152: The Power of Consistency: How Jelena Ostrovska Used Social Media to Grow Her Business

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Welcome to the Course Creators MBA podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Destiny Kopp, and I help business owners increase the revenue with digital products and evergreen sales funnels. In this podcast, we go deep into product and marketing strategies for digital product creators. We cover everything from digital product creation, how to market and sell your digital products, and just as important, how to find your ideal customer. Let's jump right into our show.

And my special guest today is Yulana Oscarzka. Yulana first got started in business at the age of 18 when her parents introduced her to network marketing. So, having skipped college, her journey involves going through several businesses including affiliate marketing, getting certified as a business coach, and launching her own services in digital products. And Alaina now serves business owners through delivering an organic content marketing strategy that converts inside of her social media marketing agency. And Elena, I am super excited to jump into this topic with you. And before we get into all the questions I have for you, can you tell the audience just a little bit more about you and how you help people?

Yeah. So I actually have quite a long journey and first of all, Destiny, thank you so much for inviting me. So, so excited to be here and share a lot of, you know, great information with your audience. And yeah, so my journey goes way back to 2013 when I started in network marketing. I was 18 years old. I had no idea what marketing was, so I was as brand new as I could possibly be. And I had no idea what marketing was, didn't know what content marketing was. I was only using social media to share memes with my friends and classmates. So, and not to mention, I'm also Russian. You can't hear the accent as much anymore. It kind of went away. But English is not my first language, so that was the initial challenge that I've had. And early on I discovered that digital marketing and social media and content marketing especially has been one of the best ways to get your message across. Because offline strategies, while they are great, they never really worked well for me because my warm audience wasn't my ideal audience to building a business. And through that whole transition through network marketing, affiliate marketing, getting certified as a coach, creating my own programs, and to now running a service based agency business model. You know, like throughout the years I kind of realized, you know, the only thing that I have always been consistent ever since I got started has been content marketing. So I've done, you know, six months of consistent blogging. And by consistent blogging, I mean I would put out articles five to seven times a week, every single week for six months. Straight. And that's really what allowed me to get better at content marketing as a whole. Not to mention, I was also putting out YouTube videos, which really sucked at the time because it was really hard to record them for me. I spent hours and hours editing them. I had to really script them. And some videos, I really look like I had a gun pointed to my head because I was, like, so robotic because of the accent and because it was really hard to talk business English for me. And. Yeah, but, like, that's like the first that was kind of initial exposure to really being consistent with content was blogging. Because, you know, it's. It's a full structure. It's. I was recording a YouTube video. I was optimizing it for SEO for, you know, the search engines. I was writing the article, I was following all the SEO guidelines and everything like that. And then I was promoting the articles, I was promoting my YouTube channel. I. I was talking to people online. And. Yeah, and then I kind of transitioned from that to more, you know, more YouTube and social media. Like, right now, my main platforms are Instagram and YouTube. And yeah, like, content has really taken me far. Like, I've used different strategies like ads and, you know, like prospecting and cold outreach and things of that nature. But the one thing that I've really been known, you know, throughout the years has been just being ultra consistent with showing up every single day on social media.

