How I Went From 0 To $6M With Short-Form Content (Instagram Masterclass) | 103

I just can't believe we're all sleeping on this. It is like free marketing. It's free advertising.

Nicole Burke runs Gardenary, and she's used short-form visual content to turn it into a 7-figure brand with millions of followers.

Instagram is kind of like all of us have a little storefront. I need all these people to buy from me. I need to like get them into my store.

Today she's walking us through exactly how she does it, the kinds of videos she makes, how they connect to products, and why it actually works.

65% of your content should be entertainment. So many new creators are frustrated that nothing is happening with their content. The most valuable button in the algorithm is the share button. The next type of content we want to have is educational content. Instagram rewards you for having the best answer to the most frequently asked questions. A huge mistake I see almost every business owner make when they start is they— Once you've got this, they're literally driving around your store every day. This is where the magic starts.

Nicole, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me. Boise is beautiful.

It's great to have you out. I heard you went on a hike this morning.

I hiked, I flew. I've had 2 lunches, 3 cups of coffee. I'm ready.

Ready to go. So we met at our mutual friend Stu McLaren's event in Charleston.

Yeah.

And I was immediately blown away, like, okay, hold on, who is this? And what is it? What is she doing on Instagram? And what's the business behind it? 'Cause I feel like I meet people who have maybe the Instagram side, they're like fully an Instagram influencer, or I meet people who build e-commerce brands and they're like, oh yeah, we do direct consumer, we make ads and all of that. But I don't think I've seen people, I've seen someone else build a business to the scale that you have in like the blend of organic content and all of that that you've done with Gardenary. So I'm like, when you said you would come out here to come on the show, I was like, yes, let's dive in. So we'll have a full Instagram masterclass.

I love it. You know, a lot of people will introduce me as an influencer or an Instagrammer and I'm like, no, no, no, I'm a business owner. I just happen to grow the whole thing on Instagram.

Yeah. And I think what's so interesting about that is that you have both the public face of the brand and all of that, but you're building like for longevity.

Yeah.

And, and we, we wrote it up on the board, but you've built Gardenary to $6 million in annual revenue.

Yep. Fingers crossed.

Yep.

And we have a little bit more of the year to go, but yeah. Two more months to go in here. That's right.

It's coming.

But we're, we're trending for it.

Q4 will be Big. Um, so let's go back a little bit because before you launched Gardenary, you fell in love with gardens and you were running a service-based business.

Yeah. So I love the garden. We'd been gardening for a few years in our backyard, self-taught. Um, my husband's a chemist, so he does all the research and then I just run all the experiments.

It's a good, good skill set to have in the house.

Exactly. And so, um, and so I thought, I wonder if I could turn my garden into a business. So my first thought was to sell things from my garden. I started a business called Rooted Garden Goods, and I was talking to a friend about how to set up the business, and she said, Nicole, I don't wanna buy your lettuce. She said, I want you to teach me how to grow lettuce the way you do. And that was my light bulb moment. And so I thought, oh, I'll teach people, I'll be a consultant. And so in 2015, I founded Rooted Garden, sent an email to all my Gmail contacts, and I said, I love two things about my city, the people and the and the gardens, and my new business brings those things together. So I would go into backyards, like come into yours. I don't need to come into yours 'cause I think you have a farm, but someone who has a smaller garden.

You're welcome to come over anytime.

Someone who didn't, who isn't actually good at this, and I would design a garden and then install it. We just do raised beds. And so it was kind of like they could snap their finger, they could leave for work in the morning, come home to a garden in the afternoon. And I grew that to $100,000 in the first year.

Wow.

Yeah, and I used Instagram at that time. You know, I would be working in a very, I had— I could drop my kids off, I would run and do a garden, come back, pick up Elaine, go back, and then be back at 3 PM. So there was no time for blog or YouTube.

There was no time for anything that was sophisticated, long-form writing or producing a whole video. Like, that's not gonna happen.

Absolutely not. But I could take my phone, snap a photo of the before, snap a photo of the after, and post it that night. And so Instagram became just my running portfolio, and before I knew it, I was growing a business. Basically, it was word of mouth, and it was Instagram. So I would do someone's garden, and they would invite their neighbor over, and they'd say, oh, it's so beautiful, and they'd say, yeah, check out her Instagram. And so I grew that business to a million dollars a year.

Wow. What would you charge for, for a garden?

They would range, you know, my first few gardens were like $500, and then probably the most expensive one we did was like $175K.

Oh wow, okay, that's, that's a serious garden.

Yeah, that's a serious garden. Exactly. That was probably like 16 or 20 beds.

Okay.

