Episode 6: 20 Rapid-Fire Instagram Tips (Part 2)

Welcome back to part two of this 20 rapid fire Instagram tips episode, I kind of like the last episode kind of merged between like tips 10 and 11. So I'm just gonna name off the tips.

And it really didn't say the numbers anymore, but there are 20 tips in total. And just really quickly, I know I say this in the intro and outro but just in case, could you please do me a huge favor and stop what you're doing if you're not driving, take a screenshot and post this to your Instagram stories and tag me that would help me out so much and I would so appreciate you. And I would just love to know like your key takeaways from these episodes. So let's dive back in rapid fire Instagram tips, part two. 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, captioned templates, and virtual classrooms. In this program, we teach health and wellness professionals how to fish but we also baked 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.

We run as I've said in the past, actually, we we got three new clients, three new Instagram management clients, just in the past two weeks. So I think we're up to like 27 ish accounts now that we are running plus we have a couple VIP days and people that we're creating content for. We have used all of the different schedulers we've used later plan tailwind, Facebook's native scheduler, and plainly is always the one that we go back to. Now disclaimer, I have not used the native Facebook Instagram scheduler since it's been upgraded to like the meta business suite. So I know plenty of people who use it and love it, I just for us plainly has been our go to easy spot that could very well change because we're going to be adding Google will not call the Google My Business anymore Google business profile to our list of services soon. And we've also got some clients who've been wanting us to post on Tik Tok.

Now, Planoly does support Tiktok. But we have just found that Planoly is by far the easiest, like most user friendly platform to use to schedule your content ahead of time, note that I am an affiliate and my link is Molly cahill.com/planoly. But all I get if you do sign up is a free month. So I would definitely not promote it if I didn't think it wasn't worthwhile. But again, like we've used all of the other ones, and I just feel like plainly and my team agrees is the most user friendly. So the tip is we suggest planning out your content ahead of time as best you can. Now, if you listen to my private audio training, the one that I was promoting, before this podcast launch, and that's just Molly cahill.com/private training, you won't find that just from searching in your podcast player. I talk about like, my thoughts around batching are a little different than most people's like, I'm not a super organized type a person who's going to be like, I'm gonna go batch out all my month or whatever. So this isn't meant to be like, Oh, I could barely get like my post out for today much less like a whole month. But go back to that episode. I think it's episode

two or three of that private audio training, where I dive into more of like my thoughts on batching. But we do love again, it's like a broken record, I'm gonna shut up we like to play it We like playing only okay, but if you are like just learning the tech of Instagram and or you're just already overwhelmed with life in general, and you don't want to learn another platform. Then just use the Notes app on your phone. I do this for myself. I do this for there's a couple clients that I still own and, and I do their content for them.

There's several core captions like I know I'm going to like for example, the women chiropractors account, I know that I'm going to be promoting their conference coming up in October of 2023, which it's in Scottsdale, shout out y'all should come. I'm going to be there if you want information. It's just on women chiropractors.org on their website, but because like that's something I'm posting for them at least once a week I just have several different versions of the promoting their conference post saved on the note that on my phone. And then I have like a whole bunch of different versions of that same exact graphic promoting their conference, save to a dedicated album on my phone as well, that I made in Canva. So it's not the exact same it's just like it's a photo and then With a textbox overlay over the photo that has the details about the conference, and I made it in like 10 different versions, meaning 10 different photos, essentially, with the same textbox over it. And then I've got three or four different versions of the caption on my notes app. So anytime I know it's time to post for their convention, it's just super easy to like, boop, boop, drag and drop ready to go. So I would suggest you do that with some of your core content. If you're not wanting to dive into using a program like Planoly, you can just like I said, have like a dedicated folder on your phone of like some of your core stuff you're always posting that you've created in Canva, or whatever.

