Christina: (00:01) You are listening to the Scaling of Freedom Podcast. And if you are an online coach or course creator, you are in the right place. I’m your host, Christina Bernhard. I’m an ads agency owner that gets an inside look every day on what’s working and what doesn’t. In the online coaching space. I’m here to share with you what we see works in our agency as well as what we see happening and changing in the industry. Stay tuned to up-level your coaching business to have the freedom you want. Let’s get started.

Christina: (00:31) Welcome to episode 171. In this episode, I have a very special guest talking about something that is not my expertise, but I get asked about all the time, which is organic social media, and talking about the trends for 2023 and how we can stay on top of those. I get asked all the time of, you know, what’s the best practices, what’s going on now? Um, because I, I am in social media, but I’m in the paid part of social media. So I love this collaboration. I have guests, Mandy Emerson, she’s with the Fierce Social Society, and we talk about the different mistakes people are making, what to expect, the trends that are happening in 2023. And I hope that you enjoy this episode. I know you will find it helpful. Um, so definitely listen in, enjoy it, and take all of your takeaways and start implementing them because Mandy brought amazing, amazing things. So here we go.

Christina: (01:23) Okay. So I’m super excited for this episode. I already did an intro, um, about Mandy, but I’m gonna have her introduce herself. Um, in this episode we’re gonna be talking about, um, organic social media. So a lot of people assume, because I do ads that I understand organic social media and like I know the basics, but it’s definitely not my expertise and I normally don’t have a lot of guests on the show. So this is a topic that I felt was really, really important. So I definitely wanted to have you on. Um, so go ahead and introduce yourself. Give us some background, um, and then we’ll, I’m gonna start picking your brain.

Mandy: (01:58) Yeah, perfect. Thank you so much for having me. First and foremost, I’m excited to have this organic social mar marketing conversation with you. Cause I just love that you’re an expert in the paid ads and I can bring that value with the organic. So happy to be here to talk about this. So my name is Mandy Emerson. I am an Instagram coach and strategist, uh, primarily focusing on content creation for your business to see the best conversions. Um, because I fully believe, and I think I can speak for a lot of people with this too, is that strategy is not cookie cutter. Um, and that is one of the one of my soapbox that, that I will happily get on many times and just say like, it is not cookie cutter. You have your own special strategy. Um, so I come from actually a pro a background in performing art. So I like to say that I traded a musical stage for a digital one. I dived into my business at the beginning of the pandemic. I saw an opportunity to just go headfirst into it. Um, I, I’d be totally honest and transparent. I don’t think I fully realized what it would turn into two and a half, half, three, almost three years later, which is wild to think about.

Christina: (03:02) Mm-hmm. . Um, but I’m so thankful. Full the time.

Mandy: (03:05) Yeah. I’m so thankful that I did. I keep thinking it was only two years ago and I’m like, wait, we’re in 2023. We’re around the time where people were starting to talk about this virus. It’s so wild to think about. It

Christina: (03:16) Is wild. Yeah. Now

Mandy: (03:17) Everybody’s like, staple is pre pandemic during pandemic and post

Christina: (03:22) Pandemic . Yep. . I’m glad we made it to the post though, because I wasn’t, I wasn’t really sure for a while. I know. It was wild. Way wild.

Mandy: (03:30) It was wild. It was wild west. Definitely on social media. Um, so that kind of brings us to where we are today. Um, I, and in a two span I launched multiple courses. I have a signature program, um, with group coaching and do one-on-one clients. But, uh, my big, like I said, my big soapbox is content creation in a way that’s best for your business because it really depends on the type of the business that you have, your goals, your demographics, all of that. So I’m excited to des design dive into the organic marketing conversation today.

Christina: (03:59) Amazing. Beautiful. Yeah, so I’ve had clients ask me this because it can be so, so discouraging with, you know, as much work that we’ve put into our social media accounts and then to have where, especially last year, like just reach engagement, like completely drop and everyone just being so like freaked out. Especially if that was like a really big driver of a lot of your legion. Yeah. Um, and just not being able to reach that. So I’m just gonna ask the question. I’m, I’m sure. Yeah. Um, you, I know already know the answer, but is organic social media worth it in 2020

Mandy: (04:33) 3000%? It is still worth it. . I’ve actually never done a paid ad. I know that might be blasphemy, with,

Mandy: (04:42) They’re on the, across the screen for me.

