Why Your Content Isn’t Getting Noticed (And How to Fix It) with Katelyn Rhoades
Katelyn Rhoades breaks down the Visibility Gap framework that moves creators from invisible to inconsistent to visible and selling. Carousel posts and strong hooks matter more than you think, and the 70/30 split between growth and sales content actually works. She shares workflow shortcuts like Canva templates and how to handle the emotional weight of building in public.
Chapters
You have Forbes, Meta, Adobe, millions of views. I wanna know what type of content actually created all of that.
Everyone thinks you have to be yapping to camera. No, you don't. What has actually worked for me is— so I need you guys to know there is not one way to win social.
Kaitlyn, welcome to the podcast!
Welcome, welcome! Hello, thank you for having me.
So excited. So we got to go, we had a little dinner last night, so we did a little pre-party. We did pre-party podcast.
We had so much fun.
Maybe a couple cocktails infused in there.
Maybe prepped us half cocktails because you and Kaylee are weenies.
Okay, here's the thing, you just keep splitting a cocktail until you've had your fair share, and I think maybe you guys did, but no one's judging.
We really did.
I've done this with a couple friends where I'm like, here's what we'll do is we'll just keep splitting cocktails. So we're like, no, I'm just having half a cocktail.
And the waitress was fine with it.
She was great. She loved it.
Well, because it's your place too.
It is my, it is like my hood. Like that is the place that I love to go. I like know people's names there.
It was delicious.
I'm so glad. I'm so glad that you flew in. Yes. I'm really excited. This will be such a fun conversation because I get to work with you. You work with us on my social media.
Yes.
Which is so much fun. We love that we get to chat with you every couple weeks and come up with some fun strategies. You guys, pretty much behind a lot of the carousels that you see on my page is you and your brain. And you've also gotten me so excited about doing them just because you've made it a lot more fun. Truly. Like working with you has made it so much more fun. And I think it's because of the person that you are, but also the way that you look at it and the way that you're kind of, you know, describing it and how we're going to talk about it today. That is the goal. Is to make this feel fun again, make this feel easy for people.
Yes.
And I just don't think they're that far away from where they want to go if they're going to infuse some of the things that you are going to say in some of your strategies.
Yeah, so I'm super excited and I'm passionate about it, so I'm gonna make you guys passionate about it.
Okay, let me just say the biggest differentiating factor of you and everybody else that I've ever worked with. Okay, you have great social media yourself.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
And you have a great page, you have great numbers, you're growing.
Mm-hmm.
You do the do. Mm-hmm. You literally are doing the work for yourself every day.
Yes.
And I've always said to people, I'm like, okay, my social media's not working. And I look at their page, I'm like, you have 200 followers.
Yeah.
Why am I having you run all of this?
Yeah.
You know? And that happens a lot, unfortunately. Or they have big agencies of people who have never had their own good social media.
Mm-hmm.
You guys, that is such a clue for when you're trying to work with someone. It doesn't mean it can't work.
Yeah.
But if you really want someone who's looking for their own trends, who's looking for their own pillars, who's looking for their own things that are working and strategies and understands, hey, I don't know if this works for me. I, it may not work for you either. Here's what worked for me. That's really what is going to change the game. So, you know, I think the first thing that I wanna start with is you told me that you figured out one strategy. That built Forbes features, brand partnerships, and a full client roster that really put you on the map, and you never once had to talk it into your phone. So first I want to know, who were you before you figured this out?
I love that, that girl before she figured it out. So I was the girl that was stuck in a corporate job. I'd have to ask for time off, asked if I could go to my child's awards programs, um, I'm the doctor, all the things. And I'm like, I'm getting— I was, I think I was nearing the age of 30, and I'm just like, I'm tired of asking for permission for everything. And I was really good at my craft at that point. So by this time, I'd been working in corporate for like 10 years, and I worked for a lot of different marketing agencies. I learned Facebook ads, I had learned marketing, I had learned graphic design, all the things. So I knew I was at that, you know, the ledge of like, okay, I think I could do this on my own. So my husband and me are sitting down one night and he's like, all right, if you want to go all in on this, we can go all in on this. You got 6 months.
Oh my God.
So I had a time limit. I did not have the luxury that a lot of people have where they can hop into social media and say, oh, I'm just going to see what happens and try to figure it out. Like, nope. I didn't have that luxury to figure it out, so I got highly obsessive about everything I did on there. I started posting, well, why did this work? Why did this one bomb? What was the hook on this one? What format was this? And I kind of took it from there. But in the beginning, that girl was just at her breaking point to where she's like, I know I'm meant for more, and I know I want to start this business, so I've got to go do it.
How are you feeling every day during that? Because I really want to— I want to like get into your brain there because I know it's It's so much even more than what you just said, and I wanna dig into that because if somebody's listening, like, I think you and I get them so deeply.
Mm-hmm.
Like, what do you think is happening in their life right now? What are their daily thoughts? How are they on Instagram? What are their thoughts when they're on Instagram? Like, what's going on?
Hmm. I know for me, I had knots in my stomach. Mm-hmm. Because, because of the unknown. And then I also had all of these people on Instagram saying, here's how you do it. Mm-hmm. This is the way that you do it.
So overwhelming.
And then I, I look at that and I'm like, but I'm not a natural yapper. Like, I don't, I don't naturally talk to a camera. I can't tell a story that way, but I'm really good writer, or I'm a really good graphic designer, or I can like document my life. So someone out there right now who's thinking about this and who's like, oh, I want to post on social media, Instagram, TikTok, whatever it might be, like, I need you to know that you do not have to fit into a box of what everyone else says. Now I have figured out what works. Obviously I've grown my own page. I grow people like Lori's. I mean, when we first started working together, we were like, boom baby, getting some good engagement in there. We had some followers going off. And I do that for my clients because I know what works. But it's not always what everyone says. You have to really lean into what are you naturally good at.
