Building Trust with a Powerful Social Media Presence [Ep 25]

Welcome to the Thriving therapyneur podcast. The show for ambitious therapists who are ready to unapologetically make more money, scale their impact and build their dream coaching business. I'm Carly Hill, therapist turned coach turned CEO of a seven figure online business. I created the Thriving Therapeutic Podcast because I'm obsessed with helping big hearted therapists outgrow the office and build successful and sustainable online businesses. So if you are wondering how you can continue to make an impact without sacrificing the life you love, welcome Therapreneur. This is exactly the place for you. Think of it like the business school we never had. I am so excited to dive in with you. Let's get started. Welcome back to the Thriving Therapreneur Podcast. Today we're diving into a topic that I know can feel totally overwhelming for many therapists and coaches. That is social media. So let's be real. Social media isn't just a tool for trendy influencers. It's really one of the most powerful ways to build trust, powerful ways to attract your ideal clients and to grow your business online. So if you have been hesitant about embracing social media or you feel like you're shouting out into the void every time you post, then this episode is for you. By the end of today's episode, my hopes is that you're going to understand why social media is a non negotiable. It's imperative for growing your business, especially in today's world. We're going to talk about some actionable tactics to improve your presence on social media and you're going to leave with a new perspective on how to use social media. I'm also going to share a sneak peek into the strategies I teach inside my social media mastery course. So let's dive in. Why is social media non negotiable? It just is. Going into 2025, it is imperative. Social media has been imperative, in my opinion, for at least the past five years. And it kind of cracks me up. All of these, you know, coaches that talk about how they can help you grow your business without social media, but they're literally marketing that on social media. Or they talk about like how I can help you grow your business without paid advertising, but it's a paid ad that they're saying that on. It's just comical. It is a non negotiable. You need social media. If you don't have social media, what are you doing? That's what I have to say. And if you are afraid of social media, you feel like it's just not for you, like, with all due respect, you're just going to have to get over it if you want a thriving business. Social media is going to help you with reach and visibility. It gives you access to a global audience. You can connect with people worldwide who would have never found you otherwise. Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn threads, I mean this is just to name a few. These are all search engines in their own right. So when I was just mentioning those coaches that talk about how it can help you grow without social media, maybe they're helping you grow on search engines. So SEO using search engine optimization, whether that be Pinterest or YouTube, because those are both SEO platforms or through blogging, SEO keywords, your website being found on Google. But that still takes work and you still need a social media presence because somebody's going to do their due diligence and they're going to check you out. Especially if they're investing high ticket dollars into your signature coaching program. The matter of fact is if you don't have social media, like it's kind of like your storefront in a way. If you don't have this visibility of your brand and your storefront, you don't have a social media presence. There's so many other coaches, your potential clients are just going to move on and they're gonna go find someone else. They will. And I've had clients find me from halfway across the world because they saw one reel on social media that resonated. That is the power of reach. So when we talk about why social media is a non negotiable, well, it's your reach, it's your visibility and it's about building trust and credibility too. Like I said, people are gonna do their due diligence and they're gonna check you out. They wanna see who you are, what you stand for. They need to know you and like you and trust you. They also need to know that you are consistent, that you're posting authentically. This is gonna help your audience again, get to know you and like you and trust you. But more importantly, know that you can help them and that you can solve their problem. People buy from people that they trust. And trust is built through visibility, consistency, being authentic. And that can all be done on your social media. It's also a low cost way to market organic social media marketing. It's free. I'm not talking about paid advertising here, I'm just talking about free social media. So you having a presence on Instagram or you using your Facebook, you're making your content accessible. To everyone for free. Paid ads, of course, are going to amplify your reach, but it's not necessary to get started. I would say it's more important to actually learn how to do organic marketing first, so you can see what lands, you can see what resonates, you can see what gets crickets, and then you can optimize your content from there. So a big thing that holds people back is the overwhelm of social media. And that's where my course, Social Media Mastery, takes this overwhelm out for you, because I get it. Like, you don't know what to post, it feels like a lot to manage, or you feel like what you are posting isn't really yielding any results. So then it feels like a waste