Mandy: (04:45) Um, yes. It’s still so totally doable. It just, again, it goes back to it has to be the right strategy for your business, but I also, I wanna give like full recognition to it wa it is very discouraging to see how much the numbers have dropped from what we were used to. But I think we also have to kind of shift our mindset to this might just be what our new normal is and start going off of that. Right. So I could even take it back to when I hopped on reels in August of 2020 and I come from a video content background. So reels were very much within my wheelhouse. It did not matter what I posted. And I’m not saying that to be braggy. I was putting out weird content. Okay.

Christina: (05:28) It was weird

Mandy: (05:29) And silly. It was not even in the same niche whatsoever. It did not matter what I put out. It did. Well, and that is because you were just hopping on a new, um, plat not platform. A new, um, functionality, a new feature. It’s ki I always re uh, resort everything back to, um, cosmetics. Cuz I had such a long stint in cos in the cosmetic industry too, when a brand comes out with like a brand new lipstick, of course they’re going to highlight that lipstick other versus the other mm-hmm. products. And that’s what Instagram did with reels. Like all of that inventory that they had. And when I say inventory creators making reels, I was getting like hundreds of thousands of views on reels. And again, it did not matter what I did, but as people started coming into the sphere of making reels, that changed.

Mandy: (06:15) Right. So I can’t necessarily get mad at the fact that why are my reels down? Yeah. That’s because there’s more people doing it. So there has to be kind of this understanding of there’s more competition, there is more inventory at this point, but it’s still not impossible. You wanna just make sure that you’re being strategic with what you’re putting out there. That it’s not just willy-nilly or surface level. And I know that we’re gonna dive deeper into that. Um, but it’s maybe just recognizing like, okay, maybe this is just the shift and new normal of what this platform offers. And the really great news, as much as I love Instagram, and this might be blasphemous for the Instagram coach to say , there are other platforms for us to explore and be on. So if you are putting all of your eggs in the Instagram basket, I’m going to kindly tell you to knock it off and have at least one or two other options that you’re working into your marketing strategy.

Christina: (07:07) Yeah, I I totally relate to that, especially from the ads perspective, because whenever the Apple update happened, we kind of have the same thing and then also just like over time. Yeah. So it’s just like this is the new normal. And um, before a lot of the like results and stuff like that were probably inflated. Like a lot of those numbers were inflated by Facebook and they were taking credit for things that probably shouldn’t have taken credit for. And like, there’s just like all kinds of variables where, you know, you see that big drop, but really you have to look at it objectively. Right. And then also same thing with which I know we’re gonna dive more into, but now the content has to be, it has to be a whole nother level. Yeah. Like, it used to be like, I started ads in 2014 and you used to be able to put like the worst ad out there and it worked and like everyone just could be really lazy marketers. Yeah. Like really low quality content and it just worked and it doesn’t work anymore. Right. Um, so I totally relate to that. I have this conversation all the time with people. Um, so yeah. Um, it’s, it’s

Mandy: (08:06) Repetitive. It’s like more people are in the game and like that just means you have to step up or mm-hmm. step out. That sounds like really harsh to say, but like,

Christina: (08:15) No, legit, that’s step out. That’s exactly it. . Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So with that, um, so since you know, we’ve established absolutely worth it, it’s also other platforms to take a look at as well. Um, so if people are having this experience where, you know, things are dropping and if they’re not getting the results they want, let’s talk about the mistakes that they’re making. What exactly are they doing wrong that they’re having this experience?

Mandy: (08:39) Yeah. Most of the time when I do any kind of like pro profile audit or I’m working with a client one-on-one, a lot of the times I will see in their content, um, very surface level. Like we’re just kind of speaking a, a general language. Like we’re not specifically talking to our ideal person and the place that they’re at right now. Um, versus where you want them to be. Um, so, so like for instance, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t necessarily talk to my, I my ideal client from the place of my experience where I’m personally at right this second. I wanna meet them where they’re at with their struggles that they’re going through, that I went through, you know, two and a half, three years ago when I was just getting started. And, you know, throwing spaghetti at the wall. That’s where they’re at. You’re trying to talk to them in a different place that they haven’t arrived yet, but you are basically the light at the end of the tunnel for them.

