From Overwhelmed to Organized: Elevating Your Studio’s Social Media

Hello, friends. I'm Amanda Barr.

And I'm Rebecca Lou Brennan. And welcome to Dance Principals United, the podcast.

Together, we are passionate about helping studio owners with the business of running their studio.

Join us as we talk everything from marketing systems, studio culture, motherhood, life, and everything in between.

This is the Dance Principles United Podcast. Hey, friends, and welcome to the Dance Principles United Podcast. Amanda here, and I'm here with my lovely friend Beck. How are you?

I am super amazing. Starting another week. It's all happening, isn't it? I feel like every week the podcast happens. I'm like, I can't believe it's another week.

Absolutely. It's like you're shocked every day time that it's a brand new week. Who would have thunk it? Give me a life update. What's going on with you, babe?

Well, I am trying very hard to get up, walk, go to the gym, do all the things because, you know, need to do that. I was just on a one on one actually, with beautiful studio owners and I said exactly that. Like, you start to resent things if you don't do things for yourself. And, you know, I'm really hating my body at the moment and hating how I look. And so I'm like, right, just have to do something about that. Like be healthier and actually just do it. And I loved walking this morning, but I hate getting out of bed. Amanda. I'm such a winchee.

I am so bad. I need some lessons because I'm so bad at it.

I'm terrible. Like, I need, you know what I need to do as soon as I wake up? Get out the end.

But I don't start scrolling.

It's not even scrolling. I just have excuses in my head as to why I'm so tired and need to stay in bed and. So dumb.

Absolutely. It's. It's hard, right? Like, I think we all go through that. I'm sure all of our listeners do the same. But, like, it's so hard to find times for yourself. Like as a business owner, a mom, a partner, like a friend, all of those things. Oh, my God. I struggle prioritizing myself, but then I.

Go on the walk. I was listening to that podcast you sent me to listen to. I was loving life. I was coming up with so many business ideas. Like, it is actually such a game changer. I came home happy, you know, I wasn't angry with my kids this morning because I'd done something for myself and.

I'm like, that was not me this morning. All right, I'm gonna do it tomorrow morning, I will commit to doing it. I do have a new dog that I am not walking, so I really need to, like, make commitments to do this as well.

To walk yet. It's like, so little.

Yeah. It can't go very far. But, like. Like, even if I can just walk a little way, like, that would probably be good for me.

I think. You got it. Yeah. We have to start somewhere.

Absolutely. We take one, and that really is a good thing. We've all got to start somewhere, Right. It kind of ties into everything we're talking about so much that we've got to start somewhere as business owners and we've got to, like, you know, take the first step and you don't need to be, you know, the best at something before you put it out there. I think that's a big thing that we kind of get through our mindset. It's like, you know, um, I have to be perfect before it goes out. We're all such perfectionists, so we have to be able to run the 10Ks to start with. It's like, you gotta take little steps, right?

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I'll be looking forward to hearing about your walk in the morning. What time are you gonna go, Amanda?

My problem is I hate waking my kid. My kids will wake up when I get up and I hate getting them up earlier than necessary. So maybe six?

Oh, that's so early. I do my walk from seven till eight.

Oh, gosh. No, I know. We're like fully into morning routine by that.

Yeah. See, you and I, that's how you and I are so different. My kids do not get up early.

Yeah, no, my kids are very early. Anyways, this is just us gossiping now, talking about our kids getting up early, doing all the things. We are so excited. We're on the lead up to Dance Teacher Expo, which is so, so exciting. Right. You know your friend sent you a message this morning reminding you it was only five weeks to go or something like that. But we are so excited. We've got so many incredible brands joining us and we've got an incredible timetable coming out. It's going to be an awesome event. We hope that you're all coming along. We can't wait to see so many people there.

Yes. Excited to meet lots of Queensland people, too. It's just. Yeah, it's going to be so nice to see all new friends. So, yeah, we're so pumped about it.

Absolutely. I think next week we might even do a special Dance Teacher Expo podcast as well. So we might be doing that next week. So stay tuned for that because I think it would be great for you guys to hear a little bit behind the scenes of what's going on. Let us know if that's something you'd like. We would love to do that. But let's talk about social media today, because that is what we're here for. Last week's episode was entitled who the Fuck is Now? I'm Gonna say, Was it Jackie? No, it wasn't Jackie. Jamie. It's Jamie. It's Jamie. I'm so sorry, but I was like, wait a second. I've just got to get that in my head. Who the is Jamie was last week's podcast, and it was talking about making sure you're speaking to the right person when you are doing your marketing and that you're not talking to your teachers, your friends, the people you used to dance with growing up. Other teachers, you know, it's so important, right?

