How to Make Money Online as a Yoga Teacher Using Social Media

Hello. Welcome to the next video in this series. I recently presented at a conference and the woman asked me a number of questions that I thought would be interesting to you. Today's question is, why should you be posting organic content on social media? Why should you be posting on social media as a yoga teacher? What are the benefits to posting and what should you be posting as a yoga teacher online? So my name is Angelica. I have been hosting a course that helps yoga teachers build their online yoga empires. for the past couple of years. Prior to that, I had my own online courses that were successful and did well. And prior to that, I owned yoga studios. And prior to that, I drove around town teaching yoga wherever I could. And before that, I had a life-sucking, soulless corporate job at a retail company. So I get your pain. And I love helping yoga teachers grow their business. If you want to hear all the topics in this series, make sure to check out the videos. We talked about paid advertising, when you should do that. We talked about what your first course should be about. We talked about low ticket versus high ticket. Check out all of those videos. I have hundreds of videos in my Business of Yoga playlist. Check out those videos. And this is also a podcast, so you can listen to it on Spotify, YouTube, Apple iTunes. Those are all 3 the same. Google Play, Google, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio. It's in a lot of places. Anyhow, it was pretty exciting, right? I mean, like, who thought this was going to be me? I declared bankruptcy in 2010. I didn't ever think that I would be living my dream and doing the things that I want to do and living a life that I love. But here I am helping the people that I like to help. And so I'm excited to help you today talk about organic and posting on social media. So what is organic marketing? It means anything that you do for free. It means posting on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok, Bluesky, X, whatever the kids are doing these days, wherever you can post and you don't have to pay. That is organic marketing. Writing a blog. That's organic marketing. If you show up on page 1 of Google, you are doing organic marketing. So any kind of organic marketing, I do a lot of different things. I have a blog. I have a podcast. That's organic marketing. I have a YouTube, organic marketing. I have an Instagram, organic marketing. I do Facebook. That is organic marketing. All of those things I don't have to pay for. Um, I also have some like free communities and stuff like that. Maybe I'll put a link to that below if you want to get into that. I should really be promoting that more. It's just when you have like so many things, it's hard to, it's hard to balance them. I'm in the process of hiring a VA to help me do all this so that I can get out more stuff to you. So that would be good, right? Okay. So organic marketing, let's talk about it because a lot of people think that, you know, you're— let's talk about Instagram specifically. Um, I want to talk about that because it's easier to get a win in Instagram faster. Now, YouTube, if you want to do YouTube, please do YouTube. It's, it's long-term strategy. It's what we call top of funnel. It's the people that are going to be most interested in what it is that you sell, because they're going to spend the most amount of time with you. However, I want you to understand that YouTube is a 3-year-long commitment minimum. You are going to need to post on YouTube without taking a break once a week for 3 years. Now, I recently took a break and I saw my video views go down by 75% when, when I came back. And I've been consistent now for the last like couple of weeks, uh, maybe like 6 weeks I've been consistent. And, you know, I'm still not getting the views on YouTube that I got before I stopped being consistent. So YouTube really loves and rewards consistency. Uh, you can't, you really gotta be like, this is a 3-year-long thing. Okay. But the great thing about YouTube is that you can talk about your offers and you can talk about what it is that you do with people. Um, YouTube monetization really doesn't make that much money and you have to have like such an insane amount of views now to get monetized on YouTube that It's not even really something I would go for. I do have clients that are monetized on YouTube, but they were in the old monetization system and they don't make a ton of money either, like maybe $50 a month. So, and sure, I'll take an extra $50 a month, but that's not really meaningful money. You make money on YouTube by selling your offers and building trust with people. So that's why I want to like kind of focus on like more short-form video that you would do on say Instagram or TikTok. Now TikTok, I think it's much harder to make money on TikTok than it used to be. And you have to be the best of the best of the best to do well on there. And the algorithm needs to heat you, which means it needs to put more, more eyes on what it is that you do. And that can be difficult because, you know, I don't know, it, it's, it's hard. It's, I think TikTok's really hard. In fact, I have pretty much given up on my TikTok because it thinks that I'm 16 years old now. So every, all my stuff is throttled. So I might be starting a new account on there, but that's just really hard because I have like 8,000 followers on there, but I never post on there because my videos get no views at all. And, you know, at the end of the day, views don't matter for everything, but they do matter. I would rather have, you know, 50 views on my videos of people who are truly interested in what I do than have 1,000 views of people who aren't interested at all. So, you know, in that way it doesn't matter, but, you know, like 10 views, that's not great. If it was even giving me 200, I would be like, all right. But like, I have some videos on there I post and they have zero views. I'm like, oh God. So the TikTok is really complicated now. I think there's a lot of things that went on with that. Um, you know, it was bought by a US company and they've shifted it. And there's, I think, a lot of manipulation that goes on in TikTok. They're really pushing TikTok Shop really hard. I do have a friend who makes a lot of money on TikTok Shop. Like she makes like $40,000 a month. So if TikTok Shop is something you want to pursue, then I think it's worth it in that way. I think you need to get 1,000 followers to have a TikTok Shop. That's the other thing. When they decided I was 16 years old, they took away my TikTok Shop, which now makes it almost useless to me. 