Amp Up Your Instagram - Part 1

Welcome back to the Business Freedom Podcast. Lars Hedenborg here, founder of Real Estate B School, another three part series letting y' all into our inner circle. This next session is from someone who is a pro in the space of Instagram and Clubhouse. And Donna Bowling goes into how to amp up your ig. And I'll tell you all that this is one thing that I have not figured out. And after going through this training that you're about to get access to, you will understand how to use Instagram at a high level to create what you want to create in your business. And so real estate is changing rapidly. The way we succeed today is different from the way we succeeded five or 10 years ago. And Instagram and Twitter, Clubhouse and Facebook and all of that is a key part of it. So this is a pro. You guys are super lucky to get access to this at any point in your journey. Listening to our stuff or engaging with our content. And you want to just understand what it might look like to work with Real Estate B School. If you want to go from slaving in your business to, you know, having a business that serves you financially and gives you time, freedom, go to Rebs Case Study. We just launched our case study program, so it's rebs case study.com and check out what we have to offer. Work with us for free for 30 days. So this is part one of three how to amp up your IG.

All right, welcome back. Our next session, I am super excited about Donna Bolling. Ended up being a friend of mine, but I didn't even really know her like three months ago. She really teaches people how to amp up your presence with social content that really matters to people that you're trying to attract. So it's a perfect session for us as Realtors because we're trying to juggle different social platforms and what works and how not to get sucked in. And she really helps individuals and businesses with their presence and ideal client. So Donna is a business and motivational coach, helping people gain confidence, take action, show up, and stand out on Instagram and Clubhouse. She's a former casting director in la and Donna has discovered talent for Disney, Nickelodeon, abc, mtv, Fox and more. She has two young boys and truly understands what it's like to build a business and show up consistently while balancing life. Her energy and vulnerability are contagious and you'll always be able to trust that Donna's going to keep things real, making her a bestie in business that you'll ever have. She's the host of Amp It Up. Podcast where she inspires women with tangible, actionable advice on how to show up, stand up, stand out, and start their business. You can follow Donna on Instagram at this is donna bowling.com and donna is spelled D A N A. But you will see daily motivation and really understanding how to grow your business on Instagram. So, Donna, I am so excited to have you here. Let me pin you. There we go. Gotta remove Lars. All right, awesome. Thank you so much for being here.

