The Makeup Insider
The Makeup Insider is a fortnightly one-on-one podcast exploring the life and career of makeup artists, hosted by freelance mua Vanessa Barney.. Finding your community of other likeminded mua’s – the creative, artistic, talkative, flexible, adaptable with a good eye for colour kind-of-people, can often be daunting. Like, where do you start? The Makeup Insider is designed for just that. To build a collaborative online community of artists to build their confidence, connections and help drive their career to the next level.If you’re just starting out or have been in the industry for a long time, tune in now, check out the key takeaways in the show notes and subscribe so you never miss an episode. Find Vanessa @vanessabarney @the.makeupinsider
The Makeup Insider
"How to Create a Social Media Strategy and Why You Need One with Mariah from Content Queen"
Unlock the secrets to a powerful social media presence with Mariah from Content Queen, who joins Vanessa to talk content strategy.
What we talk about:
- Overcoming Common Business Challenges: Finding the Best Time to Post and Staying Consistent
- Mixing Up Your Content: Not Just Sticking to Instagram
- Using Data to Shape Your Content and Bring in the Right Audience
- Making the Most of Your Content: Tips from Real Experiences
- Engaging Your Audience with Stories and Monthly Themes
- Turning Followers into Fans: Sharing Helpful Content
- Using Hashtags and Tools to Get More Insights
Meet Mariah MacInnes, the brains behind Content Queen. She's not your average digital nomad, Mariah's a storyteller, content marketing strategist, and big visionary with a mission to inform and educate. With over 8 years in marketing and a background in Journalism and PR, Mariah's no stranger to the world of social media marketing, podcasting, blogging and writing (well - let's just say all things content).
Content Queen is a content marketing agency and educational business for online business owners and entrepreneurs.
Website: www.contentqueenmariah.com
Instagram (Content Queen): https://www.instagram.com/contentqueenmariah/
Instagram (Mariah): https://www.instagram.com/mariah_contentqueen
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Hi and welcome, hello, hello. Today I have the wonderful Mariah with me from the content queen and we are going to be talking all things social media strategies. Hello, hello, welcome. Thank you so much. Welcome to the Makeup Insider. Thank you so much for joining me. Can you tell everyone where you are at the moment? Yes, hello everyone.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me, vanessa. So yes, you can see it's light outside, but I'm definitely not in the same time zone as you. The lighting is bad here. Apologies for that, but I am in Colombia at the moment. It's our last day in Colombia before we had to Peru, but on a bit of a different time zone. But we've both got daylight, so that is good for the lighting here, but I'm opposite. I've got the window behind me so I'm a bit dark, but anyway, that's fine.
Speaker 1:All righty, that's exciting. I can see a little bit of Colombia behind you.
Speaker 2:Yes, there's some things happening in the streets.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So do you want to just introduce what you do as a business to everybody and let them know where they can find you? I guess it's up here, but for when we're on the podcast, let them know where they can find you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so yeah, my name is Mariah. I'm the founder of Content Queen, which is a content marketing agency and educational business, which I the more I do this, the more I find like it's. Everyone wants to learn how to create good content, how to be on social media, so I know it's often a very highly wanted topic. But, yes, I can be found across Instagram at contentqueenmariah, which is my agency page. All this page that we're going live on, which is Mariah Underscore Content Queen. I have a podcast, so there's lots of resources to learn content marketing and I try to make it super simple. I have a journalism background, so my goal is to always make it digestible and simple, rather than all this marketing jargon that we hear all the time. As small business owners and entrepreneurs, we have to learn so many things, so I want to try and make it as easy as possible for everyone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's how I found you, which is your podcast, and I've listened to so many episodes and I feel like I know you and thank you. It's such a great resource, so I would highly recommend getting onto that one if you want some social media tips. But we should just get straight into this today, I think, and let's get talking All things social, let's do it. So I'm going to talk about like from my point of view, like sort of my biggest pain point when it comes to social media are insistency and knowing when to post. So you got some suggestions for me there.
Speaker 2:Yes, this is always. Consistency is massive. Knowing like not having the ideas like I've done years of recent market research on this and whether it's time. Consistency, knowing what to post, knowing when to post is always massive. And the biggest thing here is really having a content marketing strategy. Now I know we're talking social media. I literally have a podcast that came out yesterday about this topic the difference between content marketing and social media marketing.
Speaker 2:And when I say content marketing, social media comes under this umbrella, because we are creating content and basically what we want to do is understand, based on our own individual business, our own individual audience, where we need to be like, where we need to be showing up, what types of content we should be like, talking about sharing. And then this helps with the consistency because when you know, okay, I need to, or according to the plan that I've created, and then we measure and we test and we learn more, and we start to understand that maybe I don't need to post every day, maybe I don't need to post two times a day because people are saying that at the moment and oh my God, I'm going to lose my mind, but anyway, that's fine, you know. And then we start to learn. Oh, we'll. You know, posting X amount of times or all the time is actually not worth it for me, time-wise but also results-wise, so I can take that out of my strategy. But actually sitting down and learning and understanding your business, your goals, your audience, will help you understand where you need to show up and what types of content you need to be posting, based on what your audience is asking you Because, like you know, you have all these questions that you sent me for this episode based off what your audience needs to know or would like to know. So that's who we need to be creating content for, right the audience. So once we understand what's working, what people resonate with, what topics you know really get people going and excited and that's where not just engagement, but that's where we find we get the most visits to our website or we get the most engagement in terms of people messaging us. That's the key.
Speaker 2:You can't have someone showing up on social media and saying this is the exact formula that you need. You can't show up, do four reels, do X amount of carousels, talk about this, do this. They don't understand your business. They also don't understand how much time you have and your goals Because you might not actually have. If you are in the beauty industry, you might only be able to take on X amount of clients. So, yes, you want to have a wait list, or you know people, but you know say, if someone needs something done on this particular day, they need it done on that particular day. You can't fit them in on another day.
