331 – Instagram for Beginners with Allison Scholes of Boss Lady in Sweatpants

Gift biz unwrapped episode 331.

Instagram is not a sales platform.

Instagram is a connection platform.

Attention gifters bakers,

crafters, and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.

Whether you have an established business or looking to start one.

Now you are in the right place.

This is gift to biz unwrapped,

helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.

Join us for an episode,

packed full of invaluable guidance,

resources, and the support you need to grow.

Your gift biz.

Here is your host gift biz gal Sue moon Heights.

Hi there.

It's Sue,

How are you doing today?

Hope all is well in your neck of the woods.

I'm in town this week,

but headed off to Tampa next week.

Not sure yet if timing works out to do a meetup,

but if you're interested,

direct message me and I'll include you in the plans as

they develop.

We'd either meet right in Tampa or in San Antonio.

Yes, there is such a place in Florida.

It's about 30 miles Southwest of Tampa.

So any interest let me know to start off with today,

I have a big announcement,

a podcast switch of sorts.

I'm planning on doing a test to switch the air dates

of the gift biz unwrapped podcast.

To see if there's a more convenient schedule based on your

lifestyle. Given that about 70% of small handmade product businesses are

a part-time venture.

I know that many of you have nine to five jobs

or another part-time job.

That means Monday mornings may not be the best day to

drop this show.

I just don't know.

I'm thinking you may have more time on the weekends to

listen and possibly even implement the new learnings versus at the

start of a week.

Some of you have told me as much,

so let's run a test,

just like I always suggest you do in your business beginning

with next week's podcast episode,

I'm going to conduct this four week test instead of airing

the shows on Monday and Thursday,

I will be publishing the main show on Saturday with tips

and talk on the following Wednesday.

They're of course,

available to you anytime after that initial air date,

just as always,

but let's see what happens.

Any feedback you have on this one way or another is

of course always welcome.

It's also kind of fun considering the topic for the first

Saturday. Show more on that and a huge hint at the

end of the show here today for now,

let's move on to the show today.

We're talking to the boss lady in sweatpants all about Instagram

and we're taking it from the top.

Gosh, this social media platform has become a powerhouse and to

some it's getting really complicated.

I mean,

there's feed,

posting highlights stories.

I GTV and reels.

What, how do you figure all this out?

Especially if you're new to the platform.

So I want you to relax,

take a deep breath and we'll break it down into manageable

pieces by going back to the basics of setup and strategy.

Because if you don't have those two things,

right, nothing else is going to bring you the results that

you want with that.

Let's jump right into the show today.

I have joining us Alison Scholz,

and you're going to love the name of her company.

Are you ready?

Boss lady in sweat pants.

So perfect.

Right? Alison helps mompreneurs build their Instagram presence through coaching creative

copy and content on her podcast called social media for mompreneurs.

She guides busy moms on how to build their brand online

in just minutes a day.

Even when those minutes are super hard to come by.

Alison believes social media should be fun and easy,

not daunting with her sassy and fun personality mixed with her

creativity and love for sweat pants and coffee.

She's able to deliver simple and creative tools that help mompreneurs

boost their business with confidence and ease.

Alison, we need you so much welcome to the gift biz

on repped podcast.

Hi Sue.

Thanks for having me.

I'm excited to be here Too.

And just the words you choose to use,

bring a certain vibe that makes me feel so good already

about what we're going to talk about.

So I can't wait to dive in,

but before we do,

I'm going to ask you my traditional question here.

And that is for all our listeners and myself,

because we're all creatives to get to know you in a

little bit of a creative different way,

and that is through a motivational candle.

So if you were to envision a candle that really resonates

everything about you,

Alison, what would it look like by color and quote?

Well, the color would definitely be green,

which might be surprising because it's not my brand colors at

all. And my quote,

I think a lot of people are going to go,

what on earth is this?

But once you get to know me,

you're going to understand this quote.

And my quote would be,

don't be like low-key and I can definitely expand on that

if you'd like,

but you totally have to please do.

Yeah. So you know that I'm an Instagram coach and I

know so many women,

especially entrepreneurs and product based businesses,

they spin their wheels on Instagram,

how to grow their business and their brand.

So a lot of people,

when they work with me,

they will learn that I am a huge Marvel fan,

more like a Marvel and my favorite character.

My favorite villain character is low-key hands down my all time

favorite. So I always say,

you can love Loki in the movies cause he's a trickster.

He manipulates,

he copies,

but you can't be like,

low-key on Instagram.