So wide range, like I would say the average is $10,000 to $15,000. So we're talking fancy gardens. These are for people who are in, you know, more expensive homes and really wanted the garden. I would say I entered, I created kind of a unique niche for myself where I created these gardens that were really beautiful and were like the centerpiece of the yard. And everybody wanted one. So I used Instagram to promote it. And then as most service-based business owners do, 2 and a half years later, I ended up in the emergency room. Room because I was so busy that I was just running myself to death. And, um, and that was when I thought, okay, I could either scale this by going big on the service side. I could get trucks and a team and a foreman, right? Or not. And at the time, my kids were all in elementary school, and it was just really hard to envision myself pushing myself harder physically. And so that's when I started to explore the digital world. And that summer we took a 21-hour road trip. I drove my kids from Houston to Charlottesville, Virginia, which is where they were born. And I took a course on online courses, taught myself, learned how to build an online course. And then I started taking the things I was doing in these clients' gardens and creating courses on them. And I essentially had two avatars. One was a beginner gardener learning to garden the way I do, and then, uh, experienced gardeners. And I would teach them how to have a business like I do.

Mm, okay.

Yeah, and that was 2017.

And so then how did that transform into Gardenary?

Yeah, so that was Gardenary. So I kept my service-based business running, and that was kind of the, the proof, right? It was the, hey, look, like, look at my garden, look at my client's gardens. I can teach you even though you live in Idaho. I can teach you how to do this too. And so Gardenary, I founded as a totally separate company because I knew it would be a very different kind of thing. Um, so that was 2017, and I really ran both businesses simultaneously. Um, and you can kind of see that in the revenue numbers. You know, what do they say? Like, uh, um, it's pretty hard to, to kick two balls, right? It's like much easier to kick one ball to the goal. And so, um, I wasn't necessarily hitting the goal with either, but I did in 2021. Both of those companies hit a million.

Okay.

Wow. So I essentially had a team running that service-based business And then I was using that as evidence and then building my online course business.

Okay.

Yeah.

And then when did you go all in on Gardenary?

Uh, unfortunately I was kind of forced. So I, um, I started it in Houston, Texas, and my husband's that PhD chemist. So first we moved to Chicago, so I was owning it from afar, uh, there. And then we moved to Nashville, and so I had other people Essentially, they were employees, but they were the consultants. They were the client-facing.

Running the business.

And through a number of unfortunate events, several of those employees kind of quit and started competitive businesses. And so I survived one or two of those. And then when the third one hit, I was like, I think this is a sign. I need to let this go. And so I just, I let it go and moved on to just doing online. I still do physical installs where I, now I'm in Nashville, Tennessee, and I do them mostly as promotional efforts. And just again, a way to like stay current and aware of what the market's like.

There's a lot of content creators who don't do the original thing.

Yes.

To the same scale they did before, but then it ends up being amazing for content or the experience or whatever else to then say, okay, once a quarter or something like that.

Totally.

You know, I'm going to dive in and do that.

Yeah, because it's a full-time job. And I mean, it was a full-time job when I was doing it. So, but yeah, it's a great way to showcase what we do and how it can work for other people too.

I have a friend who creates a lot of like DIY and remodeling content and all of that. And he fairly regularly, like maybe every other year buys a new house and it's like, and I realized he's not doing it just for the house. He's doing it because it is the set where all of his content is made. And then 2 years later, he's like, all right, I'm selling a house. You know, he's made 2 years worth of content remodeling that house. And you're like, all right, that's a way to do it.

It's amazing. Now imagine if that house could get infested by pests or dies every 3 months and And that's my life.

Yes, exactly. Okay, so the breakdown of the business now. So you're on track for $6 million at the end of this year.

Yeah.

And then what, like, between e-commerce, what are all the, the major buckets of the business?

Yeah, so we have a mix of what, what we found. So I had the two courses, the two like different kinds of courses, and now we still have— we've built out, I would say about a third of the business is online education about gardening. And it would range from like container gardening, like growing herbs on your patio, all the way to setting up a native plant space, so small to big. And we have like all different— we have our large kitchen garden academy that's my kind of signature course, and it's Grass to Garden in 6 Weeks. And then we have supporting courses like organic pest control or soil school, things that bring the gardener a little bit deeper. And then we found that people wanted products, so we would have you know, these students who are, you know, going through a class and they're like, "Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that, but where did you get that trellis?" You know?

Or like, "Yeah, yeah, but I want—" "I want my garden to look like yours." Exactly.

"I want my raised bed to look just like yours, and no, I do not wanna build it myself." And so over time we've built up suppliers who create raised beds for us and trellises and the big large hardscapes of the garden. We sell those in the online shop, and then we also sell smaller things like tools and seeds and kind of lifestyle. Our most successful product, I would say, is our planners. So we just started creating these where we'll take the teaching. It's kind of this mix of education and e-com and product where we take our teaching and lessons and then we put these in these seasonal planners. So far our community is like eating it up 'cause it teaches you what to do, but it's also very practical and they can hold it in their hand. It's a little bit more, you know, the gardener is a person who likes physical things. So that's been great for us. I've also written 3 books, so we promote those and sell those through the shop. And that's about a third of the business is the physical products. And then another third is our garden certification program. So this is where we'll take an experienced gardener who is looking to either add a little bit of side hustle income or have something on the weekend, or they wanna do this full-time, and we train them and certify them in the Gardenary method. And then, um, teach them like soup to nuts, as they say. Like, you know, here's all the— here's the things that sell the best, here's the things to teach your clients. And then we give them all the details on like how to start a business, how to market their business, that kind of thing. And, um, we've had about probably almost 2,000 students go through that program. Oh wow. Yeah, so primarily it's men and women, but a lot of our most successful students are people who are just like me, who are stay-at-home moms or you know, single women who were either wanting to completely change their career track or they just wanted something artistic and fun and outdoors to do on the weekends.

