Instagram stories are? If you are not, then I have a $37 instagram 101 course you can find it on my website, Mollie cahill.com. And you can learn what stories are. But essentially stories are kind of this cool, super candid, not polished behind the scenes look at your life, they're only up for 24 hours, and 70% of Instagram users watch stories daily. And so that kind of like it helps people it lets them in right. Also, another point to talking about how Instagram is more like a coffee date is statistically photos with faces perform almost 40% Better than Instagram posts without faces. So it truly is this beautiful way for people to kind of get a feel for who you really are. And not just be this faceless business.

If this is the first podcast episode you've ever listened to of mine, or the first piece of content of mine you've ever consumed, then you've never heard me say this. But if it's not, you've heard me say this a million times. Gone are the days of personal and business being these two separate hats. Everything is so intertwined. Now, it's not about work life balance. It's about work life integration. And when there are 100 other health coaches that someone could choose or 100 other chiropractors or 100 other therapists or life coaches or whatever the thing that's going to want to make them choose you versus your competition considering all let's just consider all of the things are equal your price, your services, everything. It's gonna be that intangible feeling that they get by seeing what you're all about. And a beautiful way to show what you're all about is through your Instagram. I always encourage people to include what I like to call my sprinkles, which is like, Maybe you love plants.
Maybe you like to knit booties for your cat. I don't know, anything that gives people that personal connection. And then on top of that a lot of people Pull are if they're brand new to whatever it is, you're you do, like say they're brand new to acupuncture, and they're like, holy shit, I'm really scared, or you're like gonna poke needles in me, like, that's terrifying, I don't want to do that, then having a way to actually show people, what it looks like to work with you, is wonderful for people who are anxious about it, like, show them the whole process, show them what it looks like to walk in the front door and to check in, and the initial consult and, you know, just any, like fears or questions that they might have, instead of walking in, you know, I'm like imagining some, like, dystopian sci fi movie, where it's like, what's behind the door, I don't know what it's like terrifying.

They, you know, give them a picture, give them a sneak peek. And once they see it, they might be Oh, like, that's, that's not so bad. And then in addition to so I kind of touched on stories, and you know, showing people what it's like to work with you. But did you know over 150 million people use Instagram to communicate directly with a business monthly. So when you have the ability to direct message a business, it makes people feel more connected in a way we've never had before. Right?
It's super cool, because you're like, Wow, I'm unhappy with this protein powder I bought, and I can like DM the business. I mean, it's, that's super cool. And it's the same thing with you. It's almost like people get to know you ahead of time. And it just, it's like one less barrier to entry. Another beautiful thing about having a platform like Instagram is that you will see you will get higher retention with your patients or clients, because they're already quote, like bought into your belief system, and educated on why you do the things you do.
And on top of that, it can serve as like a beautiful value add for your current patients and clients, again, adding to better retention and patient outpatient or client outcomes. And then also, I mean, I don't really like to use the term FOMO. But truly like gives you a little bit of FOMO and social proof. And if you see, Wow, all these people are working with life coaches, and they're having these amazing breakthroughs. And then it makes you want to work with a life coach and have an amazing breakthrough. So that's another reason I love it. You also have the ability to hyper target your specific geographical area, or your specific niche.

I'll go into that in a lot more detail in a different episode. Or you can even go if you didn't listen to my holistic marketing roadmap, I cover that in episode three. It's just a $27 roadmap, I'll walk you through step by step on how to grow community and engage. But you have this really cool ability, like I said, to really focus in and build community, brother, you need to do that just in like a local geographical area or to a certain niche of who you serve. So because I want to keep today's episode super short, I'm just going to end with a couple stats that you cannot miss. Even if you're not really like a hard facts, statistics type person, these I think are gonna blow your mind. So the monthly active user base of Instagram is equivalent to the population of the EU in all of North America combined.

So when I think about it that way, I'm like holy crap, like mind blown. Instagram is the fourth most used social platform. But I think that's a weird stat because it counts WhatsApp as a social platform. I don't know about you. But when I think about social platforms, I don't think about WhatsApp. I think of that. Like that's where my family group chat is. I don't know. So Facebook and YouTube and WhatsApp are ahead of Instagram, but it is the second most downloaded app in the world. And 18 to 34 year olds make up the biggest share of the audience. But the 35 to 44 Audience is still also really big. 59% of US adults use Instagram daily, when that's huge. And more than 25 million businesses use Instagram to promote their services. So 25 million businesses 62% of Instagram users say they are more interested in our brand after seeing one of their Instagram stories. You know, I talked about the Instagram stories in the beginning. I'll have to do a whole episode about Instagram stories too.

What do you think about that? Let me know DM me, DM me on Instagram. We'll chat about it. And then this deck goes back to the point I made at the very beginning talking about this is how you know people communicate these days. 81% of Instagramers use the platform for researching new products and services. That's a no brainer. It's the first thing I do anytime anybody recommends a new anything I go look them up on Instagram first 87% of Instagram users say they take action after seeing a product on Instagram. And what's cool about this is Instagram has 58% more engagement Per follower than Facebook. And last but not least 90% of accounts follow at least one business on Instagram.

So I know that was a lot of stats. But I mean, if this doesn't convince you, I don't know what will. So let me know DM me on Instagram, what is holding you back? Or if you're not on it, if you're not on Instagram, email me, you can email me at contact at Molly cahill.com. Because I really do want to hear from you because I want to make this podcast super helpful and actionable for you. But yeah, what's holding you back? And remember that old saying practice makes perfect? Well, we all know that that's a bunch of bullshit. We know the new quote is that practice makes improvement. I had a client about a week ago, I was telling her how to record some videos and how she could record right in the Instagram app and then download it to her phone.
And she was like, Oh my gosh, what if I accidentally posted it? I was like, what if you do like what's going to happen? Nothing, nothing will happen. You won't die. And then once you do it a few times, and you see that you don't die, you will be like way more comfortable with it. Right? So practices and make perfect practice makes improvement. And anything you post can always be deleted, managed as a matter of just like what's the worst that could happen? So to close out today, as I said, please either DM me on Instagram, send me an email, let me know what's holding you back so I can address it.

And as I said in the beginning, I will be doing another episode on how to transform your toxic relationship with social media into something positive. So thanks for tuning in for this super short episode and hope you have an amazing rest of your day. Bye. Thank you for listening to holistic marketing simplified, brought to you by holistic marketing hub, our hybrid program that supports you with personalized coaching, captioned templates, and virtual classrooms. In this program, we teach health and wellness professionals how to fish but we also bait their hook, head to holistic marketing hub.com

To learn more, and use code podcast for $100 off and hey, you know every podcaster at the very end of their episode asks you to rate and review their podcast. Well, that's because it's super important. These podcasts take a lot of time and heart and effort to produce to bring you free information. So in order for me to be able to continue doing that we need more people to find out about the show. So if you could please just take like two minutes out of your very busy day to leave me a rating and share this on your Instagram stories and tag at Molly a K Hill. That's c h i ll I would greatly greatly appreciate your support. I truly appreciate you so much. I know your time is valuable and I can't wait to see you in the next episode.