Episode 56: Uncover this Money-Making Instagram Story Strategy

Molly Cahill

Hello Instagram stories they are the most underrated feature on Instagram if you ask me there where I have personally made the most connections, the most friends the most sales, and my guest today, Emily is the same way. And so today's episode is all about Instagram Stories. We're going to give you some really practical tips, because for some people, they still feel overwhelming but we're here to show you that they are superduper easy. Emily is an Instagram strategist and business mentor who have actually had the pleasure of meeting in real life and she and I are like split apart we have so much in common. She specializes in making marketing and growing your business simple. That's why I think she and I get along so well. She actually see me a kindergarten teacher. And she's been in marketing after she left that for the last eight years after she had her first son and now she has three. And I love what I love about her is she says in her her bio she provided to me she says after failing face first in an MLM because she refused to hey girl DMS strategy. She learned to market successfully without those growth strategies and has supported 800 Plus business owners to simplify their own social media and fish energy. She does like one on one consulting, she does team trainings and her and my friend Shannon actually went to their retreat in Nashville a couple months ago and it was pure magic. They have a membership called the Social squad society. So I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did and I can't wait to see your stories. 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 bake 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. Emily, my favorite human. I love you. I'm so glad you're here. We've had to reschedule a few times. We've tried to have lunch a few times and one day

Emily Schwalbach

One day One day but at least we got to meet each other in Nashville so that was yes the phone glorious but yes, we are too close not see each other. I

Molly Cahill

know Welcome to the show. This is my friend Emily and she lives in Indy and she's a Instagram strategist and a mom of three and I've already kind of done your your intro but give us the quick and dirty What do you do Emily? And we used to be a teacher and yeah, all the things

Emily Schwalbach

so used to be on try used to be kinder

Molly Cahill

teacher or just such a kindergarten teacher.

Emily Schwalbach

Once I say it people are like, Oh, I can see Yeah.

Molly Cahill

Never No way.

Emily Schwalbach

But I kept those kids in line. I didn't you I was soft. But but firm. I was a velvet hammer. Because I like to say that because there's there's 26 of them. You had to hold a tight reins on him. But I miss it. I do miss it. It's just now my classroom is different. And my students are older and business owners but still, you know, that's why I started doing this because when I stopped teaching, I didn't know how much of a like hole it would leave in me and like my soul. And I was like I love this baby that I just birthed. But like, I am missing that indicator of teacher. So yeah, I posted to Instagram and Facebook quickly. So that's why my husband hired me for his business to be a social media manager. And so I wait. That was a no that Oh yeah, that was my first that's how I got into it. I did not know that. Oh, he's like You can post fast and I was like I can And so me something that I was connecting and talking to adults. And that was kind of like my Hsuan then I became a Beachbody Coach failed miserably couldn't go to school because I didn't want to do the hey girl messages. So I was like, I get to them. And I'm gonna figure out my own way to market myself using just like sharing my story. And then I was like, Oh, I love this and that oh, you can post I love social. I've always loved social media. I love Facebook. I loved all of it. Aim loved it all. screenname I drew up the best away messages with up and down letters always in quotes to the guys that didn't ever read it but it's fine.

Molly Cahill

I wait did you have my space?

Emily Schwalbach

I you know I didn't. Shocking because my business partner is always like how did you not I'm like I don't know. I was too enthralled in my AOL

Molly Cahill

lifestyle. Life at AOL life. So um, so that's what we're doing right now. We're doing your ASL

Emily Schwalbach

a very long version of that. So I kept managing for my husband. And then I was getting very much into like the features and the I was teaching myself how to do all the things and people kept asking me questions. And so my husband's like, you need to start charging people for this. And I was like, ah, fast clutching my pearls like me like, I was a kindergarten teacher. Like, I don't know, this is like business type stuff. And you're in

Molly Cahill

Enneagram to see natural. Yeah, people. Yeah, I'm just helping.

Emily Schwalbach

And he's like, this is taking up a lot of our time. So let's start charging. So I started consulting in early, early 2018. And I kind of snowballed from there. I just, I think people like us who are in this field, a lot of why we do what we do is because we just have a knack. It's intuitive to us, where it's not intuitive to everyone else. And that's what I want to say first and foremost, like, if you are thinking like, I'm so dumb, I'm so stupid, right? It's, it's not. It's not an intuitive app. It's not. And it's so hard. The reason why you see us and think oh, I'm dumb is because we're publicly showing you a skill we have, like, I don't get to go and like watch you garden, like to juggle or even more like even more impressive like bookkeeping, financials, like you're not totally on display, doing those things. But celebrate. Yeah, since you're publicly seeing what Molly and I are doing, you're like, they make it look so easy. And so we try to make it more simple. That is the whole name of our game. I know we are very similar in that, trying to simplify things. But don't think you're dumb. It's not intuitive. It's just intuitive to us.

Molly Cahill

I always say cuz, you know, I work with so many chiropractors. And like, I would paralyze someone, if I tried to do it, you do. So like, I think marketing in general. And now, just to be more specific social media marketing, people just assume that it's a skill that everyone quote should have been and like, you're not taught that in school and go to school for it like I did. I mean, I would just go for it. But like, I mean, I would say, like with teaching, that's very much a parallel profession. You're just trying to convince the little ones.

