STAYING CONSISTENT ON INSTAGRAM AS A BRIDAL HAIR STYLIST

Over on my Instagram stories, I did a poll and one of you guys asked me, how do you manage to actually stay consistent with creating content without getting overwhelmed by it? And guess what? I do. Yeah, I get overwhelmed by staying consistent on social media. So today I want to give you guys four ways that I'm able to stay consistent and not get overwhelmed all the time. The first thing you can do in order to not be overwhelmed and actually stay consistent is create content with things you're actually doing. So when I say this actually changed the game for me, it truly changed the game. So back in April, I got married and I actually took an entire month off of posting and guess what? My account survived and my business didn't completely die. And what I did was I actually dove into some Instagram research and what I found was that Adam Mozeri, the CEO of Instagram, told me, no, we didn't actually have a meeting together, but I watched on his Instagram that he had posted talking about what content they're actually pushing on Instagram. And he said himself, from the mouth of the CEO, they are pushing original, authentic content, AKA content that is original audio from the creator themselves and not something that is reposted. After hearing this from Adam, this actually opened my mind to think of ways to create original, authentic content. So I wanted to create all of these content of like talking head videos and giving educational tips. However, when I thought about it, this isn't something that I actually do in my everyday life and I would have to schedule my day around creating content like this. So instead what I thought about was I can create original content around my client servicing days, AKA days I'm taking trials and weddings. So I went deeper into that and I thought to myself, okay, so what am I actually already doing? Being that it was around May at this time, I was jam packed with weddings and jam packed with client appointments for trial. So I thought to myself, well, I actually travel to really cool places. I pack up my kit, I clean my kit, I service around two weddings a weekend, and usually around three client hair trials every single week. And that's when I actually came up with this series, My style, my Bride With Me series. Because I wanted to create content with things I was already doing. This took the overwhelm and the burden off of me of trying to find content to film by simply reframing it and asking myself, what am I actually already doing that I can film? So ask yourself, what is authentic to me and original to me of things that I am already doing on my client Servicing days that I can film content around. The next way that I'm able to stay really consistent on social media for the past three years as I build systems and habits around what I'm doing. And with these habits, I'm able to fall back on them when I don't feel like being consistent. Now that you've got the content, likely a phone full of it, but it's not seeing the light of day. Here are the habits and systems that you'll want to create. Consistency. So you're going to want an editing system, a planning system, and a posting schedule. First, your editing system. Okay, you created the content, now you have it. Now we want to edit it all together. So you want to edit it into reels, carousels, feed, post stories, whatever you want to do. So something that has been working really great for me is taking four to six hours out of one day and actually editing all that content together, whether that be inside the Instagram app or using an app like Cap Cut. So over the weekend, on Fridays and Saturdays, when I'm servicing my clients, I have a phone full of content. So then on Sundays and Mondays on my days off, what I actually do is take four to six hours and I edit all that content together for you. What day of the week can you spend a couple hours a day editing all your content? Cool. That is going to be your editing day. Next, your planning system. Okay, so you edited the content, you created it. Now we actually want to plan it so that way we can stay consistent. So you edited three reels. Cool. You have three pieces of content that you can post this week on separate days. This is actually where I went wrong in my content creation. In the beginning is I thought that I could actually rely on myself to remember to post something. And the odds were never in my favor on that one. Every single time I tried to rely on myself to post something, I would forget and then I would get really disappointed in myself. So instead, what I now do is I rely on a third party app called Plan Only, where I actually plan out all of my content and it sends me a notification. So that way I know it's posting time. Next, we're going to talk about your posting schedule. Okay? You've created it, you've edited it, you've planned it out. And this is where I find most people fall off when it comes to content creation. Sometimes myself included is you actually just keep it sitting in your draft. So what I want to ask you is, what's stopping you? Bff. Likely you're overthinking these things, your feed esthetic, your caption, what time of day do you post, or the content itself. So if you're overthinking these things, what ends up happening is you have a draft full of amazing content and your feed winds up just looking empty. This is why we need those systems