That's amazing. Yeah. Okay, so I love the detailed breakdown of the business. Yeah. And you've got it well balanced between different aspects. Sometimes people are all in on like the physical products, but the margin isn't very good there. Yeah. Or they're all in on digital, but then they lack some of the credibility that You know, or the, you know, the upsell opportunity that the physical products gives you. So yeah, you, you've hit them all well.

Thank you. I'm trying. I'm trying.

But what I especially like is the, the way that you're doing short-form content.

Yeah.

And so if you're up for it, you want to jump up to the board and we'll just walk through your systems and methodology?

This is my favorite. I kind of like it more than gardening. Don't tell anybody.

Yeah. It's just between Just between us.

Just between us and the mics. Exactly. And those people out there.

Perfect.

All right, let's do it. Okay. So I actually figured this out before Reels were introduced, which I think was a real gift. Back in like 2018, 2019, I realized that I didn't need to sell it on Instagram at all. Okay. Explicitly. Like there was no need to, to ever say I have something to sell. And I started to realize that Instagram is kind of like all of us have a little storefront, right? Mm-hmm. And so it's like, I have this store, you have this store, we all have a little, a little building inside the Instagram world, right? And that the majority of people, if you, if you think of it this way, think of Instagram like a city. Okay. Okay. So it's like I have my little storefront and you have your little storefront, and then there's a city and it's like highways and streets and stop signs and all these other buildings. And that the majority of the people we wanna reach, especially if we have a small account, which is where I was at that point, And maybe a lot of people are, no, I mean, we all start somewhere. And so you're thinking like, I need all these people to buy from me. I need to like get them into my store. And so the most common mistake I would see people make is they would say like, hey, this is what I do. DM me if you wanna book, you know, or DM me and I'll, I'll sign you up. And they're selling right, right at the start. Mm-hmm. And they're not seeing that like these people don't even know who they are. These people are literally across town. Right. You know, they've never even seen their storefront and their first post is saying, come on inside and let's get up to the cash register. And so I started to see Instagram in that way and realize, okay, the way to reach the people that are so far away who have no idea who I am is to entertain them. Okay. So I started to make the biggest part of my content be entertaining content. And, um, I think you're gonna draw this out so we'll, we can take it Maybe, maybe we'll say like, this is like you. Maybe you could put like a little, either a house. Yeah, there you go. Okay, that's you. That's you on the internet. That's all you on Instagram. And so this is our little storefront and we're first going to focus on the people that are all the way over there. That's where we're putting the majority of our focus is the people who are so far over there. Right behind the store. I love it. Nathan the artist. That's a story. Oh yeah, I love it. Okay, so when we're talking to that person who is so far away, we're gonna entertain them. Okay. And by entertaining, you wanna think when you post entertaining content, what I mean by that is it is content that makes someone have an emotion. So this could make them mad, it can make them laugh, it could irritate them, it could overwhelm them, it could surprise them. And the sign that you have created entertaining content is they share it. They hit the share button. And Adam Mosseri says this over and over again, the most valuable button to them on Instagram in the algorithm is the share button. Because what the person is saying is like, I not only identify with this, I not only like it, I want everyone in my community to see it too. Okay. Because you think about it, like if you're thinking about algorithm games, right? Like my husband's not on Instagram, but I send him tons of reels, right? So every time I do that, Misery's like, yeah, I just got this non-Instagram user, this Twitter guy. Yes. To actually open the Instagram app.

So that's such an important point because everyone looks at these platforms with algorithms and they say, I wish I could possibly, I wish there was some way to know what the algorithm gods cared about. Yep. And all you really have to do is say, well, What does the business behind, the business that controls those algorithms, what do they care about? Users. YouTube cares about watch time. Exactly. And so, oh, if you make videos, they get people to stay, right? Instagram is users, particularly active users. And so, yes. And engagement. If people like, well, both of our spouses are like not really on Instagram. Right. But yeah, if you send them stuff and you're like constantly reeling them in, and one of those times they're going to be like, Yeah, I'll keep scrolling.