I guess I have to unmute to talk, right? That probably would help. Hi, everyone. I am so happy to be here. I absolutely adore Stacey. She's amazing. I'm going to have to separate my dogs because normally I'm in my office, but today I had a little bit of a scheduling snafu with my kids. So I'm working from home. So if you hear some growling, it's not, you know, it's not me, it's my dogs. I am so excited to be here. I have a little bit of a presentation that kind of outlines my five step framework for nailing Instagram. But then I would love to answer any questions Stacey gave you a little bit of my background and what I do and how kind of I started this whole world and it's been a journey. I will say this one thing. Well, I'll get into it, actually, I'll get into it in the presentation. Let me get through the presentation as fast as I possibly can so that we can really get right to questions. Because I believe in the power of getting the questions answered. So I'm going to share my screen just to my presentation, and if someone could just give me a little bit of a thumbs up that you see it. Okay. I see Lars and Stacy. We're good. Okay. So Amp up your IG is the program that I teach when it comes to Instagram. AMP for me, is my brand across the board. My podcast is called Amp it Up. I have Amp up your clubhouse, which is a whole other thing that I really, truly believe in. But this is not about clubhouse. This is about Instagram. And I have Amp up your reels, which is an Instagram video. It's like short form video on Instagram. So amp stands for ambitious, motivated and positive. And that's kind of my thing. I really, really try to bring that energy to everyone that I speak to. So let's get started. I just want to let you guys know a little bit about my story. It's kind of small. I hope you guys can see it, but I'll read it out loud so I started my. I was a casting director, like Stacey said, for many years, for 15 years. And I discovered some of the biggest Disney stars. But I was unhappy with it. I didn't love it, and I wanted to do my own thing. So I started my coaching business literally from my bed in 2017. I had a complete, like, full fever. I remember I was really sick the day I started my business, and I just decided I'm going to do it. And I announced it on Facebook, I built a website and talked about it, and then I booked my first client that day. And within 18 months, I had six figures, pretty much cash, because I had no overhead, I was working from home and I had a little va. And the reason is because of Instagram. So I really, truly believe that if you embrace Instagram for your businesses, doesn't matter what your business is. Obviously you guys are Realtors and in that world. And I truly, I've helped so many people in your world. Instagram is where it's at. There's a lot of other places, too, but we're talking Instagram. And I want you guys to go all in if you're not already. So Here are my 5 Cs of Instagram that I talk about in my programs and also just in general, clarity, content, confidence, community and conversions. And I'm going to go into them right now. So the first is clarity. Okay. So I'm going to, you know, you're going to have access to these slides later, I imagine, Stacy, so hopefully that will help a little bit. But I just want to kind of explain to you a little bit about the general look of an Instagram page. This is my page a few months ago, because of the power of Clubhouse, which I don't know if you've heard about Clubhouse, I'm now almost double the followers because of Clubhouse in three months. So if you're looking to grow, we can talk about Clubhouse another time. But here on Instagram, you have your profile picture. Right here you have your profile name, which is the black bolded, right here. Your call to action is your link that you're going to send people to. Up here is your username. These are two separate things. You don't want your username and your profile name to match because those are both searchable on Instagram. So this is. I can go really deep into this and I'll talk about it for a little bit. But right now I'm just going to say that you don't. If it says Donna Coaching, which is, like I said, this is my older Profile, I change it to this is Donna Bowling, but Donna coaching. Shouldn't also be Donna coaching here, because it's a waste of space. These are the only two sections that you can search on Instagram. So for example, up here it could say, this is Donna Bowling. And here it could say Instagram and clubhouse Coach. Okay? Then you have your bio, this little section right here. And then here are your highlights. Okay. And then, of course, here are your feed posts. We'll get into it a little more. So let's talk about how to develop clarity in your business. And I should say, not even your business. I'm talking specifically Instagram, because obviously that's so difficult. But with your Instagram account, you have that little area of your bio, and it's really important to nail it, because you want someone to come over to your Instagram account. If you get tagged on something and you want them to immediately, within three seconds, decide, like, yep, I'm following that person. They're speaking to me. So you want to be really clear that you're talking about what do you do, who do you help and how do you help them? And also what helps is if you have some sort of unique value in your business. So if you guys are all Realtors, obviously you're not all the same. Just because you're a Realtor doesn't mean you operate the same example. I'm an Instagram coach. There's dozens of Instagram coaches out there. I am very different than all of them, even though we teach the same thing, even though we have the same goal. So you really want to hone in on that, whatever that is that makes you unique. So I'm just going to say about a few ways that you can really optimize your bio. And like I said, you're going to have access to this. Your profile picture should be of your face. I don't care if you work for a company, it should not be a logo, it should be of your face. Because Instagram does not work well for brands as much as it does for personalities. People sign up for Instagram and connect on Instagram because they want to see you. Not a picture of a house or not your logo. You can have that in addition. But to really grow, you want it to be you. Like I said, your username is where it's like, at. So at. This is Donna Bollinger, your profile name. Like I said, it should be different and usually can include some keywords, some searchable keywords. Your bio