Emily Schwalbach

Well, and to more so than managing consulting, like, I know, when I work with someone, they're motivators, I know their learning styles. I can tell like, yeah, what, what how I need to say things in Word things to get them to do what I need them to do and have a lot of instilling confidence is another thing. And that's what I did with my kindergarteners. So yeah, so now I work one on one with business owners. I'm moving and shifting more towards business strategy, like using Instagram as a tool, not Instagram being the whole tool of the world. It's super powerful, but I like to not give it that much credit. Yeah. And then I have a membership that I co founded with Shannon McKinstry. And that's for business owners who like kind of want to do it. It's like it's just the same thing you have and it's just people who want to do it on their own, but they can't quite figure it out that just need some help.

Molly Cahill

Yeah, if you need more like with the holistic marketing hub, obviously for our health and wellness professional that's the plate like that's my captions are very, but if you are not in that field, and I would definitely go to social squad society. I need to join just because I wanted to put my team through it how we've talked about but yeah, we just went to the retreat in Nashville, like I always say it was it was Matt like, I don't know how we got 16 women or say we had no part in this. I don't know how you and Shannon got 16 women together and it was like pure magic. I still think about it. It was just like the best weekend ever. I literally paid what like 10 days before or like oh yeah, I'll come Sure.

Emily Schwalbach

Most Molly and Emily thing ever and you're like yeah, I'll just drop it.

Molly Cahill

This money pay in full.

Emily Schwalbach

I'm there and we you fill that last spot and Shannon and I were like screaming on the phone. We're like this is the perfect last person to fill the slot magic. That was such a great group.

Molly Cahill

Well, you inspired me to host my first retreat, which is going to be in April of next year. So yeah, I'm really excited. Um, is Savannah full?

Emily Schwalbach

Two spots left one spot left, actually.

Molly Cahill

Oh my gosh, y'all are

Emily Schwalbach

11 out of the 12 people are coming back.

Molly Cahill

Because we all had FOMO we're like, we get to interview the last spots. Yeah, like we can't miss. So yeah, so you can come to my retreat in Charleston in April or you can come to Emily and Shannon's retreat in Savannah in May or come to both like so fun. So today we're gonna talk about Instagram stories. And also just sidebar. I didn't realize we started our businesses at the exact same time pretty much in the exact same way. Of course for what's Ryan's business.

Emily Schwalbach

He owns a company called now courier which is same day delivery and logistics. It's as as it sounds, I've struggled managing for him and I finally pass the baton over to a local manager who dominates boring companies. She thrives. I'm like, I wanted to do all these fun things. And Ryan's like, you're not gonna get anyone to do anything like that.

Molly Cahill

Pay off like 60 delivery man, like, can we sell

Emily Schwalbach

the drivers to get involved, but they're really not employees? They're independent contractor.

Molly Cahill

Yeah, good. Like, that sounds like me. I'm always like, Oh, we could shoot this video and our clients are like, yeah, we're not gonna we're not gonna do that.

Emily Schwalbach

fun ideas, and it's fine.

Molly Cahill

Oh, my, my personal chiropractor. They finally enrolled in holistic marketing hub literally last night. So I was like, I've been your patient for almost a year.

Emily Schwalbach

Like, wow, come on.

Molly Cahill

So Instagram stories, I feel like so I did a poll actually, on my stories, oh, a couple of weeks ago, and a lot of people voted on they wanted to know more about stories, I would say for you and I both just only notice about you because we've talked about it. It's the number one driver of revenue from Instagram hands down for me. And I think that surprises a lot of people because reels is such a sexy topic and I love rails don't get me wrong. Rails is great for visibility they but they serve two very different purposes. So if you're already a little more advanced, you're used to posting stories, whatever you can hit the Tab ahead 32nd Or to tap it twice, whatever. But for the people who are super beginner and don't know what Instagram stories are, how do you like to explain what they are to people?

Emily Schwalbach

So I like to explain that they are off the cuff they are not edited like the more raw I always say the joke of the dirtier my hair is the more engagement I get on them.

Molly Cahill

Yeah, yeah, less made up

Emily Schwalbach

you are like the better people it's like a wall comes down so like your grid is kind of like you know putting your best foot forward and you might have clothes or makeup on but like stories is like I want to see like what she's doing right now. And it's kind of like when that ring is lit up. It's oh that she's open and speaking of the reels to stories like when you do have people come from reels who are new eyeballs, I'm like you have the stories there so they can get an I don't want to sound you know Gen Z but like the vibe like you just kind of what they're about from stories. You can do photos, the you know ever famous boomerangs, which we I still love and I will not stop doing I don't care who tells me that they're bad.

Molly Cahill

won't stop. No. highwaisted Did you see the meme that was like white girls boomerang their grandmother being lowered to the grave?

Emily Schwalbach

That's amazing. Or the

Emily Schwalbach

Tick Tock trend of people being boomerangs? I haven't

Molly Cahill

seen that, because I'm still not on the chalk.