If you want to grow your brand,

you have to be your authentic self.

So don't try to improvise.

Don't create something that you want your image to be.

Don't try to anticipate that you'll attract more followers by being

a certain way,

just get on and be who you are.

Is that what you mean?

Yes, absolutely.

Because Loki is known to mimic other people and transform,

and we can't do that on Instagram.

If we really,

really want to make those connections and grow our business Well,

and I think a lot of people do,

they get freaked out about social media overall,

because it's going out to who knows who you know,

is going to see it.

And so you try to say,

okay, how do I position myself in the best light to

the people that I want to attract?

And then what you're saying is the more disingenuous you become,

you're actually going against what you're trying to create in the

first place,

which is a community.

Yeah, absolutely.

And here's the things too.

We all start off that way when we're on a new

social media platform.

So when we take Instagram,

for instance,

what happens is we are watching other people that are very

similar to our niche or what we do in the world.

So we will fall into that trap of consuming so much

content, right?

And we look at these people and go,

oh, they're successful.

So maybe that's exactly how I need to show up.

And at the end of the day,

it's really not going to work for you.

You really need to get crystal clear on why you're on

Instagram or any social media platform in the first place,

and really just get in tune with your own brand and

the way you want to show up in your own authenticity,

it'll show up better online on your social media platforms when

you do it that way.

That's interesting.

And we're definitely going to dive more into that.

I have to tell you Alison,

that as I was thinking of,

well, what topics do I want to cover?

What questions do I want to ask based on where your

expertise is?

And all I just was thinking to myself,

if we had done this interview last week,

you would probably be saying something different than you're even going

to say this week because things keep changing so fast.

Yes. Share With me first,

how you decided that Instagram well,

social media overall,

but specifically Instagram,

how that was going to be your platform,

the focus.

So in the beginning years ago,

I always knew that I wanted to build a business.

I never liked the idea of working a nine to five.

I knew that kids were going to be in my life

and they are,

and I really wanted to be that fully present mom.

And so I wanted to a business.

And in the beginning I actually started with a product based

business where I was actually selling personalized Disney autograph books through

Etsy. That is how I started my journey.

And so I wanted to get the word out and I

started using Instagram.

And as I kind of went through that,

I was discovering that just blasting pictures of my products on

Instagram was not working.

So as the years unfolded,

I actually didn't want to do the autograph books anymore.

I really wanted to get into blogging.

And that is how boss,

lady and sweat pants came about,

where I wanted to have a blog.

And I really thought in the beginning it was going to

be a mom blog of raising kids,

how to build a business,

but it really just fell into the social media space because

I was on social media,

trying to figure it out for myself,

falling into Instagram,

just learning everything I could about Instagram,

following the gurus,

taking all the classes.

And that is just really how I honed in to the

Instagram's space and really figuring out how I could use this

tool, this marketing tool to build my brand and how I

can stand out.

Even though there are so many other people that do the

same thing I do.

I knew that there was space for me and I allowed

myself to take the time and to really hone in into

my brand and what I wanted to stand for and then

figure out how I'm going to put it out there on

Instagram. I love it.

And I love that explanation as well because with people who

are listening here,

you guys are going to agree with me that there are

other people who make pampering products like sugar scrubs or lotions

or jewelry.

And so just like you're saying with social media,

there are other people doing Instagram,

but they're not doing it the way you do it.

I think that's kind of circles back to this whole idea

of individuality on the social media platforms too,

because there are other people who are creating the products that

we all make.

And the only way we can be different and stand out

is to show our personality.

Yes, our products might have some unique qualities too,

but that personality overlay is the only thing that people absolutely

positively can't mimic.

Absolutely. And We've talked about this before here.

Alison is,

and we've talked video and all of that,

and I think people understand it,

but actually getting to the point where they're applying,

it seems to be the challenge.

And I also know that a lot of people spend so

much time and just feel like they aren't getting anywhere with

the platform.

So let's talk through some of this if we can.

And I'm not sure if we want to start right in

the beginning about Instagram or where we should start,

but I'd really like to tackle this question and I'm not

talking about having something go viral or like any of that

stuff. I'm just talking about steadily,

building an audience with the right people coming in.

Maybe you can give us some tips or something about how

to do that,

but where do you think we should start with this conversation?

I get the same question all the time.

Sue, and it's hard to just give one answer for so

many different people.

I would ask your audience,

why are you on Instagram in the first place?

So first we need to identify your Instagram objective.

