How To Start A New Instagram Business Account [Episode 33]
Subscribe on Your Favorite Podcast Player
Apple Podcast App | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcast
Have you ever wondered how to properly set up your Instagram profile?
We recently onboarded a client who was starting his social media presence from scratch. (And when I say “scratch,” I mean it. He didn’t even have photos on his website.)
And that got me thinking: setting up your Instagram account can be overwhelming. What advice would I give to health and wellness professionals just starting?
So today, I’m sharing what we do for our clients.
Keep reading to learn how to set up your Instagram account – including how to:
- Get clear on your ideal client or patient,
- Optimize your Instagram profile,
- Pick a strategy,
- And more
Step 1: Create a Healthy Social Media Mindset
It’s easy to get stuck in the social media comparison game, which is why it’s important to have a good social media mindset. Thousands of people do what you do, and it can feel like you’re behind or not doing enough.
That’s why I always (always, always!) suggest unfollowing or muting colleagues and industry peers on Instagram – especially as you get started.
If you’re wondering where to get content ideas, follow successful accounts outside your industry.
Doing this will help create a healthier social media mindset.
And remember: a lot of folks who frequently post on Instagram are full-time content creators, not necessarily professionals balancing a clinical practice, so give yourself lots of grace!
Step #2: Get Clear on Who You Serve
One of the easiest ways to get clear on who you serve is to review your client or patient roster over the last few months and then divide those people into these 3 categories:
- Ones you loved working with
- Ones you felt indifferent about
- Ones you didn’t love working with
Next, look at the people in category 1; these are your ideal clients or patients.
Write out what these people have in common. What did they come to you for? Did they have specific symptoms or challenges? Were they already advanced in their health journey or just starting? Why did you enjoy helping them? What are their demographics?
You can use these descriptors to create messaging and content pillars that speak directly to this ideal patient/client.
If you need extra help, check out my free Patient or Client Voice Branding Exercise.
Step #3: Pick a Strategy (And Stick To It)
What do you want your social media to do for you?
Do you want to increase retention? Increase brand awareness? Bring in new patients or clients?
Your strategy should be a direct reflection of your goal.
For example, if your goal is to attract more pregnant people to your practice, create content that speaks directly to them.
And remember: it takes about 21 times for a potential client or patient to see your message before they take action, so once you pick a strategy, stick to it for at least 3-6 months.
I can’t tell you how many people switch up their strategy without giving it a good shot; of course it didn’t work – you didn’t give it a chance!
Step #4: Optimize Your Account
Before optimizing your profile, make sure you have a business account or convert your personal account to a business one. Doing so will give you more features and data to track your account’s growth.
Then, work to optimize your profile.
Optimize Your Profile
First, choose a profile photo; ideally, this should be a close-up of you.
Next, choose a username.
An Instagram profile has two name fields: “username” and “name.” These are the only fields Instagram uses when someone searches in the app’s search bar.
Therefore, do not make these fields redundant because doing so limits a potential client or patient’s ability to find you on the app.
For example, use your business name in the “username” field and your first and last name in the “name” field.
Lastly, make sure you use the bio space to speak directly to your ideal client and that it includes keywords related to your niche or field.
You can check out my blog post all about bio optimization here.
Step #5: Create Content
I know you’re very busy, but to succeed on Instagram, you must stay consistent.
So, think about your schedule and make a plan for creating content. This is where your Instagram content strategy comes in.
Do you want to generate a lot of content ahead of time to pull from throughout the month, or do you want to post on the fly when inspiration strikes?
Maybe it’s a combination of both!
Bottom line: Decide how often you want to post per week, pick a content creation system that works for you, and stick to it!
(If you get stuck, grab my free recipe for Instagram success: the Content Ecosystem. And remember! If you’re a Holistic Marketing Hub student, you get 450+ captions to use when you need ‘em!)
Step #6: Build a Community
Creating content is just half the battle; to build a community, you must also engage with your audience in the comments and through collaborations.
Here are a few ideas:
- Respond to comments and DMs, and comment on other users’ accounts.
- Use niche hashtags (those with less than 250,000 uses) that are local and/or related to your post.
- Search local hashtags and interact with people who use them.
- Find local businesses and follow accounts that are following them.
Check out my free engagement resource for more tips!