Emily Schwalbach

Did you know I just consume I don't create, okay. And it's great. You shouldn't again, I know. I know. But But anyways, so we can get off on many tangents today. But the thing about stories is it lasts 24 hours. So if you're sitting there like, Oh, I get nervous about posting stuff, like it disappears within 24 hours. But the cool thing is, if you do like share some really great things or stuff about your services, and maybe like client stories or anything like that speaking to what your audience does, then you can save it to that highlight and people can kind of judge and see that kind of stuff. So yeah, very, you know, what are you doing today? What is your life? And what are you all about is kind of on stories, whereas your grid is really focused on and is very clear on what you do. Your stories I like to say is like where you reinforce your personal brand.

Molly Cahill

Yeah, I love that. And just from a technical standpoint, the difference in reels versus stories is reels are shown to new eyeballs. Whereas stories are only shown to your followers unless like they're not you're not, I'm not following Emily, I come to her profile. I see she has an active story. I can watch it, but like it wouldn't show up on the top of my feed.

Emily Schwalbach

Really great. And you could use hashtags and stories that don't do that anymore. It's a waste of time. Yeah, you

Molly Cahill

said that used to work. I used to actually stuff we'd get a lot of especially I had like a lifestyle blogger and we would get so many extra views from hashtags that doesn't happen anymore. Yeah, and with stories I always say doesn't was it you were sharing in that coin? The stories test? Yeah, so stories are so great too, because you get to see what type of content resonates at a very low risk way. And also like anything goes literally content pillars out the window, no one cares. Like I my highest viewed story in the past year was when I did a tour of my new house. I just moved in Tell Blue House tours,

Emily Schwalbach

people and something that a little homework kindergarten teacher that you guys can do is go and look at your insights. Look at your stories and see what has gotten the most replies in the last few months. Yes. And then I love to take that and be like, okay, so if it is house tour, if it is like for me, I like to watch reality TV. So it's like something about the housewives. Oh, I know, I can plug that into a caption somewhere, and get that engagement, if that's what my people are like, Oh, we love that. We love that, then I can be like smart. What's crazier than Theresa? Judaize flipping the table, oh, blah, blah, blah, and then go and segue into like an audience liked it. So how can I use it there. So that's like a little like, strategic thing that I do with my clients all the time, because they're like, it's my recipe, and I'm not even a health and wellness person, or it's this or that. And I'm like, I know. But that's so crucial. You can still use it.

Molly Cahill

Well, and that's what I if anybody who's followed all my contents, like, heard me say this 5 million times, but you're gonna hear me say it again. It's 2023. And you can't get away with like, Hi, I'm business, Emily, and my business things and like, then there's like your personal account. It's like, Hi, this is personal, Emily. And here's my personal things. Like that's not a thing anymore. Like, that's another thing.

Emily Schwalbach

That makes me laugh so hard, because I was meeting with a client in May. And she's like, but why? Why am I sharing that? I work out every morning. And I said, Think of it this way when you share on stories and you're trying to like create because some people don't even know what their personal brand is. And sometimes you push it and sometimes it's decided for you.

Molly Cahill

Yeah, like, like,

Emily Schwalbach

I mean, I used to make everything but the bagel seasoning on my avocado toast and I became everything but the bagel seasoning girl, it is in our sales copy on our membership page. Like yeah, Google send me pictures when they see it. Like I own everything. But the bagel? Seems

Molly Cahill

like it's like Shannon is no girl. Yeah. The oat milk.

Emily Schwalbach

I mean, if I that was an MLM. And I sold everything but the bagel seasoning. I'd be like a diamond star like I would.

Molly Cahill

I have helped

Molly Cahill

build that Diamond Star. Everyone I am. I love how stuff. Yeah,

Emily Schwalbach

people love it. They're nosy. They're nosy. But I

Molly Cahill

just like to decorate and stuff. But that's like my

Emily Schwalbach

people also have opinions to Yeah. Oh, everything. So I was talking to her. And she's like, who cares about the gym? And I'm like, Well, honestly, that way you're tossing out your net to the people who are you who may connect to that. And the next story, you're going to share that you're walking into a local coffee shop and you're connecting to people who like local coffee shops, and then you're sharing, you're walking your dog your shit, you're tossing out the net to the people who have dogs. So reason why you want to kind of mix it and then wait and see, of course, you know, Instagram and social media is all about trial and error. But like, you don't know what people will connect to you. So not give them a variety and, and to like if you're trying to attract the right people, like don't you want to work with people who you have something in common with, like you

Molly Cahill

do anyway. I mean, that's the whole counter argument to quote, my market is saturated. I turned down a client recently who was like, wah, sigh I could literally sit right outside, but I could hear that I could hear the thigh in the email. So she said my market is so saturated, and I just think that's why everything's not working. And I'm like, ooh, like, I'll have the energy to work with you. And I know that sounds mean but like, I don't buy into that there are five bajillion social media strategist. And you know, health coaches now like health coaching is a huge boom and life coaching is a huge boom. There's a chiropractor like every quarter mile. So even I see this is a true story. This girl went to high school with sent me Facebook Messenger, which we talked about things being intuitive. I don't understand Facebook, do you know I really don't know how to work Facebook that well, which I think is really funny.