Maybe your Instagram objective is to build brand awareness or maybe

it's to build community.

Maybe you want to drive traffic to your website.

Maybe it's an Etsy store or an Amazon store,

or maybe you want to grow your email list.

I want to ask you a question.

I think the obvious first answer for everybody is going to

be well,

it's a way for me to get more sales.

And I think this may be where the whole problem starts

because you're jumping from not knowing somebody to thinking one post

would convert to a sale.

And what you were just saying here,

in terms of your demonstration of different goals that we can

have is it's not always necessarily selling it's a step towards

the sale.

Would you agree?

Yeah. So let me put it this way.

Instagram is not a sales platform.

Instagram is a connection platform.

So your Etsy store,

your Amazon store,

that is your sales.

We have to make a shift in our mind.

We have to make a mindset shift that we cannot approach

Instagram in a way to sell something.

We have to approach Instagram in a way to help and

serve people.

When we make that mindset shift,

that is when you will grow your brand,

your presence on Instagram,

it's not about selling.

Selling comes later.

Selling comes naturally.

It's all about connections.

First. It's all about serving and helping.

Even though We can sell from certain posts,

you can tag a post and Sal,

are you saying that should not ever be your primary purpose

overall for your whole account?

It might be for a particular post,

but overall for the account,

it should not be right.

Yes. So then let me see if I can remember the

types of strategies and reasons why you would be on Instagram

that you had mentioned.

So you may want to grow your list.

You might want to get people to know you,

you know,

discovery. I've always thought of Instagram as a place for discovery

for people and then deepening a relationship,

right? And then getting over to those sales platforms at some

point, would you pick only one of these or a couple

of these?

Because I feel like all of these are important for a

business. They Are all important.

But what happens is when we try to do all of

those at one time,

and we are just blasting different types of posts,

you actually end up confusing your audience.

That's what happens.

So I always recommend that you focus on a specific objective

or goal for the next 60 to 90 days.

That way your content can be very concrete and you're building

the know like,

and trust,

All right,

let's do this.

Can I present to you a specific type of person and

we'll walk through then what they should do?

How does that sound?

Yes. So although this might not apply to everybody who's listening.

I think some of the concepts you'll be able to make

extensions with,

but let's go with someone.

Alison, who has an Instagram account,

they have a hundred followers.

Okay. So I mean a nice amount,

but it's,

I don't know,

relatively small,

I guess when you look at all these people with thousands

and then that whole target of 10,000

followers and all of that.

So they have a hundred followers.

They got on Instagram because they knew they should.

Instagram is what everyone's talking about.

And since it's connected with Facebook,

there's decided that they were going to start their Instagram account.

Okay. And they've posted randomly,

they've posted,

I'm going to just be honest.

They've probably posted their product and product and product and product.

Cause that's all we in the beginning know or think we

should be doing and they're not getting any traction,

their Instagram account really hasn't grown.

They got a hundred people kind of in the beginning because

friends, family,

extension of friends,

groups, they're in that kind of thing.

But now it's been stagnant and they're just frustrated.

So let's work with that person.

Cause I think I know there are a lot of people

who are listening,

who are in that situation,

what do we do?

We sell a product.

What are we going to sell?

We sell pottery.

Let's go with pottery.

So this is my situation.

I don't know what to do.

So the first thing I guess I should be doing is

figuring out what my Instagram objective is,

but I want to sell pottery.

So what do I do?

Okay. So I'm just going to assume it's a female.

I'm gonna call her Sally.

Oh good.

Sally. Yeah.

Sally sells Patrie.

Sally sells pottery.

The first thing that Sally needs to do once she's established

her Instagram objective.

So at this point,

I think she would want to build brand awareness.

She only has a hundred followers.

You can only sell so much pottery to one person,

I would assume.

So at this point,

you really want to build some brand awareness so you can

expand your audience.

So once Sally focuses on brand awareness,

now she needs to move to who is her ideal client?

Who does she want to serve and help?

Who does she want to expose the pottery world to most

likely it would probably be maybe females,

35 and over I'm assuming here.

So the biggest mistake that I see on Instagram is their

bios. Because a lot of us being entrepreneurs,

we are multi-passionate creative beans.

So we think that our Instagram bio needs to be all

about what we do,

what we sell and all the different things that we do.

The problem is when we make our Instagram bio about us,

it becomes vanity metrics.

And to be honest,

when someone goes to look at your bio,

they really don't care about everything that you do.

They don't care that you're a coffee lover.

