Ep. 38: Building an Authentically Effective Social Media Strategy with Dawn Ferguson

Don't think about approaching Instagram as I'm showing up on Instagram to sell my products or services. Instead, think about it like I'm showing up on Instagram to paint a picture of what your life looks like when you buy my products or services.

Welcome to the Prosperous Woman Podcast. I'm Claire Sellers, a business mentor and coach who is absolutely obsessed with helping you create the business of your dreams and your most prosperous life. Tune in for inspiring conversations with extraordinary women that will propel you towards becoming a prosperous woman. I am so excited to welcome my amazingly special guest to The Prosperous Woman Show, Dawn Ferguson. She is a social media strategist and is here today to debunk and educate us on all things social media. Dawn, welcome. I'm so happy to have you.

So happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

Yay. So tell us, we were connected through a mutual friend who's actually in the Dream Accelerator, and I was so happy to connect with you because as soon as we connected, we were just like on the same page. We're really aligned in our philosophies on branding and marketing. And as a social media expert, I think you really carry so much knowledge that is backed up by data, but is also in alignment with my approach, which is really rooted in human connection, human-centered, and really person-to-person marketing. So I'm so excited for you to give us some more background information, some more data, more statistics on— how this whole social media thing is working and how we can stand out online while also being true to ourselves and having a magnetic brand, which is something that you teach and work on a lot. So welcome, welcome, welcome. Can you tell us like your background and how you got to where you are now? Because you have a very interesting journey.

Yeah, it's a great question. Yeah. So I started, oh gosh, when I was in college, I studied both creative writing and graphic design, which is very funny because at the time I was just like an art major that liked to write. And my mom was like, "You need to do business school. Like, what are you doing?" And then I ended up immediately, like I was interviewing for jobs at ad agencies. And I had a graphic design professor hire me at her agency to be a copywriter. I was like, "You can get paid to write?" Right, and so I kind of got into the industry. I immediately had a job the second I walked, you know, and graduated, and I started my career as a copywriter. So I was writing for a fashion brand and I was sort of the voice of the brand and wrote everything. And then, you know, from there I was like, okay, this is kind of boring, and I wanted to do more. And this brand was a 16-year-old fashion designer actually from Russia, and she was here in the US. And, you know, I was like, wait, there's this MySpace thing going on, we should be doing this. So I was sort of launching that on her behalf. From there, that brand folded in the US within like 6 months and I ended up at Forever 21. And so I was like a marketing assistant at Forever 21. I'm literally right out of college and I was managing the sample closet, doing PR and the daughters of the founder, one of the daughters was my VP of marketing. And so I worked really closely with her and I was like, Linda, like we are not, We are Forever 21 and there's this Facebook thing happening and Twitter just blew up at South by Southwest. Like we need to be there. And so I pulled together a proposal and was like, I wanna get us on, on social media. And so, and it got approved. And so I launched Forever 21 like right outta college on social media, grew them to millions. I ended up launching the blog and an in-store magazine, managing the team of copywriters and contributors and creating all this content. Wow. We worked with the very first fashion bloggers on the scene, which were, you know, the very first influencers, which was so fun. And from there I just went from brand to brand. I did the same thing for BB and Hot Topic and Century 21 Department Store. And then I spent a lot of time, a lot of years at Fabletics working directly with Kate Hudson, Demi Lovato, lots of celebrities. And from there Vital Proteins as well. So I did that for 15 years. Wow. I was, you know, go, go, go, doing all the things, marketing these really profit-driven e-commerce businesses. Had a lot of fun. It was very fast-paced, very glamorous. I was kind of like Emily in Paris, but like Dawn in New York and LA. And then from there, 5 years ago, I went out on my own and started my own agency. I really burnt out at the end of that career. I was also teaching social media for years at the Fashion Institute for Technology in New York City. And I was just doing too much, you know. I moved back to LA. We, my husband and I had our first kid. And then I was like, wait a second, there's more to life, you know. So I, that's when I went out and I started my own thing. And I realized that first I started to recreate the burnout all over again because this time I was managing social media for multiple brands at one time. And even though I had a team, I was like— Oh my God. Burning the candle at both ends. You know, I'd be working on evenings and weekends, and that was when I realized I couldn't work this way anymore. So I looked at the way I did things and I got really strategic about it. I looked at, okay, what's our strategy? What's our process? How can I really streamline this and create systems to make this not take so much time? And so ultimately I did, I created strategy and a system to put that in place. I like to call it the well-oiled content machine. because that's what it does. And I literally went from, you know, spending, I don't even know the hours, but I was working something like 60 to 70 hour weeks. And I took that down to now I only work 20 hours a week. So the systems we put in place allowed us to do social media in the fraction, a fraction of the time that it used to take us. And so then we started giving that process, those systems to our clients, and they were able to do the same thing, cut the amount of time they spend on it, but then make it more effective still getting more clients and sales. So. Yeah, that's where we are today.

I love it. I love your story and I just love, you know, it sounds like you were an entrepreneur even back in the Forever 21 days. Like you were like, here's an opportunity, I'm going to make it happen. And you just figured it out.

You're so right.

Like you were born for this. Like it was, it was always your path. But I think, you know, similar to, to me, it's helpful when you have those experiences working for other brands, working for larger companies, because you really learn, you really like, what's the term? Is it get your chops? Is that what they say?

Oh yeah, yeah.

I don't know. Earn your chops.

For me, it was like my MBA. That's what I think of it as.

I always say this, yeah.

Totally.

Exactly. And it's hands-on, you know, and it's like you sink or swim. So it's, I think it's even better than an actual MBA in the classroom. So I love that you really translated what you were doing with these bigger brands, and now you're helping other entrepreneurs create a similar result. So tell us, like, what were you doing with the bigger brands and how has that forayed into your approach with entrepreneurs? And you work with a lot of women-owned businesses. Like, what are you, what are you doing now that is working and how do you help people really stand out? authentically online?