Mandy: (09:33) So that language, like that messaging has to be really clear and not so broad in general. Um, and then the other thing that I see too is we’re wasting too much time on the front end with our content, whether it’s through reel’s, carousels, static photos, which we can kind of get into that new announcement that Adam Sari had about kind of bringing back the OG posts of carousels and static photos, which I’m super pumped about. I’m really excited. Yeah. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Um, we’re wasting too much time on, on the front end with fluff and like, hi, good morning. Or even, I’m Mandy, I’m an Instagram coach. Like, nobody cares. Nobody cares. Right? I’m Mandy, they don’t care that I’m an Instagram coach. They care about how I can help them. And that’s not to make it sound selfish, but if you really think about why you get on social media as a consumer, it’s to be entertained or to just, you know, waste some time or whatever it might be.

Mandy: (10:29) But you are getting on there for selfish reasons and that’s perfectly fine. But when you come across content and the person on the screen is making it about them, you’re not necessarily that interested unless it’s like super controversial and it’s gossip. And of course we’re gonna be nosy . But when it comes to our business owners who are trying to educate, bring brand awareness, you’re, you’re trying to gain that trust. Don’t waste time with all the fluff. Like get right into the heart of it and, and grab them with that hook. And you know, let’s say it’s five foods you should cut outta your diet right now. Uh, okay, what are those five foods? And then you can probably say like, I’m Mandy, I’m a health and nutrition coach and I’ve been working in the industry for five years, gives you a little bit of validation and then move on to the five foods that I need to cut outta my, my diet.

Mandy: (11:17) But I’m, that’s probably the biggest mistake that I see is we’re wasting time on the front end and you’re getting, putting fluff in. You’re not getting to the heart of it. Um, and then getting, getting to the, the solution that then feeds them into something else. It’s the funnel that feeds them into the paid offer or to the free training that then feeds them into Right. Your, your funnel. You’re looking at reels as like the conversion and reels don’t necessarily work like that. Or your content doesn’t necessarily work like that. Your content is the top of your funnel. You need to bring them them in with that and then have a funnel that takes them through a buyer’s journey that, um, works them through the, the trust factor gets them to know you better, your brand, your mission, all of that. But understanding that your content is not the conversion, it’s just the tip. Like it’s just the starter point.

Christina: (12:12) Mm-hmm. . Yeah. I, I so relate to, there’s so many parallels here, that, you know, like with paid, it’s just, you know, paid a paid placement versus Yeah. Earned. But yeah, it’s the same thing too. And I think, um, I love what you said, like you have to really think about it from the consumers side because there’s literally endless like content being served to us. Like we can scroll for like forever to the end of time. Yeah. So like, there’s endless content, so you do have to give people to stop the scroll. Yeah. And you do have to, um, make sure that you’re catching their attention as quickly as possible. Like our attention spans are getting like super, super short. Like during the pandemic it opened a little bit cuz we all had a little bit more time, but it’s closing right back up Right. The way that it was pre pandemic. And we do the same thing with ads too. We even have, um, videos where we change the first seconds li literally the first second and we test that first second, um, amongst all the videos because that is how important it is. So yeah, I think, um, you know, having people really think about it from the consumer standpoint and just like your own behavior, like you said, um, like I definitely am not scrolling and stopping because someone said their name. You know what I mean? There’s certainly not

Mandy: (13:21) Like who are you? You might be a really nice person. Yeah.

Christina: (13:24) You’re here.

Mandy: (13:25) Your clothes look nice.

Christina: (13:26) Right.

Mandy: (13:27) But who, nobody cares.

Christina: (13:28) nobody cares. Yeah. It’s, it’s not gonna make me stop for sure. Yeah. Um, amazing. So yeah, those are really, uh, great mistakes. So let’s talk about, you know, what they can do to get it right.