Wrapping Up
While starting an Instagram account from scratch can be intimidating, it doesn’t have to be!
Follow these steps to make it easier:
1. Create a healthy social media mindset
2. Get clear on who you serve
3. Pick a strategy and stick to it
4. Optimize your profile
5. Create content
6. Build a community
Lastly, recognizing when you need professional social media help or mentorship is also essential. Check out the Holistic Marketing Hub for personalized coaching and support, copy/paste captions, and virtual classrooms.
Mentioned in this Episode
How to Properly Set Up Your Instagram Profile: https://mollycahill.com/instagram-profile-ideas/
Episode 3: https://mollycahill.com/transforming-your-toxic-relationship-with-instagram/
Content Ecosystem: https://www.holisticmarketinghub.com/content-planner
Planoly: https://www.planoly.com/
Engagement Freebie: mollycahill.com/engagement
Sara Wiles: https://sarawiles.co/
Connect with Molly
Instagram | Facebook | Youtube
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!
Make sure you’ve hit that follow or subscribe button on your favorite podcast player to get notified each week as we air new episodes!
Transcript
Hello, welcome back. Really excited about today's episode it's going to be if I was starting your account from scratch from zero, what would I do and what I would do for you or for a brick and like a brick and mortar, versus like an online business, it's going to be just slightly different, but not like wildly different. So I'm going to make sure that I talk about both in this episode. And this is actually the perfect time for me to talk about this because we actually just got a actually, he's a local chiropractor to me, he's not, he's not my personal chiropractor, but he's an applied kinesiology doctor who his mom is actually my holistic dentist. And so that's how he found out about me. But anyway, he has zero social media like zero, no Facebook, no net. And so he was legitimately starting from scratch. And when I say from scratch, I mean, he didn't even have any photos of him on his website, I mean, I'm talking like, scratch scratch to the scratch scratch starting from scratch. So he's on our top tier Instagram management package. And I actually went and took some photos and videos for him. I mean, they're not like, you know, top notch quality that you would get with a professional photographer. But my point is, this is not just like all theory, this is what we are actually doing to grow his account. And also, like I said, I will talk about from the online business side as well. 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. 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 Molly 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 can hold up comm slash private training. And it'll also be linked below in the show notes. I cannot wait to hear what you think.
Okay, I'm recording to you from recording to you. We're co recording for you coming to you from my back porch because it is 70 degrees and sunny and Cincinnati and it's just absolutely gorgeous. And so if you hear birds and planes and all that jazz, I'm sorry, it's just too pretty to be inside.
So let's talk about this step by step what I would do if we were starting your account from zero. And we're going to actually go back a step before that. First off, we need to make sure that you actually do need to start an Instagram account from zero. What do I mean by that? If you're like the client, I mentioned in the intro, he didn't have a personal Instagram account, he literally had nothing, not even a personal Facebook. So this is like been even more challenging because we can't even like get some of his Facebook followers over to Instagram. So what I'm talking about is so often I see either not just newer dogs but like solo people are solo health coaches, who have like a pretty engaged personal Instagram account. And then they feel like once they start a business that they have to start a brand new account from scratch just for the business because you can't mix personal and business and that is just absolutely not true.
The nuance there is of course, on your you know, quote business, Instagram, you don't want to be posting. You know, like, if you're obsessed with plants, or knitting or whatever, like yes, you would want to have a separate account or if you like if you post pictures of your dog every day.
Yes, you would want to have a separate account. If you post personal photos of your kid, kids on your grid every single day, yes, you would want a separate personal account. But the majority of people I know don't enjoy using social media enough to have a personal Instagram that they keep up with anyway. And that was the case with me. So when I first started my business four ish, four and a half years ago, I had a personal Instagram account that had around 700 followers, I posted on it very sporadically, probably once every couple weeks or so, just on my grid, and it was just that personal account, nothing fancy. Rather than start from zero and start from scratch, I just converted my personal account to a business account. Before I did that, and made it public, I went through and either deleted or archived photos that I didn't want on my public profile, if it was like, you know, someone else's kids, or, you know, there's not permission for that, or, you know, I don't, I mean, there really wasn't much because I didn't use it that often. But then once I converted it to a business and made my business profile, it's like you're not starting from crickets engagement, like your friends and family are gonna be your biggest cheerleaders. Now, I'm lucky in that, right, where I was not concerned at all in the slightest about what my friends and family thought about me for starting a business.