Yes. Okay. So here's the funny thing. When I was working for these big brands, and they're amazing brands, but we would literally have to sit around a table with the executive team and we'd, we were trying to make up what is our purpose? What do we, what do we exist for beyond what we're selling? Right? Like we had to make that stuff up. Now I work with purpose-driven businesses that they have a brand cause, they have a mission. They're here. To accomplish something. There are a lot of coaches and service providers who are here to help people create transformation in their lives or change. So it was really funny because in the corporate environment, we're like coming up with, at the end of the day, to succeed on social media, social media is such an interesting space because it's not like pulling out an ad or running a TV commercial. It's not— Well, we are much more accustomed now to seeing ads in our feed. That's not why we go to social media. We go to engage with our friends, our community. We go to follow people who inspire us and empower us to live a better life, right? We're constantly scrolling for inspiration for our own life. We're literally, what's the next thing that can change my life? We're literally scrolling for that. So it's a unique space to be in as a brand. And so in the big brand space, we were constantly looking at, okay, how can we see this not necessarily as a revenue driving channel, but a brand building community building channel. So how can we build these communities of brand advocates and people and, and get our customers who are really excited about what we're selling, get them bought in on something bigger and kind of build this community around us. And really with the small businesses and purpose-driven businesses, we're doing the same thing, but we also wanna drive more sales too. And that's kind of the biggest difference I notice is like the big brands, they're not necessarily trying to sell on social media as much as smaller businesses are. Mm-hmm. But still, at the end of the day, even for smaller businesses, the approach that I take and I recommend and I teach is you're not— don't think about approaching Instagram as I'm showing up on Instagram to sell my products or services. Instead, think about it like I'm showing up on Instagram to paint a picture of what your life looks like when you buy my products or services. Like, once you go through my program, this is what life looks like. You, you can have the freedom, you can have the weight loss, the energy, the— whatever the results and the transformation are that you're offering, that's what your social media is really meant to do, is paint the picture of that, to inspire people, to show them what's possible for them and empower them to get their butt off the couch and get actioning toward the results that they actually want in life.

I, I'm just like, I love that differentiation of like, we're really painting the picture of what life looks like on the other side of the transformation. And you know, one thing I love to differentiate with my clients is don't talk at your audience. You know, like talk with them.

Exactly.

Be in communion with them. And that's why, you know, when I talk about, for example, using Instagram Stories, like I don't even like to hard, quote, hard sell in Instagram Stories. I'm more thinking of that as like, This is a diary of my life because I'm the living embodiment of what I teach.

Yes, exactly.

I love that. It's so much more powerful than, you know, here's my, you know, I get it, you know, and your 5 pain point bullet points. And then it's like, but here's what you really want. Of course we need that type of sales copy, but I find, you know, when I look back on posts that have performed the best or stories that have performed the best, it has nothing to do with my business.

Mm, yes. Interesting, right?

And, and I believe that when I come in with an offer, what people are connect— people are already connected to me because I've let them into my world.

Exactly. You're building trust. So they get to know— this is exactly like the influencer business model. When you think about like, you know, any celebrity or influencer that's out there with selling products, The reason those products are flying off the shelves is because people believe and trust that they're recommending the best of the best. Oh, if you know, whoever, so-and-so uses that, if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me. And they build this trust and connection and then we grow to love their style, the way they design their home or whatever it is. We just have that level of trust in them and we see them as the expert and the guide that will show us exactly what we need to live the same way.

I'm so grateful that I have, you know, someone who's an expert in social media really, you know, for through the decades, I guess. Has it been decades? I don't know when Forever 21 came out.

I'm going on 20 years now.

Okay, I was gonna— You know, through time, you know, through social media, like since the beginning, this has been the thing. You know, and influencer culture works for a reason.

Yeah.

And I think as especially small business owners, I think, you know, we have such an opportunity to do business and sales differently in a way that actually is, in my opinion, it's more heart-centered and more human-centered, letting people into my world and then showing them, and this is possible for you too, here. Here's how.

Yeah. I love it. I think it's so empowering too. Like I know when it comes to social media, there's so many mental health concerns. There's so much addiction. There's so much, there's such a dark shadow side to it. But for me, I've always been an eternal optimist and I look at social media as, you know, we are literally more connected than ever before, not only globally as a community, but to some of the world's best minds. Like, I always tell this story. When my son was 3 or 4, we were struggling with tantrums and all this stuff was happening. We were talking to the pediatrician about it, my husband and I, asking for advice. And she was telling it, and we told her everything, and she's like, Well, you know, I don't think it's autism. I don't think it's ADHD. Here's what I think you should do. And I'm like, okay, bracing myself. Is she gonna recommend like occupational therapy? Like, what's coming? And she goes, you know, I really think you should go binge watch all of Dr. Becky's videos on Instagram. I was like, what? Like, you're a pediatrician, you're a doctor, and you're prescribing social media as the solution. But literally, we have access to some of the world's best minds, and they're out there teaching and democratizing their, their knowledge and getting it out there for the world to see and access. And that's incredible. You used to have to go to Ivy League colleges to get access to that kind of information. Yeah. So I think social media is incredible and the more that we can use it for the positive, the more we can use it as a vehicle for inspiration and empowerment, that those are the brands that are succeeding, right?

Mm-hmm.

Those are, like you said, the data that I see, a lot of people talk a lot about problems. Okay, what are you struggling with? We're gonna paint the picture of that. But what I see working, my clients who are going viral every week, the posts that go viral are not like, problem-saturated content. It's where they're talking about the results that they're getting. It's where they're saying, I, you know, POV, I just achieved this kind of thing. And people are like, wait, what? That's possible? I want that. And then that goes viral because more people engage with it, more people watch it, more people want more information. So yeah, I believe that we're headed in this, we're in this new era of empowerment marketing and that's what we're really here for as consumers. And I think the brands that are embracing that are gonna be the ones to succeed.

And I always say, I'm so glad you said this 'cause I've never actually, I don't think I've ever thought of it this way until you just said it. But one thing I say over and over and over again is sales as service.

Yes.

And I think as an extension of that, we can say that social media is service, you know?

Oh yes.