Mandy: (13:39) Yeah. This, this comes down to, uh, your core mission statement and really knowing who you’re talking to. And I, I think at this point, I’m sure your listeners and even your clients are very zeroed in on their niche and their ideal client and their pain points. But somehow we get so wrapped up in like the trends and the, the things that everybody else is doing and we get kind of like shiny object syndrome. And it’s really easy to do that as business owners and entrepreneurs. Like, it happens to me daily. I, I just sent a voice note to my assistant and was like, I have the best idea. And she’s like, Hmm, can we like put that in the parking lot like, uh, . Cause it’s just, it’s staying laser focused, but it’s having really strong core pillars that support your niche. So for, for example, let’s say that you are a, um, nutritionist or a, a fitness instructor or fitness guru or some kind that you help new postpartum moms drop the baby weight.

Mandy: (14:40) Like they’re, they’re losing weight for the first time after having their first baby. So very specific, you’re talking to a new mom, she’s in postpartum, it’s her first baby, and she’s figuring out how am I going to get, you know, back to some kind of new, my new normal in my body mm-hmm. . And you do that through, um, short and effective at-home workouts, right? Like, that’s super specific. So what are some of the pillars then that you would have to sup support that niche? Well, you’re probably gonna have the workouts, like that’s gonna be a core pillar. Yeah, I do. You’re gonna have, you’re gonna have some of the nutrition, but how can we even take that nutrition piece and say, these are the types of things that your body as a postpartum mom are gonna need. Right. So we know that she’s a new mom in postpartum.

Mandy: (15:25) Postpartum is really hard on new mama’s bodies because they’re giving so much to their newborn. But having new that nutrition pillar, it’s not just like, eat your broccoli and your greens and like whatever. It’s, these are the types of foods that you really are lacking because you’re giving so much to your newborn. Right. So it’s, it’s even getting deeper into those pillars and how is it relevant to your ideal client? The mindset piece, postpartum is a wild ride for a lot of women. Some suffer more than others, right. But it’s even speaking to not just mindset, like you can do it, mom. Like let’s get even deeper than that. So it’s having your really core solid pillars that can be between two, three to five. Um, but then within those pillars it’s how does each of those pillars support your ideal client in what she’s going through?

Mandy: (16:13) So I go back to the nutrition piece. It’s not just drink a lot of water, eat your greens. It’s, these are the foods you should be focusing on or these are the things that your body is probably lacking the most because you’re giving so much to your newborn. It is crazy when you like flip the, or get really deep and like specific with those pillars and you’re talking to your ideal person that they’re like, yeah, I’m . I feel like I’m tired all the time. My brain is foggy. Or I’m feeling a certain way showing that you empathize and you understand what that and you’re speaking. And again, going back to that messaging, that language when you speak their language and they now know, you know, how they feel mm-hmm. and what they’ve been through. So that’s, that is really where I think content tends to miss the mark is we just make it too general with our messaging.

Mandy: (17:03) Excuse me. But then we’re not making it, um, in our, within our pillars. It’s not supporting our overall niche and our ideal clients. So understanding them like inside and out. Most of the time business owners, when they go into a business or an entrepreneurial journey of some kind, it’s because they figured out something for themselves and they’re like, how do people not know about this? And they’ve now created an offer, a service, or a, a product, right? You have the ultimate trust card cuz you’ve been there, done that. So now use that to your advantage to put it into your messaging. To put it into your content that is probably hands down the best thing that you can do for your content. Now going forward, yes, your numbers might be a little bit lower, but it’s going to get in front of the right people because that messaging is so crystal clear.

Christina: (17:51) Yeah. That makes so much sense. Like even, and I relate to that example cause I’m six months postpartum, so Oh my

Mandy: (17:57) Gosh,

Mandy: (17:59) Wish I had the girl. Like, if you needed this girl, like

Christina: (18:02) I, I was just like nodding my head like everything you’re saying. I’m like, yeah. She’s like, yeah, it’s, it’s so different. You know, if I’m on the platform, if I’m wanting to lose weight rather than, you know, there’s gonna be lots of, I’m sure I followed lots of like fitness influencers and nutritionists and all kinds of people, but I’m, I’m likely gonna scroll past their stuff, especially if something else is like speaking directly to me in the exact environment that I’m in. Right. Like dealing with exactly what I’m dealing with. It’s just, it’s gonna be totally different and I, I will binge their content and go further into their funnel. Yeah. Um, because it is speaking directly to me. Um, yeah. So I think that’s really great and um, really good for everyone too because like you said, I do like, I totally see how we can just get caught up in the trends and just be like, oh, let me do this voiceover or let me do this little like, fun dance or like whatever’s going on at that time instead of like really sitting down and thinking about, you know, being very intentional on who we’re talking to.