Yeah. Other studio owners. I think that's who I used to market to for sure. You know, all sorts of things like that. So, yeah, I think definitely that was. That would have been a great episode, I think, for everyone. Because when I started doing that, it was such a game changer in our business.

Absolutely, absolutely. And so many of us just kind of go, oh, I'm just putting stuff that I like on there. Yeah, well, that's all well and good, but you are not your ideal client because you have an incredible dance background. You know what I mean? Even though you might be the same age or demographic as a lot of your clients, you know, you still have a dance background. You've grown up in dance, so what you know is different to what they know. So it's really important to remember that.

Absolutely. So what are we talking about today, Amanda?

Well, we're talking about a little thing that we gave out in our Melbourne One day event that we did recently called Enroll More Students. And that was a social media scorecard. And we wanted to encourage you guys all to use this social media scorecard. If you'd like the actual scorecard, drop us a DM and we'll send it to you on Instagram. But we'd love to just chat through it today and give yourself a score. And I think it's always really good to open up your Instagram or your Facebook or whatever that is and actually look at it through fresh eyes and, you know, actually look at it as a whole and go, okay, here's what I'm missing. Here's what I need to do. I feel like we all need to do that sometimes. Otherwise it just all kind of. We forget.

Absolutely. And we talked to so many studio owners, Amanda, and so many of them say to us, I just don't like doing the social media. And, you know, I think I said this last week and I'm going to say it again this week. If you don't like social media, you don't like growing your business, because it is the best way to grow your business and you have to learn to love it and you have to, you know, get into it. Like it's. I think we make it too hard as well and think that it all has to be aesthetic and perfect and, you know, and I think our teachers make us feel that way sometimes. I haven't told you this, but one of my, you know, cool teachers that just comes in a couple of times a week said to me, oh, you should make your social media a bit more aesthetic. You know, you need to, like, make it look more perfect. And I'm like, actually organic's where it's at. Like, it doesn't need to look perfect. But, you know, they have that whole feel about it because that's what they.

Think is needed and that's what they want to see. Right. But I presume that they're also not your ica, they're not your Jamie.

Exactly, exactly. So I think, yeah, anyway, I think it'd be good today for you guys to self reflect and think about the different things that we talk about. And as we're saying it, give yourself a little score out of 10.

Absolutely. So first thing I want you to do is open up your Instagram account. I want you to check your bio, and in your bio, you really need to make sure there's a couple of things going on. On number one, that dance is actually, you know, highlighted there because so many of us have dance studios that are called something that don't have dance in them, which is fine, no problems. But is it really clear that you're a dance studio or is it kind of like, are you a. I don't know, gymnastics? Are you a. You know what I mean? Like, and it also helps with keyword recognition. So, for example, Beck's is called Paw Studios and she, you know, needs to have somewhere like dance classes, you know, something like that in hers. Because. Pause. It's not, you know, straight away, people don't go, oh, that's a dance place. Right?

Yep. I was actually just having this conversation with my last one on one, because I said, when you go to Instagram, you only See the top part. And so exactly that. Like, it needs to have something about dance in there that's so, so important. You know what else I've been finding and because we've been, you know, chatting to a lot of Queensland schools and all that sort of stuff, Amanda, is that so many people do not have their area anywhere, like where they're from. Like, the suburb is never in the bio. Not only that, it's never on their website. You go through Contact Us and you still can't find out where this school is.

It's crazy. I think people just forget that so, so quickly. So, you know, really making sure in your bio it's something like, you know, dance classes in Penrith is what Beck should be having written on her. Something along those lines that makes it super clear what you're after.

Yep, absolutely. So anything else for the bio, Amanda?

I think really important to make sure, you know, you've got something about what makes you different as well. If you could have something like that, if you've got a tagline, something that's a little bit easy, that's a great place to put it. The other thing I'd love to encourage you to do is check your links, right? Really make sure that you're checking the links that you've got are valid because it's so easy to make sure that they are, you know, old, that they're, you know, no longer in date because, you know, we have to be updating those all the time. So really make sure that your links are valid and also that you do have your address listed on there probably as well. Um, but as well as the address, I'd also have like something like, you know, creating confident kids in the Penrith area, something along those lines. So really making sure in your bio that it is super clear what you do and who you are like calling to. Right.

