Episode 39: How to Create an Effective Instagram Content Ecosystem 

Hello, and welcome back to another solo episode of the holistic marketing simplified Podcast. Today I'm going to be talking about your content ecosystem. And this kind of answers the question of what should I be posting on Instagram? People often ask, well, how much personal Should I have? How much business and people ask Should I do carousels? Or should only do reels? Or should I do so photo posts? Like, you know, all that kind of stuff? So this episode is going to answer all of those questions. And I can't wait to hear what you think. 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. That'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 and you're 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 Mollie cahill.com/private training. And based on the reviews I've had so far, I know you won't be disappointed. I'm really proud of this training. And I know personally, I've bought 2737 $17 products before and felt like I really didn't get that much out of it. I guarantee you, you will learn something from this five episode, private audio feed. So again, it's just Molly cahill.com/private training. And it'll also be linked below in the show notes. I cannot wait to hear what you think.

My name is Dr. Kimmy and I'm a pediatric and prenatal chiropractor in Virginia and I listen to holistic marketing simplified.

Alright, let's dive in. One of the most common questions I get asked is What should I be posting? And yes, there are people who are asking just like simply for content ideas, but then I also get the question around should I still be posting carousels should only be posting reels? Do I need short captions, long caption stories, how many personal posts? How many did it ended up? So I'm going to go through why I have created what I call a content ecosystem. So first one to debunk popular Instagram marketing advice that I see, which is go look into your Instagram insights and see what posts are performing the best and only posts more of those. Now, that's not inherently terrible advice, per se. But what that does it take into account is what I'm going to talk about today about awareness levels, whether that be like top of the funnel, bottom of the funnel, or cold leads, warm leads, hot leads, brand marketing versus performance marketing, the fact that you have a conversion account, I'm going to define what all if you don't know what any of those things are, that's okay. That's mostly what we're going to talk about today. And why that advice isn't always sound because most people who give that type of advice are monetizing their Instagram by like, they're actually getting paid for views on the reels or they're getting paid by sponsors. And they need to have really high views for that sponsored content, or they're doing some type of affiliate marketing. And so again, they need that they need like the sheer volume in order to make money off their Instagram account. But if you're listening to this podcast, and you're one of my ideal students or clients, then that's not really what you're looking for. You are what I would call a conversion account. And if you haven't heard me talk about this, a conversion account simply means that you don't need the volume that an influencer or a blogger or someone who relies on views or affiliate income or sponsored posts. You don't need the sheer volume that they have in order to make your business model work. This is why you can get away with fewer views and you know, fewer followers, as long as they're really targeted, healthy followers, who are then going to become a patient or client of yours. Even if you have a group program. Even if you do have an online course of some sort, you probably couldn't handle a huge influx of I mean, obviously, if you're one on one you definitely can't handle like 1000 new people or even 100 new people. But even if you have an online course and you're just getting start added, then having a really big influx would be hard just for the customer service aspect. And I mean, you might, you might be set up to have that type of volume. But typically, we are what's called, like I said, a conversion account. And you just don't need the the numbers that someone who is doing the other style of marketing needs. So there's a couple different ways to look at this. And over the years, I've, I've always known this to be true, but it's so funny, I'm just like, as I learn more and more and, you know, learn from other marketers and do other courses myself and manage starting Instagram accounts. It's funny how it's like, oh, this is what I've known all along. But like this is just kind of like validating in a different way. And so these to me kind of all go hand in hand. So when I'm talking about a content ecosystem, I mean, a couple different things. The first way to think about this is awareness levels. So if you're somewhere where you're not driving or whatever, you could just simply Google the five stages of awareness. The way awareness levels work are, it goes through five stages, unaware problem aware, solution aware, product, aware and most aware, and I'm just going to briefly touch on each one, this is kind of something I feel like it's like better to see visually. So again, you could just Google it, the five stages of awareness. Unaware means that your target market they're not aware that their desire or their need to solve the problem even exists like this is that this could be I'll use the chiropractic back pain example. Because it's the easiest. This could be somebody who's you know, walking around pop and ibuprofen every day, doesn't really think about the fact that they have back pain, it's just become part of their life, and they just take ibuprofen. And that's just what they do. So they're really unaware that they have a need to solve their problem. The next stage is problem aware, which means they know they have a problem to solve, but they don't know about the solutions. So this is where you're like, oh, yeah, my back hurts, like, but I have no idea what to do about it. The next stage is solution where, which is where they know there's a solution to their problem, but they don't know of any of this specific products to solve it, or products might not be the right word. But you know, this could be like, you know, I know there's a solution for my back pain, but don't need to go the orthopedic doctor, do I go to physical therapy? Do I get a massage? Do I go to acupuncture? Do I use a heating pad? Do I continue to take ibuprofen? Oh, I heard Tumeric is good. Like, that's the people who are in that solution aware phase. Next, you move to product aware, this