of your time. And then you have all of this mindset drama around posting because it feels like such a dreaded chore, especially when you're not getting results. So to take the overwhelm and the headache out of it, you need to have a schedule and you need to know what you're posting every single day. You need to be following copywriting frameworks, proven copywriting frameworks. And we're not just posting here for consistency or fluff. We're posting with intention and strategy to get a paying client. So social media doesn't have to consume your life. When you have the right systems and strategies, you can streamline your efforts and you can see results without spending hours and hours on social media or hours and hours scrolling. One thing I will say is your social media needs to be set up properly so that you can optimize it. If a stranger is coming into your world, they need to know in seconds who you help, who you are and what your brand is about. So you need to prime and prep your social media. I'm talking not only about your Instagram. So for your Instagram, your bio needs to say who you help and how you help them. All of your posts, like, I should be able to just scroll through in about three seconds on your Instagram and I should see who your population is and the problem that you solve. If I can't see that within five seconds, then your ideal client can't see that within five seconds and they're going to exit off your page and they're going to go find somebody's social media who is primed your Facebook profile. So you need to have your personal profile. And if you don't want to use your personal profile on Facebook because privacy, friends and family create a separate personal profile for business purposes only. And you'll have two personal profiles. Because on Facebook you need a personal profile, you need a group, you need and you need a business page. You need all three of those. They all serve different purposes. But this needs to be prepped and primed. So in your bio, your banner image, your post that's pinned to the top, that should all be about who you help and the problem that you solve. If you need examples of any of this, go to my social media, go to my Instagram, look at my bio, go to my personal Facebook, go to my Facebook business page. My Facebook business page is called Carly Hill Coaching. Nobody really cares about the name of your business. They care about the problems that you're solving. So if you were to take five seconds and you were to scroll through my business page or you were to even look at my banner image, you would know exactly who I help and how I help them. That's how your social media needs to be set up and primed. Once that is done, then we can move to what to post, how often you should be posting it, what should your captions be, what should your call to actions be? And this is where that overwhelm comes in for you. And this is where social media mastery actually gives you 365 captions. 365 done for you captions, not to mention and done for you canva templates and done for you branding. So if you don't have branding yet, we did it for you. There's five different mood boards that you can choose from. If you don't want to figure out all the proven copywriting frameworks that are meant to get paying clients, along with the proven call to actions that you should use, then you can just use our fill in the blank templates. I also give you ChatGPT prompts. So even with the fill in the blank templates, if you feel like you're getting a little bit stuck, then you can go plug your niche into ChatGPT and it will literally fill in the blanks for you. So it's all completely done for you. There's no excuses. We talk about social media being a non negotiable. I get it, you can be overwhelmed. But when something is completely done for you and it's laid out, there's no excuses. So if you want to grow your coaching business, you need social media. Maybe you're afraid of what your peers are going to think of you for, like what is she posting? Oh my gosh, she's so annoying. Or you feel like maybe you don't know enough or what if I'm not good enough. You're comparing yourself to other coaches who have been around for longer than you and you're like, oh, well, they have so many followers or they get so many likes, or they get so many comments like, who am I to do this? Well, everybody started their social media from zero. From zero. And somebody is always going to be further ahead of you and further behind than you. But social media is not really for your friends. It's not really for your peers. It is, again, a way for you to build trust and credibility and reach your ideal client. This is a business that you're running here. So we need to treat it like. So we need to treat your social media like a business. The truth is, nobody is really paying as much attention to your posts as you think they are. The people who matter, the ones who need your help, they're going to appreciate you being authentic. Maybe you think the algorithm is overwhelming. You're like, oh, the algorithm hates me. No, the algorithm does not hate you. But you may just not know how to work the algorithm. You may be misunderstanding the algorithm. This is also where social media mastery comes in. And I give you a very long training on how to boost engagement, how to get more followers, how to get your reels to get double the views, how to use specific call to actions to actually get comments. I call it comment bait. So there's a learning curve here with social media. Nobody is born knowing how to use social media. And the algorithm does change over time. And there's tons of new features that come out on Instagram, for example. Stories are