They don't care that you own a dog.

They want to know what's in it for them.

So we need to make our Instagram bio about our I

deal audience.

And your Instagram bio has three important parts.

You need to state who you serve,

what is their main problem?

And what is your solution?

So Sally in her bio would have some sort of,

I help statement.

Cause remember we're helping and serving our audience.

We're not selling to them.

We want to help them.

So maybe Sally's statement might be,

and I'm just really throwing this out in the wind.

Like I help women jazz up their homes.

You know,

what would be in the past?

Is it just Add some spice to an environment?

Yeah. Like It'd be something like that.

Like I help women spice up their homes or jazz up

their homes or something through custom pottery and whatever else Sally

might do.

So maybe it's custom pottery or different sized pottery.

So I would have to work specifically with that person to

really look at their store,

to see what they are.

But that is kind of the main formula to your Instagram

bio is to have that sentence.

If you were to look at mine,

I have a sentence in there and it always starts with

I help because I want to help my audience.

So a person reading that go,

Ooh, custom pottery,

oh, I need to jazz up my home.

I'd love pottery.

That is how you're going to attract the right people to

you as you need to audit your bio first,

because when they go to your account,

that is the first thing they see.

They're going to read that bio.

So you need to have those three parts.

Who is your audience?

Who are you helping?

What is their main pain point or problem?

Granted, they might have several problems,

but what is the main overarching problem?

And then what is your main solution,

your overarching solution.

So it's,

I help who's your audience.

Maybe it's to overcome gain,

achieve something.

And then how do you do it?

It's through or by your solution.

Yeah. Your product is your solution.

All right.

So I want to summarize where we are up to this

point. And if you've not thought of your Instagram account like

this before,

or even if you're further,

along than the a hundred followers,

like we talked about,

it's always nice to recheck everything.

So what's your purpose for being on Instagram?

Let's say to stick with Sally,

hers is brand awareness.

Now what does brand awareness mean?

So that will be just getting the name of your company

out there and what you stand for,

like the vibe of your business and all of that exposure

because people can't buy from you unless they know you.

And then your ideal client,

I would say Alison,

that a lot of people who are starting off have to

guess who their ideal client is,

they start like Sally's making her pottery.

And she knows in the beginning who she's planning on making

it for.

But then when she actually start going out to craft shows

and selling or starting to get customers online and selling that

might change from her initial idea of who they were going

to be over time.

So once you are in business for a longer period of

time, you get more savvy about who the people are that

you're attracting.

So when we then go and talk about the bio and

this is why I wanted to interrupt this flow,

Alison for just a second,

is that if you haven't looked at your bio for a

long time or put your bio in the structure that Alison's

talking about,

rethink, if your bio still aligns with the types of customers

that you're attracting today,

it might be time for an update.

So I just wanted to put that in there.

So we've gotten all this figured out and we're still sitting

here trying to help Sally,

who understands now what should do.

And by the way,

these are business accounts,

not personal accounts,

right? Alison,

so it's an Instagram account for business.

And on Instagram,

you can create as many accounts as you want.

You just have to have different email addresses.

And I wouldn't create a million because you're not going to

keep up with them,

but maybe at the most one personal and one business,

maybe even if you have a personal Yeah,

and that's a big,

maybe I have one account.

I am the brand.

Even though you are a product based business,

you are the brand.

And the whole point on Instagram is to make the connection.

So I wouldn't have a separate personal and business account.

I would have have one Instagram account.

It's so much easier to manage.

So given that though,

what rules would you have about your account?

If you only have one and you really are using it

for business,

do you have any rules about what you would post in

that post,

in that account?

Well, here's the good thing is there are no rules because

it's really what you're comfortable with.

But what I like to do is guide my clients to

creating what I call content categories.

And these are simply your post types,

because a lot of times we can fall into the trap

of just posting about our products all the time.

And when someone looks at what you're posting all the time,

and if it's constant pictures of your products,

it just comes across as spammy.

I hate to say it you're going to come across as

that sleazy car salesman.

And nobody wants to be pitched products.

They actually go on Instagram to be motivated.

They want to be inspired and they want to learn.

They don't want to be sold to.

So the best way to do this is through content categories.

And you can basically just categorize the types of posts that

you're going to create.

And they can be something like lifestyle posts.

It can be a behind the scenes post.

I would rather see Sally a picture of her actually making

her pottery and maybe the steps she goes through.

Then just showing me a final photo of the pottery and

then say,

click here to buy.