Speaker 2:So you have to understand your business goals as well, because if you are like creating all of this content, spending all this time, you could actually be spending time finding team members, growing your business that way, so then you can serve the clients coming in. So strategy is the biggest answer to this question. What a strategy looks like for every individual is tailored and yes, there are little you know suggestions or things that I can say to people that they could do or might do, but unless we're in it, we're looking at the information that we have in front of us. It is really hard for someone on social media to come out and tell you exactly what you need to do to gain clients on social media, because they don't know your goals, they don't know your audience and they don't know what resonates in your industry. You know your industry better than anyone and you know your audience and your clients. So I think those that say, oh well, I don't know what to post on social media. You know your industry, so you absolutely do.
Speaker 1:Is there a couple of different things, like a couple of topics in a strategy, so like an outline of things that you could do to get one in place?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So I put together my own framework, which is the seven steps, and it's actually the acronym of content. So I go through the C, the O, the N, the E, the N, the T, c O, n. Anyway, I'll go through them. I missed the T. So, anyway, the first one is C connecting with your audience and your vision. So understanding who your target audience is like exactly.
Speaker 2:And I've had people in sort of the beauty industry say to me but, like I have lots of clients, I have clients that come in and get facial, for skincare treatments, and then I have some that come in and get waxing. So what do you mean? Like, what audience do I go for? And I remember saying to this woman who's your best client? Who's the one that will share your stuff on social media, will book in their appointment as soon as you finish? Like, oh yeah, I'm rebooking, not me, because I travel the world. I am a nightmare to any beautician hairdresser because I never rebook, because I never know where I'm going to be, so I'm probably not the ideal client, right? So who is that ideal client? What do they say to you when you're doing their treatment? Like, do they share with you that they love a particular brand or they watch a particular show. Start, like you. I mean, I think the beauty industries are amazing because I talk so much with my hairdresser. If I go and get a wax, I'm like you know you have such an awesome relationship with any of your beautician's hairdressers. You have the power to get so much information from your target audience in one session, right? So you can start to understand who this person is and then start to outline what are their goals, what are their pain points and goals, not just direct to what you give them General goals that can help you relate to your audience, right? So we look at our target audience. Then we want to obviously look at our business goals and set content and marketing goals to that.
Speaker 2:For example, if you are in the beauty industry but you want to be more of an educator in your space say, for example, if you even decided to make a podcast because you wanted to be in this space, so your goal was to create a podcast. If someone's like, all right, I would like to do more educating, I want to be, you know, supporting people in my industry Then you look at that as a business gone, go, ah. What makes sense to shop more on social media. It makes sense to start a podcast. Or makes sense to actually maybe do more speaking engagements or things like that, or going into schools and teaching and to get your voice out there that it might make sense to be more in video and start a podcast. So then you can start to create goals. If you've got revenue goals I know you've had the amazing Nikki on that talks about traffic and how much traffic that you need to reach a revenue goals so then you can start to understand what platforms that you might need to shop on or where you need to focus your energy based off your income goals. So if you look at and it can go as detailed as you want, and that's why it's really good to have someone support you along the journey at any given time but you just roughly look at your goals and how can marketing and content marketing support you on your business goals? So that's like the first part Okay, that's the C, that's the C, then the O Yep, and I actually I have a really good um infographic, so if anyone wants that, I can share it with you and you can share it in any way. But basically the O is optimizing your channel.
Speaker 2:So, once you understand your goals and you can work out, okay, what channels do I need to show up on, whereas my audience at where do I like to spend time? Like, where do I like to spend my time? Like I love podcasting, so that's where I like to spend a lot of my time. And then we start to identify, okay, what are our main channels? So where are the? Not just necessarily the places we spend the most time, but where do we give the most value and say, for example, with you, vanessa, you have a podcast, your podcast is your core channel, so to speak. It could become all of your social media content just that podcast episode. So that's where repurposing comes in and there's a whole part on that. And then we have the T, c, c or no N, sorry, n, c, o, n. I can't spell. Today I've been listening to too much Spanish. I don't speak very good Spanish, but I feel like I haven't listened to English all day.
Speaker 2:So then we look at the second part of the strategy. So that was the research. We really looked at the C and the O was researching our audience, our goals and the channels that we're showing up on. Now we want to go into the strategy phase, which is nailing the strategy, and you purchased my workshop, so you would have heard me talk about the three things buckets, pillars and themes. That is a whole other topic to go into, but basically what it does, it understands the types of topics you want to talk about, what you want to be known for in your industry, the pillars being the types of content you're going to create. Are you going to inspire your audience, are you going to educate them? And that would be mapped out across a social media plan of Monday to Sunday. Okay, what days am I posting what types of content? And we can go into marketing funnel chat, but that could be like a whole other day.
Speaker 2:But basically, if we look at a marketing funnel, the top is brand awareness, getting people to know who we are.
Speaker 2:The middle is getting people to consider us and start to think of us as an expert, and the bottom is buying from us. So basically, you want to make sure you're creating content in each part the top, where they get to know you and your industry and, sort of like, start to like you, the middle being more educational content. So, for example, your podcast, vanessa, is a middle funnel because it's very educational and it's also like where people are starting to trust you more. And then, of course, the bottom of the funnel is where you ask people to purchase from you. What we find in a lot of industries is people do a lot of promotional content and not enough of the top two, or a lot of educational content and promotional, but not enough of this fun or entertaining or even controversial content that might go viral and might get more eyes on our content and start to get people thinking about who we are. So that's basically mapping out what you're going to be posting on any given day.