Emily Schwalbach

I'm okay, but I don't I don't I mean, I

Molly Cahill

don't I don't let's just say I don't want

Emily Schwalbach

to do a presentation about it. i

Molly Cahill

There's too many buttons. Okay, I don't there's too many things like It's like my business and my personal there's, there's buttons and there's messages at both places. And I'm I'm confused. Okay. So anyway, she sent me a messenger so I probably didn't see it for like three months, but it said she was like, I breed geckos. I'm not kidding you. And it's a quote very competitive space. It's always like, okay, literally everything is saturated. So when you when you think about the fact that and this doesn't have to do with stories, per se, but just think about the fact that algorithms learned so quickly. So I was looking up on Instagram talking about gardening, some like gardening tips. We didn't plant one but like I'm thinking about it. Then all of a sudden, my explorer page everything is filled with gardening so it learns quickly. So you're gonna think it's saturated because that's Naturally what you're searching that's what you're interested in. And that's all you're gonna see. That's why my top tip is Emily is literally one of the only social media people I follow. I don't follow their social media people because it gets me to in my head. I'm like it comparison. And I'm like, oh, shoot, I was gonna post that next week. Are they gonna think I'm copying them like? So yeah, so like, mute or unfollow anybody in your industry? Oh, I love

Emily Schwalbach

mute because people are Enneagram, too. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but I cannot see some stuff. But I don't want them to know. My favorite. So I'm like,

Molly Cahill

I don't love the mute. But my whole point is Brene Brown says we are emotional beings who occasionally No. What does she say? Sorry. Brene. Basically how we like to think we're logical, but we are not. We don't. decisions based on logic, we make decisions based on emotion always. Whether you think you know, whether you think you do or not. So if I have three life coaches, and all three of you have the same promise of what you're going to help me with. And all three of you costs same amount. But like, one of you, you know, loves dogs, and one of you doesn't, like, you're gonna go with the one that has the thing that you have in common.

Emily Schwalbach

Exactly. And stories is such a great place to connect. And the thing that I so for the people who are still like, I don't care, I'm not doing them. I love to just like keep it real. I know there are people out there who are like, cool, no, thank you. I'm going to skip this episode. There is a send message on every single story you post. And that is an opportunity for people to connect with you one on one. Because a lot of people complain right now about engagement and comments. No one's commenting. Some people just don't like to publicly say things. No, and that's no true. Ed's about that. But if you are giving them very rarely do I chat with people, like I go to their profile, and I hit message like I don't, yeah, done that. Like,

Molly Cahill

it's from their stories. It's

Emily Schwalbach

responding to stories. So So you are so if you want to like throw all this personal brand stuff aside, you're like, I don't really care about that. You should but it's fine. opportunity that you are wasting for a potential client to talk to you. And you're just not doing.

Molly Cahill

Yes. And like you said, if you like let's just take like the actual, like, let's flip the sexiest part the money making. Now I started offering one on one coaching again, it had been a really long time since I've done it. And I filled all my spots through who's not even stories it was I sold two of them through one Instagram story. I love this and they're almost 1000 bucks apiece so it's like a post a story and like $2,000 Like I just don't understand like so my chiropractor does a great job of being like hey Madeline has an appointment. We have a massage opening it too because I would never think to pick up the phone if it's Monday morning and I have a shoulder not unlike others there's no way there's going to be any opening appointments this afternoon. I'm not even going to call because I'm going to feel stupid when I call and they're like no to last minute there's no appointments but if you put it on your story like I have an appointment today too. I'm gonna snag it

Emily Schwalbach

I love that and then they get and then you get to do the X over it and be like taken yeah after like two hours you could be like taken spot taken sorry like I love I'm like oh what a good flex my my I had a client who does eyebrows totally

Molly Cahill

just did that with my one on one coaching because they really weren't taking it wasn't it was not I think some people are lying sometimes but I was not lying. They really were taken.

Emily Schwalbach

We really weren't they really weren't taken. But I love it and I think to the hesitation was stories is you feel like you have to do it all day long. And that's not an either or I feel like so often when we're teaching we teach these best practices and they it people in business owners think oh I can't do that exact thing that I'm not doing it at all. So like is it best practice to post a few like as you go on with your day? Yeah. Because then you continue to be that top circle up there wanting to see what you're doing. If you can only post them in the morning, post them in the morning. If you can only post them at night post them at night like it doesn't doing something is better than nothing. And it doesn't have to be you talking to camera you may see my stories or Molly stories where we're talking to camera and we are you know giving tips and talking and you know the depth you can do a picture of like your coffee and say what your what your appointments are today. I have a physical therapy client friend, he bought my course. And he started I told him to start doing that and like tell me what your lineup is and he's like, we got a cold shoulder squeaking And the squeegee.

Molly Cahill

People love that I have a client who does that too. And it talks about social proof, man, we just worked with a health coach who she's got great Instagram engagement. She's been on 44, zero podcasts. But I'm like, You have no social proof. You're not showing anywhere, because she was saying she wasn't getting clients. Like people love what you're posting, but you're not giving social proof. And you're not just saying like, Oh, also I have clients. Yeah, look at me working with my writing that personally plan or like, whatever, it's yeah, that's always good. And then she also would used to take my other client who did a good job of this would take a picture of her schedule. And obviously, like, blur out the names and be like, full this week, but one spot open Thursday at two.