And then have like some basic captions that you're always going to be using that you can copy and paste. And the cool thing about that is you can almost make it like, like a different like puzzle each time like you can be like, Okay, I'm going to take this paragraph from this version of the caption this paragraph from this version, and you can make a whole new caption. So if you see, let's say like pregnancy, baby, like that's your main thing you see in practice, like you'd have like, a couple pregnancy captions on your notes app, a couple baby chiropractic on your notes app. And then you could set like I said, you can just kind of plug and play and grab what you want. If that feels more doable than using something like Planoly. Alright, I'm gonna go a little faster on these next ones, I did not intend to spend that much time on that first one. story highlights. If you do not know what Instagram story highlights, that's when you go to your profile, it's those circles that are underneath your profile. And do not go look at mine at the time I'm recording this, I'm one of those people, it's like I've had it on my to do list for like five months to go update my story highlights. But ideally, it should, they should mimic the like like the tabs on your website, essentially. So you could even have a start here. One if you wanted. Or you could have a like, you know, like your, for our clients, we do their locations, we literally have a story that's like their physical address typed out and their phone number and then we have another story side with their hours. And then we have like what to expect at your first appointment. And then we have like, meet the team or meet the whatever, like all of those types of things can be on your story highlights.

If you don't know how to set those up, I have a free video on my YouTube I think somewhere or just send me a DM and I'll send you I'll send you the instructions on how to set up story highlights. Make sure you also have like a testimonials story highlight or you can call it like patient love client love reviews, whatever have a work with me highlight for sure, make it super simple. People know how to work with you. And now you can have anyone can have a workable, workable, working clickable hyperlink in their stories. So when you go to post your story, just tap that little square smiley face guy at the top and hit link and you can add in a link and you can do it directly to your booking software, or to a free download if you have at whatever it is that you're promoting right now. Another thing I like to have on your story highlights is, even if you aren't local, I like to have a local Love Story highlight. So this is where you become a resource. Like your account isn't just about the thing that you do if you're an acupuncturist, your account just isn't about acupuncture, right? Like you want to be of service to the community. So that's where you can share local, like favorite places to eat, or your favorite coffee shop or your favorite, whoever that local Love Story highlight is awesome. So if you run out of room and your bios and you only get 150 characters to kind of, say who you are and what you do in your bio, your story highlights are a great place to bring in a little more personality. The next tip kind of goes along the same lines is your story highlights. And it just to make sure that your top six posts or your last six posts that you've posted, have your face somewhere or and or I'm not gonna say or I'm gonna say and or a graphic that has bold text of what it is that you do.

So again, if I if I can't come to your profile, look at your bio, look at your story highlights look at your top and the reason I say your top six poses because that's mostly what I see some times you can see known but I want to know exactly what it is that you do, who you serve who you are, I want to be able to sum it all up without even having to scroll without even having to click on anything. And now Instagram has the option to pin up to three posts to the top of your profile though can those can be realized as well. And I would suggest your pin posts being again just like that most common demographic that you like to work with or how to work with you or if you're promoting something currently at the time or if you had something go viral. You just tap the three dots on the top right corner of your post and hit pinned profile. My next tip is to record the video that I'm going to use for my Instagram reels. I like to record it inside stories. That might sound like an extra step and I've never taught this before. Even though this is what I've done for as long as reels have been Seeing, because I was always afraid it was gonna sound overwhelming. But then I saw Virginia car teaching it, who is the video coach who I really like. And I was like, Okay, so I'm not the only one that does this, it's really not that overwhelming. And the way she explained, it made me realize why this is a good tip and why it's the opposite of overwhelming. So as you know, as we've talked about before, our attention span is crazy short, right. That's why in a lot of my videos, you'll see that usually I'm moving around a lot like each sentence or two sentences, I've like moved location slightly, or maybe I've moved where I am in the frame slightly. And that's just if it's going to be a longer talking head video, you really want to add some type of visual interest like that, instead of like sitting in your chair, setting up a tripod and hitting record. And honestly, I feel like this is easier to I mean, for some people, it might sound overwhelming, to me, it's easier. So I because also like, hello, I'm vain, and I don't always have makeup on or whatever. So I like to open up Instagram stories, I use my subtle filter.