Speaker 1:And then of course and we just touched quickly on is the funnel. Would you call it the buyer's journey? Is that another word, the funnel Like? Just in case people aren't familiar with. You know the funnel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so basically it's like where people come when they find you to, when they buy from you. So everyone comes in the buyer's journey or the marketing funnel at any given time. The buyer's journey will also talk more funnel, more sales as well, whereas this is like marketing specific. But basically, yes, how people. Some people might go straight to your podcast. They might not even look at your social media content, so some people might come in at middle and I've even had people buy from me as soon as they know me, so they've come from the top and they've bought straight away. But basically we want to assume that every person is going to go through each stage of the funnel, because we can never assume that people are going to buy from us when they first meet us or anything like that. So, yes, that is the buyer's journey, essentially understanding and from a marketing or a content perspective, where are they going to?
Speaker 2:What kind of content can we create so they can find us in different ways? For example, we know Instagram Reels is where people outside of our following can find us. So if you want to grow your following, then it might make more sense to do more real, related content on Instagram, whereas platforms like TikTok, anyone can see your content, so it doesn't matter. But so you have to make sure that, okay, some random person is seeing my content and they're going to understand what I'm talking about Because they could be seeing you for the first time, whereas people that are following you on Instagram have probably seen one or two posts of yours before, right?
Speaker 2:So it is very different, and that's why I always recommend don't create content for a specific social media platform. Create content that can get used across multiple social media platforms, no matter what the algorithm or how it works right. Obviously, you can tailor certain things, like certain trends and stuff like that, but if you are creating content just for Instagram, then you're cornering yourself in just to Instagram. You're not giving yourself an opportunity to expand in the future.
Speaker 1:So that is basically yes, Can we just chat quickly about what different content platforms there are? So maybe, like there's interest, there's blogs, Just to give a. You know, I think everyone just thinks Instagram right, but I feel like there's other ways to I don't know engage with people.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Instagram.
Speaker 2:And there's so many content channels, we always immediately assume Instagram because it has been very successful for a lot of people, and I'm no way anti Instagram I spend a lot of time on there but I'm anti one egg in one basket and that's what I've been talking about. It doesn't mean that I'm telling everyone listening that you have to be on every channel because you burn out very quickly. But understanding for the future, how can I make a plan that is sustainable so that I'm not just relying on Instagram to get my leads? Because I can probably guarantee you, if you have a website, most of your traffic doesn't come from social media. I would probably guarantee it's either them directly typing in your URL or finding you through Google, and that's a very big assumption to make, but it's what I've seen across a lot of my clients, and actually I saw a woman go through all the big brands that spend millions of dollars on social media and only 11% of their traffic comes from social media and they spend most of their marketing on social media. So it's interesting.
Speaker 1:Okay. So is this where the C in the O come in, like where you were talking about where you actually find out, or is that? Do you find out where your traffic's coming from in the top part of the strategy? Okay, so I think that's really, really important to know, because otherwise you can just spending all of this time on Instagram, make content, and it's actually not really getting you results.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I've seen this multiple times. I had a client I worked with in 2021. And she and I think it's because Instagram is sexy, it's a shiny object. We all want to be good at Instagram, we all want to have lots of followers. It's just, it's a vanity place, right? Our ego is always hit on Instagram. It always is. I've had videos on TikTok reach a million people. I have one that's a million, a million and it does it like, for some reason, it's Instagram that always is like you want the approval of Instagram Because TikTok actually, it's a lot easier to get reached, depending on your industry. Of course and this was not related to my business, this was related to my personal account that I have on my health journey, but it's interesting, I've had videos yet reach half a million on my travel account, like it's crazy, on TikTok.
Speaker 2:But going back to this client, she, yeah, was showing up a lot on Instagram, but actually she was in an industry where corporate was her main client, so LinkedIn was where most of her leads came from. But she also noticed from the data that we looked at together that lots of her sort of because she had two offerings she sort of had for the business owner sort of a lower end offer, and then she had the corporate sort of like bigger end offer. She knew that she got those through LinkedIn and she did spend quite a bit of time on LinkedIn, but these business owners she really did struggle to get through to. We noticed most of our traffic come from our YouTube and most of those people signed up for a mailing list. So then we started to identify that YouTube and her mailing list were two parts of her marketing funnel or her buyer's journey that we could really tap into. So she hadn't posted a YouTube video in six months. So she started posting more onto YouTube and I repurposed all of that onto Instagram. So we actually diverted traffic from Instagram to YouTube rather than to buy something from.
Speaker 2:And that's actually my podcast is my biggest, biggest part of my marketing strategy on Instagram. I direct more people to my podcast and to my offerings and I use more of like Instagram stories and the DMs to sell my, my educational courses, and I don't sell it. I don't promote my one-on-one services on my Instagram at all. So everyone can make a different assumption and test it themselves. But you learn this by looking at numbers, looking at data, and I can tell you it's not super sexy. That's why I have, for my membership and for those that join BruteCamp, every three months we have a call and we go through it together because I know it's not fun, but I make it fun because when we start to look at it and we go, oh my God, I didn't realize this type of post did really well and they're really easy to create, so they're really fun and then I can do that in like.
Speaker 2:I have a client where the biggest website traffic generator from Instagram is a post that we do promoting her podcast, where we repurpose the show notes and we create the podcast tile and that gets most traffic to her website. We're like do we need to get rid of this? Like is this a very high-value post, the most traffic, so this post literally takes me the least amount of time out of all of her content and it has the most impact. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, so in your BruteCamp that you run, you show people how to do this.
Speaker 2:Okay, so my BruteCamp is every every like. So the whole acronym of content. We go through each module and we do it together. I'm actually running it live, Our first live call. I always run it passive so people could download it, and then there's opportunities to ask questions and then, as part of buying it, you access my membership for three months. So you get to be in the membership for three months and you can ask questions and I can go through your strategy. We have live calls and stuff.