And the message I'm getting out of that is being consistent works. You know, whether it's, you know, blogging, doing the YouTube videos, showing up on social media, maybe it's even emailing your list. But being consistent works. And if you're willing to be consistent, you will succeed. So I love that message that you have to hear. And today we're going to be talking about how to create a content strategy. And one of your kind of core messages or values is when you're. When you're creating content is to have an open mind and be willing to experiment. Can you talk a little bit about that and why you came to that conclusion?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I started on Instagram as my main platform at the end of 2014. It was around October, November. And back then the platform was so different. We only were posting quote images. We were commenting on each other. We were using the stupid hashtags. They were like follow for follow. It was. It was very different platform. You know, it was almost nine years ago at this point. And I'm just going to use Instagram as an example because I feel like it's One platform that has really evolved and changed and shifted. And not just even in the last nine years. I feel like in the last two years Instagram in itself has been such a roller coaster. You know, I started managing small businesses, Instagram pages and then all of a sudden it got like. It was just insane. It was insane. I feel like a lot of people who have been using Instagram very actively can relate to that. It's been update after update after updates, you know. So, yeah, anyway, so back to 2014, we only had images, we didn't have videos, we didn't have live video. I believe in 2015 or 2016 was when we first got access to like Facebook Live. We had Periscope at the time. I don't know if the platform is still around. I heard some people still use it that's connected to Twitter. So that was like the first live stream that we've had at the time. So at the time it was very comfortable for me. It was very comfortable posting photos. I was like, okay, at least I don't have to show up on video and talk. And the quality of the video was very bad at the time. I look back to some of my videos from 2016 and I'm like, oh my gosh, that's so bad. Such a bad quality. And back then we thought we were amazing, right? And then 2015, I believe early 2015, Instagram started rolling out the square 15 second videos. And that was the first, you know, challenge that we had to adapt to. It was like, okay, so now just besides the quotes, we have to somehow squeeze in a bunch of content, a bunch of great ideas into a 15 second time slots, right? So, and as I was kind of like dabbling into video marketing at the time, I was getting used to recording longer form videos, like 2015, 2016. And then now we have this 15 seconds. I was like, oh my gosh, I have so much to say right now, but there's not that much time. So that's kind of like if you look at the timeline of just Instagram itself, it's. We went from photos to 15 second square videos to then I believe it was 60 seconds square videos. Then there were like life videos and stories got added into the mix. Probably like 2016, 2017, I believe around that time, something like that. So yeah, it was like a lot of changes. And I feel like with social media in particular, there's always something new, right? So we can have an overall strategy. The topics that we talk about, you know, as a business owner, you generally have, you know, Your kind of content pillars, your content buckets, your categories, whatever you want to call them. But then you have to adapt your strategy. You know, okay, now we have Instagram stories, for example. How do I incorporate them into my overall marketing strategy, into all of my content pillars? Then you have, let's say Instagram reels. We got them, what, 2020, something like 2020, 2021. Now we have like, now we have threads that's connected to Instagram that, you know, do we use them? Do we not use them? So that' always say you can't always be like set in stone and just use the 2014 strategy in 2023. It just doesn't work. And I still see surprisingly business owners that really use those outdated, I wouldn't even say strategies, I would say tactics. Because we have like the full on strategy, you know, the content strategy, the social media strategy. But the tactics is the little things that we incorporate. So yeah, I feel like just with those changes, we always have to be kind of on our toes.

Well, one thing I definitely agree is everything's changed and it continues to change. And you know, like, like you mentioned, they've added threads here recently and everybody's kind of, you know, kind of going around trying to figure out how do I add that into my content strategy. So where we are today is 2023 and we know that, you know, course creators and membership owners or online business owners are listening to this. What would you suggest to them, given where we are today in 2023? How should they create their content strategy? How should they go about it?

So the one thing that I will say, I feel like it's very hard these days to just stick to one platform because you know, back in the days that was always the advice. You know, just start with one platform, get really good at it, get consistent and you know, get consistent results and then branch out and add things. Personally, I like, I did do the one platform strategy, but I was always like the curious person. I'm always like, you know, there's so many things that, that are available. Like I kind of want to use, you know, a little bit of that, a little bit of this. I mean, personally worked out for me, for some people, they get like so overwhelmed and distracted. But I've always been the kind of like at least two platform kind of kind of strategy, right? So for me it's always been like a searchable platform strategy, which could be a blog, a YouTube channel or a podcast. It's like your main big long form piece of content that you put out and you're able to be found organically, you know, years to come. Like, I still generate traffic from some of my old blog posts. I still generate traffic from some of my old YouTube videos. You know, that's the power of that, you know, evergreen content. And then social media, you know, you, I would say at least one social media platform these days. So whether that's going to be Instagram or Facebook personal profile or Facebook business page mixed up with ads, or whether that's going to be TikTok. So one evergreen platform where you get found, one social platform where you can get found like today, evergreen where you can get found for years to come. Because again, you put out a podcast and I'm sure destiny, you've experienced the same thing. You put out a podcast and then months later it gets found. You then get a social media message saying, hey, I really, you know, I found this super valuable, blah, blah. And then on social media it's a little bit different. You usually get found, you know, like today you don't have any of those videos that are like ranking. Even though TikTok and Instagram work a little bit differently, they're trying to incorporate those, you know, keywords and search engine. And if you do, for example, recently I was doing a Google search on something and I noticed that Google has a whole section for short form video and it shows, it doesn't show YouTube shorts, it shows TikTok. You know, you would think Google would show its platform, you know, the YouTube shorts. No, it was showing TikTok. So that's kind of, you know, the clue for a lot of content creators, course creators. That's, you know, TikTok is kind of the platform to be. I was always a little bit of, you know, like 5050 on TikTok myself. But you know, there is another kind of strategy that you can use which is multi platform. Let's say if you, if you know somebody's listening right now and they're like, oh my gosh, I don't have the time for a podcast or a YouTube channel or a blog on, or a blog. You can incorporate multiple social media platforms as well. For example, you can start with, you know, the, the top of the funnel, which is like the marketing fundamentals. The top of the funnel could be your TikTok account where you get massive traffic. Because I still feel like Even today in 2023, TikTok gets way bigger reach than Instagram or Facebook or any of these other platforms or threads or whatever. So you can have your top of the funnel can be TikTok, that's where you get discovered. Because on TikTok you do put out a video and then it can, you know, pop in the algorithm two, three weeks later. That's kind of how it works. It kind of acts a little bit of a search engine, but not really kind of more of a short form, short search engine, if that makes sense. And then from TikTok, you obviously can't do a lot of things on TikTok. It's more about the discoverability, Discoverability platform. Then you move people to your Instagram account because at the top of your profile you can have your Instagram page and there, there you can nurture your audience, right? You can put up Instagram stories, you can go live on Instagram, you can go live on TikTok. But I feel like it's a little bit of a different vibe on Instagram. You can be a little bit more promotional. You just have so many more features. I feel like on Instagram, between carousels and life video and stories and a better messaging experience. So that's where you nurture the audience. And then your, so that's your middle of the funnel. It can be Instagram. And then your bottom of the funnel is essentially your email list because you always want to build the platform that you own that no one's going to shut down, take away from you. So essentially you move people through kind of that pyramid, I guess we can say, like, I don't like using that word in marketing, but it kind of looks like a pyramid, I guess. The top of the funnel is TikTok, the middle of the funnel is Instagram, where you build the relationships and the bottom of the funnel is your email list. So that's kind of the strategy I would go for these days.