Because you're right. Like I honestly don't know who Dr. Becky is. I'm sure she's fantastic, but you know, like what a gift it is to have access to even just like the— I follow a lot of functional medicine doctors or all these amazing brilliant minds. We would never have access to any of that information. And I think even if you're not a well-known doctor or you have hundreds of thousands of followers, you are an expert in your unique gift. Yeah. And what I call your it factor, which I'd love to talk about in a moment. And no one else can teach what you teach in the way you teach it. And so social media is really the— it's the most accessible. It's free. It's the most accessible place for you to share what you know and share what's helped you and impacted your life to the public, free of charge. Yep. And so if we can also, like what you said in the beginning, can you frame social media as, I think you, did you say like sharing or framing social media as a way for you to share what's possible? And that in itself is of service.

Yes, I totally agree. I love that. I love that mindset shift too, that selling a service. And when you think, yeah, it's just sharing in general is service.

Yeah.

The best social media accounts. So the number one thing I think most people know and are showing up and doing is giving value. They know, like, as a business, as a service provider, whatever you are, you're showing up to give value, to give, whether it's tips or it's inspiration or it's mindset shifts, you're showing up to share and increase, you know, add value to people's lives. And I think that's really where it starts, you know, starting there and then kind of building off of that.

Yeah. And I think one thing, and this kind of leads into where I wanted to go next, is one thing I talk a lot about is it factor. This can also be like unique genius, uncopyable edge, some people call it, like your unique thing. And this is something that I work with whether it's in the Dream Accelerator or the Opulence Mastermind. That to me is like step one because so many women come to me and they're like, I'm a business coach, or I'm a functional medicine practitioner, or I'm a healer, or I have a travel company, whatever it might be, that's not enough. That's like the most vague, that's like the top of the—

Surface level.

Umbrella. Yeah, that's the surface level. But in order to stand out online, and offline, you know, you have to be dialed in to what is the thing that makes you stand out in a sea of people just like you. You know, like in a room full of, of social media strategists, like why are you unique? Like what makes you different? And the, the work is how do you actually convey that online?

Yeah.

And show it online, you know, verbally and visually and energetically. Like, how do you show that online? So can you talk about like, how do you view the it factor? You might call it something different, you know, in branding and on social media. And how can people really amplify that?

I love it. We are so aligned. So I like to think of it as a few different things. One, I think, I think we're talking about a few different things in here too. Like, The biggest thing that came to mind as you began to say it is magnetism for me, like, and that's one component of it. And I think to your point, that's embodying it, that's embodying your it factor, that's embodying what differentiates your brand. And that's getting out there and being magnetic and having presence. So I think that's one element of it. And the other element, like, for me, I really, I think of this. So Russell Brunson talks about the new opportunity. And he has, I love his metaphor. He talks about like, he describes it as an ocean. So you've got your marketplace, you're like you said, a functional health practitioner, whatever you are, you're going out there into the ocean that's full of these other people who are doing similar things to you. Now that ocean becomes a red ocean. Like it becomes this battle where they're like, everybody's battling it out. We're all saying the same thing and we're fighting for the same clients. And there's, it's a bloodbath, right? It's this red ocean. Yeah. When you can present, when you understand how your brand differentiates, when you understand your like unique it factor, like you're saying, and you can position and message that, you're, you wanna think about it as you're presenting a new opportunity to people. So I always think those customers that are in that red ocean, they're annoyed, they're frustrated. Everybody's telling 'em the same thing. What are they frustrated by? What are they like, oh my gosh. So in the social media space, You know, there's a lot of Gary Vee and Alex Hormozi out there, a lot of men who are working around the clock and hustle, hustle, hustle, and who have wives at home taking care of their kids, or they don't have kids. And you know, they're just like, I'm doing the hustle. I'm posting literally 100 times a day across multiple channels. That's Gary Vee's latest recommendation, 100 times a day, right? Insane. Yeah, you're kidding. I'm not kidding. Like insane. This ocean, people are going, oh my God, I have to post 100 times a day. I can't do that. I have kids. I wanna have a life. I became an entrepreneur to have freedom. So they're in that ocean going, this sucks. I don't wanna do social media. So if I can come in and create a new blue ocean and say, guys, it's really nice over here. There's no blood. Like it's nice and fresh. Come on over. We're doing social media different. We're not hustling. We're attracting. We're getting out there and we're being magnetic and we're attracting people to us. And we're gonna employ a different strategy that puts our it factor out there, that shows our expertise, that establishes us as the authority in what we do, and that presents a new opportunity for our audience who's tired of hearing all those other things, then just come on over, come on over to this blue ocean. And these people are like, oh my God, how refreshing. You know? So that's, that's kind of how I think about it and how I teach it is really this, idea of presenting a new opportunity. So how can you present social media or functional health or whatever your thing is in a new way that makes people feel like, oh, I haven't actually heard this before, or I wonder how this would work, and kind of brings them over.

I love that. And I just, my jaw was on the floor when I heard 100 times a day. I mean, I can't even do the math on like how many posts that is during your waking hours, but it's a lot.

And, and a lot of stories too, like Storyframes, I think adds to that number. But multiple channels, you know?

Yeah.

And they're, they also have, and again, remember, like I just wanna say while we're talking about this, that is a different business model.

Yes.

Like Gary Vaynerchuk runs an agency. He runs, but he runs a content empire. Right.

And so, very diff— so girls don't go, don't hear that and start freaking out, please.

Exactly. It is not the way to do it. It is not the only way to do it. No. Even people out there who are, advocating for— so many social media experts advocate to post at least twice a day and they're like, that's the thing you should be doing. And yes, I could tell you like, absolutely, Claire, you post twice a day, you're gonna get more data faster. You're gonna learn fast. Like, yes, there's positives to it. But the bigger thing with social is if you wanna be successful, you gotta stick to it long term.

Yeah.

You can't just show up a couple days, couple weeks, couple months, and then fall off for a few months cuz you burned yourself out so much.

Yeah.

So the name of the game is consistency and longevity. So what do you need to be consistent and do this long-term? If that's one post a week, do it. Like permission slip to keep it simple because that's going to be more effective for you long-term.