I would rather see her working cause I can make more

of a connection with another woman working on her pottery.

Maybe she's got an actual brick and mortar business.

Maybe she does this in her garage or basement.

Like someone's going to relate to you better if they actually

see your process into doing something.

Another great content category is tips and tutorials.

Maybe Sally can give tips on how to use pottery in

the different seasons that we have,

how to stage a room,

how to change the mood or how to use them for

parties, how to use them for events.

Like there's so many other ways to teach people how to

use the pottery in their home.

What are the benefits to putting pottery in your home?

I personally don't know,

but maybe there are some benefits.

Maybe there are some mood benefits to staging some pottery with

greenery in front of a window.

Like maybe it does something to our psychology and then also

inspirational posts.

She can use her beautiful pottery images and then overlay a

quote, an inspirational quote or a motivational quote.

So there's so many different ways to showcase your brand without

selling your brand.

Does that make sense too?

It totally does.

We've talked about this type of thing before,

but I can't make the assumption that everyone who's listening today

has been listening back through other episodes.

So yes,

it totally makes sense.

Okay. So in terms of the content categories,

we should create some different content categories.

So that then we're not always thinking every time we want

to post,

well, what do we post these categories help align the content

a bit,

right? Yes.

Okay. So that's good.

So we have our content categories.

And then when you talk about that,

this shouldn't take a lot of time.

I think that's where people get stuck.

They feel like they've taken so much time,

but probably random posting versus what you're describing here.

Cause here,

or there's a strategy underneath the plan and the posting.

But how do we get to the point where we're not

spending so much time on Instagram,

but we get to see a little bit of growth happening.

We get to see that the objective is actually being fulfilled

and we're moving forward.

What are your little tricks and tips there?

Tiny. We all feel like it's so precious and it gets

away from us so easily.

And certainly on social that happens.

Allison's going to share with us what we should do right

after a quick break.

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I will Share with you how now I map out all

of my content monthly and weekly in three steps.

So the first step is at the end of each month,

I will print out the next month calendar on a sheet

of paper,

an eight and a half by 11.

And I will look at the month.

The first thing that I take a look at is if

there are any events or holidays that I want to post

about on Instagram,

I will mark it on that day of the month.

Next I will look at my content categories and remember my

objective, right?

What's my objective or my goal for the month.

I'm going to make sure I write that down on my

calendar. So it's front of mind.

Then what I'll do is I will create my own consistency

pattern and here's something about consistency.

And I think your audience is going to love this answer.

You get to decide your consistency.

Don't worry about what other gurus are saying.

If they're telling you to post two times a day,

seven days a week to get to 10,000

followers, forget all of that because the problem is,

if you feel forced to show up in a certain way,

you're not going to show up authentically and you're not going

to do it consistently because eventually you're just going to stop

doing it.

Cause it doesn't feel right to you.

I want you to show up on Instagram in a way

that it feels right and aligned with your business and your

brand. So if showing up four days a week in your

newsfeed feels good to you,

then that's what you're going to do consistently.

Look at the calendar and just spread out those content categories

throughout the month.

And that's what I do.

I will write down maybe on Monday,

it's going to be an inspirational quote,

maybe on Wednesday,

it's going to be a tip and tutorial.

So I will fill in the calendar with my content categories

at that point.

Does this make sense so far?

Sure it does.

So now you have the whole month mapped out and this

is something that you can do under 20 minutes.

So at the end of the month,

you now have next month content mapped out,

ready to go.

So at this point I will sit down one day a

week. Normally Fridays for me is my content creation day on

Friday. I will sit down and look at that calendar and

I will look at the next week.

I will then create content for that specific week.

So if I have four posts that I need to create,

I will do them at that time where I will open

up Canva and create any graphics that I need to pull

some photos that I'm going to use that I already have

on my phone.

And I use a scheduler.

I use tailwind to schedule my posts.

That's when I'll upload the photos,

I will write the captions,

put in the hashtags and I will schedule it for the

following week.

That way when I show up next week,

my content is done.

All I have to do on Instagram is engaged with my

audience and be fully present and intentional.

I'm not worrying about what I'm going to post because I've

already planned it.

So you batch everything in one day,

this is your plan.

You know,

the certain number of days a week,

you're going to be posting then whether it's once a week,

twice a month.

So you do two weeks in a row or two weeks

at once,

whatever. So you sit down and you intentionally plan it all

out and get it all set and scheduled.

And then you don't have to look at it again.

Yes, that's excellent.