a really great place to build trust and credibility. It's a great place to sell. And there's so many new features that always come out on the sticker tab for stories. So you have to know how to use and get creative with all of these different features. Inside Social Media Mastery, I have a whole story template that teaches you how to post on your stories every single day to build likability, to build trust, to build credibility, to get more visibility. All of that is there for you. So the algorithm, it's really designed to reward good content. When you create posts that resonate and people save it, or people share it, or people comment on it, or people like it, then the algorithm is going to be like, ooh, this is good content. Let me reward them and show it to more people. So we just need to know how to work the algorithm, how can we get more comments and engagement? And that's something that you can learn. Somebody can teach you how to do this. Okay, again, it's not an excuse where we just say, ah, social media is too hard. It's not working for me. Well, it works the same for every single person actually. And every single person started from zero. Okay, so here's some social media strategies that work and I know they work because I use them myself. I teach them. So three Cs, write this down. The three Cs framework. We have content, we have consistency, and we have connection. Okay, so when we talk about content, we're posting with purpose. We are posting content that attracts, nurtures and converts. So there's three different types of content that we can post at any given time and we need to cycle through all of these. They each have a different purpose and intention. So we want to post content that attracts. This is going to bring in new followers. This is going to be really eye catching visuals. It's going to stop the scroll. Usually it's reels that are going to be the attracting. That's also just the way the algorithm works. Reels can attract new followers. When I say hook, this is our first line because we have three to five seconds to grab our ideal client's attention. It has to stop the scroll. So we need to have really sexy, compelling hooks. Then we have content that nurtures. So this is where we're really connecting on a deeper level with our ideal clients. We're doing storytelling, we are sharing testimonials, we are sharing pro tips to build trust. We're sharing, okay, so we're attracting, first off and foremost, strangers to our page. Okay, we just attracted them, we just reeled them in. But then we have to nurture them. Then the last piece is converting them. So the conversion happens through conversations. So posting on social media is the very first baby step to actually getting a paying client and converting. It's really going to be our call to actions and using our social media as a funnel, that's going to get them to a conversation, that's going to get them to a dm, that's going to get them to comment, that's going to get them to book a call. So we need to have a funnel set up to get them from seeing our post, becoming a follower, to trusting us through our nurture process, to then getting them to take action and converting to a conversation. This is all under content, attracting, nurturing and converting Story sells. So when you're in the nurture phase, talk about your own story, if you are your own ideal client. But also using testimonials as often as you can that stories that you have helped your ideal clients, your audience is going to resonate with this deeply. The second C is consistency. So this is just common sense. You have to show up on a regular basis to build momentum. We talk about the algorithm as well. The algorithm is not going to reward you if you show up once a week when you feel like showing up. No, the algorithm wants you to be consistent. Because if you're consistent, then you are keeping people on the app. That's how it works. And again, if people are engaging with your content, the algorithm is going to be like, oh, wow, people like their stuff. Let me reward them even more. So consistency is not only for your ideal clients so that they can build trust, but it's also about helping you stay on good terms with whatever platform you're working with. A tip to stay consistent is to batch create your content. This is also going to help you avoid burnout. So in social media mastery, this is why we give you a whole entire year's worth of captions and templates and a fill in the blank calendar. So you can just go to the calendar day. You never have to sit down and be like, okay, what am I supposed to post today? The template is already there for you. So you can just batch create your content. Even if you just do it like a week ahead or three days ahead. And you have the peace of mind that for the next seven days, for the next three days, your content is already batched out. Connection. You have to engage with your audience. It's not always about more followers, more followers, more followers. It's about responding to comments. It's about starting conversations in the DMs, it's about being an actual human. I was telling this to a client of mine the other day where she's focusing on a new launch and she was like, well, what can I do to get a whole bunch of new people into my audience? And I was like, well, how many people are in your current audience? What is your revenue goal? Because we know average conversion rates are about 3%. So 1 to 4% of your email list is going to make a move if you have strong call to actions. So she had a healthy email list. She had a healthy follower account on her Instagram. So instead of focusing on more, more, more, we switched the conversation to focus on connection