I know for a lot of people that that is a worry or concern. And so if it makes you feel better to just start from scratch, because you're afraid and Betty Sue is gonna like, you know, have some things to say then. I mean, you can but I just think you need to examine that. Examine that fear first go back to my episodes with my personal health and life coach Chelsea Haynes on kind of squashing some of those fears. And yes, like, marketers will tell you, you don't want to market to your friends and family, they aren't your ideal audience. That is very true in some cases. But in other cases, it's not. Because imagine, let's go back to like the health coach example. Like your friends and family might know somebody who needs a health coach, or, you know, whatever. So it's like, and even if they aren't your ideal client, like if you're like a brick and mortar office, for example. And your people are kind of spread out all over, then. I mean, it'll your account will write itself unless you've just like, like I said, it, it would be one thing to take a full time knitting account that you've been posting on daily that gets tons of engagement, just like personally, and then you try to like swap that to a brick and mortar, acupuncture office. I mean, yes, don't do that. But I think you understand what I'm trying to say, then it's almost always easier to convert something that you already have. And if you've never looked at my content themes that I talk about, I'm not talking about content pillars, I'm talking about all of the different types of content that you should be posting. In a given month, you can grab that free download, we'll link in the show notes. But personal content is one of the things you still need to be posting. It's not something you should be posting every day on your grid. Now your story is being posted every day, do whatever the heck you want on your stories.
But my point is, you do still want to weave your personal life. You're not like private life, but just like you know who you are into your business profile. Because anybody who's been following me or listening to me for a long time knows I say this all the time. Just like Gone are the days where you have your personal, you know, oh, this is my this is personal Dr. Jane, and then this is professional, Dr Jain. Like you're literally going to have your hands on me if I'm coming to see you weekly or talking to you about my deepest darkest health concerns. Like I want to know you as a human. And that's what's going to make you stand out in a saturated market. When I feel like I can have some type of connection point to you emotionally. And that's what this kind of helps you do. And then from a practical standpoint, a lot of people I see who are so low Doc's in practice. They are like ping ponging constantly back and forth between their personal account and their Office account and the personal account and their Office account and they're just cross sharing and cross posting everything. It's like, why not just have one and double down and I've never felt so validated. My friend Mia. She's my oh my gosh, she's the coolest person. Me a fireman she's a marketer in Australia. She's actually used to work for like Maybelline but anywho she is getting ready to do a year sabbatical where her and her husband and her two small kids.
He's getting like a year off from the Australian Army. And they're going to Canada for a couple months and then they're going to Costa Rica for a couple months and anyway she posted on her business account like how much of this my travels Do you want to see because she's like, I don't enjoy social media enough to start a separate account. I'm just not going to do it. So anyway, just know that you don't have to have two separate accounts. But if you don't fit any of that crap Tyria and you do need to start from scratch or say you're like a multi dot clinic or whatever, where it doesn't make sense just to convert an account, like, if there's four of you in the office or two or whatever, then this is what I would do. Step one is I, you got to just get your mind, right, and you're gonna be like, Oh my god, roll your eyes, Molly, give me the meat and potatoes. But seriously, I just want you to realize that most people you'll see on your Explore page or like, you know, like, whatever content, it's like fed to you on your home feed, which, by the way, I hate that Instagram did that they changed it back to where now you see all these suggested reels instead of just people you're following the people. I mean, I like I guess I like the suggested reels. But anyway, realize that these people mostly, it is their full time job to create content, like literally, they don't have another job, their job is to make videos and make money from those things. Okay? It would kind of be like me, if I didn't have the Instagram Management Agency, like if all I did was holistic marketing hub, then I would pretty much consider myself a full time content creator, because I would need that volume to get people into my online program. So but that's not you, you are still seeing clients virtually, or patients, you know, in person, and you don't have time to be a full time content creator.