Uh-huh.
So where do you think this person, this literal person that we're going to talk to today what are they doing right now? Like, are they working at a corporate job, or are they— have they already started something?
Yeah, so I do think that there's two different women here. There's women like me who, right before I left corporate, I was like, okay, what if I were to dabble in it? So like, you're thinking about it, you're thinking of what could be, you're thinking of that freedom that you could have, you're thinking of that more money that you could be making, you're thinking of that happiness and living on your terms. Or those— there's women out there that are— have already started their business, and they're probably one of the best-kept secrets in their industry because they're not showing up online, and they're not— they don't care about visibility. They don't think that it's important, or they know that it's important, but they just— they don't have the time. They don't know how to show up. They get on there and they kind of freeze. Um, so I think there are a couple different paths that these women could be on, but they're all struggling with the same thing and it's like they're kind of frozen. Like, what do I do next?
Uh-huh. I'll, I'll share one more for you because I was your avatar and I still am, is I'm showing up, but I'm not quite understanding what's working for my audience yet and myself to show up because I don't know what's— I haven't found my rhythm yet. I am very multi-passionate and doing too many things can be confusing for my audience. So, The thing that I want to also say is like, this takes time. Like, I've been working with you for a while, and I feel like we've gotten some major wins, and I've gotten some incredible clarity, and I'm still working on it.
We're still, we're still working. We're still working. I think what we started probably, I think it was like August or September, and we're still working through what works and what doesn't. But we've had a lot of good wins.
Yep.
And then we'll also sometimes we'll post something, we'll be like, well, Fridays aren't our days, you know, like we will we figure it out. But what I noticed with you, you're right, you have so much going on and you're so good at what you do and you have these amazing businesses, you don't have time to be like, oh, what's trending today, Caitlyn? Like, no, that's where I can come in and tell you kind of like, hey, I've already done the research here, here's what you should be doing. Um, but yeah, there's, there's women out there like you that just don't have the time to figure out why things were working. And when I first started working with you, your stuff was already doing well. But it was really nice to go in there and, and see patterns for you and bring those up to you and say, hey, actually, you know what's really working for you right now? It was really fun for me to do that with you.
And I didn't take the time to even know what to look for. So the whole thing felt, honestly, it felt bad because I wake up and every morning it's like I'll read and then I'll try to scroll to learn and then try to post something. But the more that I would scroll, the more confused I'd get because I'd go down a rabbit hole of should I be doing this? Should I be yapping? Should I be carouseling? You know, I want people to get into my programs. And so this feels like I'm just talking and wasting, you know, the energy and the space and the posts for the day rather than wanting to get people enrolled in my programs. It can get like so noisy in your head.
Yes. That you—
for me, I was freezing.
Yes. Like absolutely freezing.
And so one of the biggest things with working with someone like you is to just have a sounding board. 'Cause as much as AI is awesome.
Mm-hmm.
It still doesn't help you weed through what they see as well. Like, it's like you were able to go and see like, hey, I think this really works for you. I think people might be following you for this because I follow you for this, or this is what I see. And so it's been really powerful because the whole thing is, the whole thing is all learning. It's all learning. And to have somebody to kind of just be walking by your side for all of it, um, you know, the one thing I want to say about social is so much of it can— like, you've, you've taken the wheel on so much of it being done for me, but I also think some of the most powerful socials when the person can be involved as well.
Absolutely.
That's like changed my entire life of, okay, what are my thoughts truly on a weekly basis that I can then help you put out to the world without me having to touch it as much, right?
Right.
That's been life-changing, because then it's been more humanized too for you that way. Totally.
And like, Lori's just a really great, funny person to watch too. Like, people—
stop going—
people, people like that about you, so they want to see the behind the scenes. I tell her all the time, guys, like we need more behind the scenes of what you're doing, we need more of you talking and doing this. But, but again, you're busy too.
About having somebody.
Yeah.
Is to me, I'm like, why would anybody wanna see that?
Oh, that's what we want.
So you really come in and help with that.
Good.
In a huge way for people because it's like, oh no, I had no idea that's what they'd wanna see.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
Okay. So you've been this girl before, like in a major way. And you said that like, this has felt awful for you.
Mm-hmm.
But you've also had this point where you feel like you hacked the system. Can you tell me about that?
Yes. Like I said, I didn't have a whole lot of time to test, so I had to be completely obsessed with it for a little bit. Also, guys, like, my business that, that I started was a social media agency, so I will give myself that. Um, I know some of you, like, you might have a fitness studio, so that's nothing like social media, so you know nothing about it. So I, I had to learn that stuff. When I say I hacked the system, there's, there's 3 parts to that, right? So I call it the visibility gap, and stage 1 of that is you're invisible. Nobody knows who you are. You're not showing up. Stage 2 is you're showing up, but you're inconsistent. Mm-hmm. So you're not really giving your followers anybody to believe in or trust. Mm-hmm. And then there's stage 3. You are visible, you're showing up, they start buying from you cuz they trust you.
Mm-hmm.
But the scariest part of those stages is stage 2. Where it's not— it's— most people will be like, no, the scariest part is just being invisible. No, the scariest part is you showing up but being so inconsistent that they don't trust you anymore, and now they're never gonna buy from you. And then guess what? Like, you're doing this all for nothing. You're frustrated. You think you're putting in the work and you're getting nothing out of it. So like, I think it was a blessing in disguise when my husband gave me that ultimatum of like, you gotta go all in and do this. Cuz I didn't have a choice if I was gonna show up every day. It was like, all right, you're gonna show up every day. You're gonna be visible and you're gonna learn as you go what, what resonates, what doesn't. And, and since then, like I started doing this in 2021 is when I started posting really hard to Instagram. So what, that's been 5 years that I've been learning this stupid algorithm and hacking the system. And I truly do, I can tell you what will work and what won't. Work for people because you were—
you're in it.