Speaker 2:But I decided to run it live because I love live things and I know people need that accountability. So I'm running it live at the moment, with our first call next week and basically, yes, I send an email to the people that are participating. So we're focusing on these two modules this week. So this week we are doing the C and the O and then next week we'll have a call and people can ask me questions. I can look at it, we can start to make because one of my strengths is definitely content ideas and looking at the information, because I have a journal background right. So we look at data and we make stories. So that's what I've helped them with and I think it's really powerful being able to have someone support you on that journey and know that you're doing it right, even though we don't know straight away, we're doing it right. And that's why the last T in the content is test trial measure and that's why I have that three monthly. Every three months, we have that session because I'm not about here's my course, goodbye. I never want to see you again. I really want to support people in this journey. So I've created a lot of touch points that, even if you're paying a one-off fee, you're getting support along the journey. And that's why I have those three monthly calls so that we can look at the strategy that we built together in content boot camp and then see where it needs tweaking and changing.
Speaker 2:Because, also, a strategy isn't just about me trying to complicate things for everyone and like give them more things to do. In fact, I have seven clients at the moment. I also have my own business to create and I travel the world. If I didn't have a strategy, do you think I would be able to travel? I would be chained to my laptop. I'm not saying I can tell you how to create, you know, a year's worth of content in two days, because I think that is ridiculous. But I can give the exact things and the support of how I do it to create multiple different pieces and, of course, I've been doing this a while.
Speaker 2:So the more you do it and the more consistent you get, the easier it becomes. Like, I imagine, business for the first time you record a podcast and it took hours and while support costs is a bit of work, it gets easier and easier with time and you start to learn how to utilize it better and you know so. Everything takes time at the beginning, but with consistency you learn more. You learn what you're wasting your time on, what you can cut out and then also how to do it quicker. So that's what I think.
Speaker 2:That consistency element is huge in strategy, because when you have that plan, you're not sitting there like, okay, what am I going to post today, Like I've got to think of what I'm going to do. You know, you know exactly what you're going to do. It's like when you go to the gym and you don't have a program Like I just like walk around in circles, like, okay, I might do a couple of like you know, dumbbell like, or some presses or some squats or some deadly sort of and I'm like that didn't really have much impact on me at all, Like that didn't actually. That did nothing. So that's what a strategy is here to do is to help you know what you're doing as well and learn along the process.
Speaker 1:So where were we up to? Before I voted the conversation? Were we up to the end or the T we?
Speaker 2:were up to the end. I was just finishing off. Basically, within those three elements, within the strategies, we also look at your sales plan and we look at okay, if you're in, you know how many like, what's the easiest product that you can produce or create? Say, for example, you want to, you know and I mean I know in beauty it can be different Like, if you just provide one service, that's what you want to sell. But like, how many clients do you want to get? You know all these things. And we look at that.
Speaker 2:Like, for example, for me, I actually have built out my sales plan. So at different times of the year I'm offering different things, not like they're all similar offers, but like okay, so when I'm back home and I'm back in Australia, I can take on more one-on-one people. So I'm going to spend more energy on that. Whilst, when I'm traveling, I would like to try and support, you know, through my course and my group program, where I can, like you know, serve more people and help them when I have probably less time, right, so that's when we can start to go okay, what are we promoting? And then how can we create marketing campaigns around these? So then from that we build out what I call themes. So we look at every month what are we selling and what do we need to be talking about in relation to that product or service. Even if you're launching a new product one day, you just decide, like here's a new product, everyone like I'm offering a new service, but you didn't warm your audience up. They're going to be confused.
Speaker 2:So we work out a process of how we can nurture our audience and start to get them warmed up for something, get them excited. So then when we offer something, they're ready for it. So that's what we do in the strategy element. We create themes around each month what we're selling, but also what we want our audience to know and we build out. So, for example, for you, vanessa, your theme could essentially be your weekly podcast topic, and that weekly podcast topic could be in relation to something that you're going to be offering.
Speaker 2:Like I know, you're launching a membership. So in the process of leading up to that, you would think about all the things in the membership and all the educational pieces and points or pain points around what you're solving and you would create content on that to warm people up. So then when you launch that membership, you've warmed up an audience and your content is sort of tracking that process as well, and that's how marketing and sales work together, because marketing and sales are two different things. We can't just post content on social media and expect people to buy from us. There's a marketing process, but we also need to bring in the sales element as well into our marketing. But don't worry, because even in corporate the marketing and sales team don't work together. So just because you know we haven't got it quite worked out in our small business, no stress, because corporate don't even have it worked out either. Sometimes the team don't even on the same in the same building. So it's totally normal people forget their marketing and sales should work well and should work closely together.
Speaker 1:So I'm just sort of thinking from a makeup artist's point of view, like if you're a makeup artist and it's quiet season, with weddings that aren't happening, you can start or you can actually always, I suppose, be producing content for brides to want to book before an example, because weddings happen all the time, yes, and people book, you know, six to 12 months in advance. Is that kind of an example of warming your audience?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. In these sort of like quieter periods in business, this is when we needed creating more top of funnel and middle funnel content. So we want to be creating a lot of brand awareness. So we want to be looking at maybe building our audience, building our traffic so that when we are, you know when it is wedding season that person already knows they want to book you. Yeah, so, even if you know there isn't weddings all the time or there's quiet periods, we want to be building up that client base. So that's when we want to do more brand awareness and more growth.
Speaker 2:Maybe some more like funny content, more about your brand or your personality, bringing a little bit more of your personality and identifying key pain points in your audience. Like, oh my God, just because it's a wedding now, you know, even if the prices skyrocket, or you know you might even be doing different makeup looks or giving people inspiration, things like this. Like, for example, you know, I've seen on TikTok, like, if this was my wedding tomorrow, this is the makeup I would do. You know, getting people to connect about oh my God, that's beautiful, I love that. Or maybe I wouldn't do that kind of style, or but we would be creating more like that top.
Speaker 2:Just don't. It doesn't even have to be like I'm taking bookings. Anything could just be really building audience in that time so that when, even if that person never books you, they might have a friend that's got a wedding coming up or a friend that and they go. Oh my God, I've been following this woman on Instagram. She's amazing. She's so funny. I really connect with her here, like people become your advocates when they connect with you on these platforms.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So that's yeah always nurturing and building yeah.