And that's okay. So any of those people that you see, and you're like, Oh, I'm not doing as much as them, I want you to just probably, you know, get that in your head that like, that's not like they, you know, if you think of like the big names in like, let's say functional medicine, for example, like, like Aviva ROM, like she's not still seeing patients in a clinic. So of course, she's able to put out content all the time, because that's all she does. Okay. So there's that. And then also just a little I talked about this in full. So if you want to go back and listen to my how to transform your toxic relationship, it was like one of the very first episodes I did I want to say it was like two or three things. Number three, I this is gonna sound harsh, but hear me out. I want you to either unfollow or mute your colleagues or people in your industry, it does not mean that you are not supporting other people who do what you do. It just helps your mind get in a way happier place. Because let me tell you, if all I do is follow other social media people constantly either a feel like I'm not doing enough, I'm like, Oh, I'm not doing as much as they are. Be it stifles my creativity because now I'm living in this vacuum of the same content being regurgitated. It also kind of makes me feel crappy, like, okay, let's, let's say they post something about hashtags. And it's something that I agree with, and I was gonna post about it that same day, I'm like, Oh, my gosh, a, are they gonna think I'm gonna keep to using ABC? Are they gonna think I'm copying them or, you know, do I not have an original thought in my head. So I follow like, I have like this t shirt maker account I love I have a pelvic floor PT I really like to follow for content. Ideas. When I say ideas, I just like the style of what they do. I have a furniture flipper account. I love how she does her rails.
And I also have a there's this minimalist decor, I'm not a minimalist, but like I just really like her. I've been kind of like following her rails and content style, because she posts reels every day. But it's almost always like, same caption different video or like same video different caption. And that's kind of the style I've been trying to go with is like to get more quantity is just to kind of like repurpose, repurpose, so find something outside of your niche to follow. So that's kind of all in the mindset piece. Step two would be to get crystal clear on who you serve your niche, your branding.
An easy way to work through this exercise is to grab my free patient or client voice questionnaire, I will make sure it's linked in the show notes. Or you can just find it on my website at Molly cahill.com, C H, I ll and at the top, there's going to be like a free resources tab, you can find any of these free resources that ever mentioned are on my website, go to learn and then go to free resources. And you'll find all these things I mentioned or it'll be linked in the show notes. One of the easiest exercises you can do and I've posted about this on my Instagram a couple couple times is to go back and look at your schedule over the last couple of months. And I want you to brain dump without judgment and without overthinking every client or patient you've seen. And I want you to say I want you to lump them into three categories.
Number one, I absolutely loved this patient client this case, whatever. Number two was when it was fine, like I didn't, I was kind of neutral about it. Number three is I wish they either would have like rescheduled or canceled or I wish they'd go see a colleague. So no judgment like we all have those people it's fine. So once we do that, we're just going to focus on the people who land and category one people who you will have and let you up and I want to to write out everything you can think of about those cases. So if you need to, like reference your notes or reference the call recordings or whatever, think about think granularly. Like, what did they come to you for Were there certain certain symptoms, and then also think just from like a demographic or psychographic, or just like what type of person they are like, Oh, they were already really advanced in their health journey. And there was just this one thing they were stuck on, or they were like, complete beginners, and, you know, don't even know these simple things, like, write all that out. And then once you write that out, you've got this beautiful map of a marketing language, right? Like, you can use all of this language in your marketing, literally, you want to get as granular as possible. And then be the whole point of doing this, the whole point of spending more time on marketing isn't just to get new clients and patients is to get new clients and patients that you love and that light you up. So I've heard a lot of people who've run Facebook and Instagram ads, for example. And they're like, Yeah, brings me new patients, but it's, they're not like the type I want, you know. So that's, that's where Instagram really comes in, and does a really beautiful job of helping you kind of like almost handpick the ideal people that you want to treat. So after you do that, these kind of like, become your like many content pillars underneath the educational theme. And so many of the people I work with, especially if you're more into like the subconscious work or nervous system work, or you're like a vitalistic, chiropractor, you are so tempted, and I get it, I get it, I get it, to use to use language, like regulate your nervous system, do the subconscious work. Or if you want to get even more general, your I see a lot of help you get back to your best health or live your best life or, and I'm just here to tell you that none of that language is effective. I'm