I'm in it.
That's the power of you growing your own is because you are literally in the weeds. And that's everything I've ever taught has been because I literally lived it. Otherwise I wouldn't actually understand how to fully teach it.
And going back to where you said, you know, you've hired people before who didn't even have a following and they're doing social media— like, some people might get mad at me saying this too, but I don't think there's any excuse for you if, if that's what you're trying to do. You're trying to build personal brands, you have to walk the walk and do it too, because guess what? That's going to give your clients the best results too, is you testing things for them. So I just wanted to note that.
No, I love that.
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So you have Forbes, Meta, Adobe, millions of views. I wanna know what type of content content actually created all of that.
Okay, this is so funny because I'm telling you, like, since day one everyone has always told me you need a microphone, you need to be talking to the camera, um, if you want to be an industry expert. Always since the beginning, you need to show up, face the camera, and you need to be talking to them. Now even, even more so this year, something went viral. This lady launched something and she had this gap challenge, and so it's even more viral right now that you have to be yapping. Everyone thinks that you have to be yapping to camera. No, you don't. And let me tell you this, all of my yapping videos that I do try to do are the lowest performing reels for me.
It's so interesting.
And I'm like, you guys are all liars because you're telling me if I just show up, I'll go viral. But where's my virality? And you know what, it's because I'm not a natural yapper. That's not what I'm good at. And I know there's women out there that are listening to this and they're like, oh my God, I've been trying to make myself talk to this camera and I'm just not that person.
A lot of people they're like mortified by the thought of it.
Yeah, and that's okay to feel that way. I feel that way. Um, what has actually worked for me is carousels, and that's actually what I mainly do for, for Lori. Like, I'll do some reels for her too, but the carousels just always pop off. There's a couple of reasons why I think carousels work too. There's a story to be made. You've got a couple of different posts where they start with this pain point or hook, and then they're reading through, they're spending time on the post. They're getting to the end and hopefully you've got a really strong call to action in there at the end and they're commenting and engaging. So the algorithm in the background, they're watching how long these people are staying on this carousel. Mm-hmm. They're seeing if they're commenting on it. They're seeing if they swipe back to another slide. So I need you guys to know there is not one way to win social. There's your way to win. And, but you have to decide what is your most natural, best way to show up for people. Mm-hmm. And one more thing I'm gonna note. I'm looking very fly today, um, if I do say so myself. But I never look like this. I am typically in a trucker's hat with an oversized t-shirt. So I knew for myself— remember how I told you I was on this timeline? I knew I couldn't get to the finish line that fast. I wasn't going to be able to show up online like looking like that all the time. Yeah, you know, it would have had to taken me like getting my— for me to feel comfortable. You don't have to do this, but for me to feel comfortable I would've had to do my hair, do my makeup. So I knew that wasn't gonna get me to where I needed to go.
Know thyself.
Know thyself. What are you, how, how should, how do you want to show up?
Mm-hmm. Let's dig into carousels for just a little bit cuz there's like so many different formats and short carousels can work. Long carousels can work. Mm-hmm. Can we kind of talk through like a time and a place for each of them? Yeah. Or which short carousels How do they serve a purpose? Longer carousels, what do you think?
Yeah, and I like having this conversation with you because at the beginning there was even sometimes when I would make a super long carousel for you guys and you would be like, why is this so long? And then I'd explain why, the thought process there. It kind of depends. So I'm a big trendy girly.
Yep.
So I'm always looking at like what's trending. So like if there's a specific carousel template that's trending that only requires 3 templates, I'm going to say, hey, let's use this template because it's tried and tested. I've seen the results from it. It works. If you're teaching something, or we'll do something for Lori called like these girlfriend posts, because one of her pillars is the girlfriend time and surrounding yourself with the right people in proximity. When we do those girlfriend posts, we have to take up a little bit of a longer carousel because we want to make sure we're getting all the value in there. Yeah. If you've got something to say, but you're just using ChatGPT and it's super fluffy and you've only got 3 slides, what kind of value are you bringing me? Yeah. There's nothing there. So I think it really depends on what it is. Like, are you trying to get engagement and get people to like and comment on your stuff? Or are you trying to make a sale?
Mm-hmm.
Or are you trying to just give as much value as possible? Or are you trying to share something that's share-worthy that you wanna go viral, that you want people to share and get more views on? So it really depends on what your goal is. Mm-hmm. That's gonna really decide what kind of carousel I'm gonna go with.
Totally. I, I've seen super short ones work. I've seen, I mean, I think I have one on my page that's 18. Wow, long.
Yeah, because you can do up to 20. Yes. And see, like, crushed it. Your story needed that.
Yeah.
Can you imagine jamming your story into 3 slides and then making people understand what you're— like, what your true story is in 3 slides? Do you think you could do that?
No, never.
Or, or it would be ugly, probably, with a crap ton of paragraph and text. So you got to think about that too. Like, is it aesthetically pleasing too, where someone's going to stop and read? Because if Lori were to take that 18-slide carousel, make it into 2 slides, I'm probably going to keep scrolling because I ain't reading that essay, Lori. Yeah, but if you broke it up for me, you got my attention.
Now, the great thing about carousels that I've— that I learned so much from that story one was they can be as long as you want if it is valuable, exactly like you said. And also, there's so many hooks on it. You can make each sentence start with a hook.
Which you should.
Yep. Each sentence start with a hook on the top so they want to keep reading. And then also the visual hook is the photo. So every photo— I know a lot of people do the same photo throughout, and if the info is really, really good, yeah, that's, that's fine.