Speaker 1:So what are we up to? And then we're up to tea.
Speaker 2:Yes, so the next party is part of the strategy, which is what I just kind of mentioned Tell your story and what you want to be known for. So, if you are a market, if you are in the beauty industry, you're a makeup artist in the bridal space, you want to be known for that. So, can you like, what can you do? How can you share your story about? You know, yeah, like I said, this is the makeup look I would do if my wedding was tomorrow. Or you know, there's a lot of makeup artists on social, on Tik Tok, especially now, that actually share client experiences. So, and then they could be quite entertaining, like, obviously, if that's part of your brand, and obviously people might be like, oh, I hope they don't do a story about me, but I think a lot of them ask their client hey, can I tell this story? This is like sharing story, getting people like you know it could be. Oh, my God. I remember this time I had this client and they actually booked me the day of their wedding. It was crazy and here's what went down and you could share the story about that. So you're starting to share stories, your experiences and even you know, for example, I've seen makeup artists film the makeup look and then they might share a story about, yeah, that, the process of what they're doing, that client, what that makeup look was for. So really starting to tell that story, but then also what you want to be known for in that space. So, again, if you want to be known for bridal, then your content would be bridal. You'd even potentially go, you know, collaborate with bridal photographers or florists. You know, have collaboration with content. Maybe you go into the you know the store of a bridal florist and do their makeup or something you know like you can make it really fun and entertaining as well. But really sharing getting people to connect to you your story, but also your client stories. You know, that's where testimonials are amazing, things like that.
Speaker 2:So storytelling is a part of my strategy that I don't see often in content marketing strategies, but it's arguably the most important because we connect with stories and I found through my own personal health journey, through a lot of my clients, like sharing stories is how people connect to us. So that is the T tell your story and what you want to be known for. So that wraps up the strategy element and then we go into the process element where we're just working out when like when we're going to create the content, where are we going to repurpose and how we're going to make that work for us consistently. So we've done the T, then we've got expand on other channels, so then we want to look at okay, I'm on Instagram, I'm doing four videos, or three videos, a week. They could be repurposed to Pinterest or they could be repurposed to TikTok. So it's starting to look at how we can be smarter with our content and make it work for us with a simple, you know, scheduling, you know just trying to make it like if I'm creating this real for Instagram, where else can I use it? So you know, you asked me before what channels we can show up on.
Speaker 2:Like here is my repurposing process, right? So I create a podcast. I create a podcast that has a transcript, so then I can create, like, a blog on my website about that, right? Then I create and I have a team. So please don't be like, oh my God, I have to do all that. I have a team that supports me. The reason I was able to get a team, though, is because I had a strategy and I got, you know, inquiries for my business. I could expand my business, I could get more clients, more income and I could outsource. So strategy did help me in that process, but I do have a team that supports me, so I then create. I do post on social media every day and about four to five posts are about my podcast. Those posts, if it's a real it gets repurposed directly to TikTok and then I have a couple posts that go up on LinkedIn and then whatever video content or any graphic or carousel gets resized and repurposed onto Pinterest. Okay, so I've able to. Is that done with an app or?
Speaker 1:something.
Speaker 2:No, it's, I do it organically through the channel. There is an app that can push bits and pieces out. I like to do because I have a team, I have that luxury of getting people to support me, because I just I do like to post organically through the platform If I can. But every platform has a scheduling tool now it's own in house scheduling tool. You know, if it's Facebook and Instagram, they have Meta. Pinterest has its own scheduling tool, linkedin has its own scheduling tool and TikTok on computer has its own scheduling tool. So you can schedule across all those. But there are literally like there's a you know, like whether it's buffer, whether it's plan, that you can basically, you know, and I think even like Canva, you can schedule things. Like you could, if you had a carousel for Instagram, you know, like a couple of graphics for Instagram, you could repurpose them into pins and pins and, you know, share them straight from. So there's so many things you can do like that can help you in this process. But basically for me, because I have a luxury of being able to have people to support me, I can yeah, I can definitely delegate that and so basically, the E is yet expanding and our channels, even if it's to another channel, even if it's to one other channel, like that's great, right, so we're repurposing. And then the next step is N, which is navigating the process. So this is working out.
Speaker 2:When I'm creating my podcast, when I'm creating social media content, what is every step I need to do? Okay, I need to write captions, I need to make visuals, I need to film videos, and you have it written out. So when you go to sit on your desk to create content, you're not like. It's like the same. It's like having a program right, you know exactly what task needs to be done and you can put it in your calendar or a project management that you could have it to do this next to your desk, whatever it is, because this helps with consistency and accountability. It's like having your gym bag packed at the door, ready to go, so that you're not getting up in the morning like, oh, I've got to get my gym bag ready, I'll just go back to sleep. If you have the process mapped out for you, you're setting yourself up for success. You know exactly what needs to be done as soon as you.
Speaker 2:We all have processes in. You know. Any business has a process in any way of what needs to be done, to make sure it's like, even when I worked at Kmart we had a like a closing. We had a booklet to tell me everything I needed to do before I closed the store. So I needed to count the tills and I just went through and I ticked them off and I wasn't like, oh my God, what needs to be done next? And I wasn't finishing it. You know 1030, 11 o'clock at night. I was done at 10pm on the dock, clocking out, putting the safe in the, putting the cash, the tills in the safe, locking the door and heading out. I was out by like 1010.
Speaker 2:So processes are really important and I was talking earlier about how I use ClickUp and I created a little bit of you know, processes for people just to show them what it could be like. But basically it's just if you go to create social media content today or tomorrow, write down everything that you do to make it happen, and then that's your process, and then you add to it and you might remove things, but just get started and that helps you with accountability, that helps you with consistency. So that's the end. And then the last one I mentioned before, which is test, trial and measure. So this is all about implementing. And then we come back, we look at the numbers, we look at the data and we see what's working, what's not, and we make tweaks and changes, we make assumptions. Oh well, you know, whenever I talked about, whenever my dog was in a video, it went really well. So how can we incorporate the dog into my brand? Or when I, you know, some salons have like dogs, like I just have dogs in the salon, the dogs kind of become part of the brand. So you start to understand what works and you can make tweaks, assumptions, you can test them and start to create stories and narratives around your content.