So I want to go back and talk a little bit more about the long form content that you suggest, which was either a blog, a YouTube or a podcast. And I know you've done blogging in YouTube. Can you talk a little bit more about, are you still doing those? Or do you think that's something that people should do all the time? Or once they build a big base of like blog posts, maybe they get, you know, 150 blog posts, then they can focus more on just publishing content, maybe on social media and sending out emails to their list.

So I would say it depends where you're at in business and how much time and resources you have to put into such platforms. Because when I started, it kind of made sense at the time, like I was in a blogging community and we were all sharing each other's articles and stuff like that. I feel like these days if you, you, you either prioritize long term strategy and long term visibility or you prioritize revenue. And a lot of the times these days I feel like personally I would prioritize revenue which is why I don't do long form content as much because it does take a lot of time for search engines to find your content, to rank it, to put it in front of the right people. So for somebody who is, let's say a course creator that is just starting out, you know, let's say you are in the middle, maybe you're about to launch your product. I would have a website like I would always have that main home, like that main real estate online. Because I still like, I hear a lot of the people these days are like, oh, you don't need a website. And I'm like, you don't need it. But it's nice to have like, it's nice to have your website show up when somebody googles your name. You know, it's nice to have your YouTube channel up there, even if it's going to be, you know, 10 videos that you're going to put out. It's just nice to have a platform like with content that builds your credibility. So that's, that's on that. And then I feel like on social media we have more control over how fast we're able to bring in the revenue into the business. Because through blogging, through YouTube, we can't necessarily message people and have that one on one conversation and figure out what their pain points are, what the problems are, what their goals are. So we don't have that like personalized communication with people. So it always acts as the top of the funnel and moving people from your blog posts, moving people from your YouTube videos over to your social media and to then them being able to connect with you one on one. So I feel like for course creators who are starting out, if you want to prioritize revenue, I would build your social media audience and as you grow the revenue then you add in, let's say YouTube, right? Because I would say YouTube is a lot of work. YouTube in itself can be like a full time job when it comes to, you know, it also depends how many videos are going to put out. But even One long form YouTube video week is, you know, quite a lot of work these days.

And I would agree that YouTube is a lot of work. I personally love podcasting because I think it's, for me it's Just easier to get it out. You know, you and I are recording right now. We're recording this via Zoom. It's easy for me to take this recording, upload it to my podcast platform and publish it and then, you know, put that on my website for the show notes. So let's switch gears just a little bit. And you, you know, you're talking about, let's, let's just talk about Instagram, because I know that the majority of the people listening to this podcast, Instagram is their main content platform. So based on your experience, and I know you run a social media agency based on your experience, what would you suggest that they focus on with Instagram?