and engaging with her audience, moving them into the DMs, having strong call to actions in the emails to start a conversation. Social media is supposed to be social. It's about building relationships. It's not just about broadcasting a whole bunch of content. And I will say too repurpose your content. I promise you, nobody remembers what you posted yesterday. I repurpose my content all the time. And this is actually something I teach inside Social Media Mastery as a way to get more real followers. Like, I teach you how to go find your most viral reels on your page. Which ones not only got the most views, but which ones got you the most followers. And then we're going to recreate those again. If not post the same exact one. Okay, so nobody really remembers. This can save you so much time. So maybe you repurpose three posts a week, and then you create three new posts a week. This will help you batch your content a lot faster. Reels and stories. So I talked about stories earlier and how I give you a whole template for that in Social Media Mastery. I also talked briefly about reels and how the algorithm really favors reels when we're trying to attract new followers. But these are prioritized on platforms like Instagram, for sure. I will say Facebook business page really likes reels as well. So a lot of people just focus on reels on Instagram. But you can repurpose. Talking about repurposing. Repurpose your reels on all your platforms. Go download it from Instagram. If your Instagram and business page isn't connected, which it should be, this is part of prepping and priming your social media. But go download your reel and go send it out to an email. Post it on your personal profile. On Facebook. TikTok, Instagram, you can post the same exact reel. The chances of somebody seeing the same exact piece of content on all six of your platforms is rare. And even if they do, cool. So don't overthink it. Just be authentic in what you're posting and post it everywhere. I always joke, literally post it on your forehead and walk down the street. Like we need to be a walking billboard for what it is that we offer. Automation is another tool that you should absolutely embrace. Manychat is something that I have become obsessed with in the past, like, year and a half. It's actually been around for a long time, but I feel like it's gotten more popular in the past couple years. ManyChat is an automated system that can save you a tremendous amount of time. So if you've ever seen on Instagram, it's on Facebook too. But most of the time, people use it on Instagram. Somebody's like, comment code word to get access to xyz. And then you comment code word. And then this robot automatically responds to you and delivers you the free resource. Or they're like DM me code word and then the robot DM's you back. Maybe just that one link to the free resource or there's like a whole series of automations where they'll get their name, their email. You can point them in circles to literally whatever resource that you want. So this is a great way to one, build your email list. Two, save you time so you don't have to be glued to the app like waiting for comments and feeling like you have to respond within a timely manner. And the algorithm is going to reward you because there's going to be more comments because you have an auto comment going back to every single comment. So that's already 2 comments every single time somebody posts. And I talk about this in Social Media Mastery, but the way the algorithm works is it's going to reward you when your content takes off immediately. So if you post a reel and people within like the first five minutes start commenting on it and your bot is commenting back, so then you're creating double the comments, then your chances of this going viral and being shown to even more people, not only your followers, but your non followers, is going to be higher. So inside Social Media Mastery, I have a training on mini chat and exactly how you can use it to save you time and keep your audience engaged. Okay, I feel like I'm covering so much. Like I'm literally out of breath. I have so much I could talk about for social media. I'm also out of breath because I am very pregnant and just when I talk, I'm out of breath these days. But I have more to share. So let's talk about some mindset shifts for a second when it comes to social media success. Progress over perfection. You do not need to post daily, but you do need to be consistent. So give yourself a break. Like it's okay to take a day off, it's okay to not be glued to your phone on weekends or all the time. Again, this is where batching your content can come into play so you can post daily. Maybe you're actually even posting like twice a day, but you're not glued to your phone, but you don't have to have this perfect esthetic. I feel like back in the day I used to be kind of like obsessed with my feed and I would have like certain patterns. No, I quickly threw that out the window. Nobody gives a shit about how your feed really looks now. You do need to have professional content. You don't want to be disheveled when you show up online. I mean, I don't wear makeup very often online. I've just kind of like built my brand in this casual way, but I wouldn't roll out of bed and start recording myself. So you need to be presentable, you need to be professional, but you don't have to have matchy matchy everything. You do want to have brand fonts and brand colors, but it doesn't have to be this perfectly curated aesthetic is what I'm trying to say. You also don't have to be a video expert. Just focus on your progress, not perfection. Do you have to show your face? Not all the time. Is it