'Cause I would do TikTok Shop. But anyhow, so let's talk about Instagram because I think Instagram is really the place that you're going to get the most bang for your buck and get the quickest win. And at least right now, you know, like it's always kind of changing. Um, but Instagram has been pretty steady of a moneymaker for a while. And it's also really good if you decide you want to run paid ads. Now your Instagram strategy needs to be focused What it is that you do. Please do not post about your dog or your family. Don't post about what you had for dinner. Don't post about your vacation. I will work with clients and get their Instagrams, like the algorithm, like friendly to them. And then they'll stop working with me and I'll see them post about their vacation and things that they're doing. And it's really painful to watch. It's so hard. Listen. You will ruin your algorithm if you do that. The algorithm is like your— it's like a friend that's only interested in one specific thing. That's why when you see like on YouTubes that are successful, you'll see somebody like I follow Hailey Cohen. Okay. She does a, she has a YouTube channel on cycle, right? Like cycle bikes, you know? And then she has a YouTube channel on lifting, you know, weights and they're separate. They're not the same channel because algorithms like you to be in a box. They only want to put you in front of certain people. That's the way it is. Don't try to fight it. Don't, don't try to think of it any other way. That's how algorithms work. Now on TikTok, that's not true. And that's like a whole different conversation, but we're not talking about TikTok. You can get away with being more diverse on TikTok. Although I would argue that that could hurt you there too. In TikTok, it's like every video is, is like judged differently. Whereas on Instagram, they're all judged through your account. So Instagram's gonna put you in front of people who it thinks are like you. Same with YouTube. It's gonna put in front of people who it thinks are gonna like your videos. So it uses your other videos to determine who those video, who those people are, right? So if you are someone who does, you know, if you teach Pilates, you should not then make videos about water buffaloes also, because those are so totally different. And a lot of people fight me on this and they'll say, but Angelica, I, I like a lot of different things. Yeah, but it's not about you. Like, my question to you is, do you wanna make money or are you trying to post on social media for your ego? Like, are you going for likes and recognition or are you going to pay your bills and have freedom and spend more time with your family? Like, why are you doing social media? You know, like really get to the heart of who you are and why you're doing this. Like, just be honest with yourself. You know, I have a separate account for personal that I will sometimes post personal stuff on there. That's just for me so I can go back and look at those pictures and things like that. that, but I don't use my Instagram for work, for personal. Like a lot of people don't even know what my man looks like, which is fine by me because he's for me. He's not for you. He's not for the public. You know, like if it were up to me, I wouldn't even be on social media. I would have zero social media. I wouldn't have anything to do with that toxic wasteland. Although I feel like people are starting to realize that it's been too toxic. And I, I think there's going to be like a wave back to being Like kind and good. Watch, I think it's happening. I think it's happening and I'm really excited about it. Anyhow, your social media needs to be singular. It needs to be on just your topic, the thing that you're doing. Now, there's a lot of kind of a wide range in that, but I will say that the people I've seen do really well are people who stuck in a very singular, like a very singular type of content. So like I have somebody who does Perimenopause for Black women. She's done very well. I saw her go from like 250 followers to 30,000 in a span of just like 3 months. That's unheard of. That's not normal. So she was, she really put the work in, but so results not typical. Please don't think you're going to get that. Her videos were very high quality. Um, by high quality, I mean like camera quality was good quality. I don't mean like she had a production crew, like she used good camera quality. Her, her font was like in line with what was like trending at that time. She really identified her audience and spoke to them. She was in what we call blue ocean. There really wasn't a lot of competition in that specific area. So those were all like really great things that helped her to do well. And if you could find something like that, then that's actually going to be great for you as well. I feel like in a way, like I found that in the helping yoga people build their online yoga empires, which is what I do full-time now. I did do a lot of yoga teacher training when I started. I honestly don't do as much of that anymore. I would say Mostly because like I enjoy the business end of yoga more personally. I do a really great yoga teacher training. I did it for many years and I still offer it. And, but it's not my primary thing because it's not what I enjoy the most. And, you know, I've had people really come down on me about that. Well, you don't sell yoga. Well, I did though for 25 years. I mean, I think that's enough, you know, like I sometimes, I don't know if you ever feel like this, but I just sometimes feel like as yoga teachers, we just hold so much emotional space for people. Yeah. And it's exhausting, you know, like I don't, that's why I got out of social work. Like, I don't really want to