Speaker 2:And again, as I said, that's why I have the check in every three months for us to all go over, because I look like I do this, I do it with everyone and I share what I learn. You know, I learned like even little things, like when I write how to in my podcast title. They perform better, they get more listens. So you start to understand like even tiny things, like marketing is not about making massive changes, it's actually about making small tweaks that make a difference, so small things that you can do that. Those 1% is that actually make a difference in this, like adding a call to action in our posts or, you know, doing an engagement sticker like tiny. So we learn to create little tactics right. So we learn to create little tactics within the strategy that are going to help us moving forward. So that's the content acronym and that's what I guide people through in contemporary camp, and we go through each set stage and build the strategy from there.
Speaker 1:Okay cool, that's great. I feel like you've answered a lot of the questions that my audience sent in in what you've said, because a lot of the questions are like one of the questions is does it matter what time of day you post? And that really can't be answered unless you look at your own data, see what's what's worked for you in the past. That's where it's good to know your numbers. Another one any anything specific to do to reach more accounts for better engagement Again looking at your own numbers to see what's worked in the past. Here's one do hashtags actually matter?
Speaker 2:That's a good one. So that's a good one because I find people are still getting traffic through hashtags. If I look at the data, if you look at your each post, try not to get too obsessed with it, because I don't want anyone to be like, oh my God, this post, because we're looking at it as a collective right, we don't look at it like we then start to. It's like with any data company they don't look at every single day, they look at trends. So we want to look at trends and patterns and make assumptions. But if you go into your insights, we'll actually tell you how many accounts have reached you through hashtags on Instagram and TikTok. They are still very much relevant, but what we're finding is now is these social media platforms are now becoming search engines, more so TikTok than Instagram. When I travel, I go to TikTok to find places that I want to eat, things that I want to do. That's where SEO is going to come into play and hashtags work as that keyword SEO concept. Right, because if a hashtag has a keyword in it and someone's searching that keyword, your post is going to show up more likely than if you don't have hashtags.
Speaker 2:I think it's just the limit on how many. We've said use all 30. I did hear recently that Instagram are suggesting five really good ones, but they always suggest things and we do them and it never really makes the difference. Sometimes I think they just lack humorous, but I wouldn't go with too many, just some really meaningful ones of what would someone be searching if they wanted to find out the answer that I'm giving them or the solution I'm giving them, and try to stick to that. So, yes, I think they're absolutely still matter. I just wouldn't be so obsessed with them. I just get a good hashtag tool or something like that that are free. They're free ones and just understand when you do post, which hashtags seem to perform for you.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool. How do you know if you are shadow banned?
Speaker 2:Yeah, instagram used to tell you you were shadow banned and I remember there was a part in your settings where you used to be a find out if you were, but basically they won't let you comment on anything if you're shadow banned. Oh okay, so if you go to comment, it'll say no and generally it'll refresh in 24 hours. Oh, so you're only shadow banned for 24 hours. I think you'll know if you're really banned from Instagram, like I saw a girl on TikTok who's really banned from Instagram and she like how to notice like you are banned from Instagram? Like get off this platform. They will notify you, but you can simply Google. I think there's I haven't looked at it in a while, but there used to be a setting that would tell you if you were or not. So you could probably just do a quick Google search and it'll tell you how to find it. They change the settings every five minutes. Every time I know something, they change it. So I think you'll know if you're shadow banned.
Speaker 1:Okay, why some posts barely reach any followers. Is that content related? If you look at your numbers, yeah, so obviously we.
Speaker 2:What I always recommend people is create content for your audience, not for yourself. But unfortunately, there is an algorithm on every platform so they're looking for certain things and sometimes it's just unlucky if you post at a time where, like I find at the moment, instagram is going through a bit of TVing and changes and things like that and they're always really challenging times. I sometimes have posts that, yeah, like, some posts reach thousands of thousands and some, you know, get 200, 100, you know what is going on. Like you know they say, just put, you got to post good quality content and it's probably no different from the content that I posted the day before. So, unfortunately, I never like we can't blame the algorithm. We just have to try and keep creating good content. But just understand that we don't have any control over these platforms. This is why it's always really valuable to have a channel that you can control emails, blogs, podcasts. You have more control over that than you do over these social media platforms. They have everything. They have all control.
Speaker 2:So there was a question about like what happens if you get hacked? Like. Unfortunately, that is the reality of these social media platforms and I know a woman who was on my podcast, who. She's in the beauty industry as well. Her name's Angela. I don't know if you know Angela and she, yeah, she had a whole membership on Facebook and 10,000 followers on Instagram and her account got hacked and she lost it all. So, yeah, so that's why having an email list is very important, so you have access to your clients.
Speaker 2:Save all of your content. That's why don't post just directly to the app. Have a calendar so you could potentially repost all that stuff. Like you haven't lost it all. It's your content. Like you don't rely on that app to host it for you. Have it somewhere. Have you know? I use a platform called air table, which is basically a glorified spreadsheet and on there, every post and video I've ever done since 2021. Every caption, everything. So, yeah, like I don't have to worry that I'm going to lose stuff because it's all there. So, unfortunately, I know, yes, they have the blue tick service. I can't say if it really does help secure you. I know you do get access to customer service more so than not. Like than people that don't. It's just a harsh reality of being on a platform that we don't own. So that's why it's a. It's a, it's a borrowed platform. We don't we don't own it, unfortunately.