is where they know that your product or service exists. But they aren't really completely aware of all it does. And they're not convinced of how well it does. So this might be okay, they know chiropractic can help with back pain. But like, maybe they think it's just for people who have been in a car accident, or, you know, people who have had an actual injury and fallen or something like that. And then the highest stage is most aware, this is the people that know about your services, and they know what it does, but they haven't gotten around to booking that service yet. Or if it's a product, they haven't gotten around to purchasing it yet. This to me I interpret of they know chiropractic is the solution for them, but they have not picked the actual chiropractor. So your Instagram, honestly, is mostly going to stay in probably, I would say, the top three awareness levels, which would be like solution aware, product aware and most aware, but you know, sometimes reels that go viral, that really could tap all the way back to the very bottom to that underwear stage. Another way to think about this ecosystem, which is how I've always thought about it is top of the funnel, versus like bottom of the funnel leads. And if you don't know what that means, if you just literally imagine a funnel in your head, the top of the funnel is when you're going to be catching the most people. And then through more and more of your content or whatever, they're going to kind of whittle their way down. And the only people that are going to remain at the bottom of your funnel are going to be the people who you know, really are wanting your services. So as Dr. Elise Rigney put it, when she was on my podcast, she thinks about it as cold, warm and hot leads. Again, it's really the same concept. Your cold leads are kind of those unaware or problem aware, or top of funnel the people who are just like it. And then if you can catch them with certain types of content, and then they kind of get whittled down to being warm or hot or bottom of the funnel or most aware. So again, all of these things are kind of like saying the same thing, just in different ways. So to circle back that's why I don't always agree with the advice of picking one type of content and sticking with it because if you have more like, you know, palatable to the masses content that's just racking up views and continuously going iral Typically that content is going to be more of that top of the funnel, colder leads, it's not usually the type of content that's going to push them over the edge to actually convert. Remember how I said you have a conversion account to be a paying patient or client? And not always? I mean, it depends on the price point and depends on what it is right? So like, if you have a $27 meal plan, like you don't necessarily need to worry about all these awareness levels or font, you know, I don't know, maybe you do, it really depends on the person. But I'm hoping that kind of makes sense. Another way to think about it is, you've probably heard of the know, like, trust factor, I've always thought of that top of the funnel type content as or the unaware type of content or cold lead content is the know, like, oh, okay, now we're going to know this person. And then once they come hang out in your sphere, or on your page, or watch your stories or whatever, then they get to know you a little better. And they start to like you, then you're more in depth content, your longer captions, maybe carousels with a lot of text on them, or reels where you're actually talking to the screen for like 60 to 90 seconds, or blog posts or anything like that. That's the content that might not be as quote, sexy, like might not get as many views, it might not get as many comments or whatever. But I guarantee you, that's the content. It's an eventually converting people to be paying patients or clients because that's what really establishes you as the authority. And those hot leads are going to be like, Okay, this is like my final sign to buy. So that's one way I like to kind of think about this whole idea of a content ecosystem is just simply for the different stages people are in in order to make a buying decision. And you've probably heard me say things like, used to be the marketing rule of seven where people needed to see something seven times in order to take action. Now, there was an article in Forbes that said 21, and then before this podcast, I was researching it again, and it was like, anywhere from seven to 70. But I really don't think that that data is great. Because you don't know what awareness stage someone's in. So if someone's in the unaware cold lead type of funnel stage, then they're going to need to see something more times than the person who already knows what the solution is to their problem. They just haven't picked the actual like brand or service provider or, you know, whatever. So a perfect example of this is recently so I'm not a big alcohol drinker. And I've been drinking more of the like, you know, like the mocktail type things. And so I kind of started researching different ones. And now I get targeted ads for all of the different brands who sell all the different mocktails. And so I'm reading up on all the different ones and Okay, these are like liquid drops, and these come in cans. And you know, so it's like, I already know, the solution to my quote, problem is I want these like fun mocktail drinks, but I just don't know which one because there's a lot of different brands to choose from. So I'm obviously going to need to see the content like way fewer times than someone who, you know, doesn't even know that this type of thing exists. And, you know, I'm gonna have to see stuff weigh more to order to be like convinced or I don't like the word convinced, but to understand that that might be the solution to my problem. So the other way I like to think about this content ecosystem is the fact that my friend Emily schwalbach, who was on the podcast, way back talking about Instagram Stories, she used to be a kindergarten teacher. And I really liked the way she explains it is that everyone learns differently. So this is another reason that you need an ecosystem. Some people learn by watching videos, some people learn by reading, some people need to see both. And some people need more of like the visual. That's why the carousels do well, because maybe the caption, if all the text is in a caption, it feels overwhelming. Whereas if it's a carousel, they can swipe through it feels more palatable. So you really do need a variety of, you know, media, just to be able to reach the different ways that different people learn and absorb information.