That's okay. Yeah.
But if you can create visual hooks on every single slide, like that one, the reason that people stayed on that one for so long is because it's my— it's photos that they don't normally see, and it's like your childhood, and it's, it's a visual storytelling of your, you know, of your life.
Yep.
And I think that if you are to always like do almost like a transformation through photos as well, mm-hmm, from I was here and I went to here, and you show that visually, but then also contextually with hooks on each.
Yep.
It's like there's no reason that if you learn how to do that really well, I do believe it's just as good as face to camera.
1000%. And it might even be better. Well, I'll say this, it might be better for someone like me. I can't talk on the spot, but if you give me a second to plan it out, my carousel will be way better about this certain subject versus me talking on camera because I feel like I gotta rush it, or I almost feel like I have to perform, and then I'm not my genuine authentic self. So, but that's just me. So again, you have to figure out what works for you.
Okay, so tell me, when you say there's certain templates, like, explain that. To people who don't understand what we're even looking at.
Well, also there's some new stuff going on today. I saw, um, Instagram just released a new update to where they're going— this is a carousel that they're going to let you do a different caption for each slide. So I'm excited to test that for you. And I'm thinking out loud, this is me brainstorming to you guys very rawly, but I'm thinking if there's a new caption for each picture, does that mean we can keep the picture the same, or do we need to change up that picture and tell it? I don't know, I'm just gonna have a lot fun figuring that one out. So I'll get back to you guys on that. But when it comes to the template, again, it depends on what your goal is. Do you want to be seen? Do you want to make sales? Do you want engagement? I mean, I would come up— I would figure out what— which one of those 3 goals are you going for? And then from there, I would— that's when I would decide, okay, if we want to do the meme shareable stuff, then we're probably gonna do like the little video, you know, like the memes where it's the little short Giphy, the GIFs or whatever that is. That might be a different carousel for the memes that are share-worthy, that we get people to share because they're funny. It really depends on what we're talking about here because we could also, which do really well for Lori too, is the carousels with the quotes. And those are the same. It's not necessarily a different, um, photo slide or photo each time. It's just a different quote.
Correct.
Um, and people resonate with a different quote out of all that, and so it gets shared a lot too. So I guess it really depends on what goal you're looking for.
Let's talk about— you've been talking about seen. What is it?
Seen, shared, get seen, get shared, sales.
Yeah, tell me about that. Okay, how do we know and what should our mix be of that throughout the week, do you think?
Yeah, so I divide content up into two different things. Either we're going for sales or we're going for growth, because growth content, growing your page, that type of content is very different.
Totally.
From Lori being like, hey, we're launching this offer, because one, we're asking people for money me. The other one, we're just trying to reach the masses.
Yep.
So you really need to decide first and foremost which one you're doing there. So if, let's say, Lori was like, hey, this week let's just kind of focus on growing my page, so we would then probably look at, okay, what is growth content? That would be memes, share-worthy content, quotes, carousels, fun trendy carousels. If you are like, um, I really need to make some sales this week, let's look into you know, the sales type of content. From there, we would probably do like testimonial type carousels where we're— and when, when I say testimonials, guys, we ain't doing the screenshot Google anymore and put that on a pretty template. We're telling a story of how Jane went from XYZ to Z through this and this, and we tell the story of her transformation, and then we sell at the end. Um, so it really depends what goal they're looking for. And that's going to lead us down the right path of what carousel we pick. Okay. Oh, and let me also note, yes, little tip here, um, when you are doing carousels, if you add trending audio to those carousels, they do have the chance to be shown on the Reels tab, which is very good, um, because we all know it's been said that Instagram, the algorithm pushes Reels. I truly believe they push Reels and carousels equally at this point because I'm just seeing so much better traction on carousels. But you will get more visibility on your carousel if you add trending audio because you can land on the Reels tab. Mm-hmm. So that just gets you extra traction.
When you first meet with someone and start setting them up, what does that all look like? It's like, how do you kind of take an assessment of everything, get their goal? Like if I came to you and I was like, okay, like I wanna grow and I wanna make sales. Mm-hmm. So what should our focus be and where do we start? Do you do pillars? What does that all look like?
Absolutely. Yeah. So first off, we would, um, try to put together, like, we'd make sure that you had a brand kit in place because I do think it's important if you want to be taken seriously on this app, you have to have some kind of aesthetic where people will start recognizing your brand. Um, so we'll make—
you help with that?
We, we do.
Claude can really help with that too.
Claude can help with that, honestly. Like, if someone comes to me and like, I already have a brand kit, I'm like, praise Jesus, because at the end of the day, we're social media girlies. We're, we're going to strategize If you need a brand kit, we can help you with it, but I would rather you come to me.
No, come with a brand kit.
Come with your brand kit because there are amazing brand people out there.
Mm-hmm.
Once you've got that in place though, then we're going to say, okay, what are your goals here? You're gonna tell me what your offer is, and then we're gonna come up with your different pillars. Because if all you're doing ever on social media is trying to sell, you might make some sales, but you're never gonna nurture an audience or a community. Yeah, totally. You're never gonna do that. So even if you did come to me and say you want to make sales, I'll be like, okay, then we'll do 50% sales, 50% growth, and then from there we'll come up with your content pillars. Okay, Lori, what are you passionate about? Can we talk about some of your pillars? Yeah, I mean, we can at least talk about in the beginning because now we're kind— I feel like we're, as we've worked together, we start to pivot and we start to learn, oh wait, maybe this is a new pillar that we like better. But I think in the beginning I think in the beginning it was like Glossier. We might have even had some fitness, but I don't— maybe not.
I think we might have because we wanted to incorporate it with Glossier.
So entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship, friendship, or girlfriends, friendship.
Yep. Um, like relationships. So Chris and I, huge pillar on there, working together.
Oh my God, Chris. Anytime Chris— I'll pay Chris to get on her Instagram because he gets her all the likes.
He was just home every day. We would just— I would be like at a million followers. I really would.
I'm not even kidding.
There's something every time it pops off. So every time—
I love that though. Um, okay, entrepreneur, Glossier, friendship, and probably— and that's probably— and then the, like, the self-development, like, quotes. Like, I remember at the beginning, yes, we did more quotes. I think since then we've kind of scaled back a little bit because again, we start to learn what works, resonating, what doesn't. So once we got those content pillars in place, that's when I would bring in— I've been doing this for so long, I have thousands of Canva templates. So at this point, me and my team have kind of put together like these visibility template packs. And so once we have your pillars in place, then we start working week by week. So like week 1, we're gonna do 70% growth content, 30% sales. Okay. Now that we know that, we can go to the templates and say, okay, I need 2 of these times, types of templates and 2 of these type of templates. And then the next week, okay, for the next week we're going to do more salesy, less growth. So then we know we will be looking for sales type content and so forth. And then from there, all we do is plug and play, baby. We've got— we get, um, access to your assets. Lori is my favorite. I hope— I love all of my clients, but Lori has the best photos ever, so I love it.
It helps, man.
Oh my God, photo shoots help so much. And even if you don't have photo shoots, a lot of the time I'll ask the girls, hey, can I get some selfies of Lori too? Because we've noticed that those work as well. So we do a good mix.
Those work well, you guys. So if you don't have a, a photo shoot that you love, go take some selfies in your— even in the mirror, like, those work really well.
Those are the ones that I'm saying, like, I will be specific and be like, I need a mirror selfie of you.
Yep.
So if you don't have the budget or if you haven't had a photo shoot, go take some mirror selfies. Um, so we'll get assets to that, and then again, we just plug and play. We've got your brand kit now, we've got the templates already kind of in place, we know what fonts to use And now we just kind of have to come up with the actual content. Mm-hmm.
When I was first scaling my company, I remember realizing I could not just hire somebody who understood marketing. I needed someone who actually understood the beauty and wellness space along with the supplement space. And they also needed to know how to do e-commerce and they needed to understand our voice and be able to hit the ground running so they could help us scale and not have a huge learning curve of catching up. And people are finding quality hires on Indeed right now. In the minute I've been talking to you, companies like yours made 27 hires on Indeed according to Indeed data worldwide. That's wild to think about. While I'm sitting here, somebody just got the next great hire. So with Indeed Sponsored Jobs, your post gets boosted, so it actually gets seen and you get matched with candidates who fit what you're actually looking for, not just whoever happens to stumble across your listing. And you only pay for results. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com/podcast. Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. When I first started Glossier, I remember thinking the hardest part would be building my product, and it actually wasn't. It was all the stuff that nobody told me about. It was the paperwork, the compliance, figuring out what actually needs to be public and what doesn't. Kind of like if I'm using my home address or the moment I realized that I didn't legally know in some areas what I was doing at all. And that's exactly why I wish I'd known about Northwest Registered Agent sooner. Northwest has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow for almost 30 years. They're the largest registered agent and LLC service in the country with over 1,500 corporate guides, real people who actually know your local laws and can walk you through it. When you form your business with Northwest Registered Agent, you are not stuck stitching together a bunch of vendors. You get a full business identity, registered agent service, a business address, an operating agreement, a domain, a website, professional email, a phone number, and built-in privacy so your home address and personal information stay off public record. And it doesn't stop at formation. You get free access to thousands of guides and attorney-drafted documents, bylaws, resolutions, meeting minutes, all the stuff that used to cost me hundreds of dollars with a lawyer. Don't pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for what you can get from Northwest Registered Agent for free. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com/earnfree and start using free resources to build something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agents at northwestregisteredagent.com/earnfree.
Hooks are so, so, so important. I think they're probably like 99% of your post if your hook sucks. Hooks, no one's going to keep swiping. Um, so I have became like anal about my hooks. And then from there, it's like telling the story, making sure we add value, and then always making sure you have a call to action. Because if you don't have a call to action, you're literally just leaving money on the table. You're not telling them what to do next. And when I say call to action, I don't mean it has to be go buy my PDF, or go buy this, or go sign up for coaching. Your call to action could be drop your favorite lunch order in the comments. That's a call to action. You're getting comments on your content.
I've been seeing great ones that I've been playing with, um, around like, hey, go follow 5 women below. You have to be— you have to have sort of a little bit of a following for this around the friendship thing. But if you have a bit of a following around something, you could say, hey, here's who we're looking for to comment below. Go follow 5 people. This is how you find your people.
Yes. Yes.
And little things like those are calls to action. Like have them go do something, anything in the comments. You know, I did one a couple days ago that was like, if you hang out with me, you're gonna be influenced to do all these things. But for the call to action, I said, tell me how you would influence me. And what was so fun is it started these long comments underneath of them saying all the ways they would influence me in funny ways. I was like, oh, that was a really great call to action.
That was genius.
To get people to really stay on that. Yes, stay on that post for a long period of time telling me all the ways that they would, and then influence me.
People are reading their comments, so even if they're not going to comment, you've got lurkers now. Yeah, that are giving you watch time. Yep, on those carousels. I saw Brock Johnson did that the other day. He does a lot of those with like small business owners. Yeah, um, so don't think that you have to be a personal brand either. You could be an HVAC company. We have a ton of like non-glamorous clients HVAC. We have a customs and logistics firm. The blue collars.
Yeah, they like want a social presence.
