Episode 73: Social Media Success Blueprint
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One of the most frequent questions I get asked as a social media marketing expert is this: Can you just give me a blueprint for when and what I should post?
And I hate to break it to you – but there is no “right” answer here.
But instead of leaving you feeling frustrated and stuck, let’s dive into what you should be asking instead if you want to have “success” on Instagram!
Social media success isn’t one-size-fits-all
My job would be so much easier if there was a specific blueprint for how to be successful on Instagram. If I could tell you to post an educational carousel on Tuesdays, a testimonial reel on Wednesdays, and an inforgraphic on Thursdays… I would.
But that’s not how it works!
And you should be wary of any “guru” out there who tries to tell you exactly what to do based on what worked for them or for one of their clients.
What works for one account may not work for another. It’s unethical and misleading to make grand, sweeping statements about what you “should” be doing based on the success of a singular account.
It’s also important to note that what works for influencers rarely works for service-based business accounts. Those are two wildly different models – and following what an influencer says works isn’t the smartest way to approach your business account.
I run a fully-booked Instagram management agency, and I could post the exact same graphic, caption, and similar hashtags for all of my clients and they would ALL get different results.
There is no formula.
There are best practices – and those are the tips, tricks, and tactical things I teach – but there’s no “one” way to post on Instagram.
So what’s a business owner who wants to grow their Instagram and use their account to book more patients to do?
Create, create, create
If you play enough roulette… eventually you’re going to win.
Instagram is kind of the same.
More is more.
If you create 10 pieces of content, not only are you learning from each piece you create… you’re also increasing the odds that one is going to perform well.
Even if none of the 10 go viral or gain a ton of traction, you’re still reaching more people with 10 posts than you would if you spent all your time and effort perfecting one post that may or may not do well.
It’s like the old teapot parable.
There are two different groups in a pottery class. One group is told to make one teapot each day. The second group is told at the end of the term that they have to make one perfect teapot.
Of course, the group who made a teapot every day had more perfect teapots than the group that set out to create one perfect teapot at the end because repetition and practice leads to improvement.
The more you do something… the better you get.
The key to succeeding on Instagram is to keep creating, keep seeing what works with your audience, and keep trying new things!
Want to see more social media success? Stop overanalyzing
Inside the Holistic Marketing Hub, we create sample content calendars for our members because it’s helpful to have a rough outline and good idea of what you’re going to post.
But even the best content calendar isn’t set in stone!
We encourage our members to play around with it, add in their own “real life” posts, and treat their Instagram like a playground instead of a classroom.
Earlier, I mentioned that asking for an Instagram blueprint wasn’t the right question.
What you should be asking instead is: Does my messaging make my ideal person say, “OMG how is she in my head?!”
When your messaging is that dialed in… your content is going to connect and convert.
It doesn’t matter if you post a reel or a carousel, on Tuesday mornings or Thursdays at 2:47 pm – what matters is that your messaging resonates with your ideal person.
So turn your analytical, Type A brain off when it comes to creating Instagram content and start experimenting more.
Spend more time zeroing in on your messaging and less time worrying about creating the perfect grid or flawlessly editing a reel.
Use the data you have – I wouldn’t look much past 30, 60, or 90 days – to spot trends and see what really resonates, but don’t get too caught up in the numbers.
You never really know what will work on Instagram.
So speak to your people. Address their pain points. Talk about the benefits they want to see.
And create as much as possible!
Want to dial in your Instagram messaging?
I suggest starting with this post that’s all about creating “You get me!” moments for your audience.
Once you complete that exercise and have a better handle on your messaging, you’ll love learning how to apply my Content Ecosystem to make structuring your content easier and more effective.
And if you’re ready to turn your Instagram into your strongest marketing tool – check out the Holistic Marketing Hub. You can join the hundreds of chiropractors and wellness practitioners who are using Instagram to easily get new patients and clients!
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The Holistic Marketing Simplified 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 also bait their hook!