And then I can just record what I want to say for my reel. And then once you're done recording it, you don't post it to your stories. There's a at the top top of the screen, there's a little arrow pointing down, and you can just save that little clip to your camera roll. And what Virginia Kerr said about this that made me be like, Oh, see, this is like I should be teaching what I've been doing for the last two years out loud to other people is that if that tape wasn't a good take, like if you didn't say what you wanted to say, or you didn't say it quickly enough and back quickly, I mean, I don't mean actually speaking quickly. I mean, did I draw it out to 45 seconds, when I could have summarized it in 12 you can just exit out of that and just like start over so then you're not filled with tons of video to edit on your camera roll. So I'll just kind of film one to two sentences, move around a little bit, film another sentence, move around, film another sentence, save all those to my camera roll and then Apple those into the InShot app. And just make sure that when you you edit and this was this was in the last episode, make sure that you edit out any dead air in the beginning. So you want to start the video with your mouth already opening and speaking, you also announced so I've taught this tip to some of my students before and I've seen them executed.

And the one little tip I gave them to make it just a little bit better is to make tighter cuts. So what that means is if I am recording a video, like at the very end, I want to like boom cut it in shot right there. And then when I start the next video clip, I want to start it like cut out any dead air on the started again like right when I'm about to start talking. Just go watch any my rails and your seat I'm talking about you don't want to have like, you know, sometimes you can watch people's videos. You can almost like hear them. Like if they have a clicker like here, I'm click it to click the video off and then there's like, one, two, then they start their next sentence and then it's like, one, two, then they started there next. You want it to be fast in this type of real so yeah, I need to do a tutorial on that. Hmm, my next tip is oh my gosh, this is one of my if I could shout it from the rooftops and just come through the screen and just hold people's faces and tell them to do this. I would I Okay, look, don't get me wrong, the trends, the voiceover like lip dub things. B roll type reels like you know B roll just meaning like you know, I'm filming myself working at my desk or you're filming yourself like adjusting from far away like, all those reels are great now pointing to textboxes I don't like those I never have. I mean, if you do it, I'm not like that's not really making fun of you. I just personally don't like them like to consume them. And I think they're like harder to make. But anyway, make sure you're making some reels, at least where we can hear you speaking your voice is part of your brand. I there was this one Creator who I loved all her reels, but I kind of stopped following her because I kind of thought it got redundant because everyone was he was just like pointing to textboxes I finally she made one where she was speaking and she was Australian.

And as my friend Mia, I am a sucker for an Australian accent. I just think they're so cute. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, I'm gonna keep following you now because you're an Aussie and I want to hear you talk. So your voice is part of your brand. Okay. I think about one of our former clients Dr. Abby Lee and she is like the Swedish she's from Texas and she's sweetest voice. And when she first started working with us, she was only making like the more like pointing or like voiceover reels, but then she started making some with her voice. And she has the most soothing, calming, comforting voice and she she's a chiropractor who sees patients in labor and I'm like, Girl, you've got to be making reels with your voice because her voice literally makes me feel calm, just listening to her videos.

So I'm like, that's part of your brand because I want you in my like, I would want you at my birth. You know, I'm saying like, because your voice is so calm. So please guys use your voice. Okay, my next tip is to schedule a professional photo shoot with a photographer. This is whether you are a coach who's solo and business just starting out and you're online only, or you're a brick and mortar business, I'm telling you, it's just going to elevate your profile, it's going to make things so much easier. And Instagram is not a place anymore, where you have to have like this perfectly polished looking profile. That's not really what I mean as much as it just will give you just like a little bit more of an elevated feel. And the big bonus to me, and this is even your bonus, I would just like the big reason I love this is because then you're not having to constantly feel like you're on this hamster wheel of content creation, like, Oh, I gotta go snap this photo real quick.

We're gonna go snap this, you know, whatever. So please, at least once a year, schedule a photo shoot with a photographer. Don't wear anything crazy bold, just wear like more neutral colors. And then think about like, Okay, could I put on a different blazer or a different jacket or sweater or whatever, just to like, make the outfit look different. And then another tip is while you're having that photoshoot, set up a couple of tripods and just let the camera roll. And then you've got some really cool, that'd be roll like background footage that I was talking about. My photographer from Pensacola on Elise is going to come on the show in a couple of weeks to do a whole episode on how to prep for a brand shoot. So I'm just gonna leave that one there. My next tip is equipment you need for real and it's not really equipment, it's your car, your car, man, your car has the best lighting, and the sound is good in your car. I've made so many real sitting in like carpool like waiting to pick up my daughter.