Yes, you can still do fun stuff like that too. You can say like, what's the thing that you hate most about your job? Um, only HVAC people can answer, you know.
They for sure need to say what sucks the most.
Yeah, you can do fun stuff like that. It doesn't matter what industry you're in.
Totally. You know, I'm thinking about the carousels with we did that Audacity Challenge, and we pretty much filled that. We had, we had thousands of people in there pretty quickly. I can't remember, Kaylee, I feel like we did that for like 2 weeks, filling that challenge. Maybe 2 weeks. Got thousands of people into, um, just a fun challenge called the Audacity Challenge. It was a 4-week challenge where every week I did— or every week for 4 weeks I did a weekly call just getting people on saying like, what's a courageous thing you're going to do this week? And I'd kind of just talk about to get them excited for taking a big, bold leap in their life that week. And we all just kind of state it and do it. And it was like, it crushed. We filled it with carousels. And so every single carousel, it would start with a really bold statement because it was the Audacity Challenge. So I was being bold in them. I would swear I'd put the F-bomb on the very front because I was like, guess what? We're gonna be bold. And this is how it starts. And if you don't like this, this is so not for you.
Not for you.
Yeah.
And that's very important too with your content, is making sure that you are, you know, pushing off the people that you don't want to attract. And that's what I love about you and your content too. You're not afraid to do that. Like, you'll give polar views on some things.
I'm working more on it because I do know that that's where a lot of more of the magic is.
It is.
And I just have to be okay with like whatever comes from that.
Yep.
My friend, um, Jen Gottlieb is like really helping me with that because she's, you know, growing at such a rapid pace. She's growing at $30K to $60K literally a month, which is mind-blowing. Um, and it's because she's like so much more— number one, she's really found her pillars that work for her.
Yeah.
And so this is exciting when we're talking about this, you guys, because your pillars can completely change. Like, you might start with 4 pillars that you think are totally you, and you might end on only 2 that you're going to talk about the rest of however long you can roll with it. And like go really hard into that. But the thing with Jen is like she's giving me so much power around saying a little more edgy, controversial things because she's like, Lori, it just like, you know, the comments help you, help you grow.
They do. Yeah, they do.
And you're either really for someone or you're not. And I'd rather really be for my girlies. Like at first, I, I want to know one thing for you that you really felt like maybe when you were rolling out with it you were uncomfortable, but it's really helped you?
Um, I still struggle with people not liking me.
Oh yeah, same.
So like there will be times where I'll post something and I delete it because I'll start getting negative feedback. I wish I could be more like Jen with that because honestly, you— if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. Is that what the quote says? And she's right. Like you gotta have some polarness in there sometimes, but I am This is something I'm working on internally, guys, where I just can't handle if people are mad at me or nervous system. Yes, I just can't handle it. So something— that's something that has been uncomfortable for me, and it's still uncomfortable for me, um, just not wanting to piss people off, honestly. Especially when you've grown this large following, like, cancel culture is so easy these days too.
I do feel like— so I, I have some opinions around that because I just want to see you grow even more and me grow even more, so we're just gonna all grow.
I know, can we just not care?
It's of course we're gonna care, like totally. But if you have your friends in your corner, and like, people are so afraid of getting canceled themselves that I do think that when they see it for other people, majority of people are like, oh God, yeah, sorry, like, you're gonna be okay, but that sucks.
You're right.
And you are uncancelable unless you agree to it. Yeah, it's just the truth.
You know what's funny? You say that, anytime that does happen to me, I do have two specific friends. Plus my husband is my knight in shining armor and always does this for me. Yeah, I'll be like, you need to stop, because he has an Instagram and he's an entrepreneur himself. And I'm like, I never want you to like put your business in jeopardy. But my friends, I want to shout them out, Cassie and Jordan. Anytime I get a mean comment, they're in there fighting with people. I'm like, I'm texting them on the side, stop fighting with that person. So it is very true, like have some people in your corner because they're going to remind you like, hey, it's totally wrong what you posted. Like they're just stupid.
Absolutely. You, you need those people that you can call. You know, here's what I really think about, because it's like, if we're going to play a big game, which, you know, you're in the hundreds of thousands and something could go viral and could you— you could get canceled. You could have— you could wake up to 20,000 comments. You could. This is all very possible.
Yeah.
Here's always what I think about. And it's just like lately because, you know, Jay Shetty just signed that, I believe, is a $100 million contract. You know, every day if you look for a video, there's hundreds of thousands. I mean, like thousands of videos about him and canceling him.
Really?
Oh, they're everywhere if you look for them.
Okay.
Every day.
That makes me feel better.
Every single day. And he has not commented about one thing.
Okay.
He's not agreeing to it.
Okay.
And he just— he keeps going. He just literally keeps going.
Keeps going.
So I think of that. Every single time is I'm like, oh, he just won't agree to it, and he will not comment on it. He will not do a thing about it no matter how people come for him. He will not say a word about it.
I'm gonna take that.
There you go, that's some feedback. And he just— I mean, like, the fact that he is growing at the insane rate and just got that, and this year people really went for him.
So there you go.
I feel like the more you choose to be visible, the higher chances people are going to come after you.
Totally.
Something's gonna piss them off.
There's so much about that. You could think of anyone big that you really like right now, and you can go find thousands of videos. So just remember, like, if you're not, you know, focused on that and acknowledging it, and make sure you have really great people in your life and that you start to learn really good boundaries on yourself. Like, there's so many times I'm like, I should go look at my comments on my podcast, and now I never, never— I haven't for years.