I love it. I love it. Amazing.

Awesome. Next thing we're going to talk about is your stories. So really making sure. Yes, I know you love stories, bec really making sure that your stories are like pretty much always life. Like you should never have time, that your stories are live. Don't forget you can schedule stories. So, you know, it doesn't always have to be live content, but stories should almost always be live. And that's one thing we really talk about, that they should be constantly there. Right?

So I again had a one. I had a lot of one on ones today. Amanda. I had a one on one with one of our SJC members today and she said, I just don't have time to do the stories. It's me doing it all the time and I don't have time. And I said to her, go to the first three posts on your Instagram, click on it, push the little envelope and push add to story. That is literally all you have to do. I also said to another one on one this week, you can have the same story repeatedly up. You don't change it up. No one's going there who's a new client, which is what your Instagram should be anyway, and going, oh, I can't believe they shared that again. Like, no one's thinking that, but you just need to keep sharing it. It's such a simple thing. I said to the client today, Amanda, just honestly, like in your morning routine, say you get up and have a coffee. I'm sure whilst having your coffee, you're scrolling through social media. That's what we all do. So the first thing you should do is just quickly go onto your page and share three things. That's it.

Absolutely, absolutely. I love that tip. And, you know, if you really want to, you know, make it a boss mode kind of thing, make sure that you've got clickable links in there as well. You know, links that are to, you know, the trial page, you know, message us, use the stickers, like, do all those things because that helps with interaction. Talking about stories. That's the other thing I want to talk about is those highlights that are on your, your, your feed. Really, really important to make sure they're up to date and they're not super old. There's nothing worse than a really old story highlight on there. You know, for, for me, what I would be doing is having some sort of story highlight that's start here, you know, start here. And then it's kind of like a couple of, like, about us little few things like that that might be like here at this, you know, me talking direct to camera. Here at this studio, we believe in this, this and this. We offer classes for preschoolers. A little shot of some preschoolers with a clickable link that's like, find out more about our preschool timetable. Oh, I just kicked my microphone. I was so excited. Sorry. You know, saying about, you know, we also teach hip hop with some info about your hip hop and you know what I mean, like something along those lines. It's like a. If you were to want everyone to find out, a new client to find out everything they wanted to know about you in, you know, less than a minute, what would you put up there?

I love it.

So thinking about that as well.

Yeah, I love it. Also, if you are putting spend behind ads, which I hope everybody in our audience is, then make sure. If you're putting spend behind preschool, make sure there's preschool stories on your stories. Like you don't want to.

Absolutely.

Spend behind preschool and then there's no preschool on your stories. It doesn't make sense.

Absolutely. So make sure that's all up there. Awesome. So we've talked about bio, we've talked about stories, we've talked about the highlights. Now let's talk about the actual feed posts. Really, really important if you want to level this up and really smash it, you know, you really need like 5 posts a week sort of thing. Like, that's what you need. However, if you are like, oh my God, I'm lucky to do one every two weeks at the moment, then start somewhere. Right. It's like the walking thing that we were talking about before Beck. Just start somewhere. If you are thinking, there is no way I could do five posts a week, we'll start by doing two a week and then moving and, you know, leveling it up from there. Right.

Yeah, I think as well, again, we overthink it. Like, it doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to be trending. It can be just three kids sitting around chatting before class and showing the community that you've got. There's so much content in your studio and it doesn't even have to be a dance routine to be a good post. I really, truly believe that.

Absolutely. The. In your feed post that you're having, like, you know, decide on what your number is. And if you're listening to this and you've got a notepad, write it down somewhere. Write down now what you're committing to, how many you're committing to doing a week. You know, I would love to say five a week as an absolute goal. But you know what? If two a week is where you start, then great. Just do two. Start where you're at inside that. It'd be really good to make sure that you're also thinking about the mix of style of posts. All right, so we don't want all the posts to be canva tiles. We don't want all of them to be still images. We want to make a nice mix. So a mix of things such as, you know, just a photo, a swipe, like a carousel swipe a reel, more reels than anything else is what you probably want. You know, content that's different, that's not just like my Elite kids. My elite kids. My elite kids really make sure there's a really good mix of things in there, I think.

Yep, I love it. And one of the things we didn't mention with stories, but I'll mention it now, is always tagging people, whether it's.

You know, on the story or on the post. Yeah, absolutely.

Tag your parents because that's social proof. Then they'll share it on their social media, then their friends will see your kid, those kids having a great time and want to bring their kids there. So the more that you can tag, the better.