Exactly. You brought them onto, I mean, you gave them business essentially, right? You gave them another user. So that share button is the most valuable to Instagram, which means it's the most valuable to us as business owners. Okay. This is what gives us the reach, right? This is what lets us reach the most people. So a huge mistake I see almost every business owner make when they start is they go straight to the, they go straight to the store. Right. And what you wanna do first is just entertain them. You just wanna make them laugh, surprise them, have them go, oh my gosh, that is me. And like when, when they have that moment, that me too moment, that's, that's when you hit it. Okay. When they go, how did, how did she get in my head? How did she get in my phone? How did she see my life? And so that entertainment content is where we wanna put 65% of our Instagram posts. And we'll talk later, we're gonna talk about the types of content But 65% of your content should be entertainment. Okay. All right, so you've entertained me, right? You kind of like got me to laugh. I sent that to my husband. I'm like, haha, I'm not the only person who buys too many plants. You know, I feel a little bit justified in who I am as a person. And then you come back and then you start to pull them a little bit closer. So now this person, instead of being like 10 miles away in the Instagram city, they're like 7 miles away. Right. Right. I'm sort of— Get closer. Exactly. They're like, huh, let's see what else she's got. So the next type of content we want to have is educational content. And this is where you're going to start to answer questions like this is, you want to think of this like your FAQ. And we all try to get really fancy with our educational content and like wax poetic and be like a Harvard professor. But really, Your most successful educational content is going to be answering the most frequently asked questions in your niche. Okay. And so for me, I'm tired of talking about the garden. I've been talking about it for 10 years, right? So I wanna go deep and answer something really sophisticated when really some of my most viral videos are like, when are potatoes ready to harvest? Right? And I'm thinking they could read that in a garden book. They could literally search for that answer in 5 seconds on Google. But that blows up as an educational post 'cause like every new gardener is asking that same question. So you answer the FAQs and Instagram rewards you for having the best answer to the most frequently asked questions. It's very similar to Google search, but they're, they're becoming more and more sophisticated with their search. So if you have the best answer for that question, um, then you'll continue to rank better for education. And the way you know that you have a good educational post is the save. Okay. So when they hit that save button, that's assigned to you. This was a valuable post. This like is building my, building my right to have an authority in this space and for this person to respect me as their leader and teacher, their go-to person in this industry. Okay. Okay.

Do you get, I haven't looked, do you get good metrics on saves?

Yeah, you can, you'll see saves on every post. Okay. Yep. Yeah, so saves are great. And then that's gonna be about 25% of your content. So you want, you know, if you're thinking of like, if you're doing 4 posts, then you would want, say, 2 to be entertaining and then 1 to be educational. Not everybody's gonna post 7 times a week, and that's okay. You can increase to 7 later. But I say 14, if you're asking me. But so 25% is gonna be educational. So you've just moved this person They came close 'cause they laughed and then they got a little bit closer. So now they're probably like maybe 5 miles away, maybe 4 miles away. Okay. And this is the time where you're gonna start to what I call showcase. So showcasing content is where you are going to show off the results of working with you or the results of your product. This is when you just literally make a big deal about yourself or about your students or your clients. It's a great time to make your client the hero, to like, you know, do before and afters, to have testimonials. This is a place where you get to be like, hey, this doesn't just work for me, this works for Barbara and Buddy and Brian and all these other people too. I don't know why I named that guy Buddy, but so you make your client the hero and you showcase. And if you're just getting started, if you're watching this and you're right at the beginning of building your business, you're the showcase, right? Mm-hmm. You're the story, you're the before and after. Like, this is what I did for myself. This is what I did. This is the transition I created for my own life. Um, and you show your own before and after, and that works just as well. So this is 10% of your content. Okay. Um, no one likes to feel a certain emotion. Do you know what it is? One of the worst emotions you can feel on social media, but probably one of the most common.

Uh, envy? Yes!

Okay. I love it. It's envy. And I don't know about you, but I feel it a lot. Yeah, it's really easy. When I'm on social.

It feels like this whole algorithm is kind of designed to make me feel this one emotion.

And so if you look at like entertaining totally disarms, right? Entertaining instead of being like, look at me, I'm so great. You know, it's like, hey, you want to laugh with me?

It's funny, it's relatable.

Yes. And it's coming down. It's actually the same because. Yes, we're saying we have the same issues, right? I got issues, you got them too. And that's that entertaining level. And so you've, you've brought yourself to the same level as your audience. And then you say, hey, but I am a little bit ahead of you, right? I figured out these tips and that's when you're educating. And in the showcase, you've earned the right now to be like, hey, let me show you something, right? Like this is something really cool that I've done. And then the final stage, and this is just 5% of your content and this is what I call the invite. Okay. And so this is where I see so many new creators start to where Or maybe people who've been in the game for a very long time and they're frustrated that nothing is happening with their content. And it's because all of their content is an invitation. It's buy this, book with me, send me a DM, um, my workshop's coming up, my webinar's coming up, my clearance sale's coming up, whatever. Everything is about the sale and the transaction. And we're assuming people are standing right outside of our front door. And so we, we really haven't earned the right yet to invite them to the cash register because we just met them. And a lot of us forget that when we're posting on, particularly short forms, that this is an entertaining platform. This is a browse platform. Right.

So people aren't searching for— There's not intent there in the same way. Exactly. I come to Google and I'm saying, what is the best car insurance provider? There is significant intent there.

Then you better invite right away. I'm ready for you. Book right now. Here's a 25% off coupon. Right?

Right. but if I pull out my phone while I'm waiting in line to pick up my kids.