That is one thing I will tell people too, especially like, say something goes viral for you, for your mental health, don't go look at the comments. Don't fight back with these people. Um, MrBeast, I was watching one of his videos today too, and he said his mental health has actually suffered tremendously because of social media, but he keeps going because no one else does what he does, right? Like like, he will put out— like, he said something about he flew around the United States like 260 times last year, and he's like, I'm not gonna stop doing that just for my mental health because no one else does this, and I want to be the greatest at what I do. Like, that's true. Like, he's truly in it for the entrepreneurship, the passion he has.
Yes.
If you want to go for something, you can't worry about what other people are going to say. And that is the biggest thing that holds people back from even showing up on social media in the first place, is you're worried about what these crusty, dusty people are going to say about about you. Yeah, the girl from high school that was a bully to you, you're worried about what she's gonna say about your video. No, ma'am, we can't do that.
I mean, social is interesting because it really is like get up on stage every day in front of all of those.
It literally is. And what I'll say about that too is I was worried about that in the beginning, so I started my own account where I wasn't using my personal account. Has yours always been your personal?
Yeah.
Good for you.
Yeah, since day one.
See, I'm— I was too scared.
I love that for you though. You had both sides.
I mean, yeah, I keep my private private, um, because I want it for like my kids and family and all that stuff. This is a really good tip for somebody: if you are scared of what others are thinking, start a secret account. And not saying secret, but just like don't tell anyone about it and just start showing up. And then if they want to see, be like, oh, I've been seeing you posting, cool, thanks. Why didn't you comment? That's what you're trying to comment.
And you showed up in their algorithm, which is great. Yes, without them knowing about it.
So you're doing great. You're doing Good job.
Okay, so what would you say to the person who's like sitting in their car listening to this right now and is like, oh, maybe I have some hope?
You do have hope. Okay, seriously guys, coming from the girl, I've unlocked so much opportunity from social media and I can't even begin to fathom where I would be at right now if I hadn't taken the chance with social. I remember times in college I was literally selling my clothes to Plato's Closet just to have grocery money. I was so broke, so broke. And social media, posting to Instagram has opened up so many opportunities for me and my family. It's, it's what has built my business. I know I'm from a small town too. I don't know if any of you listening are from a town— the biggest, like, Orlando's 2 hours away from me. I'm in a very little city. Orlando's 2 hours away, Tampa's 2 hours away. So I don't get a lot of networking opportunities, or, um, I don't have like status with a community or anything like that. So social media has been my own way. So I want you guys to know, it does not matter where you're starting from right now. You have the phone at your fingertips. All it takes is you making a choice that you don't want to be stuck where you're stuck at anymore, and you're ready to start posting. It's all it takes is you.
We're— I mean, we're going to keep chatting, but I want people to know You literally have templates for them. Oh my God.
Yes.
You have, we were talking about this at dinner, um, yesterday because number one, it's so crazy valuable what you have. And you know, sometimes when especially women get together and we're like, oh, I wanna sell this thing and I want to offer this to people and here's what I think the price should be. And people can't see their full value until you say it to other people. And you were talking about these carousel templates and I'm like, oh my God. God, like the value that you have put into these things that you have— thousands and thousands of dollars and hours, because it's things that your team has used for years that you have built out for all of your clients.
Yes.
That you are making available for our listeners. If you think that you want to grow your social media through carousels, if all of a sudden for once in your life you just feel like this modality could be for you, you're like, you know what, I'm gonna do 3 to 4 carousels a week. I'm gonna start there, like really valuable ones, and move up to every single day.
Yep. And that's the, the beauty of the carousel is you could spend an hour pumping in— like these, these carousels are already done for you guys. All you have to do is fill in, like fill in the blank. Um, you could fill in the blank on a couple of them and have your whole week scheduled out this week. We also include a list of 100+ captions to go with it. So it's like, okay, I'm literally giving you the ingredients. All you have to do is do a little cooking and this is how you grow online and this is how you get visibility and this is how you stop being the best kept secret in your industry.
Mm-hmm.
You go get these, it's, it's called the Visibility Content Pack.
I love that.
I love it.
It's just such a learning, it's exciting because even if it feels a little overwhelming at first, which this is so insanely helpful. Like when I started getting that gist of carousels, because I started learning through, obviously you were doing my carousels, and what got me so excited is me looking at them going, oh, like I can do these too, so I could double up the content. So I do think that is where like we just got even more magical, is having help, and then, you know, really them getting it themselves too is so empowering. Because when a thought comes to you and you're like, oh my God, I would love to do a carousel on that. Well, in the past you had a learning curve. If you don't know Canva, you're kind of screwed. And if you don't have all the right pictures or whatever that looks like, you don't necessarily know what to put in yet or what order. And now this takes away all of that.
And when you go to Canva, you can't just say— oh, Canva's not going to say, what's your goal today?
No.
Caitlyn, do you want to grow followers? Are you trying to sell something? The thing with this Canva template pack is that I'm going— you literally just just say what your goal is and you scroll down and you pick a template from it. You plug and play and you post it. And these are tried and tested, they've been working for years. And we, every week, we're putting in new templates to this pack too. Like today, we actually— there's one going viral. The— just so you guys know too, there's the video carousels are really popping off right now. So adding some type of movement into your carousel. So we just added that to the pack this week too. Um, but it's, it's as easy as just filling in the blanks, and it's the easiest way to start. And if you can't do it, if you're someone like Lori who's busy, get it for your VA, because then you know these are already tried and tested and they look good. They totally need your information.