And many of you who are listening already know,

I have that program content for makers that will fit nicely

with what Alison's talking about here and give you some specific

wording for your posts too.

So by structure or by different categories,

for example,

like you're not going to use these exact things necessarily,

but it gives you the idea based on your industry of

what you should do.

So it makes it super easy.

I think the point is Alison people just taking the action

and doing it.

What do you say?

So The implementation part can be tricky.

So I think you have to just start somewhere.

And when you map out your content and decide what you're

going to do.

And I always say to when it comes to Instagram,

because a lot of people are like,

oh, it's the newsfeed.

It's Instagram stories.

It's video,

it's reels start with one thing because if you're not consistent

right now,

there's no way you're going to be consistent with doing all

the features on Instagram.

So start with one thing that is going to help you

get consistent and actually implement.

And if that's creating posts for your newsfeed,

then do that.

And once you feel really consistent with that,

then you can add one more thing to it.

But don't try to do all the things at once because

there's just,

I couldn't do it.

I had to start with the one thing and then just

build on it and build on it.

And when you stay consistent,

you will build that momentum.

And you'll see,

after six months after nine months of your own consistency pattern,

you will grow.

What do you say about like the whole thing right now

is if you're going to do anything,

do reels because supposedly that gets you so much visibility and

followers. And then I also hear if you're going to do

posts right on the feed just directly then do carousel posts.

Cause those will perform better for that organic visibility.

You hear things from all over the place about what to

do. What do you say to that?

Like how do you keep on top of it and do

the things that are going to have the most impact?

So right now Instagram reels and carousel posts will get you

the most visibility reach engagement because that's what Instagram is favoring.

But that doesn't mean that you can't still grow with newsfeed

posts that is never going away.

You still need to build the know like and trust.

So even though you might get the visibility through Instagram reels,

that doesn't mean it's your ideal audience and how are they

really going to know what you sell or do.

If that's all you provide is Instagram reels at first,

they might be entertained by you.

But then after a while,

they're going to wonder,

well, what do you do then?

They're just going to unfollow You.

Well, and honestly,

I know it feels great when people have a million followers,

but if they're not someone who would buy your product,

it's feels good.

It's makes for social credibility,

I guess.

But it doesn't really help you in terms of your business

growth because you're not bringing in any sales.

They're not your people.

Yes. You want quality followers over quantity.

Don't worry about getting to a certain number of followers.

Don't worry about getting to 10,000

to get the swipe up feature that does not matter.

And honestly,

you can take a look at some people on Instagram that

have over 30,000

followers. But if you look at their posts and they only

have maybe 20 likes and six comments that is not quality,

they may be bought them.

They're bots.

So we have to be very careful when we look at

others and we assume that they're successful.

We assume that,

but we really don't know anything about their business on the

back end.

You know what else I heard recently,

tell me what you think about this is that organic visibility.

In other words,

when people I'm saying this to people who are listening,

Alison, not to you,

of course,

but when you put up a post,

the number of people who are going to see it is

based on all the algorithms that you hear all the time

and not everybody who follows you is going to see it

in their feed.

And that's really not what I want to dive into.

But what I've heard is that interaction and engagement to your

individual posts as a percentage of the total gets you more

reach. So if someone has 30,000

followers, but 200 people respond to a post,

let's say,

they're not going to get as much reach as somebody who

has a thousand followers and 200 people respond or engage with

that post.

So it's the percentage of your total following that helps reach

expand. What do you say about that?

Alison, In a nutshell,

yes, it was a lot there and here's the thing I

don't worry about reach and I don't worry about her Senate

because again,

I think we just need to simplify the fact that Instagram

is just a marketing tool and it's just in your wheelhouse

of tools that you're going to use to build your business.

When we get stuck on the vanity metrics,

then we're going to try to change what we're doing to

increase a percentage.

And like I said earlier,

that is when our internal little low-key egos come out.

And again,

we're not just focusing on the serving and the helping that's

when now we start to focus on the sale.

So I don't pay too much attention to percentages and vanity

metrics. The only thing as far as insights and metrics that

I pay attention to is which posts gave me the most

reach or engagement in the last 30 days.

And I look at those posts and I look at what

the photo was,

what did I say in my caption and what was my

call to action?

And I will repurpose it into something new.

You will repurpose that same post or you'll do more of

the same or both I'll do More of the same.

But to be honest with you,

I could take the same caption that I did 30 days

ago and just use it with the new picture.