100%. I'm so glad you said that. And you know, I'll brag about one of my clients, Kristen, who's a health and fitness coach and she's on her third round of the Opulence Mastermind. When she came in, she was like, Claire, I'm over social media. I don't want to do it. I don't like being on there. I'm burned out. I'm not getting results. And I was like, I hear you. And is there a way we could do it where it actually feels fun? Like she walks like 25,000 steps a day. She lives in Colorado, so it's like beautiful.

Amazing.

Yeah. She's always walking. And I'm like, what if you just did like a little walk and talk? You know, like where you do like 3 or 4 stories with like a specific thing around health or fitness, like hyper-specific that like you think your audience could benefit from. And her business has like totally blown up over the last, I guess, year and a half. Like, and she loves social media.

Yeah.

And she, she shared in our mastermind group the other day to some of the girls who are newer to my work, you know, she was like, the strategy works, but you have to be consistent.

Yeah.

And you know, that's like a real live example of someone, you know, who has under 10,000 followers, who has shown up pretty much every day, really focused on lifestyle content, really focused on sharing her world and how she integrates what she calls food freedom, how she integrates fitness into her life, and being the living embodiment of what she teaches in a way that works for her. So that she doesn't get burned out. She doesn't get frustrated. Like it's just, she does it automatically. It takes— I tell my clients like, you really shouldn't be spending more than 30 minutes max, an hour a day on content.

Yep. Oh, I just wish I could like, I wanna like put a highlighter marker on this, like, because this is the key. So for me too, it's like the way I teach social media is you gotta rewrite your relationship with it.

Mm-hmm.

And so many of us, we're trying to apply other people's playbooks.

Yeah.

So we're listening to Alex Hormozi or we're listening to the, and we're like, oh, well they're successful, so I gotta do what they're doing. Right? Because they figured it out and I don't know what I'm doing, so I'm gonna do what somebody else is doing cuz they know. But that you, it couldn't be worse. It's the same thing with business. Like we don't go copy other people's businesses because we think they're successful and we wanna, you know what I mean? It doesn't work that way. Yeah. You've got to do, you've got to apply your own magic to it. And if you want to make social media enjoyable, you have to do what's aligned for you. That's like I always talk about, I, you will never ever see me dancing on video. I will never point at the air. I will never lip sync. It's just not in alignment with me. It's not my personality, my personal brand. Like I won't do it.

Yeah.

It doesn't, you know, it doesn't mean I can't be successful on social media.

I—

Doing it your own way.

I love that. And you know, I— one of the things that just over the last almost decade of being online and working with people, when people can feel you, you get engagement. You know? Like when you— when you're, for example, if you did a reel where you were like kind of awkwardly, weirdly dancing on camera or doing— like I see girls, I did this once and I'm just not coordinated enough, but I tried to do like a doing my own makeup. Yes.

I watched that.

I watched it. I love to do that, but I just like couldn't get the techno, you know, the coordination of it right. But that's on brand for me because I'm always talking about beauty stuff. But like, if you're doing something that you think is going to work for you because it worked for this coach or this influencer, and then you're trying to fit yourself into a cookie cutter, trying to get her results doing it her way, it will not work. Or maybe it'll work like for a flash and then it'll crash. And, you know, I was talking to a client today who was really frustrated because we've tried, you know, a couple different strategies and she just hasn't seen the result that she wanted. And I said, you know, this is the part of the process, like you are for the first time implementing different strategies in your business, different sales strategies, and Sometimes it is trial and error to find a way that works for you and your audience. And the name of the game is consistency and resilience. Like, if something doesn't work one way, let's try it another, because eventually you will crack your unique code. And then once you know it, you know it. Yes.

And then you make it a habit and it just becomes something that—

Exactly.

Like, oh, I love that. And I think the big key here too, to that I would say to kind of bring this home when it comes to social media. And when we're talking about like what works on social, and you know, one of the biggest things I always say, and that has stood true for the last 20 years in the social space, is what works is what's authentic to you. Because when you show up in your authenticity, and when you show up in a way that— like, again, if I'm showing up dancing or doing my makeup, it's not authentic for me, so it's gonna feel performative. And you're gonna get this weird vibe of like, oh, like energetically you're gonna feel that, that mismatch, that misalignment, you know?

Yes.

But when I show up in my alignment doing something that's like, that I love, that's authentic to me, like your client walking, when she's doing that, people are like, oh my gosh, look at her, she's probably glowing.

Yeah.

She's so magnetic 'cause she's in her authentic, you know, space of alignment. So I think, That is really key. Um, and I, this is one of those like mythical things about the algorithm that I swear you can't pinpoint, but sometimes I will look at different accounts next to each other. A lot of my clients will find, you know, someone who does something similar to, to them and they've exploded on TikTok and they're like, how does this person have so many followers? And how do they, you know, and we'll kind of break it down and look at it. And often, sometimes I'm like, Look at how unique they are. Maybe they have a unique look to them. Maybe they've got purple hair or they've got some, you know, something unique that, but they're leaning into their authenticity. They're leaning into what's unique about them and they're being authentic. And that's the biggest thing is most of us show up and I struggle with this a lot, is we show up and we try and be an expert and we show up polished and we think we have to like look perfect and—

Yeah.

You know, be like, people are gonna say like, this is business. I should be wearing a collared shirt or, you know, like a blazer. Like I want people to take me seriously. But at the end of the day, they just want honest, genuine. They wanna see genuine authenticity. Like that's what we love is when we see, and I think I'm curious too, I know you like did theater in the past and I, I think when I think about that honest, authentic, energy, when you bring that to me, it's hyper presence.

Yes, I call it business presence, like stage presence but business presence.

Right? And it's just this— you're just being fully like hyper present in the moment and fully authentic. You're not scripting, you're not trying to do something that other people do, you're just kind of flowing from this. Like, if we want to get deep and spiritual about it, I think you're like connected to sort of Source energy.

You're channeling.

You're channeling, exactly. But yeah, anyway, I think that is what really works and that's really what we're talking about here is be authentic, be you, stop trying to be other people, the algorithm will literally reward you for it.