Speaker 1:So where to find how people find me? I'm just looking at insights and I can't find it, but that's the only website.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so can you just elaborate on that? Because you won't know what people search to find you. You just need to understand what people ask, like what are their pain points and questions, why they're searching Instagram Not so much more tick tock at the moment. But if you want to look at your reach, that will be like, how many accounts you're reaching is the first metric in your insights and that will tell you oh, hashtags, okay, so, for example, you have to go to a specific post. It's not.
Speaker 2:They won't show you as a collective how many people find you through hashtags. It's each post and that's why I said before, don't get obsessed and look at every post every day. You'll go mental. But if you want to have a general consensus of where people are finding you on each specific post, click insights and then in insights it'll give you if people found you from their feed, like scrolling their feed, if people found you through the explore page, which is kind of that, I don't know that discover page on Instagram, if people have found you through hashtags, and then you can start to get like a general like. If you look at the last five or 10 posts you did, you can start to say, okay, more people saw me through this outlet than that one, and then you can say, yes, that's how you find that. But yeah, hopefully that helps. That'll tell you hashtags work, like we, and then if it they're not, if those ones aren't working, then those hashtags aren't performing and you might want to play around with some different ones.
Speaker 1:I'm just looking at the question. I've looked at it.
Speaker 2:And I don't. Do you have a personal account or a creator account? I don't know if I can look at your profile. So if you have a personal account, you don't have an. If you're getting insights, then you should. But each post, if you go to your feed and look at each like, click on the post where you can see the likes in the comments. There will be underneath each post that says the insights I can't show you because I don't have a phone to show you on my phone. But if you mess, if you message me, I'll send your screenshot of how to find it. Just send me a message. I'm looking at it. Desktop. Yes, you don't get insights on desktop right now, unfortunately. It's coming, but not yet, so you'll have to look on your phone.
Speaker 1:How to analyze insight data, and are there any websites that give us more information?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so basically, the insights on it's starting to get dark here and I'm my partner left, so he'll turn on the light for me in a minute, so it's just getting a little bit dark. We're really done. So basically, yes, the insights on each platform will give you a lot of data, but there are really good websites. There's one called Metricool, which is also a scheduler as well, and that gives quite a lot of information and you can actually look at competitors data there and see how they're performing. For me, that seems like depending on your goals as well. We're personal brands, so we could probably potentially be comparing ourselves with other people, which I don't love the idea of, but it is good to see where your competitors, so to speak, are at. For big brands like Massive right, they want to know everything about their competitors. But I look generally at the Instagram insights and then pair it with my website data from Google Analytics, because you want to see how much traffic is coming from those platforms and understand where most of your traffic is coming from. As I mentioned, I would arguably say most of it's probably not through social media. But, yes, metricool is a really good one.
Speaker 2:The actual insights on the platform. It's just learning to start to read and understand it. It takes time. Numbers aren't sexy, but I hated math at school so I totally resonate with this. But yet, over time, you'll start to learn a little bit more about what all the things mean. The good thing about Instagram is up the top right corner there's a little eye button and if you click that, it actually tells you what some of the analytics mean, which is quite good as well. Reach means this. Impressions means that I actually did create a blog on it because I found when I first started out, I'm like what's the difference between reach and impressions and all these things that can be? Yeah, like I don't know this stuff, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I have, I think, and this one other question why do some accounts get update, update super late?
Speaker 2:I wish I knew the answer to this, because I have clients that I still can't schedule reels on from the platform and it's very annoying. Yeah, so I think they do test in different countries. So, like Australia seems to get the most like they test on Australia first because we're not as big as the United States, we're a similar demographic. We're not going to crash their system, right, we have a smaller population. But basically, what I've found is if you just like there's like the help desk option in the settings, if you just message them and say hey, I don't have this feature, and you try and message them frequently, you should find you will get it. But I wish I knew that answer because I have clients, again, as I said, I still can't schedule reels from their account.
Speaker 2:There's lots of features that I don't have. I don't know why. I know they test on certain accounts, but I don't know why. I know like I think it's like any app there's always going to be glitches, there's always going to be things that just don't quite work and they say they do, but they don't. So we just I think if you just keep reporting it to Instagram, they might say oh yeah, here you go. Like captions disappears from me depending on what country I'm in, right, so I have to go and be. I use VPN, but I didn't have the VPN in Europe and I bought it when I got to Morocco, so I'd lost the captions feature for like reels, for it's like the subtitles, and I got the VPN and I still didn't get them back. And I didn't get them back until I went to Australia.
Speaker 1:To get, who knows? Yeah, very weird Tech, tech. Is there any other questions to everybody who's joined us today, or wait a few minutes?
Speaker 2:Yeah, have anything.
Speaker 1:I think I've asked everything. Yeah, I'm looking as well.
Speaker 2:I don't know what anything we should do, categorically not do ever. I'm not sure what that means. Yeah, I think we've answered. Are reels the only thing that matter now? No, definitely not. It feels like that and actually I want to create a little bit more content on this, because I find on Instagram more like I'm actually consuming more on Facebook and TikTok, because I'm kind of sick of reels on Instagram because it's the same stuff and when you start to follow the business industry content like marketers or social media marketers or Instagram coaches it's so repetitive and I'm really tired of it actually. So it might feel like that, but I think, in general, video marketing is more like people want to see faces, we want to hear voices, we want to connect. So that is why it feels like Instagram and now they like.
Speaker 2:You know, we used to have lives, used to sit somewhere, we used to have IGTVs. Now it all sits in reels. We kind of feel like that's the only way we have to go, but single images, like I just posted a carousel I do still image carousels and they perform really well. So, you know, I think it just depends on the context. It just has to be something that's going to capture someone's attention.