The last thing you want at that moment is me go, hey Nathan, buy this, buy this, or buy this, right? You want to go, oh my God, that's hilarious. That is so me, right? Let me share it with someone. Exactly. And the minute you press that share button from my account, Instagram goes, the next time Nathan opens his phone, I'm showing them another, I'm showing him another video from her. Mm-hmm. Right? It's like it triggered and it said, okay, I may not show her, show him anymore from her right now, but when he opens it again, he's gonna get another video from her. Right. And so it just tells the algorithm like, he likes this, like, let's do more. And so then if you've got this mix for your content, then they're eventually gonna see an educational post and they're eventually gonna see your showcase and then they will see the invite, but they don't see it right away. And you've earned the right, you know, it's like, oh, I do wanna work with her. She's funny. She gets me, and that tip she gave me like 2 weeks ago, I tried it and it worked. And so you give these little micro wins and micro steps closer and closer to your storefront. And this is really how we plan out, we do 3, we do at least 3 posts a day. And so we're looking at, you know, upwards of 1,000 posts a year. And this is really the breakdown that anytime we plan it, we plan out our content like a week in advance, And we always look and say, like, was there enough entertainment? Was there enough education before we get to, you know, that direct invite? And it's really a very, very small part of content.

So this is like 5%?

Yep, 5%. I think the math maths.

Did that work? Not quite, but close. That's okay.

You know, it's 105%, you guys.

Give it more. It takes 105% effort. Give it all you got. I love it. So what would you— you know, we've got— Having a motion, answer FAQs, make the client your hero. What is it like, make the ask or?

Yeah, so the invite, you like, it depends on what you're selling. So if you have an e-commerce shop, that is, this is a super easy, people understand e-commerce, right? Yeah. So this is your moment where you just say like either comment this or here's the link, go buy it. Yeah. If you have a more complicated offer that say an online course or an online project, that's gonna need more nuance, right?

So maybe register for the webinar.

Absolutely. Something like that. You like invite them to whatever sales mechanism you're gonna be using. And then if it's not a, like if it's not something that needs a lot of explanation, then you could just send them to a sales page. Yeah. You know, something where maybe you have a video or something that where that explains it for them.

Or might be a sub $50 product or something.

Yeah, totally. Anything that's under $100, you're fine to point to it. We've found, more success with getting their email address and then doing the sale on the other side, like completely off of Instagram.

Is now a good time to dive into how to get email addresses and all of that?

Yeah, I love it. Okay. Yeah. Okay, so I'm sure everyone watching has watched a video that says, if you like this, comment garlic. Yep. And I'll send you my garlic growing guide. So, That is keyword automation. And the first time I saw it was like 2021, I think, maybe 2022. I started playing around with it in 2022. And then we went all in on this in 2023. I use ManyChat. I don't know if you guys have an automation service.

I'm an investor in ManyChat, so.

Okay, well, well-placed advertisement. Yes, exactly. So I use ManyChat. I know a lot of other companies are creating their own, you know, possibilities of how you can do this. So you guys, you know, wherever you're working, you might find a way. I personally have found ManyChat is like a, they're a Meta partner. We never get flagged even when we have literally like, we have something go viral. But essentially it's an automation where if they comment underneath the video or if they reply in DMs, Okay. Then we set up a funnel. So the first thing we'll do is send a reply to them via DMs that says, hey, and you have to confirm, I think there's kind of a rule in it, you have to confirm they want it. So it'll be like, hey, I heard you wanted my garlic growing guide. Say yes if so. And so they have to like basically confirm like, yep, I'm ready to get it. And then you ask for their contact information. So we'll ask for their email first and then we do ask for their phone number as well. Okay. We get, we say that's optional. And then we send it to their email and then we go ahead and do whatever follow-up we wanna do. So you could go ahead and ask for a sale at that point. Like if you have something to offer. Yeah. So as soon as you get their contact, then you let them know, hey, this is on its way to you. In the meantime, would you like X? And you can decide whatever's best for your business. For us, it would be like registering for a sales mechanism. It might give them a coupon in the shop for them to use. We might have them just go and look directly at an offer that we have. So let's say I have a native plant course that's like somewhere between $67 and $97. So we did this where I would say, get my favorite native plant list, right? So it's a short lead magnet. They give their information. And they give their information, I send that to them, and then I say, hey, do you want to go all in on native plants? Here's the course if you want to buy it. And then I, because I now have their contact, I could send 6 emails about the course, right, and go deeper on it. I could give them a little sneak peek and let them see the first module, whatever. Um, once you have this, this is where the magic starts, okay? Because now you're no longer having to rely on Instagram approving of what you've posted, right?

They're So if you're using our across town to our store analogy, right, they're fully in this. Now they're inside your store. In the ecosystem, they're hanging out, you can put new things in front of them. Yeah.

All of that. Absolutely, and once you've got this, you could see it as all, like, in a way, they're literally driving around your store every day because they're this close. And so any moment you want to, you can walk out and go, hey, I got a sale today, you know, hey, this is happening because they're right here. You've brought them so close that they're right outside your door every day. Um, which is pretty amazing. It's pretty powerful.