sorry, it's just not because most people don't wake up and think, oh, I don't feel good. How do I get back to my health? No, Google, how do I, you know, regulate my nervous system. I mean, if you're like me, maybe you do because you're more advanced, but like most, most people are like, Oh my gosh, I've got this terrible brain fog, or I'm having like five migraines a month, or my eye is twitching. And it won't stop literally, my eyes been twitching, because I've been like a little more stressed. So anyway, my point is like, think about the actual granular symptoms that people are experiencing that they can feel and like put a name to those. That's why that exercise on the brain dump of like, what did they literally put on their intake form, I highly doubt they put on their intake form, I just, you know, want to get back to my best health, or I want to become vitalistic. Like, I'm pretty sure most people aren't putting that on their intake form. Once they get into your sphere, whether virtual or in person, that's when you can educate them on the longer term goals of not thinking, you know, of just individual symptoms and not thinking a pill for every ill like, you know, that's where you can really educate them on like the broader scope of health, I guess what I'm trying to say, it's just not a great way to mark it. Next, we're going to set our goal and strategy. So when we're on number three, what I would do, so we want our goal and strategy to be exactly what we want to accomplish. So if you don't know what you want to accomplish, it's kind of like heading out on a road trip without Google Maps or whatever it is that you use. Like, don't be surprised if you don't end up where you're trying to go if you don't know where you're going. And this could be something like, I want new pregnant patients in the office or I want to work on retention of my current patients. And you know, this is just kind of like a value add another like if your health or life coach, it could be I want to drive traffic to my free download, so they can get into my email funnel and get into my online program, whatever. So pick what it is that you want to have as your overarching goal and strategy and stick with that for at least three to six months before changing course. And you remember how I said it takes 21 times for people to hear or see something to take action. So you don't just want to like try you know, say you're having a sale on supplements and you post about it once or twice and you're like, Molly, it doesn't work? Well. Yeah, of course not. You only did it once or twice. So you got to keep going. So after you pick your strategy that you know what you really want to accomplish, and hey, you know what, it might just be as simple as I just want to grow followers in my local area or I want to grow followers who care about you know, reversing your acid reflux like whatever that's that's fine too. I feel that you want to make sure that your account is set up properly. This kind of goes back to what I was talking about converting, if you're going to convert a personal account to business account, you want to make sure that you have an Instagram professional account and then business. So there's two types of Instagram accounts. There's professional and personal. Under the professional umbrella, there's a business and a creator. We aren't creators, I mean, I kind of more am. But mostly we just want to go to, you want to make sure you have a business account. That way you can track your insights, and you get more more features. And if you have a personal account. After that, we want to make sure that your Instagram bio is optimized and searchable. I will go into this some that I want you to know I have a free blog post that goes into extreme detail with photos on how to make sure your bio is optimized and searchable. But a couple things. One, your profile photo should almost always be an up close photo of you. Logos don't usually look that great as an Instagram profile photo. Unless your logo has been professionally designed to have like, some people call it a favicon or like a word mark like a sub mark, like a smaller version of it. It's like if you have a logo that has like a big image or photo and then underneath is like small text that is not going to look good on Instagram, because Instagram profile photos are tiny. I also think it should be an up close photo of you because again, they're tiny, and just the very nature, like you're not selling candles, you know, like you're literally remember what I said about the personal and professional like you are, if you're in brick and mortar practice, you're gonna have your hands on people or if you're virtual, like gonna be asking people about their poop habits, like, you need to make sure that you know they have that personal connection with you. If there's more than one person in your office or clinic, we've successfully gotten up to four faces in a profile photo before it wasn't great, I would say three is probably the max, if you have more than three that you need to have in the photo, then I would do the logo, just make sure it's a version that doesn't have small text on it. Then the next thing to know about your profile is there's only one spot that's searchable. So if you go to your profile, and you tap Edit Profile, you're gonna see two things, you're gonna see a username and then a name. username is your at handle. So for me, it's at Molly a Cahill, that's my username, then the name line is like it's what shows up in bold on your profile. And you can have around 45 characters in that name line. And your name line and your username, that handle are the only two things that are searchable when somebody goes to the Instagram search bar.