Speaker 2:Basically, and a lot of times, if we're just creating, like this really aesthetic Instagram picture, I think people are just getting a little bit bored of it. It's like I heard something the other day. It's like I don't want to see your meal on Instagram, I want to see the end result. You know, the mess, the crumbs, the napkin like that tells the story, not the perfectly curated through like. I want to see the raw content and, of course, like, because Instagram was always a really aesthetic space, we naturally go to making everything look amazing, but maybe it's those images that are quite raw and tell that story that people get. I think it just depends on the visual. If your carousels and images aren't performing, it would be because we're not capturing the attention. We only have like a static something rather than a visual that's moving to capture someone's attention. So it's a lot harder.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there was. I think there was a couple of questions actually that aren't on the list. What is the best real format length for being seen? Would that just be looking at your own analytics again to see what's worked for you in the past?
Speaker 2:Absolutely Like. I think definitely like. I would always recommend testing and trialing different lengths. Like, if you're going to tell a story on a you know about, like a customer that you had or something, it's probably going to be a bit longer, like you can't make that seven seconds. But if you have like a quick transition or something really like capture people's attention, then it's naturally going to be fast, right. So, I think, play around with different lengths, find the type of video you really like to create as well and then, yeah, match that with your data and have a look at, yeah, like, what works for you, what's easy for you to create as well.
Speaker 2:Like, we're not content creators. This is not our full time job. It's my full time job, but I'm not an influencer content creator. I'm a business content creator. It's very different, right. So we don't need to become obsessed, but we just need to start to understand and try and make it as easy for us as possible, and then we don't need to be like setting up tripods and filming out every move, like we don't have to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. There's one more question there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you go yeah, what's a good engagement rate? So industry standard engagement rates. They say about 3% and if you calculate your engagement rate you'll find it'll be a lot higher. So basically, this is how they tell you to measure engagement rate and I actually don't think it's fact, because now, with Instagram and any platform, we reach outside of our followers.
Speaker 2:So before it would say your number of engagements, which you can find under engagements, but don't take the top number. There's a number underneath that you're, because it accounts, likes, comments, shares, everything. It's like a number underneath the like kind of main number. But they've changed it. So it used to be one way. Now they've changed it. So, basically, you take that number and they tell you, like anyone that says how to calculate your stats, to divide it by your followers and times a hundred and you'll get your percentage.
Speaker 2:But because now we're reaching outside of our audience, I think it's better to take the reach. The number will be lower but it'll be more realistic to what your engagement rate actually is and you'll find it'll be above 3%, because a 3% engagement rate I find is for big companies that probably have millions of followers. But, like you know, like you can cut our shins. If you looked at her engagement rate actually wouldn't be that high because she's got millions of followers, right. So you know, if you're at like 10%, I think that's a good engagement rate, but knowing that 3% is the industry standard. So if you're, if you're just above 3%, then you're already above the average. So that's also in.
Speaker 1:Any other questions before we? We jump off so many great questions. Thank you, yeah, thank you. I've gotten so much out of our chat. Yeah, I think sometimes you have to hear things a couple of times to make it sink in, especially the content. You're better off to spend the time to work out what works rather than just like throwing content at the wall and hoping that it sticks right. And what do you want? From that content, I suppose.
Speaker 2:And I would rather someone post less and know what works than post more. For, like if you, if you go, alright, well, I'm posting X amount of times. Let's cut that back and give myself more time to work out what works. When you say check the reach, do you mean yes, counts are a count. I count reach, which is the first number that comes up as soon as you go on to your insides. That's the number of accounts you've reached, whether it's in the last seven days, month, and when I look at numbers, I look at mine monthly because that's my job. But that's why I have a session every three months, because some people don't get in there every month. If we could, that would be amazing, but we just realistically don't have the time. So if you can look at it every three months, that would be awesome and that's when you refresh your strategy. That's why I was very intentional with making my workshops. Kind of it's it's after the end of the quarter, but it's like in the middle of the first, like the start of the new quarter, and then we look at all that and start to make. So I have 12k and reach 14k a month. What does that mean? So do you mean 12,000 engagements and 14,000 reach. Just let me know what you mean by the 12k and we can, we could probably calculate your engagement rate. That would be extremely high engagement rate if that's the case. But if you could just clarify that, our followers, okay. So I want to look at your engagement versus your reach, not your reach versus your followers, because that's a different number. It's actually followers reached versus your engagement rate. So if you have your engagement, yes, so 14,000 accounts reached.
Speaker 2:And then I need to know the engagement. So the engagement if you're looking at the main page of your insights, it's the second you have reached and you can click into that. You'll have engagements. There's a number at the top. Ignore that and go to the one down the bottom, but just make sure you're looking at the same timeframe across everything. And then you would time that, divide those two numbers and times it by 100. Because yet at the moment that's just reach and followers. Yes, it's always interesting to know our numbers and where we're at, because yet we're, otherwise we market blind, we're literally marketing blind. Okay, we're on the desktop. Okay. So if we look at 1000 times out divided Tanger, just got my old computer calculator up, I'm sure I could work this out myself, but I'm not going to hang on 1000 divided 14.
Speaker 2:So you have engaged already about 7%, which is above average. I think that's quite good In terms of like having. Like it is hard without looking at all the data and looking at it all as a collective, but I think you know a 7% engagement rate. You might go. You know what. I would like to get mine. I would like to double that this year, so that could be a goal. But only understanding why you need that goal to be high Is it important for your engagement rate to be more? So that's why understanding your business goals is really important, because you might be like you know what.
Speaker 2:At the moment, I have healthy engagement. I've got a good amount of clients coming in from Instagram, so I'm just going to just like, increase that number, just like or increase my followers. So I understand your business goals will start to help you understand what is actually important to measure Like for us, like as marketers, like my most important metric is how many people are going to website or, you know, looking at the next step, how many people are going to the podcast or and you know, there's some things we don't know. It's hard to measure but, yeah, it depends on the strategy and the goals. That's why it's important to have a strategy, because then these numbers start to mean something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mariah, thank you so much. Thank you so good to chat, very, very helpful, and I hope it's been really helpful for everyone who's joined us. Thanks for joining me today on the Makeup Insider. I hope you've enjoyed the show. Please don't forget to rate and subscribe and I'll see you soon. Thanks for watching.