and habits to lean on. So. So instead of overthinking those things, what I want you to ask yourself is, what is a feed aesthetic that I actually enjoy? What are content pieces that I actually want to talk about and can say consistently posting about? The third way that you can start becoming more consistent on Instagram is something I love to do, is think of your content in seasons. This one really helps me to get out of overwhelm because if you know me, since 2020 I've been posting consistently on Instagram every single day. Pretty much my heart literally breaks when I am not able to show up on Instagram and post because it has become just second nature and a habit for me. And I really just love being able to connect with you guys in that way in DMS and comments. And I just love being a content creator. However, if you are also a bridal hairstylist or bridal makeup artist, you know that we have really busy seasons where it is overwhelming to think about planning and scheduling out your content. So in May and June and September and October for me, I'm in New Jersey, United States. It is very busy because that is spring and fall for us and it is full on craziness. So editing my content becomes extremely overwhelming for me in those times. And this actually lets to me thinking of my content in season. So within our industry, we can actually really take advantage of this because there are seasons in our industry that you're going to want to be promoting your content and your offers consistently and showing up on Instagram. And that season is engagement season. If you've ever fallen off, whether that is in your busy season in May and June, or September and October, or even throughout the summer when you're on vacations and things like that, don't worry because there is a promotional period that I feel is November to March, and that's when you really want to pick it up and start being consistent on Instagram again. So if you fallen off, don't worry because our slow season is actually the best time to be consistent on Instagram. This is holiday season and this is where majority of people are actually getting engaged. So this is when we want our content to be visible in front of our clients. And if you are somebody who is struggling with content creation when it comes to your bridal hair business, you need an editing system, a planning system, a posting schedule, and what the heck to post to even get brides to book with you in November. I'm launching a bridal business course specifically for bridal hairstylists and I'm going to hand you over my roadmap of Instagram strategies that have helped me book multiple six figures and stay consistently posting. Make sure you get on the waitlist. The link is in the description box below, so you're the first to know when it opens. So something I want you to think about is if you are falling off the wagon. If it is in the busy season of May and June, what I want you to know is that if you post bomb content within the months of November to March, and maybe in those other ones you didn't post as much. That's okay because you by showing up from November to March in the engagement season, you're going to have a lot of content for those newly engaged brides to be wowed by. The fourth way to stop overwhelm and stay consistent on social media is what I want you to realize is waiting for perfect conditions to post will keep your content in your drafts. So if you're waiting for perfect conditions, like the perfect time to post, the perfect scenario where there's no Instagram glitches, where your wi fi doesn't go out, where you really wanted to get this edit but you didn't, or you're waiting for the perfect hashtag to use. What I want you to understand is that Instagram, while trying to continue to make their platform better, it will always have glitches and this actually happened to me. So within Instagram you can actually schedule out your content now and it can auto publish. And I spent an entire day editing my content, putting it in the reels drafts, and then I scheduled out each individual post and when I went to have it be scheduled within Instagram to auto publish, it actually deleted all of my reels. So while I would love to show you guys exactly how to use this feature, it is totally glitchy. So I don't recommend it at this time. But wow, that would be such a great world for for me to be able to auto publish my reels, there will also be times where it's not the perfect conditions to post. So I'll get a notification that it's my time to post and I only have to do like two minutes of something, but I could be out with Brad and we're on a date and I literally have to pause and say, let me do this post. That is real life. It will never be perfect conditions. However, the point being is that there are times where posting for us will feel like work because it actually is work for us, or technology will be a hot mess. On the day that you need to post, what I want you to know is that it actually happens, and don't let this stop you from posting. If technology knowledge is messing up on you, take a break. But take a break and don't disappear. Don't allow your talent to sit in your drafts when the world needs to say it. There will always be times that you will be overwhelmed, however, lean on those systems in order to stay consistent. So I hope this helps you with staying consistent on Instagram, and I'll see you guys in the next one. Bye.