Something that I've noticed, and I feel like this was gonna stop working at some point. Yeah. Um, but if I'm looking through an Instagram account and there's a bunch of videos that are all, say they're at, like, I feel like every account sort of has an average that their reels settle to, you know, 1,000, 10,000 views or whatever. And then you'll see these outliers, like you're just flipping through and you're like 10,000, 10, 12,000, 14, 10, whatever, 200,000. 9 times out of 10 when I click on that, there's a comment to DM automation on that one. Absolutely. Because the algorithm is heavily weighting comments and interaction.

All that interaction. Yeah. And even if, you know, people are like, oh, it's spam or whatever, 'cause they're all saying the same word, but they're literally saying, I want what you made. Right? I mean, it's their choice. Like, I, this lady, I just I just fell prey to this yesterday, 'cause I was like, it was, what's today, Monday? It was the start of the week, and this lady was like, here's what's for dinner this week. And she had like 6 meals all that were like fantastic. And I was hungry at the time, and I'm watching this while I'm on a dog walk, and it was like comment meal plan to get my meal plan for the week. You're like, I'm in, right? I'm like, just like send it to me, my veins, like I'm ready for this, you know? And so like she, I mean, for busy moms like me, I mean, she knew exactly what I needed. and it was a very entertaining video. She had all the, like, it, she very clearly showed what she was gonna give me. And there were like 5,000 comments on that. Mm-hmm. So that means from that one video, she's gonna get 5,000 email addresses. It'll probably translate to more like 60% of those will actually follow through. Yep. But she might end up with a thou— let's say worst case, 20%. Mm-hmm. You know, it's 1,000 email addresses from one Instagram video. Which I, that's crazy.

You think about in other channels what you have to do to get 1,000 email addresses.

Yeah, well think about a Facebook ad, right? Like a good lead cost is gonna be $2, $3, $4.

If many people listen to this and be like, what are you talking about? I pay $7 a lead right now.

Totally, right? And she did it for, I mean, she had to make the 5 meals, but she was cooking those meals anyway. Right. Right, or at least I assume she did.

Can you, Does it work well to run paid ads? Like if you have a reel like that, that's doing well?

Yeah. Yeah. So this is that amazing hack. If you, if people are running ads, this is where it really gets fun because you are posting so much that you don't need some ad agency to make you creative. Right. You have the creative, right? And you've already field tested it all. Mm-hmm. So what happens for us now is we'll have something we're gonna sell. And so we'll start, say, 2 weeks before the sale's happening, and we start doing all of this. Then we can go to ads, and we've just added ads in the last year, but then we can go to ads and we can say, these are our 3 best entertaining ones, these are our, this is our best educational. So we do move those directly to ads, but another hack you can do is you just take that one video that blew up, and then you just post it. Like, one of the best ways to do it is do it as a views. Post. Okay.

Oh, so you just target number of views, right?

Super cheap. And then you get out in front of all the, like, you've already proven, like, that lady, whoever you are, you're amazing. I'm sorry, I forgot. I didn't even get your handle, but she should take that and run an ad on it just to view. She doesn't even have to ask for the conversion. It would happen naturally anyway because of the automation. The automation. So that would happen anyway, but if she runs it as a views ad, She's gonna take that currently probably a million views and turn it into 5 million. And then the same cycle happens with all those people who see it here. That came in. Yeah. Oh, fascinating. And so it like literally self-selects your, your best ads. And you know, I've worked with so many ad agencies and like, we'll like interview with them and they're like, we'll make the creative for you. And I'm like, so how much can you cut off of the monthly fee? Because you guys are not making the creative for us.

And no one does it well.

No, they don't. They can't. How could they, right? How could they know your industry, your audience, and the things that resonate? It's just, they're gonna end up with very cliché. They're gonna make very cliché things. And so when you're in here, and it doesn't take, you don't have to do 1,000 videos a year to prove this. You could do it with 1 a day or 5 a week. And you're, you could just see it as literally like ad experimentation that's free. Right.

Okay, so when we first met, you were looking at my Instagram. Yeah. And one of the things that you were calling out is like you were entirely hanging out in the educated space. Yeah. Like there's no entertainment here. Absolutely. And I think for me, this is the hardest category by far. Really? Like how, and I might just be a boring person. I might. Absolutely. I'm like, let me just teach you here.

I think that's definitely a problem.

Yeah, you're really boring. Yeah. Like give me more examples of types of content maybe in other niches or industries.

Yeah, so give me any, give me a niche. Well, let's say, if we're building an Instagram account for Kit. Okay, so describe Kit's client.

Yeah, so, uh, professional content creators who are, you know, looking to grow and scale their business, and they're using email and social and all of that to do it.

Okay, and you want someone who already has a business, who already— you're not looking for the beginner, you're looking for someone who already has.

We're not opposed to having the beginner, like we have a free plan, getting lots of people in, that's great. Okay. But the bread and butter of our business is someone who's a bit more established.

Okay. So if you're going for that person who's like, let's say had a year, right? Then they already feel all the pain. So you're gonna go to all the pain points. Like one, you know, hilarious videos are like when you, you know, when you wanna like have a mental breakdown, but you have a small business to run, right? And so it's like, they're like, and then it's like, oh, You know, and then they film themselves and then they're like crying, you know? Right. So little memes like that, or like where, you know, that very cliché, like when you quit your 9 to 5 to work your, you know, 24/7. Yeah. So all the things that kind of tap into exhaustion.