So you want to make sure that they are not redundant example, we have a client activate chiropractic, activate chiropractic is their username or their handle. So I wouldn't also want activate Chiropractic in the name line. In the name line, I have the chiropractors name is dark, his name is Dr. Libby. And then I have the city where he practices Poway and then chiropractor so it says, activate chiropractic is is at handle or username. And then the name line is Dr. Libby power, a chiropractor. See how that kind of touches on everything that somebody could possibly be searching when they're looking for you. Now, this doesn't always work, right? Like if you're you have a really long name or a really long city name, or there's multiple doctors or whatever, it doesn't always work out this way. Also, if you check my profile, Molly aka hills, my username are at handle. And then I also have Molly Cahill, again, in my name line. That is not redundant, because a stupid little A in my ad handle makes me not come up on search when someone types in Molly Cahill into the search bar, because that handle was already taken. So unfortunately, I don't come up in search when you search if I don't have it in that name line. So that's another thing to do is to have somebody outside of your sphere, like, you know, come to me and I'll find you someone that has no possible connection to you and have them try to find you. The reason I say no possible connection is because of algorithms, right? So like, if my friend tries to search for me, and she's not already following me, and she's more easily going to be able to find me because we have probably other followers in common. The next thing to know about your optimizing your bios and your profile is you want to go back to that language on the exercise we did about all those patients or clients and that number one category, the ideal cases, and we're just going to pull out some key words this is not going to be all encompassing. This can be changed. Now the name line could only be changed. In just once in a 14 day period, so don't make that mistake, because you're going to be stuck with it for 14 days, if you try to change it more than once, but the bio portion, you can change as much as you want. Well, that I've seen Anyway, don't quote me on that, but I've never seen it be, you know, an issue. So don't don't agonize on this. I know you are I see, I see you I see you agonizing. You only get 150 characters in the bio, I go, I use a free website called like character, counter online.com or something like that just Google character counter doesn't matter which one, you use 150 characters, and I just start playing around with it. I'll write down like, you know, acid reflux, constipation and bloating. Does that mean that you don't get people with different problems? If let's say you're a health coach, like I got health coach who works on most things, does that mean you won't get people who have different problems? Absolutely not. But it makes you a literal magnet for the people who do have those issues. This is one of the first things we do actually, all of these things we do inside of holistic marketing hub, the very first classroom is going into the messaging workshop, and then, but one of the things I do for any new student who comes in is I help them with their bio, if they asked me, and I'm constantly helping holistic marketing help students with their bios. So just know, if you come in and you're a student, this is something you'll get help with. But um, yes, like, don't be afraid to get granular. But we'll link that for blog posts below. Okay, we're almost done. Next thing I would do is, I am not somebody who can batch like a month of content at a time, that's just not my personality. But for some people, that's kind of like that, the thing they have to do to be able to get it done. So just kind of think about your own schedule your own personality, what works for you. I like to have a group of posts batched ahead of time that that can be used any time, kind of like your more evergreen, core educational content type things. And again, if you're a holistic marketing hype student, you've got, like 450 Plus captions like that at your disposal to just copy and paste and have it ready to go at any time. You can even log into the hub from your phone. And just like if you're on the fly, go grab a caption, you know, add a photo that you already had on your camera roll and you're ready to go. But I just can't be I don't have the personality that like I can be rigid with it. I like to leave room for like, you know, if I want to throw in a personal post, or a random trending real idea that I saw, or whatever, we use Planoly, PLA, N O L Y to batch and store all of our content for our Instagram management clients. Planoly is also what we teach inside the hub. But you don't have to use it. I mean, you can use the Notes app on your phone if you want. You can use some people use project management software, there's later there's plan, there's all kinds of different programs, we just find plainly to be the most user friendly. Because, like Canva also has a scheduler but on Canva you can't do carousels or reels or you used to not be able to I don't I don't know if that's still the case. Let me know if you know differently but used to not be able to pre schedule in Canva. They have like a social media scheduler. And you could only do like single image posts, and you couldn't do rails. So with plainly on their paid one. It's like $11 a month you can do all of that. You can do everything carousels, regular posts, videos, all that jazz. So again, I just like to have some stuff planned ahead of time, just so you know, in days, you're not feeling as creative or you're strapped for time you can you got it ready to go. The next thing is, you know, while we're on the subject of content is to vary your content themes. And I have a free download. I already talked about this when I talked about the