And then the last piece of this ecosystem that I talk about is my content ecosystem, which are six themes that I've identified over the years, that you really need to make sure you're hitting if you kind of look at your like, you know, zoom out, look at your content as a whole, let's say over a month period, have you hit these six themes? This is not traditional content pillars, like you've probably heard or learned before, where let's say you're a health coach and your content pillars might be exercise, easy meals and habit stacking. That's not what I mean by content themes. Yes, those might be like common topics that you talk about. But all of these topics fall under your educational and core content theme. There are five other themes, and they are so very often missing. So I'm going to briefly touch on what those are. But I have a free download that goes through each of these themes in the content, ecosystem in depth with clickable links to see different examples and stuff. And you can grab that free content ecosystem guide at Molly cahill.com/content. Planner. And that will go through, like I said, all of the different themes in detail. But so already talked about the educational and the core, like that's the one that most everybody gets, this isn't your evergreen content. This is the stuff that you could probably post about easily, because it's you know, what you do day in and day out, it's never gonna go out of date. The next is social proof, social proof. Again, it's pretty common. Most people know what this is, if you think about reviews, or testimonials, but I like to take this social proof category a step further. And it's simply to make sure that you have photos of you doing the thing you say you do. So if you're a pregnancy chiropractor, and I come to your page, and I see no actual photos of you working on a pregnant woman, then you have no social proof, you can have all the pretty Canva graphic testimonials all day long. And I'm still not convinced that this is what you do. So this is another reason I really don't like stock photos. And I we use stock photos in our agency is a very, very, very last resort. So I mean, I've even started on Discovery calls with people saying like, I mean, I can take you as client, but if you don't have actual photos of you in your clinic or actual, like, if your virtual, you know, photos of you, like branded photos of you on your computer or something like that, like what it would be like to work with you, then we're basically just going to be taking your money, like it's not worth it if you don't have that personal touch. So that's what I mean by like social proof, taking it a step further. Another great way to establish social proof is to just throw up a post or reel a story, or all three of like, Hey, this is what we saw this week in our clinic. And you know, you can kind of list out obviously, you're not going to put people's names, but just like, you know, kid with chronic ear infections, and, you know, mom, pregnant mom with, you know, pubic symphysis dysfunction or whatever, you'd put all that up on the screen. Same if you're an online virtual health coach, you could put, you know, kind of like your schedule over the week of like what you are doing with your health coaching clients that week. And that's another really great way to establish social proof. And I just want to have a little side note here, you know how at the beginning, I talked about like, should it be a real? Should it be a carousel? Should it be a photo, just like that example I just said about putting up a little like mini example, like paint the picture of you know, what type of clients or patients you serve. This is why I always say, do one of each like there doesn't, it doesn't have to be a pick one, it doesn't have to be a, I'm going to do a real about all of the, you know, interesting cases I saw over the last month. But since I've already done a real, I can't also do a carousel and also can do it on my stories. That is wrong, you can do it on all three. And you should do it do it on all three, because Fun fact, the algorithm not only shows you content based on your preferences of topics, it also shows you more content based on how you normally consume from that person. So if you typically only watch Instagram Stories, you're gonna see, like, you want to make sure you're you're catching those people who mostly just watch stories. There are users there are Instagram users who are literally just go watch people's stories and don't ever see their feed content. And I know that to be true just from logging into my account. So for example, the people who usually come up as my stories at the top aren't the same people that come up on my feed. And then people who tend to, you know, watch a lot of carousel or not watch a lot of carousels, people who tend to swipe through a lot of carousels, their algorithm is going to send them more carousels and people who solely get on Instagram to watch reels, guess what, they're going to be shown more reels. So that's why I think a lot of people go into this assuming that oh, I've already done this. I can't do it again. And that is just absolutely not true. I recently had a virtual assistant who took a lot of my reels, I just gave her links to a lot of my reels, and I had her make them into carousel posts and vice versa. And if you're asking the question of how far do I need to space these out of like, okay, I posted a reel about three ways to you know, reverse your PCOS naturally. And then, how soon can I post a carousel about the same thing then you're already overthinking it. I can feel you I can feel you overthinking eggs. I can tell you it doesn't matter. You could do it. The next If you want, or you can wait a week, or you can wait a month, it does not matter. I promise you just go with what feels good to you, and what works well with your type of personality. So we have some clients