Christina: (19:01) Especially when we’re trying to just like pump out so much content. I think it can get to a point where we’re just like Monday through Friday we got our post and like, you know, we’re making sure all goes out and not really sitting down and thinking about am I talking to that person when you know where they’re at, um, where I was and you know, and not talking over their head and like Yeah. All of those different things. Um, so I think that’s really great. So from, you know, here forward, people who, um, anyone who’s listening like obviously definitely start implementing those things and really thinking about it. Um, but what if, you know, uh, what I hear a lot from my clients and even my friends, um, who are just like peers in the space is that they feel like their account is just dead. Like, they’re so discouraged, they feel like their accounts like something’s wrong with it, it’s never gonna come back. Yeah. Should I just make a new account? Like how should they make a new account? Or is it better to just revive an old account and how can they revive their like quote unquote debt account?

Mandy: (19:57) Right. This is such a good question. Uh, cuz I know a lot of people struggle with this, especially if they decided to take a break or, you know, a vacation of any kind mm-hmm. or maybe they’ve completely pivoted into a different niche altogether. Uh, which all of those are acceptable. The one thing you have to realize with both options, starting a new account or reviving one is both of them are gonna take time period , and the patience just has to be there. I would actually say if you’re feeling like you have, you have acquired the wrong following or you’ve pivoted a bunch of times with one account to different niches and you’re just not seeing any kind of life or revitalization in your near future, that is probably when I would say, let’s just start fresh. Let’s just start with a blank slate.

Mandy: (20:42) Like, there’s nothing better than that. But again, I go back to what we were previously talking about is you need to know your niche, your ideal client. So crystal clear, if you want to see efficient, and I, I hesitant hesitate to say rapid, but if you wanna see efficient growth and strong and fairly quick growth, then you wanna have those things really nailed down along with your messaging and the kind of content you’re gonna create. And I can actually share how you can repurpose now like staying active and staying, um, consistent with it. So if you’re feeling like I have the wrong followers, maybe you are part of giveaways at some point. Maybe you were part of any kind of, um, follower trains in the past, like we’ve all been there, done that. Like there’s no shame. I’ve totally done all of the wrong things and I’m here to tell you, do not do what I did .

Christina: (21:34) Yeah. Don’t do it. Yeah. Especially also as an ads person too, I can like, sometimes we run ads to their warm audience and it just does not hit. And I’m like, did you ever buy followers or something? Cause I can tell Yeah. When like we can

Mandy: (21:46) Tell, we know, we can,

Christina: (21:47) We can tell, we

Mandy: (21:47) Know. We can smell it from a mile away.

Christina: (21:49) . Yeah.

Mandy: (21:49) It’s pretty apparent. Yeah. But it’s also like if that’s something that was a part of your journey, trying to get where you’re going, we know that it probably wasn’t for the vanity metrics, it was because like you’re trying to grow a business, you’re trying to Right. Expand your reach. So like we get the intentions behind it. Now of course other people are just trying to get it for the vanity, but they’re probably not listening to this podcast,

Christina: (22:11) Right? Yeah. Likely.

Mandy: (22:13) So if you’re one of those people that maybe you were a part of the giveaway loops or the follow loops, maybe you bought followers at some point. Maybe you’ve pivoted so many times that Instagram’s like, I don’t even know what this count is anymore. We were talking about puppies at one point, now we’re talking about postpartum moms and now we’re

Christina: (22:28) Yeah, right

Mandy: (22:29) Back to like the kit and train and we hate puppy, whatever, . Right? So

Mandy: (22:33) We’ve pivoted so many times. If that’s the case, then yes, I would say by all means, let’s start a new account. So if you’re on the new account track, I would have again, had tho that niche and that ideal client super clear, make it very apparent in your bio who this account and what your, who your offers are for. And then in your, in your content, I want you to kind of think about, this is a brand new storefront, like in, in a great plaza where there’s lots of foot traffic. If there’s nothing on the shelves, people are not going to stop in and they’re not gonna stay. So ideally you wanna get, this is gonna sound kind of daunting, but it’s gonna be a lot easier than you think. You’re gonna wanna have nine to 12 posts up, um, in your first week, which sounds like a lot, but we’re, we’re gonna make this attainable.