is that I help statement that I just said, I Help blank to do blank. And I'll talk about it a little more. Your call to action is the link. So basically, if you guys have. I would not just have your website, I would have some sort of an opt in where you can grab an email address or something where maybe you have a free piece of content or. Or something very specific. Because a lot of people just say, you know, their website link, but it doesn't actually make anyone want to click to the website. People don't go to websites that much anymore. People are using social media as websites. So you want to be really clear. If you want someone to actually go somewhere, you have to make it kind of juicy. For example, let's see what I have back here. Oh, I have like a specific amp up your clubhouse in this picture. But right now I have. Let's go to second base. And it's like my landing page with all my links. So it's just kind of fun and like it's catchy a little bit. And then finally, those highlights, if you remember these, they should be categories that you're speaking about. So some people use it as like a navigation page on their website, like home or about me services, testimonials, I don't know, previous sales or whatever. You could also have your content pillars, which we'll talk about more, which is what I do. Okay, I'm going to give you guys this later and you can use this to help you kind of build your perfect bio, just to have kind of all your information in there. Okay, so let's now talk about number two, which is content. All right, you guys, I hope it's not too small, but like I said, you'll have options to look at this later. So there's four main ways to show up on Instagram. There's your feed post, which is when you look at Instagram, all the pictures. Okay? Your feed posts, they're static images or carousel posts. Carousels are when you can kind of swipe through. I don't know if you guys are like under or have seen those that are meant to serve your audience and they live on your feed. They don't go away. Okay. If you're trying to grow your business, you should be posting on your feed every day. But I'm going to be a little bit nicer and say four to five times a week. Okay. In fact, if you really want to grow, you should be posting two or three times a day. That's not gonna happen very easily unless you have a lot of help with content. So some people hire social Media managers for stuff like that. But it's really hard to grow if you're posting once a week. Okay, stories is the second most important thing. Well, I would say this. Stories are more important than anything when it comes to being on Instagram because stories are how you really nurture and connect to your current audience. So it's meant to serve, educate and entertain your current audience and you should be doing them daily. And if you guys have any kind knowledge on Instagram, when you're looking at an Instagram page, like if you go to my Instagram page right now, you would see this red circle. Do you see that red circle around my picture? The reason why it's red is because that means I have a story in the last 24 hours. After 24 hours, they disappear. If that circle is not read on your profile at all times, it looks to me and to probably your typical customer that the shop is closed, meaning they're not active here on Instagram. I don't need to follow them because why do people want to follow someone if they're not constantly showing up? The storytelling part of stories is very, very important. Don't just do a random picture of a coffee and then a random picture of a house and then tell a story throughout the day. Use some consistency. If you watch my stories, you'll see that every single day. You'll see my workout in a time lapse. That's like a daily thing for me and it's one of my content pillars, which I'll get into in a second. Okay, reels. If you guys don't know what reels are, it's basically Instagram's version of TikTok short form video. You have to incorporate reels if you're trying to grow. Because Instagram favors reels heavily. They're 15 to 30 second videos that are meant to serve and educate and entertain. You do not need to dance. You do not need to point to words. You can just talk. If you watch my reels, you can see I have many that I'm just teaching. It's all about those quick cuts. I have a course called Amp up your reels that kind of teaches like it's a digital course. It teaches the technicality. So if you're interested in learning actually how to create the reels, I can walk you through that. But for this, this is just a really important thing. And what's really cool is that when you create a reel, it shows up on your feed as a feed post. So it can be replacing any of your static posts. So Just say if you wanted to do like two static pictures a week, and then two reels a week. Now you have four posts a week. Okay. And trust me, don't get overwhelmed. I can walk you through it. And then finally, there's going live on Instagram, which Instagram really loves. Instagram pushes your lives out to everyone consistently. You'll get notifications that people are live. It's the first picture when you open Instagram. They like it. And you know what? My lives used to gain not a lot of attention. And lately, when I go live, I have instantly 30 plus people that just watch the entire time and cycle through those. So like, 200 people are watching my live in and out for the. For the 10 minutes, and then I'll get like 2,000 views on it over the next 24 hours. So it's great content. It's a really good way to just teach something. Or you can have some sort of, you know, interview, because you can do up to four people on an Instagram live right now. Finally, there's four types of content that should fit in these categories. And we can get into this another time. But connecting content, which is relatable content, where I tell you a story about maybe my struggle or my journey for you guys. Maybe you're telling a story about a client of yours who struggled to buy a house, and then they did. Then there's coaching content, which is teaching something. For example, three ways to save money to buy your next home. Then there is cultivating content, which I call. I call it cultivating because I needed a C. But it's like any of those quotes or tweets that people share so that you're growing a community. And finally, there's convincing, which is sales posts, which are basically saying, like, I have a service. I. You can purchase something from me. Does anyone have any questions or should I just keep going, Stacy, until the end?