Yes, and I want to talk about the algorithm because I think that the algorithm, I mean, I've written so many posts like, "F the algorithm," because I mean, I, I just honestly always say you are the algorithm and I haven't talked to you specifically about this, but I'm so curious, like how does the algorithm work from, you know, a, a social media strategy data standpoint and like how can we make it work for us?

Yes. Okay. Here's the basic, we were talking about this before we hopped on, you know, so many people come to me and I hear this is one of the biggest concerns I hear from business owners that you feel like you don't understand how the algorithm works and you feel like you can't keep up with it. Like it's constantly updating. We hear all about, you know, oh, Adam Asari is talking about this just updated and this is different about, you know, and we, our head spins and we feel like we have to keep up. You don't have to keep up with the algorithm. Like I, I keep my clients up to date on those things because I think we'll always have this sense of curiosity about it. But at the end of the day, all you really need to know when it comes to the algorithm is the basic, function of how it works. And it's— and there's not just one algorithm, by the way, there's many. And across all platforms, they— each platform has their own algorithm, right? But at the end of the day, they all operate the same, which is LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok. They want you to stay on LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok. That is their job. The algorithm wants to serve you content that you like. They, they wanna serve you content that's similar to what you are— lingering on, what you have increased watch time with, what you're engaging with, what you're liking and commenting on. They, they look at that. They look at the keywords of those captions. They look at the type of content that you're tapping on and opening up and spending time with, and they wanna serve you more of that. They also wanna serve you more of content that's also getting really great engagement because they think, oh, well, if all these other people are liking, commenting, and watching this, this person probably will too. That's all the algorithm wants you to stay on the app. That's their job. They want you to spend, that's why we get push notifications from all the apps.

Yeah.

Instagram's like, no, come back, come back. We want you. That's their job. They want you to spend time there. The more you do, the more ads you see, the more money they make, right? So the algorithm is literally, that's all it is. It's meant to serve you content that you like and that you engage with. So you will spend more time on the app. So what does that mean for business? When we know that, we know all we need to do is kind of make sure we have keywords in our captions. That's really what hashtags serve as. Hashtags now in 2025 are really about search terms. People are using social media differently than, you know, than in the past. We used to, like, follow hashtags or go look at different hashtags, and now it's— we search, we use instead of just scrolling our feed, right? Like you're nodding your head. I'm the same way.

I search.

Exactly.

The minute I need something, I'm like hashtag, you know, like XYZ specialist. I literally, that's where I, I do that before Google.

Yeah. Right. And that's, that's exactly where our culture has shifted. So the social platforms are all trying to keep up with that and they're trying to build SEO. Into the platforms so that they can serve better search results because they know that that's how consumers and users are spending time on their apps. So what that means for us is really we just need to be very clear in our captions, put keywords in there, you know, use hashtags that are more like, think like SEO, think like keywords, you know, keyword rich. Give us an example. So as an example, something I like to do with video content. So let's say you have a talking head video where you are talking to camera about, Um, you know, whatever it is, you're giving 3 health tips, you're a health coach, whatever.

Mm-hmm.

Your caption, I like to use the caption to sort of recap in a way, in almost like you would write SEO description for a website. Do you know what I mean? Like if you use Kajabi or, you know, your website tool, like it gives you this little place to put in a page title and a page description for SEO purposes so that the Google and the search engines will know what that page is all about and who to serve it to based on the search terms. Same exact thing. How can we basically describe the video, describe the tips we're giving, the results, the transformation, the whatever it is. Mm-hmm. And sort of put those keywords in. What is my— think, what is my client, what are they going to search?

What are they looking for?

What are they looking for?

Yeah.

What answers are they looking for? What, You know, what are they searching for? So, like you said, you may go in and search, you know, functional health practitioner.

Mm-hmm.

Or, you know, whatever it is, astrologist, or, you know, whatever you're looking for.

Right.

And when you search for that, like, that could be one of your hashtags. That could be something that you use because that's what your people are. Do you see what I mean? So—

Yeah.

People overthink hashtags too much. We worry about the algorithm. At the end of the day, The algorithm wants people to spend more time on the app. So if you create content that people want to consume and that is, you know, rich with keywords and talking about the things that people are searching for, your content will get served to them, if that makes sense.

It, it does. And you know, it's so funny cuz like I literally in the last 2 days I've searched, I'm thinking, I'm not gonna tell you guys what I search cuz they're like kind of weird, but I picked 3 different things on Instagram and I did hashtag, you know, and then the thing I was searching for. So think about how you're using and what you're searching for and get into the mind of your client. And then does it, does it, are we wanting those words in the caption as well or is it really hashtag driven? Or both?

Caption as well. It doesn't have to be hashtags.

Oh, okay. So it'll pull the keywords through the caption even if there's not a hashtag.

Yeah, and there's slight, like, I have a slightly different hashtag strategy for each channel. Like, each channel operates a little bit differently with hashtags, but generally speaking on all channels, put the details in your caption and that's gonna be, search is gonna pick that up.

Okay.

And that's gonna benefit you in search, yeah.

And I saw, I don't know if this even matters, this is like so nitty gritty, but I actually loved— I saw people putting keywords at the bottom of the caption, and then I see people— I've always put them in the first comment. And the reason I do that is because I saw something a while ago and it was like, you don't want your clients or your, you know, audience to feel like they're the first one at the party. Be the first one at the party in the comments, you know, like go ahead and comment on your own. That made a lot of sense to me. You know, I love like party-themed launches and I was like, you know what? It's true. Like if there's already a comment there, I feel safer commenting. So I put mine in the caption, but is, I mean in the comments, but is that like the recommendation?

It's so interesting. Over the years it has shifted. Instagram has actually had a public opinion about this and like put it out there. At the end of the day, The current recommendation for Instagram specifically is to put them in the caption, but it doesn't matter. Like it really does. I wouldn't, I wouldn't worry about it.

That's how I've always felt. I don't think it's gonna like make or break anything.