Mandy: (23:22) Okay? But you wanna have inventory on the shelves for people to stop in to see what you’re about. They don’t necessarily care about the numbers. They really don’t. If you have great content, if you’re here to serve and you’re doing the ding thing, they don’t care. But we do wanna have inventory on the shelf. And the way that we can do that is by focusing on your, your mission statement, introducing yourself, having one of those start here reels that are, are really beneficial to pinning to the top of your profile. Um, and that’s where you can do a quick introduction about who you are, what you offer, what they can expect to find on your profile. Um, and just those, those types of posts. Don’t worry about those doing well because that’s not what they’re there for. It’s just to show I’m here, I’m present, I’m ready to rock and roll.

Mandy: (24:09) Um, so kind of to pivot into how we can repurpose content really efficiently. Um, we can kind of take the example. We had like five, five foods to cut out of your diet as a postpartum mom. Let’s just tie that all in together. , I have no idea what those foods are by the way, because , I am, I’m expecting my first in June, so I’m hoping I find that postpartum. Yeah. Fitness, health brewer lady that does the short hour word else , I’m hoping she exists somewhere, right? But, but let’s say that, you know, you have those five foods, you can easily make that into a real by, by having that hook, here’s five, five foods to cut out of your, your day-to-day diet if you’re a postpartum mom. Um, and then go into those five foods. Don’t like get coat super crazy with information overload.

Mandy: (24:55) You can get a little bit more, um, thorough in your caption that then can be turned into a carousel. Right? The very first, um, for slide can be the title Five foods to cut outta your Diet. The second slide can be, these are the types of foods that you wanna avoid because X, Y, Z. And then it’s food number one, food number two, food number three, each slide carousels kind of, um, jumping into that new announcement that Adam Masori just had recently is he stated that Instagram feels they have overdone it as far as pushing reels in 2022. And they wanna make sure that not even make sure what they’ve noticed is there wasn’t a huge difference in the amount of time somebody liked a photo versus a reel and vice versa. So they’re feeling like we need to give all of these content t types, like the real carousel and static photo equal opportunity.

Mandy: (25:53) Although it is still very apparent that video is like still top dog. That’s what people like to see. But that the other content is still just as valuable and, and as engaging. So now with that said, we can take that one piece of content and now repurpose it into multiple content types, but then we can even dive into why is this one specific food of the five. You could even make it into a series five foods to cut out. Here’s food number one. Or like, you know, part one of this five part series. Now you’ve got a series going, now you have five reels that you can make diving into each food and why somebody needs to cut it out. So now you have six, now you have one that can cover all five and now you have the other five that can cover each one. You can create a carousel with each one of those. Like this is how you can repurpose work smarter, not harder. And now you, you have like, gosh, double the amount of pieces of content that you even started with and it’s all on the same topic of these five dang foods. And now I’m like wondering if there’s actually five foods that we should be

Christina: (26:54) I know, or diet. We need to find out what these are.

Mandy: (26:57) I know if there’s, if anybody’s listening to this and they’re like, I’m not postpartum

Christina: (27:00) Nutrition. Yeah. Dms

Mandy: (27:02) . Yes. Dms. We’ll, happily welcome. Yeah. Um, so kind of tying that all together is having, having a very clear niche and the person that you’re talking to with that messaging, um, having some kind of opt-in, meaning like you have an offer, you have a freebie so you can get them deeper into your funnel, into your sphere. Right. Um, and then repurposing that content into multiple topic or I’m sorry, content types of the reels, carousels and static photos.