Great question. I love Instagram. Some days. Some days I hate it. With how it acts, I'm sure a lot of people can relate, but overall, you know, it's, it's always funny to people say, oh, like I'm gonna like move away from Instagram. Like, no, you won't. Instagram is still, I feel like the go to platform. And I always say to people like, look, when will you go to in person events? I never find myself sharing my link. Well, I do share my LinkedIn a little bit, but I never find myself sharing my threads account or Twitter account or Facebook personal profile. We always exchange Instagrams. So I feel like with that, your Instagram has to be on points. Maybe you're not going to have like the most prettiest feed, like the most esthetically pleasing, you know, home, like your page, but you got to have like a solid strategy of what you're going to share, when you're going to share it, and how often you're also going to show up on Instagram. So I feel like it's a great platform still, regardless of what everybody says, regardless. Like some people say, oh, Instagram is dead. So, and so I'm like, if you say so, like, just like, let, let us be okay. Like, I'm still having a great time on Instagram myself and there's still a lot of business to be made on Instagram. So there's a couple of things that you want to incorporate. Obviously Instagram reels. So. And I would always say you mix it up and try to stay up to date with what's happening because Instagram is Instagram reels. They are a little bit different than TikTok. If you just compare the features. For example, Instagram Reels are 90 seconds long maximum. So that's all you have over there versus TikTok. You have three minutes videos. Some accounts have up to 10 minutes videos right now. So TikTok is trying to become more of a long form video platform on Instagram. The vibe is a little bit different on Instagram. If you just scroll through the reels section, the reels feed, you'll see a lot of, you know, aesthetic videos, a lot of vlogs, you know, those videos like behind the scenes and that kind of stuff. So just scroll through the that if you're absolutely stuck, scroll through that feed and you'll get a bunch of ideas. And I always say, like, save a bunch of videos that you like, that way you can reuse those sounds and those videos are going to be the visibility. So reels, I wouldn't say they're necessarily for converting to leads or converting to customers. You can use those that way. But Instagram reels are always for traffic. You know, like, you want to use the trending sounds, you want to, you know, use the trends, essentially. Like that's still a thing. The other thing that I do like to experiment with myself on Instagram reels, just because there are times when I get tired of the trends and I'm like, oh my gosh, like, everybody's creating this. So tired of this. Like, let me try something else, you know, let me see what other type of content is going to work. And I do like to get on video and actually talk and, you know, have a simple video with captions on the screen and share something valuable. Maybe it could be even a tutorial. Like, I find that tutorials work really well. Whether that's going to be, you know, how to do something on Instagram because, you know, it kind of, it makes sense for me to share, you know, how to add captions to your videos, you know, in three simple steps or something like that. Because the reason for that, for that, the reason why those videos work so well is people share them. So every time I post a tutorial as an Instagram reel, people love that. They share it to their friends and then the video goes a little bit viral, right? So for any course creator that's listening right now, think of what kind of tutorial can I post on my Instagram that's going to be really valuable and would be share worthy, right? So that's something else to kind of spice up your content instead of always sticking to trends and, you know, you want to show up on video yourself as well. Like if you're going to do, you know, some aesthetic kind of videos of like photography or, I don't know, something like that, you also still want to show up on video and actually talk and have people hear your voice. Because these days, with all these trans people do those, you know, voiceovers or, you know, the, you know, the lip syncing, that kind of stuff. And then a lot of creators, you know, it's really funny to say that, but there are some creators that I find on Instagram and I'm like, man, I've never actually heard your voice. Like, how do you, how do you sound? Right? So don't ever, you know, not be on video. Like, you still have to jump on, talk to your audience, also jump on stories and actually share something with your audience because it doesn't always have to be, let me go viral on an Instagram reel. Jump on your story, talk to your existing audience and have people reach out to you. The other strategy that I do like to mix up right now, especially since Instagram did change the algorithm in the last couple of months, they said, okay, we kind of messed up here. We don't want to just prioritize video. You guys can still post carousels and single photo, you know, single photos, right? I'm like, thank God. Because when you just post videos, it's not like, it's not. What's the word I'm looking for? It's not the best way to get to know somebody. You know, when you go to somebody else's Instagram profile and all they post is videos, it's kind of like, I don't know. For me, it's kind of boring because I'm like, oh, my gosh, I just want to see how you write, you know, what kind of sentences you use. Because everybody is all about short form captions these days. So I always say, like, change it up and mix it up and see what kind of response you get. A lot of the times I do a long form caption and I do get a really good response. And then other times, you know, I mean, I don't know about you, but for me, like, I still read long captions because sometimes it's. I don't know. For me, a lot of the times it's easier to consume content in a written format. I don't know about you, Destiny, but, like, I don't always like to watch videos. I'm like, I just want to read something.