I didn't want to work 8 hours a day for a boss.

And so now I work 20 hours. Yeah, for myself. See, you're laughing, right? So like, it's like, oh yeah, you feel it, right? And so it's those kinds of things like you could literally kind of sit down with your team and you guys just start to brainstorm like, what are all the emotions that our creators feel, right? And so you just list all those out. Yeah. They feel alone, they feel embarrassed, they feel imposter syndrome, they feel exhausted, they're sick of doing 10 different roles in their business. Right. Right? So like one meme, one video I've seen that's really cute is like, meet my team. You know, and it's like CEO and they're that person, right? And it's like videographer and they're that person. Right. You know, star, they're that person. So just even something like that where someone who's an ideal kit client.

Well, yeah, like one that I've seen a bunch is the, like an agency do the meet the team and it's the spinning office chair. Yeah, office chair. Right, but if you did that, you know, putting on hats, same idea. Yeah, same person. But it's just, yeah, the same person over and over again. Exactly, yeah. Someone's like, oh, you see me. Yes. Because that's my life. I'm, I might be following these big content creators who are like, meet my team. And yes, you know, of course Stephen Bartlett has 27 people running everything for him. Right. But in this case it's like, it's me, me, myself, and I. Totally.

So you can do it that way. Um, and then you can also take like memes on the internet, you know, and then turn them into, to be something for your business. So like one of our most viral memes is like we took a CapCut meme where it Is it NSYNC? Who sings "You Are"? You are my— Okay, I'm not gonna sing on this, but anyway, there's a reason why I'm a gardener. And so whoever those guys are that, I think it's NSYNC. Anyway, they, the meme is like they just turn around and go, you are, you are, you are, you are. It's that little part of the music video. And so we put the garden behind it and the meme on top says, when I show my husband my garden plans and he asks, who's gonna build that for you? And then they're like, you are, you are, you are, you are. And the women love it. You know, it was like 9 million views. It was crazy. And also the shareable aspect. Absolutely, they all sent it to their husband. Right. Right? We do, like some of our memes that do the best is the ones where the wife, you know, wants the husband to do something for them in the garden.

And so, yeah, I asked you nicely. Yes. And I asked you seriously, and now I'm in a joking way, I'm asking you again. Exactly.

So you can use memes that already exist. You can, like, you know, follow the trends and turn those into be things. But it's basically just tapping into, you wanna think about different emotions that your entrepreneur creator feels and then make videos that make fun of that. And then you also wanna think of like the extreme version, right? Mm-hmm. So you take every part of humor is like taking something and making it huge. Mm-hmm. You know, you wanna think almost like cartoon, right? Like what makes cartoons hilarious is like It's not this stubbed toe, it's this stubbed toe, right? And so the same happens with humor on Instagram is where like you take this idea maybe of like hardly making any money, like you worked all year and you didn't make any money and then you turn it into like, you know, I've been like building my business for a year and so this is what we eat for dinner, you know? And they're like cooking ice, you know, things like that where you take—

Right, 'cause the gardening version of that is like, meet my $711 cucumber.

Absolutely, like one of our most viral videos this year is like, after $1,000 in raised beds and this and this, you know, here's my one-bite harvest. And they pick one tomato, you know, and that one blew up. We took the tomato, we cut it in half and put it on a sandwich. You know, and people were like, aha, 'cause you took something that was kind of true, you know, and you made it, yeah, exactly. So that's another great way to have the humor. So you can have like that running joke coming through where it keeps showing up and you just tap into though, the emotion you want them to feel is the extreme version of what they already feel. Mm-hmm. Like finding that emotion and running with it. And you'll find, like, just like we have with the husband thing, like the more you test it, you're gonna find the lines, the humor lines that people really resonate with. And I, it's gonna get old to you and it will never get old to them.

Because you're reaching huge numbers of new people. Exactly. Right. You might see, oh, this reel did 100,000 and then a bunch did 10 and this one did 100,000. and it's not the same 100,000 group of people. It's— Exactly.

And you just start to see the theme. So now like we know when our watch is down, like Carter and I'll be on a meeting and he's like, we need something about a husband. Like we just know that that's our emotional thing. And then educationally, we know our like sweet spot is herbs. Like it just reaches the most amount of people. I think most people can grow herbs even in the cities. It's approachable. So anytime we have like a low piece low time and content, we're like time to, and educational, we're like time to post about herbs. So it works. The educational, like the more you, you think about the, the feelings that they have, that's what gives you that entertaining. Yeah.

Okay. That makes sense. That's an aspect that will ramp up a lot. Yeah.

And then just follow their lead, like lean into it and make more and more of the stuff that they love.

So we have a metric that we're trying. This is something that I love about your business. Yeah. Is, cuz you're like, you know, gardens and all that. And behind the scenes you're like, Here's the metrics, here's the spreadsheet.

It's data, it's number. I have a minor in math, so you know, it totally makes sense.