who like to do themes and it's like, okay, they do the same on, like, based on the week. So like, Okay, this week's theme is going to be like I said, like the PCOS theme, next week's theme is going to be acid reflux, the week after that theme is gonna be habit stacking or whatever, or we have some people who do things by the month, I don't do that. That's not how my brain works. Because I don't like to kind of be like boxed into that type of like system. There are some people who do like, Monday posts all are the same type of post and Tuesday. Again, there's no right or wrong, you just need to do what's gonna make your own brain, your own personality, your own system of organization work for you, do not overthink it. So sorry, I just had to have that side note, like I said, I had an outline, just like the literal first bullet point on my outline, and I got ahead of myself. So I talked about the six content themes in the ecosystem, like I said, number one was educational or core, like you're just making evergreen content, that always makes sense. And that's where you could have little sub themes, you know, common educational topics you talk about I talked about number two is being social proof, which is beyond just testimonials, and reviews, which yes, those are good. But taking it a step further, like I said, actually showing photos and videos, and examples of you doing the thing you say you do. Case studies also would fall under this, the next theme and the content ecosystem is personal or lifestyle. Note that I didn't say private, a lot of people freak out. They're like, Oh, I'm gonna be I'm a very private person. I don't want to be posting stuff on Instagram. Okay, I'm not saying that you have to like, post about, you know, you and your husband's like date night every time like, or, you know, obviously like, anyway, super personal content, you don't have to post. I just mean like,

I'm going on vacation. And these are the supplements, I'll always make sure I have in my bag. Or if I have a back to back day of zoom calls with clients. Here's how I make sure I have a high protein lunch prepped. Or to take it on the more fun side, people always love the personality type stuff like I'm an Enneagram. Seven, what are you? Or I'm a Gemini like, but are you like people just love that kind of stuff. So that's that personal and lifestyle theme and like in Yes, it can be like the obvious like, it can be your kids or your dogs or your plants or whatever, too. I just thought I'd give you some other examples. If you are one of those people who doesn't like to share those things, but you never know you sharing your dog, in addition to all of these other themes of content can be the thing that solidifies someone booking with you because they like Oh, person, I'm a dog person, I'm going to pick them. So don't underestimate the personal and lifestyle content. Because you know, these are the questions people are asking you anyway, they want to know they're like, ooh, and people are nosy. They're like, Oh, was it her purse was on your nightstand? What's in your diaper bag, people love that stuff. The next theme in the ecosystem is a direct pitch. Now, there is a way to to pitch. By pitch, I mean, like a call to action to book an appointment, or to book a free call with you or even to download if you're trying to grow your email list even to just like download your free guide. Those are all great pitches. And they can be kind of, I don't wanna say hidden but like, there's two ways that I like to do pitches and one is, have you ever been reading a magazine, and it's a full page ad, but you don't realize it's an ad until you get to the end. It'll be like five tips for making your homes to smell fresh this fall. And then you get to the bottom and there's like a glade logo and you're like, ah, they got me. So for those of you don't know, my background is in journalism and advertising. That's what's called an advertorial. So it's meant to be like educational, it's providing you value, but then it's also plugging the actual brand. So your pitch to work with you can be just like that it can be educating on how you can help people with chronic migraines. And then at the end, if you suffer from migraines book an appointment. Yes. However, you also still need to mix into your content ecosystem, a direct, blunt, work with me pitch this literally looks like I have a graphic I put up in July it was like I have two one on one coaching spots available for July. They sold out in six hours. And these are almost $1,000 spots. I didn't teach anything. I didn't you know, but you can't do that. You can't just do that if you're not also doing everything else. That's why all of this works in this ecosystem. So don't be afraid to be very blunt. I have a lot of health and life coaches I work with who are doing really well on Instagram, but it's not translating to paying clients. And I always look in there, it's always missing. I'm like, Well, are you open for business? Or like, what? What do you mean? I'm posting? I'm like, Yeah, but are you taking clients because I don't see anywhere on your feed on how to work with you. So literally could just be like, I have a spot for one client available in August, like DM me to Snagit or commented emoji, and I'll DM you. If you're a brick and mortar, this can look like posting your schedule something like we have two spots for new patients next Thursday at two and four. And we have three spots for follow up patients or something like that. So that's that direct pitch. Next is a category I almost always see missing. And that is what I call my engaging theme. This also could be called like, can't help myself. And this is the stuff you post for the sheer purpose of eliciting engagement, people aren't going to go like, click the link in your bio, or maybe book an appointment with you. That's not what this theme is for. This theme is what I like to call