And there's— I, I think the thing that people don't get is there's a million ways to get this done. Like, for me, some days I have more time to build it out, and I really want all of my words in there, you know. I sit and I write what I want on each on. Other days, none of it is mine, all of it's yours. Like, you're always filling in the gaps for me, thank God, because then the extra content is extra content. And then some days it's like, it's like, let's just get an idea started and here's what I want to talk about, send it off to your person and they can take care of the rest. So I used to get so overwhelmed by the thought that it always had to follow something, you know. It was like, I have to have this exact strategy in place, and I have to like always have them know exactly what's going on. And I'll never work that way. It's kind of like where I'm at right now, my life, there's so many moving pieces to it, so many, that now I'm getting a lot more clear. You'll see even more clear content coming out soon, but it takes time. Like, it just all takes time. And throughout the growing season, what I want people to know is that I grew, and like, we had amazing— like, we're having amazing things happen. So Even sometimes when it's like, oh, maybe my followers aren't growing exponentially right now, I'm still getting sales.
Yes.
Or they're going, they're getting directed into what I want them directed into. Um, and on the back end it's like, okay, well, you know, it may not look like you're growing, but you just filled a mastermind at $37,000 a person. So 1,000 people have to understand, like, you may not see exponential growth in your numbers at first. It just depends on your goal.
Right.
You know, this year has really been about like getting the offerings out.
Yes.
And so I'm excited to focus on growth as well.
I'm so excited for you too.
What are some things that you want to leave with people about social media?
Um, I think the biggest thing is just one, the opportunities it can bring you are just truly amazing. That's how I was featured on Forbes. That's how Meta— I'll get emails, hey, we saw you on Instagram.
Wow.
I would have never got those opportunities without that. Um, I was telling Lori today, Five Below reached out to me today and my kids are like freaking out. Mom, you have to do whatever they ask you to do because we love Five Below and we love dumplings. Um, so like those opportunities, Lori, would never have came for me because I am a small town girl. I don't do a lot of things. I am in Lori's mastermind at this point and I'm learning so much and I'm really learning like getting in the rooms is really important too. Um, but this social media has truly changed my life. So I would just— I would tell people, don't overthink it, just do it. Take messy action. I'm one of those people that it doesn't have to be picture perfect. And you'll— if you start following me today, you'll see sometimes my carousels are missing a letter or a period, but it's because I take messy action. Because if you just stand still and don't do anything at all, you're never gonna grow or go anywhere. So take messy action is probably my best best bet.
I love that. Yeah, you've gotten some awesome opportunities. Um, you've gotten to speak on different stages.
Yes.
You know, you and I have even talked about— we can share a bit of that, that desire to want to be in certain groups of people. And like, I feel like I'm taking a complete merge of topics, but not really. But just where it's like, hey, we see these different friend groups and we feel like, why aren't we getting invited into these different groups?
Yep.
And I think what's so cool is watching you now get invited, but also the realization of like, okay, well you have to also create your own. Mm-hmm. You have to find your people within that. Tell me a little bit about navigating that, like where you were before of just going, oh God, pick me, pick me. Mm-hmm. And now how are you viewing that?
That is something that I've worked on this last year. Mm-hmm. I had texted Lori a couple weeks ago that I was just feeling really down because I literally bust my ass. I know there are so many women and men out there that probably feel like you are busting your ass, and people are still— who, who you might not even think are as good as you are, they might be too, but there are people less qualified than me that will get opportunities, and that really hurts me sometimes. Um, so I've had to navigate that, but I've learned— like Jess Ekström told me Oh well. So now when I see these friend groups or whatever it is, I say, oh well, it's not my time yet. Um, and just a quick little story, a couple months ago I had just scrolled over this group and I'm like, man, I just, I want to be invited to some of those things. Why does no one ever pick me? And then 2 weeks later I had an email from, um, it was Jess Williamson, I think is her last name, Million Dollar Branding, and she invited me to come to her Million Dollar Branding Workshop.
It's a great event.
I got to work behind the scenes with her, taking reels of her, and I would have never got that opportunity if it weren't for social media. Because I know, like, she— they had to have found me. I tagged New York City because I'm in a small town. This is another little tip too: if you are someone that can work all over the world, ah, take turns tagging different cities. Um, because I think that's probably how they found me, because I tagged New York City. The way I'm not— the way I'm navigating that, Lori, though, I know I'm learning a lot from you too, is sometimes you might just have to build your own dang table too. And that's one of the things I want to do sometime in the next year. I have little kids right now, so putting on an event would be a lot of work for me right now, but it is a dream of mine, and it is something that's going to be on my bucket list of just making my own dang table, because then no one has to invite me to it, and, and I can do what I want.
Mm-hmm. So fun. You'd have the most, like, fun content day.
I would have the best event. Like, it would be so fun, and we'd make nicknames for each other, and we'd have wine wine, like, and get the greatest content.
I'm already so in. Are you kidding? Nicknames and wine? Say less.
Sold.
Say less. Um, okay, so let's get back to the templates because I just want people to know where they can get them because I know you've created this great package. Just everything that's in it, how can we get them? All the things.
Yes. Okay, so we are going to link them in your show notes, but they can also go to my Instagram @thekaitlynrhodes and you can literally comment Pac, P-A-C-K, on any post, or you can send me a DM and I will send the link right over to you. It's sold on my Stan store.
Oh, I'm so grateful for you, and I'm excited for people who maybe don't feel as empowered right now. Like, this, this can be a modality for you guys that you feel great around. Give it some time, give yourself some goals around it, because it really, it like changed a lot for me. I, I felt so excited when I started to like really get it and understand it and watch Yay! When you start watching the conversions happen, that's when it's super exciting.
So good.
I love that. And social media gets fun again. So thank you so much for coming on.
Thank you for having me.
Yes, it's a dream. Oh, it's a dream for me too. So, and it's so fun having you here. So, you know, I'm all about, I'm all about making sure we have fun too. Thank you, Lori. Um, so you guys go ahead and scroll down. Everything that you need to go and get those templates is in the show notes below, and I will tell you that it is such a crazy value. So go and check it out. And until next time, earn your happy.
Bye everyone.