personal content of my content themes. And these are not again, it's not content pillars. When people think about content pillars, they're like, I'm a pregnancy chiropractor. I'm going to talk about tongue ties and breech babies and I'm Webster certified, whatever, that all of those topics would go under the educational theme. So when I'm talking about content themes, I mean, most accounts that I audit, only get really stuck in that educational theme. And or testimonials. Those two are great. You need both of those. But there are also five other things that you need or four other things that you need. One is like the personal and lifestyle. Another is referral and collaboration posts that made me that made me want to say stop, collaborate and listen. But yeah, that's like other stuff. But let's say you're a gut health coach, and you focus more on like the settlement thing, but you have a therapists like subconscious person that you'd like to refer to like, that's what I mean by referral collaboration type posts, or the pregnancy chiropractor is always just such an easy example. Because that's also the majority of our clients to we have this really cool carousel. It's actually also inside holistic marketing hub, y'all if you're not in the hub already, what are you doing? Come on, I'm telling you, I'm so proud of this program, because I've seen it work and it's, it's just like, so affordable for everything that you get, and the amount of time it saves you. It's, it's insane. And if you're on the fence, or you're not really sure if it's right for you, just DM me, and we'll chat about it because there are some people who have steered away and I've been like, No, this isn't the right fit for you, for whatever reason, but at the time, this is coming out, it's actually closed for enrollment, but it's going to be opening at the end of September. So you can join the waitlist and make sure you're the first to know. But there's a carousel inside the holistic marketing hub content library that a canvas implant that you can just plug in your own recommendations. It's like the this your people, you know, for your birth team, just like lactation consultants, and doulas and midwives are whatever in the area that you can just plug in those you need to have the others like just direct basic blunt, Shannon from social bungalow calls them blunt pitches. It looks like the post I did a way back on my feet that was just like I have two coaching spots in August. That's it. Okay, so there's just like a very direct like, hey, we have a spot for a new patient next Wednesday at one are like, Hey, I'm taking on three new clients for my you know, get better sleep group coaching program, you know, you don't have to hide everything in cloak and dagger. And then the other one that a lot of people miss is our engaging category. And that's like, like funny memes or I call them can't help myself posts. And that things like comment, the last three things you bought on Amazon? Or how long you can sorry for the people who aren't pregnancy? Chiropractors, you just make such easy examples.
How long were you in labor, and it's like a different color heart for each, you know, amount of time they were labor. It's like people can't help themselves. But answer those types of questions. Those are also inside the hub, this can't help myself prompts. And what was the last one? I think that was it? Yeah, I think I think I've touched on all of them. Almost done. Next, hashtags, hashtags are not dead. People like to tell you, they're dead because they like, like clickbait. Or, like, let's say you're a huge, ginormous creator, you probably don't need hashtags anymore, really, because I mean, people are seeing your content anyway. But for you, 100%, you need hashtags. Go to the hash the search bar, look for hashtags with less than 250,000 uses. So if you were hashtagging, the words like health or exercise, or, you know, nutrition, those are way too big. That would be like you trying to rank on the first page of Google for the word health, okay. So when you have less than 250,000 uses, you want to use some local hashtags, even if you are online. So I live in West Chester, Ohio, I still use the hashtag Westchester, Ohio, even though I can work with anybody. You still want to use some local ones. And then my little hashtag like recipe formula, whatever you want to call it is local plus more general niche. So let's say you're a like a therapist for divorce, like people who are who have gotten divorced. It's like, hashtag divorce therapist, I haven't checked that one. I don't know how many uses it has. But that's kind of just more of like your general niche, right? So you want to use some hashtags in your general niche. And then the last piece is hashtags that are specific to that actual post. So um, the divorce example, maybe you're talking about like a journaling exercise. So you would use hashtags specific just to that journaling exercise. Again, shocker. I go into this in complete depth inside, holistic marketing hub, and I also have helped students build their hashtag lists before, okay, the last two are there's three there's three left one is building community. I don't have time to go through every in podcast episode to go through every step of building community. But posting on your Instagram alone is just one piece of the puzzle. There's also a whole lot behind the scenes where let me give you an example. I have a new client who she's a chiropractor, her husband's a chiropractor, but she's working fewer shifts and she has created a course for moms on nutrition and supplements because like you know like the supplement information out there is just so overwhelming. So a perfect place for her to start Building her audience is not only her current patients in their clinic, so I was like you need to email more than once multiple times, email your current patients and say, Hey, doctor, Amanda has this course now. And then the next thing is I saw, if you don't follow just ingredients, I just love her page. I love her ideas love her protein powder. But anyway, she posted a post that was about like, what to do back to school sniffles like if your kid gets sick, or like, I'm not kidding you like 15 different supplements on this carousel. And it had a million comments of people being like, I'm overwhelmed. That's a bunch of supplements, like, I'm confused. And I was like, I sent the post to her. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, this would be the perfect place to go jump in. And in the comment section, like answer people's questions, because you're not competing with Carolyn from just ingredients. She's not even like, she doesn't have she sells products she doesn't. She's not seeing clients or patients like this is not? Yes, if you were going to another health coach, or, you know, like naturopathic doctor or something for kids and like trying to like poach their people by answering questions. Of course, don't do that. But this is this is not that I'm this post had like, 600 comments on it. I'm not kidding. And people were so confused and overwhelmed. Because this is a perfect place to go in there. Answer some questions help people out. And then on top of that, you see what questions people are asking. And like that makes great content for you to you know, what type of posts to be posting about your course and stuff, because you know what questions people have, right. And then if you're a brick and mortar, another way we build community, so for example, this local chiropractor we have, starting from scratch, we're going to local businesses, and following the local business, we're going to see who's following the local businesses and like, like interacting with some of those followers, we're using local hashtags, we're going to the local Chamber of Commerce, or maybe any local publications, commenting on their stuff, sharing it to their stories and tagging them. So all of that's how you build community, I have a free download on this. And I also, obviously cover this in depth inside the free download is just Molly cahill.com/engagement. And then zoom out, okay, after you do all of this, I want you to zoom out. And the very minimum piece of like time that I want you to judge judge your quote, success is on one month, I'd never want you to look at one post one day, one week, one, you know, there's no more I can't, a month is the shortest amount of time that I would make sure that what you're doing is kind of working really like six months is when I would really really zoom out and be like, okay, you know, look at your body of work over six months versus like, very granular. And then the last thing I would do is to make sure you find a trusted mentor to support you along the way. That's me, I'd love to support you. Our done for you Instagram Management Agency is currently fully booked and closed for new clients at the time this recording is coming out, we will start taking on new clients again in February of 2024. But until then you can definitely work with us inside holistic marketing hub, you get a lot more. I don't always say like one on one time with me but like support for me, then you probably realize inside the hub, it is definitely a done with you program not just like DIY type of program, because part of the hub is once a month coaching. And when I say coaching, it's like you can come to me with whatever questions you have. I just had a pediatric physical therapist who had watched the hashtag classroom but she's like, you know, I just would love to help with hashtags. So I helped are there hashtags. So just helped guide a student on their lead magnet and their email marketing on the coaching call. So yes, that's the only way you can work with us right now. But if it still feels overwhelming to you, then hire a virtual assistant and put them through the hub and have them do it for you. I mentioned in my last episode, my friend Sarah Wiles has a free virtual assistant matchmaking service. Or you could hire you know, use your apprentice staff or an existing virtual assistant you have just know that most virtual assistants without proper training aren't necessarily social media managers. They're really like two different things. And apart from me, just like make sure that when you're following other people who are giving advice on Instagram and email marketing, make sure that they're actually doing the thing they say they do. What I mean by that is, I see a lot of these big influencers who who made it big in like 2015 2016 on Instagram, and they're like, Oh, you don't need to do XY and Z, like some of these things that teach well, they don't have to do those things because they already have a really well established and favored account by the algorithm. But if you're starting over you 100% do have to do those things. And you have to get a little scrappy and do the stuff behind the scenes to build it up. So just kind of like, Just be mindful of who it is that you're paying attention to. Because, as you know, we actively run 30 Instagram accounts. So we are doing this stuff day in and day out. We didn't just like I'm not some big influencer, who made it, you know, six years ago, and it's like, well, this is what works for me, so it's gonna work for you. All right. That's it for today. I know today's episode was a little long, but please send me a DM on Instagram. As I said, the hub is closed right now for enrollment, but it will be opening in a couple weeks, you can go ahead and go to my website and get on that waitlist. Or you can just DM me and I can let you know, you know what other like off menu opportunities, we might have to see what works best for you. So
thank you so much. Have an amazing 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 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 Molly 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 comm slash 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.