CPR for your account. It looks like comment, the last three things you post that you bought on Amazon, no cheating or telling me your age without telling me telling I'll go first or we have some for our pregnancy and baby chiropractors that are if you named your kids after your pregnancy cravings, what were their names be? People can't help themselves, they have to hop in. So I didn't touch on this yet that these these themes, like I said, can overlap. So these aren't like, you know, direct like specific buckets. So you know, he was talking about the personal and lifestyle bucket? What if your post was like, Hey, I'm an Enneagram. Seven, what are you that's not only hitting that personal lifestyle theme, that's also hitting the engagement theme, because the sole purpose is, you know, to get more going on the sole purpose, but one of the main purposes is to get more comments. So another thing that falls under that engaging theme is like quotes, if your quotes person, you know, doubletap if you agree or share this with a mom who needs to hear hear it or something like that. And the memes, like you've seen the meme threads that people do that kind of also falls under that engaging category. So this is something that I again, I almost always see this missing when someone has messaged me, and they're like, I'm doing everything, and I'm still not getting, you know, great engagement, this is always the thing that you need to start incorporating. And, disclaimer, guess what, the first couple of times you do it, you might not get any comments and you know what you need to do. You need to message your friends, you need to message your favorite client or your favorite patient to Hey, you could comment on my Instagram post. There's no shame in that. You asked for Google reviews, go ask for comments. And then after you start doing that, you don't do it anymore. Because it's like people just see like, oh, I want to play I want to hop in. And people get like almost unreceived trained because that sounds like really derogatory, but people just like get used to commenting on your stuff. And then the last thing in this content ecosystem, again, this one's probably the hardest, but it's also one of the most effective in terms of growth. And that is collaboration or referral content. So this is really easy if you're brick and mortar and you only draw local audience because you can do things like, Hey, we're going on a date night Friday, where are your favorite places to eat around town, or vice versa? You can do a carousel or grid post or a reel or like I said all of the above. It's like, Hey, you're our favorite small businesses around town and then you tag all of the small businesses. You can also do it just with referral partners. So you know, pregnancy baby chiropractors, it's like, yes, you could do think about doulas, midwives, lactation, pediatric, dentists, OT, all of that stuff. But then also think outside the box. Think about newborn photographers or maternity photographers or baby boutiques or Mom Blog type accounts. They're like, you know, things to do around the city, like they talk about, like all the different parks and stuff to do with kids. If you're in a smaller town, obviously, this is going to be a little tougher. But it's still possible to find some of these local accounts. If you're online only, I think you can still do this with local businesses. One of my top tips for any online business is we get this online business and we think oh, we can serve anybody, anybody anywhere. Which is great, and it's true. But the easiest way to get your business going, in my opinion is to start closer to home. Geographically, even though you do see people online you might never see these people in person and then work your way out because it gives people a connection point to you. So don't be afraid to use this tactic even If you're an online business, but you can also do referral, like complimentary accounts to you. So maybe you talk about meditation, but you don't teach yoga and you don't teach EFT, tapping or journaling, or mindfulness. So then maybe you tag accounts that teach those things that are complementary to what you do. Again, I realized these are harder and take more effort to put in, but they really can pay dividends. And this can look like a collab reel, if you want to do it that way. It can be a carousel, tagging people in your stories, when you tag people in their stories, it's easy for them to reshare you back. So all of those apply, and who would do that at the very least once a month. Okay, so that wraps up everything about my content ecosystem, which I hope was super helpful. Don't forget to go grab your free guide, just go to Molly cahill.com/content. planner, and then send me a DM if this was helpful, I would love to know. Or if there were any parts that felt kind of confusing that you need clarified. I love when I hear from you. So I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. Thank you for listening to holistic marketing simplified.

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. That's why it's called a roadmap. So you're ready to get started on your Instagram marketing journey. Or if you already are started and you're 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 Mollie cahill.com/private training. And based on the reviews I've had so far, I know you won't be disappointed. I'm really proud of this training. And I know personally, I've bought 2737 $17 products before and felt like I really didn't get that much out of it. I guarantee you, you will learn something from this five episode, private audio feed. So again, it's just Molly cahill.com/private training. And it'll also be linked below in the show notes. I cannot wait to hear what you think. 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 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.

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