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Hello, welcome back to another episode of my summer shorts on this episode of summer shorts. I'm laughing because my poor podcast editor, for some reason, I can't say frequently asked questions. This is like my fourth take on this episode of my summer shorts. I'm going to give you one of the most frequently asked questions I get, and I hate to break it to you.
It's a question that I can't answer because there is no right answer. And that question is usually something like. Molly, can you just give me a blueprint? What time of day is best to post? How often should I post? Should I be posting reels or carousels? And in this 10 minute or less episode, I'm going to explain why that is not the question that we should be asking to make sure that we're having quote air quote Uh, success on Instagram.
So here we go. 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 my marketing roadmap, which is a five episode private audio training. That's kind of like this podcast, but not exactly because it's not available to the general public.
When you search on your podcast feed. So the great thing about consuming free content like this for me or on my Instagram or my blogs or whatever is that yes, you will learn a lot, but you kind of have to go searching for what it is exactly you're looking for. This five episode private podcast is broken down in a logical step by step order.
It's why it's called a roadmap. If you're ready to get started on your Instagram marketing journey, or if you already are started here. Just. feel like you're kind of like overwhelmed with all of the different free information. This is a super clear roadmap with lots of tangible step by step action items that will get you from point A to point B for just 27.
So all you have to do is head to mollykahill. com slash private training. And based on the reviews I've had so far, I know you won't be disappointed.
Hi, my name is Dr. Shira Posner and I am a chiropractor. As well as the. Owner and creator of the mobile mama method. I practice in Alexandria, Virginia, and I listened to the holistic marketing simplified podcast.
I wish more than anything. My job would be so much easier if it was this just specific map blueprint that I could say, okay, if you post educational carousel on Tuesday, a testimonial reel on Thursday, Wednesday, a, you know, infographic on Thursday and that, you know, whatever. And then this story in this story, then poof, you will have social media success.
It doesn't work that way. I'm sorry. It doesn't work that way. I. It Think there's a lot of advice on Instagram from, you know, the gurus who are extrapolating something that worked for their account as an, you know, in of one by in, I mean, like, you know, sample size of one. And then they make this grandiose sweeping statement of this is what's working on Instagram right now.
And I'm like, no, like you're one account. And the majority of you listening to my podcast, I don't work with influencers. You're not trying to be an influencer. You're not trying to have an influencer Instagram account or a business model. That is a very different. And if you are, you're on the wrong podcast.
I'm sorry. I'm sure you can find some lovely ones that will help you with your style of business. The majority of you are seeing patients or clients all day. The fact that you have to create content is like just secondary to your job, right? So you don't need tons of comments. You don't need the same reach.
You don't need all of the stuff that they need, right? So we don't want to take this like Oh, hey, I'm an influencer. I literally manage one account, my own account and quote, here is what's working on Instagram right now because yeah, anyway, it just, it doesn't always translate to what's working for, for health, uh, for accounts like yours.
Okay. So what got me onto that tangent was the fact that we have a fully booked Instagram management agency. We're always running around 30 Instagram accounts. We can post the same. exact thing. Same graphic, same caption, similar hashtags. I say similar because obviously it's, um, we use local and geographical hashtags as well for their area.
And even if the accounts are relatively the same size and followers, it'll get different results, y'all. Like it's, it's not that formulaic. Are there best practices? Of course. And that's like the more like tips, tricks, tactical things that I teach. But I just want you to know that there's no, it's kind of like, I always say it's like playing roulette.
It's like, if you play enough roulette, you're going to win. So that's why I'm always like create, uh, I used to say, I used to say less is more, but now I just say like more, there was a Susie Moore. It's funny. Her name is Susie Moore. And her podcast episode was titled when more is more. And I just loved that because she talked about how.
You know, if you create 10 pieces of content, um, not only are you learning more from each piece that you create, but you also increase the odds that one's going to perform well. And even if one doesn't, you're still reaching more people than if you spent all your time and effort perfecting just this one thing that's got to be perfect.