Well, I can give you my opinion. I mean, just how I do it. This is just, just for me. I don't watch videos. I don't go on YouTube. I don't watch videos. I don't watch videos on Instagram or social media. But I do like to read, but I also like to listen to podcasts. So it's just, I think it's just a personal preference, you know, and the thing is, and I think everybody in your audience is going to be maybe just a little bit different. Some might like reading, some might like the videos. That's just how it is.

Yeah, exactly. So, and you know, something, something that I do in my particular strategy as well is I'm big on repurposing contents. I feel like it's always a smart way to leverage your time, leverage your, you know, brain in a sense too. I'm like, if I'm going to write a long caption or if I'm going to write a script for a short video that I'm putting up on YouTube or, or and Instagram, then I'm like, well, I can have it in a video format. And I want to tailor my content to different, different learning styles, different content consumption styles. Like you said, you know, I have somebody in my audience who watches an Instagram reel and then I can convert that same video script and I adapt it to an Instagram carousel. Right? So, and I space those posts out by about two to four weeks so it doesn't look like I'm talking about the same thing every single day. So that's something that I do that works really well. So again, like, you have to mix it up these days with content. Do videos, like jump on the video, share your face, share carousels to change it up a little bit, you know, whether it's going to be just like plain black text on a widescreen. I actually sometimes find that works the best instead of, you know, those super, like well designed images and stuff like that, kind of keep it more raw. And then, you know, do you share photos of yourself? Because there are a lot of the times people get so lost in graphics, I'm like, well, I just want to see some freaking pictures of people. Like, you know, that was the old Instagram we've had back in, you know, 2014, 2017, you know, we would all share those like influencer photos and stuff like that. So. Because people do want the human interaction and human connection and like seeing actual photos or even videos of people, that's always great. So yeah, that's kind of been my strategy with, with Instagram.

And I love your philosophy of keeping an open mind, experimenting and just trying things out. And Elena, before we wrap it up here, do you have any last minute tips for the audience?

Last minute tip? Well, if there's one thing that I've always told people is be consistent. And you know, there's a lot of people that want results in business. And, you know, whether you're creating a course or a membership, showing up on social media, you know, be consistent with whatever it is that you're doing. And instead of, you know, jumping from platform to another platform to another platform, choose something and stick to it. I would even say for at least six months, like 90 days is, you know, for the birds. I feel like these days you have to commit to something for six months to make it work and put your blinders on. Don't get distracted with threads or these other apps or something else. You know, if you're gonna go all in on Instagram, you know, building your Instagram, connecting with people there, building your email list, inviting people to join your membership, inviting people to join your course, promoting that way, go all in on, you know, one to two platforms. You know, maybe you're going to go with let's say Instagram and TikTok and that's going to be your jam, Instagram, TikTok and email list and just go for it. And again, keep an open mind. Like, I feel like that's kind of the advice of the day. And be open to experimenting because with content and especially with social media, there's no cookie cutter strategy or, you know, copy paste template. I know people sell templates all the time. The caption templates and the graphic templates and the video templates. I'm like, you can't template your entire business. You essentially have to put your own voice into it. You have to put your own personality into it and be open to change because things are going to change. And you know, like three months from now, from after this podcast, there may be a new social media platform or a new feature on Instagram or something. So. And if there is a new feature on the platform that you're already using, and I'm not talking about a different, like social media platform, try to experiment with that because that's what I found. With Instagram in particular, they laugh when you use the new features. At the time back then it was Instagram reels. Everybody was getting so much traffic and so many leads and so many followers when they were using Instagram reels. So just always experiment because social media and marketing as a whole is all about experimenting and finding what works for you rather than what's, rather than copying what works for some guru online.

And Elena, thank you for sharing all of your knowledge with this and all the tips that you had regarding content strategies but before we leave, can you let folks know where they can find you? And I believe you have a free gift for them also.

Yes, yes. So they can find me on my website@yelena ostrovska.com so I'm sure you're going to have my website in the show notes. I know it's a long name.

Absolutely. We will put the link there.

Yeah. And my Instagram, of course, instagram.com forward slash. Elena Ostrovska and I do have a free gift for coaches, course creators and personal brands that feel a little bit bored with their content. So I've put together a social media content guide with 10 different strategies that you can implement in your business. So it is a free gift that you can get access to in the show notes.

And thank you, Elena, for joining us today. I love chatting with you.

Thank you so much, Destiny. I appreciate that.

Thanks for listening all the way to the end. If you found value in this episode, I'd love a quick review on whatever podcast platform you're listening on. If you don't know what to say in the review, just say, Destiny, I loved your episode on whatever topic you're listening to. This will help us get our content out to more people just like you. Have a great rest of your day and bye for now.