important? Yes, I think it is. You can't just create a whole entire feed of B roll or stock images because you are your brand and you're trying to build trust. And people will buy when they see your personality. They like to know, like, you have a life outside of what your business is, what is your hobbies, what are your values. So I do think it's important to a certain extent to be visible as a real human on your page. I also want you to think about social media as a long term game. So results are not going to happen overnight. You're not going to poof a ton of followers and unless you pay for them, which by the way, do not do this. Do not do this. I have had many of my clients fall for the trap of entering their credit card and paying for followers and it is just a nightmare. Plus their bot followers, they'll fall off eventually. People can tell. I mean, at least I can. Like if you go look at somebody's followers, I can tell you if they paid for them or not. Do not pay for followers. Just trust me on that. Be in it for the long term game. Results are not going to happen overnight. But if you are consistent and you have a proven social media plan, your efforts are going to compound over time. They will. And when you move out of organic marketing and you start turning on paid advertising, you're really going to become what I call omnipresent in the online space and you're going to start to double and triple your followers fairly quickly. Mark my word on that. I want you to also view social media as an extension of your purpose. So it's not just a chore. You're not just selling, you're sharing your mission, you're helping others, you're transforming lives, you're changing lives. So every single post that you post, this is a chance for you to speak up, to inspire, to educate, to serve Your audience. This is why social media isn't just a strategy, it's truly a privilege. And that's a beautiful mindset shift here for a second. Let me repeat that. Social media isn't just a strategy, it's a privilege. The world that we live in today, it is so much easier to reach our ideal clients because we have social media. We need to leverage it. We need to recognize that it is a privilege. We, we need to work with it, not against it. And all of this can be learned. Okay, so quick recap for you here. It's non negotiable. It's absolutely non negotiable. You have to have social media, but it needs to be prepped and primed in the proper way so people know who you are, who you help, the problem that you solve. Let's focus on the three Cs content, consistency and connection. We talked about the different types of content. We talked about showing up, being consistent or you will get left behind. People will forget about you. You have to stay top of mind, connection and trust. This is what equals conversions. It's all through conversations. Embrace tools. There's scheduling tools, there's automation tools, there's templates. Like I have a whole entire year's worth of done for you branding done for you fill in the blank captions done for you canva templates. So we don't have to overcomplicate it and we can really simplify our efforts. You must have call to actions because we can't just post on social media. We're using it as a funnel. We're using it as a funnel to lead them along in the client journey. So if you need help with social media, if it feels overwhelming to you, you do not know where to start. You feel like you're struggling with the mindset, the strategies, the tools. But you know and you hear me when I say it can be the one of the most impactful parts of your business and you need help, check out the show notes or go over to my Instagram and just type on any reel. Or you can DM me. So either comment or DM me smm. It stands for social media mastery and I'll send you the link but it will also be in the show notes. You can check it out if it's for you. We would be honored to give you a year's worth of content. If you're just getting started, there's free resources for you inside the Therapist to Coach Accelerator Facebook group. I'd also encourage you to follow me on Instagram. Look at what I'm doing. Look at the strategy that I'm using. Look at how I post on my stories. Look at the call to actions I use on my Instagram. Look at the cadence of how I post. Look at all of my highlights. Take notes not only from me, but from as many people as you can. So at least when you're scrolling next time you're scrolling with intention like you could go on a hook hunt and you're like, okay, I'm going to scroll for the next 10 minutes and I'm going to see what gets me to stop the scroll. What are the hooks, what are the first lines that got me to stop the scroll and how can I recreate those for my audience? Let's scroll with intention. Let's have a plan so that you can take social media by the reins, master it, post with ease, because it's possible for you and social media can absolutely make or break the success in your business. Thank you for tuning in today. Remember, the world needs your voice, your expertise, your unique magic. Keep showing up. I promise your audience will find you and there are proven strategies that we are here to help you with. My love is with you and I will see you in the next episode. Thank you so much for listening to the Thriving Therapy New York podcast. I hope that this episode has inspired you to reduce burnout, work smarter and see the freedom potential you have as a therapist. We would love to have you inside the Therapist to Coach Accelerator Facebook Group where we have live trainings and cheat sheets on all things marketing, sales and adding coaching, ethically and legally. I am here cheering you on and I'll see you around.