Christina: (27:29) Amazing. Yeah. I think that’s really helpful too with, um, even the hard examples of how to repurpose things because it can always feel like you’re running out of ideas, especially if you’ve been doing it for a while. Totally. Um, I’ve definitely hit those walls quite a few times. I’m like, I I have nothing left to say I did it all, you know, but like, there’s so many different things. See yourselves. Yeah. You know,

Mandy: (27:49) Ourselves,

Christina: (27:50) But you can like emphasize specific things or go a little bit deeper into one part and it kind of turns into its own little thing. Right. Um, so yeah, I love that. I think that’s great. Um, so with, you know, how everyone is and how we’re always trying to stay ahead of trends. Yeah. And like, so that we’re not investing all this time into something that’s just gonna die the next day. Um, what would you say, do you have any trends that you think are coming this year? Um, what should people be focusing on or expecting? Yes.

Mandy: (28:20) We’re already actually seeing it, um, hit kind of tenfold is this, um, this is a, this is a phrase that comes from, um, one of my really good friends who’s amazing in the influencer marketing space. Her name’s Harley Jordan, but her whole slogan is Doles and she has like a, um, um,

Christina: (28:38) A love it ,

Mandy: (28:39) Uh, a slogan or a, it’s a t-shirt, it’s the do less club, but it’s really just working smarter, not harder. And in the capacity of just take clips of behind the scenes of your day-to-day activities work and putting texo on the screen that is relative to your niche. Like it is the most minimal low maintenance type of content you can be making. Like even right now as you and I are recording, I could easily set up my little tripod on my desk behind me just to capture you and I chatting and putting up texts across the screen. And it could be like four apps I use in my business every day. Like it could have nothing to do with go mm-hmm. what’s going on in the video, but it absolutely is going to serve my audience. So it’s this idea of repurpose the content.

Mandy: (29:23) Like take that five food idea and repurpose it into six reels and then five carousels and then five different static posts. Now you have over 15 pieces of content there with one topic, first of all. And then the taking photos behind the scenes. Really what that’s leaning towards is just more authentic, less produced, um, more real and raw. And instead, instead of the overly produced and all the crazy transitions, I love me a good transition, I’m still gonna do them cause they make my heart happy. It’s not because it’s like the trending thing to do, it’s because Mandy just really loves to do them . Um, it’s just the low maintenance do less mentality and it’s more authentic speaking, uh, face to camera, just talking. Right. We go back to the five foods example. You could easily do that with a trending reel on audio, or you could literally just talk it to the screen and just cut out any of the, the dead spaces or the fillers or maybe you say, um, but let your real authentic self come through. If you flub your words. Like, I don’t know how many times I probably flubbed my words even in this interview, baby brain. Whoa. Holy cow.

Christina: (30:35) Same.

Mandy: (30:35)

Yeah. It comes on and it comes on strong sometimes and I’ll say words. I’m like, that wasn’t even the word that I was

Christina: (30:41) Trying to say. say. Yeah. Yeah. I I’m dealing with a a lot of that too from just like sleep def deprivation. Oh Lord, Lord. Like my vocabulary is like Yeah. Um, a first grader case and I’m like, oh my goodness.

Mandy: (30:52) Right. Just, just let the flubbed words happen. Yes. Right. We’re all human. We make mistakes or we, we sound goofy at times where we can’t find the word. That’s just all normal. Let that be Right. The time and the era of the curated perfectly aesthetically looking feeds are kind of dead. Like they’re over. And that’s good news for us because we can just show up, build our business, earn that income that we’re working so hard for and and lead the life that we want.

Christina: (31:24) Yeah. I I love that too so much because it’s, it focuses more on the content and like the gifts that we actually have to share rather than like all this other stuff that can just really be in the way of us just getting our message out there. Like we feel like we have to have it curated and all edited and stuff like that. Yeah. It’s just gonna take us forever to get it out there. Whereas like we have all this good stuff that we just need to get it out there. Um, so just taking the pressure off of it having to be perfect, um, is just really gonna help everyone just like get their stuff out there, which is super, super important. Yeah. And of course aligned with like, just taking action and actually making things happen, that’s what’s gonna move the needle for sure. Yeah. Agreed. Um, amazing. So this is all like, such good stuff. I think that we could talk forever about this. Cause it’s always changing. There’s so many different variables here and so many different like, um, types of scenarios too. Um, but is there anything that you think that we missed that we didn’t cover that like should be talked about today?