Emily Schwalbach

I love that. And again, like, it sounds silly, but by saying that people know you're busy. You have clients, I think so many times I will look at businesses, especially brick and mortars. And they'll be like doing all these educational and sales posts. And that's it. And then I'm like, do you have client like, are you Where do you work? And they're like, Yeah, and I'm like, and they're like, Well, my, my clients don't want to be in it. And I'm like, they don't have to be in it. It's like kids, you don't have to show your kids on social media. But you can still show your parent, you can show folding their laundry, their tiny little Yes, you can show their hand, you can come from behind. Like there's so many ways to show you do what you do without getting any anyone else on there.

Molly Cahill

Yes. Or like I always say like recruit your friends and family, like just show like you said, like the legs, whatever the feet, the back of the head. Like if people don't want to show their face, that's totally fine. So I want to I want to talk about two other things when it comes to stories. And then we'll actually there's a couple things, but I just don't want to forget because you and me are both ADHD and so we have to be okay, I want to talk about one is Canva. And then I want to talk about like polls and like the stickers. And then I want to talk about, like hooks and Happy Tuesday. And I think that's it, okay. I just wanted to prime our conversation. I like it. I like Okay, so again, I did want to touch on I forgot about this too. When you're talking about best practices. I just recorded a solo episode about hooks and headlines. And I said like, just because you can't check off every single one of these best practices boxes does not mean you shouldn't still do it. So lately, I've been busier than usual. And if you look, none of my reels have covers. Typically I like to have a custom cover on my reel just because it makes them a little easier to binge. But lately, I've been too busy. So I'm like it's either posted and not have a cover. And which now, which is really cool about reels as you can go back and add it later, which you used to not be able to do. No, I love it. So like I just need to go back and do it.

Emily Schwalbach

What a feature we can get behind.

Molly Cahill

I know Yes, gosh, I know. And then like sometimes I don't have the time to like research a whole bunch of hashtags or sometimes I don't have you know what I mean? Like it's it's just like something is better than nothing. So as Emily said, when you're talking about best practices, it does you don't check every box and something you and I both teachers, you know, cat like I had somebody asked me one time Well, I don't want to how do you personally assures me let me get on your phone all day. And you and I both teach this. It's like capture it now in the moment just real quick, snap a picture and post it later. Sometimes I'll post things like three days later, I'll be like, Oh, I forgot I took this video. It was so cute. Um, you don't have to know. Like police. They're like,

Emily Schwalbach

I love tape. Now post later. It's like my favorite thing because I was once the phone in hand constant. I was that

Molly Cahill

never been Did you notice a Nashville? I'd never. I was like, I don't know, I'm so

Emily Schwalbach

terrible. Shannon was so much better than I was I was terrible. I actually was looking for someone. I think it was Abby's birthday. And so I was looking in there and I was like, I have barely any photos.

Molly Cahill

I took none because I knew everybody else would. So I'm really not the like, in the moment. I'm not the typical social media gal. You know, like, I don't always have my phone.

Emily Schwalbach

No. I think that when I was doing it before, it was like 2018 where we thought we did I mean the content is so the quality is so terrible because of the day. And so I look back and I look at my posts, I'm like, ooh, that wasn't great. But I think also mine was my mindset of I needed to be on my phone for clients because I had to prove that I was the best most responsive person ever because I'm gonna do this business. And so I better respond. So that was I learned so much

Molly Cahill

all the time. But I learned so much from Rachel Rebecca who are the two sisters that run basically run my agency because they it was never a thing like they just never responded on nights or weekends. It just wasn't like it was never talked about it just I was like oh like okay, like wow, should I learn something from these young bucks? I

Emily Schwalbach

do that oh, yeah. Okay, yeah, right. fairwild taught me yeah. It's just it's something you just, I mean, I was trained that world of business. So I thought, Oh, this is what you have to do when you want as

Molly Cahill

a teacher to you probably had to do a lot at night because you were the kids all day. And then you had a lesson plan and make crafts at night for your school,

Emily Schwalbach

do a lot of things and talk to parents and very good communications. I just wanted everyone to feel good. And okay, so yeah, I was

Molly Cahill

talking about Canva. So what what made me segue back to the best practices is, if this is the only way you're gonna get stories out is like pre done Canva graphics, go for it. Personally not my favorite. I think they take more time. And be the whole beauty of stories is what Emily was saying, like, you're here with me, like, I love her. You said you're open, like you're here, open here. If you've got like pre made graphics, it's like, she's not here. This is pre made.

Emily Schwalbach

Totally, she's not here. And like, I like them on occasion, if I'm like, offering something that I need to like spell out that, like, I just want people to read it more, right? Well, I, whenever I see that, I'm like, it's just not personal.