Nobody would know nobody remembers what anybody wrote 30 days ago,

but if it performed well,

I'm going to use it again.

We'll Talk.

How about this then for people who aren't as familiar with

how to look at your metrics.

So first off,

that's why we say you have a business account because that's

the only way you can look at anything.

You don't analyze your account.

You have to be on a business account,

but then where should we go to look and what should

we specifically be looking at?

Okay. So when you're in your account,

you can go to your profile,

your account.

And you're going to see in the top right corner,

the three lines that people call them the hamburger or the

three lines,

and you're going to get a menu.

And I think it's like the third item down,

it's called insights.

And when you choose insights,

it's going to give you an insight overview of your audience,

of the content you've shared.

So when you scroll down to the content you've shared,

you can actually click on your post and here you have

the option at the top to do a search.

I think it automatically goes to the last year,

but I always like to look at the last 30 days.

And when I look at the last 30 days,

I like to look at different things.

I like to look at the reach,

how many accounts am I actually reaching?

I also like to look at my saves and my shares

because if people are saving and sharing my posts that tells

me that the post is very valuable to them.

So I am going to recreate those because I really want

people to save and share because when they,

first of all,

save it,

they're going to keep looking back at the post.

But when they share it,

they've most likely shared it to their Instagram stories,

which now opens your post to a whole new audience.

And that's another great way to grow.

So creating shareable content is a really great way to grow

your account.

And what I mean,

shareable content,

that's creating lists,

creating carousels tips,

tutorials, infographics,

people are going to share and save that kind of stuff.

Do you feel like you have to tell people in your

post copy to save it or to share it?

I Have done both and I have not seen a difference.

So I don't think you have to,

I guess it just depends on your audience too,

if they know,

because I know for a long time,

people didn't even think about sharing.

They just kept it.

And let's talk about the value of sharing,

because this is another thing I think when you give first,

it's always nice.

And sometimes you get back,

but let's talk about the value of sharing other people's posts

that you think are valuable.

Do you think that's a good idea?

I do it all the time.

Absolutely. Tell us in detail what you do.

So if I like someone's post,

I will,

of course like it.

I will comment on it and then I will share it

to my stories.

And I make sure in my stories,

I will actually use the tag feature the tag button and

tag them in it because now Instagram does not alert you.

So you actually have to tag them in your Instagram stories.

That is like the biggest thank you that you could ever

do to somebody.

And what's so nice is if someone shares my stuff and

tags me,

you bet I'm going to go to their account and support

them. I'm going to go like and love on their post

and find something that I know my audience would like,

and I will share it again.

It goes back to making connections.

What do you think about reposting someone's content on your feed?

If it's done Correctly,

I do this all the time too.

There's certain people that I really love their motivational quotes,

so I will repost it and I will make sure that

they're tagged.

And I will put in there that this post credit to

so-and-so or a picture credit to so-and-so as long as you

tag them,

I think it's fine.

Cause you're getting credit to the original post There's posting apps

too, that you can use that automatically also connect the credit

back to them.

So that's helpful.

And those are great.

Also for times when you don't know what to post on

your feed,

I've been planning to do more and more of that just

to help spread the word of people that I think are

fabulous and others should know about and helps them.

And you do it because you want to give,

but you're also getting cause then that's a post for you

and you're providing value to your audience then as well.

So I think that that works really nice.

So you had,

as I was gathering information about you,

Allison, you had one sentence that really intrigued me,

that I wanted to make sure that we covered you say

what was one thing that you wished you would have known

sooner about Instagram?

And this feels like this is going to be really juicy.

So how do you answer that?

So here Is my,

it's almost like a two part answer.

Cause I know a lot of when they're getting started on

Instagram, it can be a scary place.

So first of all,

we're consuming so much content and that's when that imposter syndrome

sneaks in.

So it's a two-part answer.

First of all,

I wish I would have started showing my face more because

you don't hide behind your brand.

Don't hide behind your products.

Don't hide behind your logo.

The best way to make connections on Instagram is by showing

your face,

either through your newsfeed,

it's a boomerang in your Instagram stories,

it's in your reels doing a live video,

whatever it is,

I think we need to be brave and we need to

show our face because people do business with people.

They don't do business with the brand.

The second part of that answer is I wish I would

have moved myself from a state of inspiration to a state

of doing.

And that goes back to that consuming so much content consuming

content is good in the beginning,

but we get trapped into staying stuck in that state of

inspiration. You can keep downloading all the freebies.