None of this is. Exactly. And we used to like years ago, we did it as a first comment and you know, you do those little dots. Do you remember that?

Like, so that it would pop. Oh yeah, the dots.

Yeah. So we used to do that because it just clutters the caption too. You know, and it was like one of those things where you just wanna kind of keep it separate and not look like you're trying so hard by using a bunch of hashtags. But you know, nowadays technically we put 'em in the caption at the very end. But that's really just from like a search standpoint. It's not gonna make or break you either way.

And you can try both. You know, the other thing I say is like, be an experimenter. Like be a, I don't even know what, it's not a scientist, be a data scientist of your own account. You know, like did, what are you noticing is doing well? And I think that's something that is so simple. Like I go back at least once a month and I'm like, what did the best?

Yeah.

And honestly, it's usually the thing that I spent the least amount of time on that I thought was kind of basic and lame. And it's like, that's the thing that, you know, got the most views that month. And I'm like, okay. You know, but like be a data scientist of your own account because the algorithm, this is the other thing. And and this is why I've never put so much emphasis on the algorithm, is that it is always changing.

Yes.

Constantly. So by the time you get one thing, it's already on to the next. Is that true?

It's totally true. But at the end of the day, those updates that they're making are really going back to what I said earlier, the main point. They're just trying to keep people on their app.

Yeah.

So like when they're updating it, it's just little things. It's not impacting you at a bigger level. It's really not.

Yeah.

Even when people freak out and there's like a new update and then every— it's like the social media managers on the internet put this out and they freak people out about it and then it becomes this huge thing. And honestly, I think it's, it's just this rhetoric that's out there to make business owners cons— you know, people worried about it so they'll pay the social media managers to get— do you know what I mean? I think it's, it's not necessary. It will not make or break you. It is not that huge of a deal. So absolutely don't. Don't put all your eggs in that basket or worry about it so much.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, and it, it's, I think, I think ultimately what I'm hearing is like the app, app, social media are designed to keep you on them. So people often come to me and say, my engagement's down. And I'm like, well, what were your last 6 story slides? And sure enough, it was sales copy. Just on a canvas slide. People are tap, tap, tap, tap, tapping through that while they're watching The Bachelorette or Love Island or whatever, you know? So again, the app is designed to keep people on there. That's why I always say, like, do your first story slides like your day. People love being snoops, you know?

Like, I—

Myself included. I'm like the ultimate snoop. I always have been. You know, I love getting little glimpses into, like, what makeup products is she using? Like, oh, what neighborhood does she live in? You know? Show people that, not pretty Canva graphics, cuz that's not what keeps them on.

Yes, exactly. You're so right. And yes. Oh, I love that. It's also this like entertainment factor to that point, right? Yes. Like, and I think in your feed often, like we're educating, we're, we're giving value. Stories are such an incredible place to focus on lifestyle, like you said. And if you, the founder, are really embodying the lifestyle, How can you show that? How can you show all of those things and not just the obvious things, but like, I always like to think of, you know, what is it for you and your business? What are you really ultimately selling? What do your people really want? I call it, you know, in the big brand space, like we think about it as your brand's aspirational lifestyle.

Mm-hmm.

Like you represent, I think I've heard Jenna Kutcher also say like, all a brand really is, is a personality and a lifestyle that we're attaching to our offers. You know, that's like all a brand is. So how can you show that lifestyle in an entertaining way where, like you said, people feel like Snoops or they're like, you know, or they're just like, oh, this is so cool, or I want her life, this is amazing. I think about this all the time because it's where I'm the worst. I really struggle myself with showing my lifestyle, and I live at the beach in one of the most gorgeous parts in the world, you know what I mean? It's like It's gorgeous where I live, and I think about that a lot. I have a lot of opportunity to do that. So I think for everybody out there to know that, you know, everybody struggles with these things and just kind of— Yeah, thinking about how can you— what is, what is amazing about your life? And what are you— and even if it's not amazing and it's just blue skies and it's walking around, you know, whatever it is like. Those things that you do, you are somebody else's— you are living somebody else's dream.

Yes.

You're probably living your own dream.

Yeah.

Right? I think we don't think about that on a regular basis. Like, I'm living my dreams right now. I don't always think about that with someone who's, you know, uh, ambitious and constantly— especially entrepreneurs, I find that we're always constantly working towards something. We've got a bigger vision we're working toward. So sometimes we get caught up in that, you know, oh, we're always looking beyond and we forget that we're literally living our dream right now. So how can you use social media to help to remind you that you're living your dream and to share it with other people? You know, it'll help you almost enjoy your life and your moment even more too when you think about it like that, right?

I— it's, it's so true. And again, like I would say first line is like showing your life, showing that you're an embodied result of what you teach in a way that feels good for you, in a way that actually keeps people engaged and keeps them on your page. Like that, I would say that's like the order of operations.

I love that. Yes, yes, yes.

So two like little kind of tactical questions that I feel like people are gonna be like, oh, I wish she had asked this. What should people be prioritizing? Like, does it matter between Reels, carousels, and posts?

Okay, so I will both explain what each of them, what their value is and why I recommend using them. But at the end of the day, I wanna first start by saying I want you to choose what is most authentic to you.

Mm-hmm.

Because like we've been talking about so far in this conversation, that is the most important thing. And I say that because so many people are not video people. They don't wanna show up on video. It doesn't feel aligned, you know, whatever they like to write or, you know, and there's ways that you can show yours. You don't have to be on video if you don't want to. And then some people like, I'm sort of the opposite where I'm a writer at heart, but I, it feels way easier for me. To pick up, you know, to shoot a video, to talk to camera than it does to like sit down and write something.

Yeah.

Because I get too perfectionisty about it and then I, you know, it just becomes this whole thing that takes me way longer. So what feels easiest to you? That's where I would start and just stick with what feels easiest and most authentic. Okay, so that's number one. But then if we wanna talk about what works and where, so typically Reels on Instagram, what I find in the backend is they typically reach 70 to 80% non-followers. So you are reaching people, new people when you post Reels. I find this typically, I say like, yeah, it's like 60 to 80%, I would say across most people's insights that I've looked at. So I, I'd encourage you to go look at your insights, tap and look at your Reels. And if you scroll down, you'll see there's this little breakdown of non-followers versus followers. Mm-hmm., and it gives you the percentage of how many you're reaching. So typically you're reaching on average like 70% non-followers with reels. It's the opposite for carousels. So carousels, you typically reach 70 to 80% followers. Interesting, right? So what do we do with that? I like it.