Molly Cahill

So one thing we do for our clients is we so we do, we have our highest tier package, we post stories Monday through Friday, we'll take like a photo of them. And then we'll take one of their educational posts or carousels and take like the bullet point from each. And then we do like a progressive, you know, story slide where it's like first bullet point second, but we don't make it in Canva. We do it right in the stories app. So it is the native Instagram. Yeah, and then we save it, we save each slide to our camera roll, and then we reuse them. And if it's not a photo of that exact client, we can like if it's just like a pregnant belly or whatever we can, like use it for different clients. And that way, you still get that little bit of a native feel because it's the Instagram font. But I love that. I mean, I've done that before where I've saved my own when I was the one on one coaching when I filled the spots. And then I had one spot left. I just like went and reused the same stories and posted it again. Oh, yeah. Oh, I

Emily Schwalbach

have an album in my phone of my different things. So like if I'm trying to force like talking to camera or if I have a screenshot of someone who took it, then I can go bam, bam, bam, bam and do like a little like four stories of the Canva already done. But it's such a like supplemental thing. It does like help, you know, it'll have your brand colors on it. And it makes you feel like ooh, but to me, it's like when people only want to do that. It's like all this effort. And then you posted on stories and you're like,

Emily Schwalbach

it goes away. Yeah, you want on your feet. Like if I'm going to take the time,

Molly Cahill

I want to know you want to know MLA want to know me and I see your canvas skills. And we're like, No, we don't care about that. Yeah. And so the other thing too, that I use, the way that I love her stories is I film a lot of my reels in my stories. Do you do that?

Speaker 1

I actually do a lot of my cover photos and stories.

Molly Cahill

Yes, yes, I've

Speaker 1

done that before. But Shannon does a lot of that. I am lazy with

Molly Cahill

that. Well, I'm the well I am lazy also but love that about us reels pisses me off a lot the reels interface, like it'll crash and then I lose all my work and I'm pissed. So i That's why I film a lot of times in stories because then I can just like save that video. If you don't know what we're talking about film something in reels. Up at the top, there's a little down arrow and you can tap that and it'll save that video to your camera roll. And then sometimes I'll just post that actual video to my stories as a story then reuse it and put it in a real so like then you get like the the two for one special but and then I can use my subtle filter, which is my favorite. Because somebody in the day was like your skin looks so good. I was like, oh, Paris. I feel like a big fat liar.

Speaker 1

Swipe over once for Paris and it doesn't even say that I do it. So people are like, Wow, your skin you get Botox. I'm like no, I do Paris filter. Yeah, I want to feel confident about talking on stories, shoot it and then swipe to the left wheel. I

Molly Cahill

never thought about this until just now but I feel like one big barrier is like appearance people like feel like they have to be all done up. I think there is zero shame in filming with a filter. I know people have different takes on it and I get it like we don't want to raise our daughters to like think that we have to be filtered and we need all this stuff. But if that's gonna keep you from showing up, like put the damn filter on. Absolutely.

Speaker 1

Absolutely. The dog one but if you want to do the dog Emily, you want to do the dog when you can. I just I thought were the heart ones that would like pierce your eyes. So many robots. Were dinosaurs. We're aging ourselves. Instagram,

Molly Cahill

people are piling the dog filter. Okay. Hey so let's talk about like I said like the polls and the sticker. Company fun little so if you tap Record your story take a photo whatever, tap the little square smiley man at the top and there are boatloads of stickers and things you can do a little smile. And that just got me square smiley man. What do you call it?

Speaker 1

I don't know what but I'm gonna now call it that from now on. I love a

Molly Cahill

square smiley man. Yeah, that's what it is. I'm always like, tap the square Smiley. That kind of taught you something today?

Unknown Speaker

Name? Did you not know I heard from Instagram.

Molly Cahill

So I love like polls or questions, because like the polls, it's like, we do that almost every time we get a new client because we're like, what do you want to hear more about this? Or this or this or this? And one thing I see people do wrong with polls is they don't create enough answers where literally 100% of the people could answer

Speaker 1

yes. Yes. More like, fun or funny. Like, I mean, yes, you can do yes or no. But

Molly Cahill

you do yes or no, some people are gonna feel like assholes and not want to tap No. Feel like I'll always put like, maybe, yeah, maybe like

Speaker 1

they're a little more subtle. The No, yeah. Or, or, like, you know, I sing a lot in my car, you don't have to, but I do. It's part of my personal brand. I like to sing in my car, and then posted on my stories, but I'll be like, you know, who's singing with me or like, Girl, you're crazy, like. And so like, you know, play it up, make like, utilizing those when anyone says my story of user down that's like, on repeat, from members, from clients, from people from friends. And I'm always like, one, stop looking at it. Unless you're going to emotionally detach from it. If you are going to go into it without emotions, you may look but if you're, it's gonna ruin your day that your story of user down, we're not doing that anymore. We're so emotionally detached, then we can look but you need to use Instagram loves when you use the things. Yeah, each little movement that you encourage your story viewers to do counts, like it counts as a thing. So getting them to tap to hold down on the screen to answer the question to do whatever do the slider use the music. Like, if you are struggling right now with story views, and you're like, that is definitely using all those engagement things, trying to use all the feature features. And also, the thing that I don't understand why other business owners do not do this is tagging other businesses in their stories. The easiest way to get to improve reach to help fellow business owners I know a lot of your listeners are, you know, local, typically. So local businesses, people that are next door to you, like they will see it and be so happy. And then they will reshare to their story. And then you will be seen by their whole audience. And you did not have to do