do that anymore. I got my own problems. I've been through a lot of trauma in the last couple of years. Like my grandpa died, my mom died, my uncle died in all like really horrific ways. And my, my partner, his dad died in a fire last year. Like we have been through it. Like we've had a lot of trauma and I just, I don't run a whole space for people in the way that a yoga teacher really needs to. Anymore, or at least right now. And that doesn't mean forever, whatever. So that's why I don't sell my yoga offers as much. It's just not my focus right now, which is why my Instagram really focuses on the business of yoga because that's the people that I wanna attract, right? So, and I'm good at it. I'm really good at it. I'm really good at it. It's something I'm passionate about. I'm really good at it. So if you can find that combination of something you're passionate about, you're really good at, and there happens to be a little bit of a blue ocean, that's great. But you don't have to have a blue ocean to do your offer. Like I had somebody do really well with a sequencing offer. Like she did an offer where she helped people learn how to be better sequencers because people do suck at that. And she did really well. And that's something that a lot of people do. I mean, I would say like, there's a, that's a, that's a red ocean. There's a lot of sharks in there. The blue ocean, red ocean terminology is a blue ocean is where like nobody's competing. There isn't a lot of sharks in the water. There's nobody that's trying to do what you're trying to do. And there's a small amount of people. And then the red ocean is like people who are, there's like a lot of people in And they're fighting each other for the fish, right? The sharks are fighting. So there's like blood in the water, right? That's the red ocean, blue ocean. It's from a book that I read a long time ago. Anyhow, so, but you, you can win in a red ocean. Like, like that, that client of mine did. She won in that because she was better than everyone else, right? So if you're not, you don't wanna be competing for last. You wanna always be competing for first. Like one of the great things about when I opened my yoga studio in Las Vegas originally was that there was only like 3 yoga studios in Vegas at that time. So As I grew, I grew into a space where I was one of the top studios in the Las Vegas area because I had grown up from when there wasn't a lot of studios. So I had a lot of time getting better at owning a studio and getting good teachers and creating teacher trainings. And people couldn't compete with me because I just had so much time and work into it. It's kind of like what I do now. Like I have so much more experience helping people build their online yoga business than A lot of my competitors. I would say I only have like one competitor that really has the same level of experience as me. And it's a man and he doesn't teach yoga. So I think he does yoga, but so it's like, I'm kind of in the blue ocean, even though now there's a lot of people that are competing in the yoga business coaching arena, but there's not a lot of great people that do it. And I'm really good at what I do. So, you know, it just depends on what you're doing. You know, if you're really good at what you do, if you're someone who knows anatomy, like way more than everyone else? Um, are you really good at chair yoga in a way that other people aren't? Posting on social media is just really important. Your social media strategy really needs to be focused on what it is that you do and, and optimizing that algorithm. That's really the most important thing. You need to think of this as a job. Don't— it's not about you. It's about your business. Okay. So if you can just think of it that way, and then before you ever start to do paid advertising, your social media game needs to be on point. You need to be so good at that. That ads are the obvious next decision. Like you've hit a wall. Like I just had a conversation with a client the other day and she was like, well, how do I get more sales? And I was like, you have to start running ads. It's the only way because you're not going to get enough people to look at what it is that you sell organically. And if we look at your list of how many people you have on your list, which I think she had 800 people on her list, which is insane. That's really good for somebody in their first year to have 800 people on their list. But if you know that like the average landing page only sells one For every 100 people and her page was selling 3 for every 100 people. So she's only making 3 sales for every 100 people on her list. So 3 times 8, so that's, you know, like 24, right? So that's all the sales that she can expect from that. So the only way to amplify that is through paid ads, right? So that's what, you know, I talked about in the last video on paid advertising. So go check that out if you want to learn more about how that kind of intertwines and works. All right. I hope this video has been helpful to you. I'm super grateful that you spent some time with me today. Do check out those other videos. If you would like help with building your business, I would love to help you. It's, it's my dharma. It's the thing that I'm good at. And all the links for that are below. If you already have an offer, I do now offer a mentorship for people who already have an offer online and just want to get better and want to scale. So you could definitely check that out in the link below, book a time to meet with us. And I do like to meet with everybody who we work with. At that level because we're gonna be working together. We should get along. Or like talk to, you know, my staff that have been with me for a very long time and they know what I'm looking for and they know how I am and they know how you are. And if that's gonna be a good match, I can't take every call. I do try to take calls, but I have to make these videos for you. I'm a slave to you. I have to make all these videos. I'm the YouTube doing the videos for you. Anyhow, Have a beautiful day. Uh, make sure you subscribe, check out those other videos. And if you want any help, all of my resources are in the links below. Bye for now.