Yeah.

And, and so it's tip— again, look at yours to make sure it's accurate for you, but I've seen across the board that to be the truth. So what that means is, When you're posting Reels, if you're posting both Reels and carousels, and I'm not even gonna talk about single images because I will say I don't recommend them. At the end of the day, post a carousel, put it up into different graphics or different frames versus doing one frame, single frame. The reason being images, they're just not performing as well anymore. I do believe that the algorithm does push carousels a little bit more because why? The algorithm wants us spend more time on the app, and you're gonna spend more time with a carousel post because you're swiping through, looking at, you know, it increases your, your watch, your linger time, right? So don't even post single image posts. Just put it into two lines, make one line of copy bigger, and then make it a second frame, you know, whatever. So carousels versus videos, how can you think of them strategically if you plan to do both? Is think of your videos they're gonna reach mostly people that don't know you. So you gotta think top of funnel. So if you're thinking of like the marketing funnel, you're getting people at the top of the funnel, you're reaching the majority, most people, but they're not gonna necessarily know you. They don't know what you're talking about. So you wanna make sure, like in your video, put— so if it's talking head video or even B-roll, um, you can put like, like one of my clients, she'll have, she'll be speaking to camera or it'll just be B-roll and it'll say from You know, she'll have a hook like how to teach or how to get your toddler talking ASAP from a speech therapist. So if I don't know you and I'm seeing your post, but I know, oh, you're an expert, you're a speech therapist, you do this for a living. So think of it like that with your videos. Make sure you have some, some sort of qualifier or just know that you're speaking to people that probably don't know who you are. So that's why you see a lot on like TikTok videos and it's made its way to Instagram as well. Where talking head videos, people will start out with a hook and then they'll go, oh, by the way, if we haven't met yet, I'm Dawn and I'm a marketing brand strategist and here's what I help you do, right? And they kind of get that line in there so those newbies will better understand who you are. So think about it like that. And then also if you've got a new program launch, you're, you know, talking about new things, you wanna reach more people, make sure you're posting video cuz typically you're reaching non-followers.

Mm-hmm.

And then carousels are really great to think about from like a nurture strategy. Okay? So if those are majority followers that are seeing that content, what do your followers want for you that's gonna be valuable? What are— maybe like, I like to think of them as existing clients and students, like my people who are already in my world. They're following me, they love me. They're like, they already know kind of the basics. How can I give them even more value? How can I continue to nurture them? Or What can I give them? Do you see what I mean? You can kind of think about it in those two different ways, if you will. And it doesn't mean that carousels won't reach non-followers, 'cause they still do. And especially, you know, for accounts that are predominantly carousels only, I actually haven't looked at an account like that, 'cause typically my clients do a mix or they focus on video. But I would be curious to look at that because I would wonder, and I, my guess is that they would still be reaching non-followers with carousels.

Yeah.

To. It's just like not as common. Yeah.

Did that help? Yes, that is so helpful. And I think we're all going to go back and listen to that because I just think it, you know, it helps to know the statistics behind it, you know, and that's always how I, I mean, you, it makes sense, right? Because Reels are more fun to watch in my opinion, right? Then people come back for more and they go through the carousel because they want to take a deeper dive. So logically the algorithm is also set up in a way that makes sense for human behavior and how we move through a sales process with someone. Yeah.

You know, the other thing I'll add on Reels too, just to optimize them, Instagram specifically, keep your Reels 60 to 90 seconds or less. Like Instagram, the best performing videos that we see on a regular basis on Instagram are like 3 to 5 seconds long. Yeah.

They're be more tight. I try to keep mine under 7.

Yeah, exactly. It's like those fast ones.

Yeah.

Because you're just like, and it's a swipe game.

Exactly. Right?

Like you're, you'll see on TikTok, people go a lot longer.

Yeah.

And so you can go beyond that 90 seconds and go deeper.

Mm-hmm.

And still see really solid engagement. 'Cause it's just a different platform.

Yeah.

Different vibe. But yeah, the shorter kind of the better on Instagram.

Okay. That's so helpful. And the last question that I just have to ask is like, a lot of my clients come to me with smaller audiences. So talk to us just briefly, give a, give a little pep talk for you can still have an iconic magnetic brand that makes a lot of money and helps a lot of people even with a small audience.

Hell yes, you can.

Okay.

I'm passionate about this one. When we think about, so I want you to first think, remind, remind yourself who you are. Are you a content creator that's trying to become an influencer? No, you're a business owner. You don't need followers. Like, it literally— followers don't matter at the end of the day. So let's say like, gosh, what was it, 5, 10 years ago, followers mattered. Okay. And the algorithms were designed totally differently and you had to have more people following you to be able to reach more people. And then TikTok came around and TikTok had this magical mythical algorithm that everybody's obsessed with. And for the first time ever, a social channel was serving content no matter— based on the value of the content and the quality of the content, no matter how many followers you had.

Mm-hmm.