Yeah, go ahead, Keep going. And then we'll do questions at the end.

Okay, awesome. All right, so let's talk about content pillars really fast. Content pillars are the three to five topics that you're talking about regularly. I'm gonna have to. I'm gonna have to do something with my dogs. Give me one second, you guys. I'm so sorry.

And if you guys have any questions as she's going through, just type them into the chat and then we'll have her answer them at the end. Yes. The copy of this recording will be in the member portal for you. And also she's going to give us the slides, which will have documents or you saw the page where you could, like, fill out profile and you know what your content pillars are. So she'll have that all ready for us.

Yep. So my content pillars that I talk about every single day on Instagram, whether it's on my feed, in a reel on my lives and stories usually falls under these categories. I talk about Instagram, so Instagram tips. I talk about Clubhouse, which is a social media app, audio only social media app. I talk about movement, meaning how important exercise is to me and how I do it every day for my happiness. I talk about mindset. So I have a lot of. A lot of content that's really into just like motivational type stuff. And then I talk about my life, being a mom. And, you know, maybe that means showing some stories about me dancing with my kids in the backyard. I have a lot of stuff like that. Or me drinking a glass of wine, you know, so. Or going to sushi. Like, those are my five content pillars. How to find your content pillars. Think about this. Think about what you like to talk about, what your audience is asking for, and what content performs well for you. So, like, you know, you could be a Realtor and your content pillars can be, you know, real estate, obviously, the local city that you live in. Like, stuff about that, being an entrepreneur. Talking about, you could talk about, you know, mortgage. Like, that could be a fourth one. And the fifth one could be being a dad. Like, it really depends. You don't have to have five. I have five. You could have three. But you just want to be consistent. You don't want to feel like your Instagram page is your grandma's, you know, collage book. You want to feel like it is not spaghetti being thrown at the wall. You want to feel like people come to your Instagram page, they know exactly what they're getting there. Got it. Okay. I'm saying got it. I see three of you. I hope you guys got it. I don't know.

I hope you have enjoyed hearing from Donna Bolling, the expert, the authority on how to amp up your ig. And I've mentioned it before, and I'll mention it again, if you're at the point in your journey where you want to get access to the best of the best in areas of physical fitness and wellness and social media and how to amp up your social media platforms. And hear from our best members about how they went from solo aging, grinding 70 hours a week to taking 15 weeks of vacation a year. Or our member, John Michish, who lives in Bozeman Montana and runs a business that sells hundreds of homes per year in Charlotte, North Carolina. Go to Rebscase study.com r e b s case study.com to learn more about our case Study program how you can work with us for free and without any risk. So go to rebskstudy.com we'll see you over there. Thanks for listening to the Business Freedom Podcast. If you're getting value from the podcast, would you please leave us a five star review and share it with others who might benefit from from the content I'm sharing? And if you're ready to scale your real estate business sustainably and profitably, there are a couple options for you. If you're doing under 500,000 in annual GCI, our business foundations Program is for you. Head over to getbusinessfoundations.com that's getbusinessfoundations.com and learn how you can make the shift from overwhelmed real estate agent to true business owner. If you're doing more than 5, 500,000 in annual Team GCI, there's our graduate program designed for top producers and team leaders who want to grow their team and scale their business. If that's you, go to realestatebschool.com and apply for a free Business Growth Strategy session. No matter where you are in your business growth journey, we have the tools, systems, strategies, training and coaching to get you where you want to be. Remember, only you can create your future, so take action now.