Absolutely. Let's also talk about the like breakdown of what you're posting. Okay. So with a breakdown of what you're posting, I would be aiming for whatever your ideal student breakdown is. Okay. If that means to you that you have 50% preschool kids and 50% school age kids, then your this is not what you currently have, but like what your goal is, then you should be posting 50% preschool posts or every second post a preschool 1 and 50% school age children. If it, you know, for you it might be more like, hey, we want to have, you know, at least 50% hip hop and the other, you know, and then 20% jazz, 20% ballet, you know, whatever that is for you, then it should be that way inclined that they're posting what you're trying to get to and what your ideal customers want.

Yep, absolutely. And I think, you know, for us, Amanda, you know that on our feed every third post is really preschool. And that's just so important to us. And I think when people want to grow their preschool program and we go onto their feed and we're scrolling and scrolling and then, oh yeah, no, if I scroll four times, I can see a preschool child. You're not trying to grow preschool. You've got to commit to it being there. So that parent that Jamie comes on sees her child's age group there and then ops in.

Absolutely. People, like, people just want to say those first three lines. That's it. First line. Sorry, first three posts. Absolutely. So the other thing I really want to talk about is making sure that some of your posts have a call to action and a very clear call to action. You're asking for the sale, you're talking to that person who is thinking about coming to trial at your studio, your Jamie, and making sure it has a really clear call to action. Now the call to action should generally be DMS for your free trial. Or DM us to find out more or DM us to find, you know, the perfect class for your child. Something along those lines. And make sure you ask for that. You know, drop us a message, something like that. Please be mindful. Don't ever ask them to leave the platform. Don't ask them to call you or email you or DM you. Like, people want to stay on the platform they're on. And yes, it means more work for us, but that's just what it is, right? We're business owners and. And we've got to meet people where they're at.

Yep, absolutely. And just making that super simple for the client is always the key, right?

Like, absolutely, yeah. They don't want to go and copy and paste and. And let's be honest, we. We know that you can't click through from a Instagram comment. Like, if you put an email address, you cannot click and highlight it and click it and open the app. That is done on purpose. Meta have done that on purpose because they don't want people doing that. It's not like they don't have the technology to do that. Let's, you know, let's be super clear. They've chosen not to do that because they don't want people doing it. So don't do it. Make it really easy for your clients just to drop you a message or comment below or whatever that is is really, really important.

And Amanda, let's talk about your pet hate, which is when people put a QR code on the feed.

Oh, my God, that kills my life. Sorry, was that a growl?

I knew that was coming.

Oh, please don't put QR codes on your feed. Let's think about this. A QR code is meant to scan with your phone. Most people are on Facebook or Instagram on their phone. They can't magically like QR code with another phone. Like, it doesn't work. You're wasting valuable space if you're QR putting QR codes on your Instagram. And I don't know, I just. Personally, I'd opt out of any brand that did that. What are you doing?

You're very passionate about that.

I'm very passionate about that. I am also the same with people that have multiple calls to actions on their. On their feeds as well. Please don't have multiple calls to actions. People are confused enough and have enough decisions to make in a day to make the decision. I. Oh, do you think I should call them or should I email them? They're asking me for both. Or DM them. Oh, I don't know which one I should. People don't need more decisions. Tell them what you want them to do?

Yep, absolutely. Do we have anything left on our scorecard?

I think that's most of the things for our scorecard, and I think it's really good to kind of just reflect. Oh, your dogs are going off. They're excited. No, they're happy to see us. I'm sure everybody wants to hear your lovely dogs in the background. So really make sure that you've gone through all of that, from the bio to your stories, to your story highlights to what's in your feed and make some commitment levels. You know, what do you want to do to improve it and, you know, make a new goal? You know, if you're currently giving yourself a score out of 10 of 4, like, what could you do to up it? Is it doing an extra post a week? So commit to that and take the first step forward to making it better.

Yep, absolutely. And social media is where it's at. We're all on social media every single.

Day of the week, so many hours a day.

Yeah, we are, though. And that's where everybody is. So it's very, very important that you guys realize that that's the best way to grow your studio.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining us on the Dance Principles United podcast. If you want a copy of that score sheet, drop us a DM and we can't wait to have you next week. Thanks, Becky.

Thanks. Bye.

Bye. We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dance Principals United podcast. If you'd love to learn more from us, we have a special offer just for our podcast listeners. Go to the link in the show notes right now to get two weeks free in Dance Principles United Tribe. We would love to see you there.