Molly Cahill

and barely anything. Yes. For the listeners who don't really know, like the the technical part of that. Yeah, you. So I think it's really dumb that you don't get notified when someone shares one of your posts without, I mean, I know within 24 hours, you can go view story reshares, but you don't say like you'll get a notification unless someone actually tagged you. So what that means is, I'll use Dr. Davis, one of our longest running clients, she's a pediatric chiropractor in Raleigh, North Carolina. So there's this really fun. I'm gonna call it a mom blog travel, like it's called triangle families explore because we're always like the triangle area. And it all it posts about is like fun local parks or things like your kids will go to that account. Take one of their grid posts, hit the little arrow, neighbor where your airplane hosts video to green, yeah, share it to her stories. And if you just do that, that's great, but they're not going to get notified and they're not able to then reshare it on their stories, you need to do one extra step, hit the little text box button at the top or the square smiley, hit the ad type and at and type out triangle families as well or tag them, then it shows up in their notifications and then they can also hit reshare and reshare it to their stories. So when people see you so I have a few chiropractic business coaches that are like my top affiliates for my course. So anytime I'm promoting the course I'll tag them not to where people can see it but like really small and like hide it and then they can just easily reshare it to their stories and you've taken all the hard work off of them. Love that

Speaker 1

it's it's truly an everyone wins situation. Yeah. I mean, if you go going back to insights, like I love just the other day, just yesterday, I one of my former clients sent coffee and so we got Starbucks and I love looking at the stickers. tabs on her. It has nothing. All she did was get me Starbucks. Like there's nothing. It just shows how nosy people are.

Molly Cahill

You know what, that's how I found you. Really? Yeah, I think so because I think Shannon was doing her daily engaging. She commented on one of my posts like three years ago, okay. And then she was probably posting like Emily and I and then like, I tapped on you. And I was like, oh, Emily, and I were like the same person we should be chatting and, like, now we like our friends. So we really are in real life.

Speaker 1

Yeah. But I love looking at that. Like, it's such a proof that people are one nosy I always say your audiences nosy and lazy. Yes. Like just another thing to do. And stories link. Don't just say like, grab your appointment today, or make an appointment today. It's like, give them the link because they don't want to click, and then go up to the thing and then go to your bio. Like they're not they will not do that. So I think I link obnoxiously

Molly Cahill

Well, and that's the beauty of when did they roll that out? Was it like two years ago?

Unknown Speaker

I don't remember, you know, I don't know. So if

Molly Cahill

you see a lot of the fake followers on Instagram did that to themselves? Because they mean, it used to be for those of you who don't remember, you had to have 10,000 followers and able to get a working hyperlink in your stories. Now. Yeah, you had to swipe up and swipe up. Oh, I have a swipe up. It was like it was like a status symbol. Oh, 100%. Yes. So I literally had a client who wanted to buy followers, so she could have swipe up. I was like, I will fire you. No, I'm just kidding. I didn't say that. But anyway, now everybody can have a link and you want to make it easy. Like you can change the text too. So you can be like, tap here to book.

Speaker 1

And it's just like polls like yeah, like for our membership. I'm like, All right, you got me I'm in like, that's, like, I like to make it not just like, boring. Make stories fun, like, again, not trying to put pressure but like also, Bunny means if you are a pediatric chiropractor, like bunny parent means you count you love that, like post funny things. And then you put the poll or the slider, or am I right parents, you know, that's funny. They like it.

Molly Cahill

I love sharing that might be my thing. I share a lot of funny memes. I share a lot of inappropriate stuff, probably to that I'm like, my grandmother passed away before MJ was born. She was my best friend in the whole world. But then I also think How different would my business look if I knew my grandmother?

Speaker 1

Her, my dad and my father in law both watch my story. So Oh, God. I'm like,

Molly Cahill

like, Oh, I know. Shout out Charlene. My mother in law. She's like, sometimes the only person on my lives, but we don't have much time left. We both have podcast interviews in seven minutes. But I do want to quickly talk about Hey, y'all just hopping on here. Happy

Emily Schwalbach

Tuesday. No, I will cut you just missed

Speaker 1

the amount again, lazy going back to the laziness. They're gone. Yeah, you're introduced. So sometimes I like to tell people if they're doing it used to be a for every 15 seconds would be a different slide. And I'd be like, Just don't post the first slide. Because you're like, hey, sorry, I haven't posted Don't say that. No one really knows that. Nobody cares. No one cares. 99% of time people are more involved in their self. They don't care.

Molly Cahill

I haven't been on here in a while. Nobody noticed. Nope. Happy

Speaker 1

Mother's Day. Now some people I have worked with people where they're like, that's literally what I say in emails and texts. I'm like, okay, but all right, fine. But just get to the point, like start talking because you don't know when people are going to see it. So when you say good morning, they may be watching the afternoon. They're like, they're done. Like,

Molly Cahill

nobody cares that it's Happy Tuesday. Nobody cares. Like, Hey, y'all. My name is Emily. And I'm an Instagram strategist like, so if you go back to the hook and headline episode, if I already know who you are, like, I'm sure like if you've already. So I had one client who's like, Well, Dr. So and So doesn't do that. Like the big names. You know what I mean? I'm like, Yeah, but Dr. So and So already has that trust and authority, and they can post a photo of an avocado and get for, like,

Sara Wiles

happy can't do that.