You can keep downloading all the calendars,

the content calendars,

but when you don't move to a state of doing and

implement anything you've learned,

you're never going to grow.

So show your face and start implementing,

Taking action for gosh sake.

Sometimes I think when you're doing that learning and that downloading

and the analyzing and oh my gosh,

I can't do it till I have that content planner that

I'm going to be getting at some point,

all of that,

you feel like you're taking action,

but you really haven't taken any effective action.

That's going to get you any followers.

You have to actually do it,

not do the planning of it.

So I would challenge your listeners to take a selfie today

in front of a window and introduce yourself to your audience.

Ooh, I love it.

What are they going to say?

Give us the whole thing.

No excuses.

Yeah. Well,

you know what?

They can do two truths and a lie.

So they share two truths and one lie and their audience

has to try to choose which one is the,

oh, I love that two truths and one lie.

Okay. So you're going to take your phone.

You're going to go into your Instagram account.

Is this going to be a story Alison or what are

we making this so that it stays.

You're going to make this post.

Okay. So we're going to take a picture,

right? We want it to stay.

It's not necessarily going to be a video,

right? So just take a picture.

So you don't even have to talk.

And then in the comment,

you're going to say two truths and one lie,

which is it.

And then you do your truths and your lies,

whatever, which then initiates a response.

Cause you gotta have people responding to you.

Right? And the key is to respond back to them,

keep the conversations going.

So this is really easy.

So this isn't even going into the stories and doing a

poll or talking or anything like that.

Wonderful. Whoever does this,

I want you to tag me and Alison on it so

that we can go and,

and we can see,

okay. So you're going to tag me at gift biz unwrapped

and Alison,

what is your handle on Instagram?

It's my name?

Alison Shoals.

Okay. And Shoals is S C H O L E S.

Of course there'll be links in the show notes.

So I love when we have challenges like this and this

is a fun one,

plus I want to know everyone's truths and lies.

So when do you ever reveal the lie?

How do you do that?

If you're going to follow through on this game,

how are we going to reveal the law?

I reveal The lie through each individual comment.

So if they guess it,

one of the truth,

they'll go,

Nope, try again and then see if they'll come back.

Oh, so fun.

But then if someone reads the comments going down,

they'll end up seeing it anyway.

Right. But normally most people don't,

they will want to respond and gas because people like to

give their Opinions or you just wait a day or two

and then make a comment with what it is.

Something like that.

Very fun.

Alison, tell us a little bit more about your business,

the services that you provide and how people could find you

if they want to talk with you further.

Sure. So I am basically your Instagram coach and a podcaster.

So you can listen to my podcasts.

It's the social media for mompreneurs podcast.

And then on my website at boss,

lady and sweat pants.com,

I have a ton of freebies and resources on there.

You can get into Instagram coaching with me.

I also do group coaching,

one-on-one coaching.

So there's a lot of options on my website.

And then of course I would love for everyone to connect

with me on Instagram at Alison Shoals.

Perfect. Yeah.

Cause that's what we're talking about after all wonderful.

Well, this has been very interesting and I really appreciate your

going along with me to help out Sally taking somebody who's

in that position and giving us some very concrete steps that

they should be taking along the way to start seeing some

movement with their Instagram account.

So it's been marvelous.

Thank you so much,

Alison. I appreciate your being with us today.

Thanks for having me.

Who's going to take us up on the posting challenge,

two truths and one lie.

Remember if you do it to tag both Alison and myself

and me using the gift biz unwrapped handle so that we

can see and share it forward.

Getting more eyeballs on your business.

Remember this Saturday is the first episode of our new test,

airing time.

I've told you now,

so it's not a secret,

but here's a clue about the episode topic.

It's all about the secret and it's a good one.

I can't wait for you to listen as always.

Thanks so much for spending time with me today.

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So it's a great way to pay it forward.

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And then you don't miss one either.

Particularly now that our air dates are changing and now be

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And I'll see you again next week,

which is really starting Saturday on the gift biz unwrapped podcasts.

I want to make sure you're familiar with my free Facebook

group called gift is breeze.

It's a place where we all gather and are a community

to support each other.

Got a really fun post in there.

That's my favorite of the week.

I have to say where I invite all of you to

share what you're doing to show pictures of your product,

to show what you're working on for the week to get

reaction from other people and just for fun,

because we all get to see the wonderful products that everybody

in the community is making my favorite posts every single week,

without doubt.

Wait, what,

aren't you part of the group already,

if not make sure to jump over to Facebook and search

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