And it's, you know, and then you get that out. So it's like the teapot parable. Of, I don't know if y'all have heard that, it's like where there's two different groups in a pottery class, the first group is told to make one teapot per day, the second group is told to, at the end of the class, or at the end of like the term or whatever, they have to have created one perfect teapot, it's like, okay, you can fill in the blank of what happened, of course the group who had to make a teapot every day had more perfect teapots than the one perfect teapot group, because there's When you continually do things and have repetition, you get better.
It's like Simone soul, if y'all don't follow her, I love her. She has something called a garbage post challenge. Um, you can always Google that and look that up where, like I said, if you just keep putting it out there, you'll kind of figure out quote, what works for you. And then, and again, going back to the whole client example.
If we have a reel that has like done really well for a client and then we repost that same reel or post or whatever a couple months later, sometimes it does really well again the second time and sometimes it doesn't. So again, like there's just no formula and I know you want there to be a formula, but that's the reason like even inside of holistic marketing hub.
Yes, I have a sample content calendar. Like skeleton plan, like, okay, Hey, in an ideal world post things this way, but that still is not like I'm handing you the ticket to the winning lottery number. You know what I'm saying? So I just want to tell you that in the hopes that that actually doesn't discourage you, but actually makes you feel better.
It's a playground. We've had clients before who are like, Ooh, are we gonna mess you up if I post the selfie of us at the coffee shop? I'm like, mess us up. No. Like, it's just gonna add beautiful color and, um, extra flavor to your account. It's not all that, that serious to where it has to be. So, like I said, so I, I do get people asking me like really specific questions and the answer is they're really, most of those things are immaterial and don't matter.
what does matter. So the question you should be asking is, is my messaging the type of messaging that makes my person say, Oh my gosh, how do they know he or she's talking to me? Are they in my house? And when you're messaging, is that dialed in? That's why I keep talking about messaging until I'm blue in the face.
Y'all are probably like, geez, Molly, seriously. It's because it's that important. That's the, that's the thing that like, again, it doesn't matter if it's a carousel or a reel or a story or what day of the week it is or what type of day it is. It matters that your messaging is resonating with your ideal person.
So, the moral of this summer short episode is try to take off our analytical type A brain because if you try to over analyze, oh, why did this particular reel perform, oh, a little better than this one, then you're going to drive yourself insane. The smallest amount of data I like. We ever look at for clients is a one month at a time.
So, uh, you know, I would say you could look at 30, 60, 90 days. Maybe you can see spots and trends, but, um, again, just in, and then we never use the word flopped ever, ever. I never say something flopped. I either, I either think, okay, this real, maybe it didn't resonate. Um, maybe it was something only my really hot leads, um, are resonating with, which means, you know, that's going to be fewer people, whereas like the more viral type, you know, hooks and short reels and stuff, maybe you're going to appeal to more of the masses.
So, and for that, I would refer you back to my content ecosystem episode of the podcast, but yeah, it is definitely an art. Yes. It's an art that has. you know, best practices, but there is no concrete science to it. So go play, create some stuff. Who cares if it's perfect? Thank goodness the quote trend in 2024 and beyond is, you know, out are all the perfectly curated feeds.
I mean, someone asked me about a grid pattern the other day. I was like, I haven't seen it. And if you're like a photographer or an artist or home decor or something, maybe, but for the things you do. I mean, you don't want something sloppy that's like completely off brand, but it does not have to be like perfectly curated like it used to.
So go play, have some fun. Think of it all as data gathering, if that helps. Okay, I'm gonna shut it up now. Have a great day. Thank you for listening to Holistic Marketing Simplified, and hey, you know how 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. Okay. Bye. To leave me a rating and share this on your Instagram stories and tag at Molly A.
Cahill, that's C A H I L L. I would greatly, greatly appreciate your support. I know your time is valuable and I can't wait to see you in the next episode.