Mandy: (32:20) Honestly, I think it’s, it all comes down to your mindset and your approach to social media specifically Instagram. I know that it can be really frustrating when, uh, views and numbers are down or there’s a new update. But I kind of go back to the thing that we said before. You either need to step up or step out, right? And just having the mindset, like you got into business, business, you got into entrepreneurship to serve people, keep that why at your core and when a new update comes out, just know that kind of what Adam Masori was saying about the carousels reels, um, and static photos is I totally respect that as a business owner. Like you’re doing what you think is best for the business, while also honoring the founders of your business, which are OG photographers. Like this platform was made for photographers. So like, as a business owner, I totally respect that. He’s like, yeah, this is what’s trending big time, but we’re gonna, we’re gonna grow and adjust, but we’re also gonna still honor the people that like got us to where we were, to where we are. And I think it’s just having the same approach to social media. It’s not out to get you, it’s not a person that hates you. Everybody’s like, the algorithm hates me. Like, no, the algorithm is just like doing what it’s supposed to

Christina: (33:31) Do. Right.

Mandy: (33:32) instead, I would much rather encourage people to adjust that mindset to be like, okay, here’s another update. How is this gonna serve me? How can I use this to my benefit? How can I use this to drive more traffic or use it to my advantage? Right. Having that mentality over the complaining, the discouragement, like, that’s not gonna get you anywhere. So I, I think I need to put this on like a t-shirt or something. Like step up and step

Christina: (33:56) Out . Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Yeah, I mean, it’s so true, especially in this space. Like, you know, having an online business, I mean, things are gonna change so rapidly and if you do go into victim mode over every single change, it’s just, I mean, you’re just gonna, you’re just gonna die and this game it Yeah. Yeah. It’s gonna be terrible. You’re really gonna have it a horrible journey. Um, if that’s the approach to everything, there’s just too many

Mandy: (34:21) Options. Um, like there’s too many

Christina: (34:23) Yeah.

Mandy: (34:24) Options for you to, to complain. If there’s, if Instagram’s like we said it before, if Instagram’s not working for you, let’s see what else can we can add on. Like, don’t just abandon it all together. It’s still a viable option, but like, I don’t know. What about paid ads? Wink, wink. Like hello? Yeah.

Christina: (34:39) Guys are listening to this

Mandy: (34:40) Podcast for a reason, um, because of what Christina brings to you, but like, hey ads, or maybe it’s on YouTube shorts or maybe it’s on TikTok or you know, di driving up an email list. So there’s just too many options for there to be complaints.

Christina: (34:54) Yeah. And if you’re not willing to figure it out, someone will. Yes. Someone is willing. So they’ve,

Mandy: (35:00) Yeah, they already have like other people figured it out. So just know that that’s a good sign, right? Mm-hmm. , it’s not that they took your spot, it’s they took theirs. That was always meant for them, but they’re also showing us it’s possible.

Christina: (35:11) For sure. For sure. I love that. Um, so let’s go ahead, Anne, share with us where they can find you. Yes. Um, and then anything else that you wanna share before we close out? Yeah,

Mandy: (35:21) Absolutely. You can always find me on Instagram, the Fear Social Society,

Christina: (35:25) surprise. Surprise.

Mandy: (35:26) Yeah. Right. Surprise. Surprise. Instagram. Instagram . Um, but you’ll find that over on Instagram and as well as I do have a freebie 25 Real Ideas that you can use for your business. There’s no trending audios, there’s no pointing or dancing involved. Um, but these are great for any, any business type and business owner. Um, that’s gonna be at the Fear social society.com/podcast.

Christina: (35:50) Amazing. We’ll put the link in the show notes. Um, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing all of this. I know that it’s gonna be super, super helpful because we touched on everything that everyone’s always asking me, things that I’ve wondered, , so I think it’s gonna be amazing. Um, so yeah, thank you so much.

Mandy: (36:08) Thank you for having me.

Christina: (36:10) Thank you for listening to the Scaling to Freedom podcast. If you are a seven figure coach, looking for ads management with an agency that partners with you to get your work out into the world and amplify your impact, see if we are a good fit by applying for a spot in our agency@christinabernhard.com/apply. Find the link in our show notes.