Speaker 1

Like they could be like poop day and then they can say whatever they want to.

Molly Cahill

Yes, yes, whatever. So yeah, you really have to catch my attention quickly. And it's hard. It's a learned skill for sure. Because it's not a natural how you talk to somebody, you don't walk up to somebody in Starbucks and be like,

Emily Schwalbach

what's your coffee order?

Speaker 1

Yeah. There's no need to buffer yourself. And I think like for me, I don't. I just was thinking how do I start and a lot of times I will be walking and then I sit down. And I think that's not that's not a strategy, but I do think movement also helps those movements. Yeah.

Molly Cahill

Where are they going?

Emily Schwalbach

What are they why she Walk in once you do like my love

Molly Cahill

movement yeah movement a good hook and then like you know, put some text up on the screen always use the closed caption button

Speaker 1

always and make sure you watch it to see what the words are.

Molly Cahill

Oh my gosh I know sometimes it's said some funny stuff but I in addition to this is all this is all covered on my hook and headland episode which I just did. So I don't want to spend too much time on that but like it is something I see with stories a lot and people just kind of like sitting there forever. So last tip that Emily and I already talked about we want to leave you with is what to do if you're so my bookkeeper and money mindset coach who is like the my favorite human on the planet Kelly shout out. She's like, you just make it look so natural. And I know for a lot of people and Emily and I were like it's hard for us to teach it because we just don't care. Like I don't care what any. What do you think? Like I don't I really don't think I'm gonna whenever I do care, I care what people think of me. I don't but not in the putting my face on stories or doesn't bother me. So we're gonna give you some tips on like, how to maybe dip your toe like to kind of boil the frog you know, so to speak. Yeah, never heard that.

Speaker 1

It sounds like a Kentucky phrase from my husband. But yeah, let's boil a frog isn't eat the frog, boil the frog. And we'll Eat That

Molly Cahill

Frog is like a time management thing. But boiling frog is like it slowly gets hotter. But the frog doesn't know it because, yeah, or something like that.

Speaker 1

I don't know. I love learning new phrases with you. This is the best.

Molly Cahill

I think a boomerang is a great place to start writing. Or

Speaker 1

even like a photo of your face with your appointment list. Like like just your your hand holding the cup of coffee a boom with the like, people love the proof of human existence. Like it doesn't have life. Yeah, proof of like, another one I love is you could literally every day, show your feet walking up to your clinic. Like Walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, beautiful day, you could even pan up to the sun. This is the funniest thing. I always tell people. I'm like, you think it's hard? And then you're like, what's the weather like? Where you are Sunny? Yeah. Rainy. And people are like, well, sunny, like they can't help

Emily Schwalbach

it. Like,

Molly Cahill

I know, I can't let go. I can't help myself content, coffee or tea? What's your coffee order?

Speaker 1

Or like coffee? She has to know. She wants to know what I'm gonna give it to her? It seems it seems so silly. Who cares? We everyone. We all want to know what oh, it's sunny there. Oh, well, I'm actually 30 minutes north and weird. It's raining up here.

Molly Cahill

It's just letting down talk about the weather. Another thing you can do is even just like half your face, you know what happens?

Unknown Speaker

Like your office in the background?

Molly Cahill

Yeah. And you're like, or like a full clinic, like, get a full clinic today. Or, you know, all your beverages on your desk, you know, if you have like a smoothie of coffee and water and you're like, ready to see a full day of health coaching clients online. It's like, oh, she's actually working. She actually lives.

Emily Schwalbach

Oh, she does that. Yeah.

Molly Cahill

Because one spot left in August, tap here. There you go.

Emily Schwalbach

Instagram was all about tearing the walls down that are there. And people like you can't go into it. Assuming that people are gonna trust you, you have to slowly take it down. And the only way to see the results you want to see is to create that connection. And to do that is stories, it really is to connect to your audience. And also it's much easier to sell to the people who are already following you than to that's why I'm always like, they're, they're warm leads. You're like my real views. And I'm like, they don't know you. They they did this. They did this exact same swipe. They didn't click like, they didn't comment they and that's what you're worried about these other humans who aren't even in your local, local city, and you're worried about them. And I'm like, get on stories.

Molly Cahill

Yes. Stories is the trust of the know like trust. There you go. That's it, or actually it's all of them. Let's be honest. Okay, family. So we're not both late for our next point. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because we totally would be. How can people find you go watch Emily's stories? I'll link your Instagram profile below. Yeah, at least very friendly. She'll chat with Yeah,

Emily Schwalbach

yeah. DM me say Hi. Um, yeah, Instagram. I have a course I will have openings for new clients in the fall and the social squad society. That's what I

Molly Cahill

got. I love it. I love you dearly. I love you so much to and we've got a Hangouts in I know, but for real. I know. We'll make 1059 Look at that. We did great. by Emily. 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 bake their hook, head to head ballistic 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.

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