So yeah, just hold your phone in front of your face in the car and film some reels use my little trick I was telling you about filming in stories, and you don't have to post it right then like you don't have to complete it from start to finish. But keep your video organized on an album on your camera on your phone. And then you can just like go back and grab that video and piece together your reel when you do have time. My next tip is to always use the consistent same fonts and your brand colors on your Instagram. So you can do this, I have a free blog post and we'll link that below that walks you through how to set up a brand board in Canva. If you don't already have one. And for people who don't already have one, I always just say take a screenshot of your website homepage, you can use Canvas color picker tool, and you can like grab some colors. Or if you've had somebody professionally do your brand, you know you've got your actual like hexadecimal codes, you can use those, just and the same with fonts. Like you can ask whoever did your website for the names of your fonts.

Or there's like a cool little like plugin extension where you can figure out what fonts have been used on your website, and just be really consistent. And the reason for that is there's actually studies out there to show that we have this like subconscious thought of loyalty and authority when we see something consistent. So you want to be scrolling through Instagram. And ideally, you want somebody to see something and know it's from you before they know it's from you. And my last tip, my favorite tip, don't forget to get scrappy. So what I mean by scrappy is I mean, I can teach you all the like main things, you could find anything on the internet any day. But because my background is an outside sales, I think I just take a little bit of a different approach to things because I never forgot from the day I started my business about one on one human connection, you cannot serve many if you're not serving one well. So I think we got this weird, like, I'm gonna put up an Instagram account, or I'm gonna have an online business, all of a sudden, all these people are just going to come to me, it just doesn't work that way, too. It's just pretend like you know, when you have to go to networking meetings in person and stuff like, it's like think about the internet the same way. Like you've got to build that community, one by one brick by brick. So don't be afraid to do things that don't scale. I know like scaling is sexy, and it's all the rage.

I'm not saying you shouldn't scale. But scaling comes after you're not afraid to put in the hard work in the beginning and build those relationships one at a time. I'm proud to say that our business in 2022 Not only did it triple from 2021 My and I'm not even talking about revenue, I'm talking about my net income what I paid myself tripled 98% of our sales were referrals. So again, like I'm so glad that I put in the work in the very beginning doing those like one on one connections with people. And I have I don't know if it's still available, I need to double check but I did an interview on a site called like a micro audio Summit. You might have some emails in your inbox from me about it but I did an interview like where I went in depth on all These topics and actually I already have it slated to schedule another podcast recording of all of my scrappy tips. So I'm just gonna leave you with a few examples of how you can get a scrappy and I have a free scrappy checklist, who is what it's called, it's just Molly cahill.com/scrappy. But things like doing collaborations with people commenting on other people's posts, watching their stories and replying to their stories, if you have like patients or clients that you're really close with, just like asking them straight up asking them to go comment on your stuff. And this kind of goes back to that designating patient or client ambassadors.

If you're an online health coach, have any capacity, go hang out and answer people's questions in these big health influencers? comment sections, this isn't poaching the I'm talking about people who don't see patients anymore see clients anymore, like the big influencer accounts, you'll see that they stopped replying to, like, you know, like Aviva ROM, for example, like she's not taking on a one on one health coaching client, right for hormones. And if you go to her posts, and you look down in her comments, like people are going to keep asking questions, and she's going to stop replying back because she gets a hundreds of comments. So it kind of leaves the, you know, area for you to go in and be the hero there. Okay, so that was all 20 tips. So I hope you if you didn't listen to part one, go back and listen to that. And I would love to hear what your favorite tip was and what you're going to implement it right away. And thank you so much for sharing a little bit of your day with me. Have an awesome day. Bye, guys.

Thank you for listening to holistic marketing simplified, 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 the 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 Cahill. 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.