So you could literally— TikTok introduced this, we call it on the social media side, we call it the TikTokification of social media. Like, because once they came around, everyone was so obsessed with the algorithm. It spread to all the other platforms. So all the other platforms do the same thing. So when Instagram launched Reels, or when they just started naming their videos and they copied TikTok's platform and, you know, with the swipe up and everything, um, when they did that, it accomplished the same thing. It gave you the opportunity to have 0, 10, 500, 1,000 followers, but still be able to reach hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. So I always like to talk about one of my clients. Um, she's a maternity leave consultant. We launched her from scratch on Instagram, zero followers. We literally started from zero and 10 days in our 10th post. So she probably had a couple hundred followers at the time. I can't remember. I wish I had a screenshot of it, but couple hundred followers. We had a post hit half a million views. A video went viral, half a million views with like 300 followers. What happened after that? She gained, started gaining hundreds of followers from every reel that would go viral. And then what happened is we went viral the next week and we kept going. And she, she has, I think currently she's sitting at maybe 25,000 followers now, maybe a little, maybe 30,000. Um, now about almost 2 years later, completely effortless growth. She's done nothing in the account to grow it. It's just that her messaging is so so magnetic and it hits every time, she keeps going viral. And it started with that few followers. Like, it doesn't— your followers don't matter with the algorithms. You have the ability, if your content is good, you have high quality content that's highly valuable that people want to see and read and experience and interact with, it, it can go viral no matter how many followers you have. So what I like to say is, no, you can go viral no matter how many followers. Know that you have this opportunity to reach that many people. Your followers do not determine how many people you reach. You reach a small percentage of your followers. So followers don't matter. That's the first thing. And the second thing is followers do kind of matter if you're an influencer. If you're in, if you're a creator and that's your business, you're trying to monetize your content, followers kind of matter because you want, that's what your brand partnerships, the brands are gonna look at. How many followers do they have? How, what's their reach? Right? That's gonna be a good metric for them to determine whether they wanna spend money with you or not. So if you're a creator, that's a di— it's a different world, but you're not a creator. You're a business. We're business owners. We don't care if people are following or engaging. So many of my clients, I also encourage them and they will turn off their likes, turn it off. You don't need to see that stuff. All it's gonna do half the time is make you feel like crap. And there's no reason because you don't need engagement. Half the people out there, and I know we all have experiences like this where you've had someone buy a high-ticket offer from you. Like, I've had people spend $15,000 with me who were lurkers, and they were following me, but they weren't commenting. They weren't— and I'm the same way when I invest in people. I follow them, I lurk, I watch, I don't engage. But then all of a sudden I'm like, yeah, here, take my money. I, I have trust with you. I know you're the guide that's gonna help me get the results that I want. So followers don't matter. Engagement really doesn't matter at the end of the day. The only metrics that really matter are the conversion ones. If we're running a business, we want to be driving— want to make sure that we're driving conversion, that our content is ultimately leading to sales. And that doesn't have to mean that we're converting cold strangers, that we're getting all these, like, people we've never met or heard of before in our business. That's the other thing I like to caveat with conversion is oftentimes our social, our content converting for us will look like, oh, this woman I went to high school with came back. She was following me on Instagram.

Yeah.

And then she just became a client because she knew me, she was following me, but because my content showed her that I have the product or the service that she needs in her life, so she purchased. That doesn't mean your content's not converting. You're converting, right? It's just, it looks a little bit different than you think it's gonna look. So think about it that way. Is my content, is my content making my sales calls easier, faster?

Yes.

Because are people showing up going, oh yeah, I know you already talk about this.

Like I know this. They already trust you.

Right?

Yeah.

Those are the type of metrics you wanna be looking at if you're a business owner using social media to grow your business.

Yes. Well that, I think everybody listening needs to hear that at least once. That's so helpful to hear and it's true. You know, and I think both of us have been around long enough to really and seen multiple types of businesses with 2,000 followers hit multiple six figures. Like, it just doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. What matters is that you show up consistently, you show up fully as you, and you just keep going. Yes.

I'll also add too, one of my, one of my clients who she's got around 4,000 followers, so not massive, but also not teeny tiny, but she's been going for years at the content game. She's been posting, posting, posting. She's really establishing herself as an expert. She's a functional health sleep consultant. She just got a book deal. She just got a book deal.

Yeah.

She had Jessica Alba's brand, The Honest Company, reach out to her for collaboration to feature her as an expert because of her content.

Yes.

So it's like these things are happening when you're positioning yourself as the authority. When you're showing your expertise, when you're showing up consistently. And she doesn't have hundreds of thousands of followers. She only has 4,000.

Right.

And people still see that expertise and they still, so yeah, you don't have to have followers to get these big opportunities that you want.

Dawn, this has been just like so amazing. I feel like people are gonna absolutely love this episode. We'll probably need a part 2 at some point 'cause I feel like there's like so much we could go into.

Let's do it.

Before we wrap up, just tell us, how can people find you? How can people work with you? What's the best way to connect with you? And we'll link all your things in the show notes too.

Yeah, absolutely. Best way, come, come connect with me on Insta. I'd love to see you in my DMs. I'm @sneakersandkale on Instagram. I'm Dawn_Ferguson on TikTok. I'm also on LinkedIn. Like we can connect wherever. But yeah, come connect and let's chat. I am literally here to help and serve. I have courses, I have one-on-one programs, like I've got something for everybody, really. The DIY, the done with you, and the done for you path. So no matter if you're looking to— if you're a purpose-driven entrepreneur, you want a low-maintenance but high-converting social media system that you can use to stay consistent long term. Bring in clients, sales opportunities, um, all of that, come find me. And if you on Instagram, Sneakers and Kale on Instagram, I have a free training at my link in bio too. Um, it's like a mini training. It's only like 20 minutes video. You can get it on demand. And I talk about the mistakes you're probably making if you're not getting results from social right now and how to change that and really walk you through like, how do you set up, how do you build a category of one brand? that attracts these dream clients and opportunities on repeat.

Amazing. I— that is going to be a must-watch. I highly recommend it. Dawn, thank you so much for joining us. It has been such a joy to just connect with you and hear your wisdom, and I hope we can do it again soon.

Same. I'll be back. It'll be great. Thank you.

Thank you for tuning in to the Prosperous Woman Podcast. I am so grateful for your presence and for being a part of this community. Feel free to DM me @itsclairesellers on Instagram. I would love to connect with you and hear what resonated with you in this episode. Forget to subscribe to the show, and if you enjoyed what you heard today, leave a 5-star review. Your feedback means the world to me and helps me reach more incredible women just like you. And because I love to spoil you, just DM me a screenshot of your review on Instagram, and I'll send you my free Prosperity Activation Course as a thank you. It's my way of investing in you and your dreams.

Thank you.