Yeah, exactly. Here's like, let me show you my Airtable of all of this. Exactly. So you, you know, for the entertain, you're talking about you're measuring based on shares. Yep. Educate, you're measuring based on saves. Mm-hmm. And there's other metrics too, but primarily. Is there a metric for showcase and invite?

Yeah. So invite is gonna be because you're using this, it's going to be comments, right? So if they comment on it, then that's telling you, all right, then this is, this is something that they're interested in. And then the mark for the showcase is the like. Okay. And so it's interesting because most of us are posting for likes, right? Like that's the historically— Views or likes. Yeah, it's like follower. We want followers and we want people to like us. Yes, and so the showcase, like, that is really when that person goes, I like the change that you created. I like this story, you know? And it's like, generally, if, especially if you get the like, it's a sign that there's not jealousy. There's like an aspirational. It's like, oh, I like this. I want to identify with this. I like that. Yeah.

Okay, this is fantastic, but also you're talking about making a ton of videos and someone might be watching going, I'm not gonna make 1,000 videos this year.

You're not. So, is that so like a big ask? What if we did? I mean, look what can happen. 1,000 videos is worth it. I get it. I get it. And like, I would say in 2023 it was videos only. It was crazy. But the— I don't know if they were trying to compete with, um, TikTok, but it just became this, like, Instagram was only videos, right? I think Kim Kardashian put her foot down. She was like, bring back old Instagram. And Adam was like, yes, Kim. So now, I don't know if it was Kim's influence, but now, um, they've almost created this funnel for us inside of Instagram. Okay. It's really cool. Okay. So forever Reels, and Adam continues to reinforce this in all of his interviews. Real quick, you're saying Adam. Adam Mosseri, the CEO of Instagram or head of Instagram.

And he puts out a ton of great content. He's very active on his own platform.

Yes. And he's so help— like he literally, you can tell that Instagram cares about their creators because literally his, he is just serving us all the time. Right. And so I, I listen to his interviews and follow his advice and I'm like, all right, I'm doing the right thing. It works. Yeah. So he continues to confirm that even though they've added all these other content forms into the mix, Reels is still the proven best way to get reach. Okay. All right.

So, so Reels is at the top of the funnel.

Reels is at the top of the funnel. Okay. So if you're thinking, I wanna reach, I only have 500 followers, I only have 1,000 followers, mm-hmm, um, you have to post more Reels. That's the way you get your content in front of non-followers.

Okay. Yeah.

And if your account has it, Instagram has recently introduced trial reels, which is even more powerful because it only goes to non-followers. So they've literally given us this incredible tool where we can post a reel, not feel embarrassed because Nathan's gonna see it and that would be really cringe. And now we can post it and Nathan will never see it because, right, he doesn't follow me and this is only gonna go, he follows me and this is only gonna go to non-followers.

So especially for the entertainment posts where you're like, perfect. Maybe.

Yeah. Oh, nevermind. Okay. Yeah, exactly. Like I made my creator po, uh, post that tomato, the little split tomato. Yeah. Because I thought it was an ugly video and I was like, put that in trial reels. And it got like 7 million views. I was like, okay, you can post it. Um, so that's up here. So right at reels, I don't know if you wanna put reach right underneath, but reels give you reach. Reels are gonna give you the biggest bang for your buck and your time. We're all busy as entrepreneurs, so So if you wanna, I mean, I'm telling you, a 7-second video could reach millions of people. You never know. All right, so after Reels, the next that we use is carousels. Okay. Actually, let's say posts. We'll do posts first. Okay. So posts are the next part, and posts give you positioning. So now, used to back in 2015 when I first started my garden posts, um, the Instagram feed was all about the aesthetic, the 9-grid, right? Yeah. Like, oh, it has to be aesthetic and colorful and the colors have to match and your fonts. And then Reels threw that off 'cause now you'll come on my feed and you're like, whoa, this is crazy town. Like there's just all kinds of different things to look at. So what posts do is they position who you are on the internet. So if I was coaching Kit, I would say that inside of these entertaining videos and these other things, you wanna have just static text text posts. And these are gonna have quotes from great entrepreneurs, quotes about resilience, quotes about not being an imposter, right? You can figure out what kind of voice you wanna have.

And these are just images? These are images over text? It's— Or sorry, text over like video?

I do mine, it's a flat, it's just a, it's not a video. Okay. It's just a post and it's just one. It's not a bunch of 'em. It's just one. And it like, ours are colorful. So we have 3 colors that we rotate through.

So that brings if you're a little more chaotic with your entertainment and your memes or whatever else, that brings some brand cohesion back. Exactly.

So I see your post about, oh, I'm a creator, I'm eating ice for dinner, I have no money, right? So then I go to Kit and I'm like, do I want to follow them? What even is Kit? And so in the mix of all these videos, I see these really powerful quotes like, you know, the man in the arena quote, and I see the quote about like, consistency and not giving up and a quote about like not listening to people who say negative things. And so I go, oh, I think this will really help me on my journey. So this positions Kit as like they are a voice for entrepreneurs, they are a refuge for entrepreneurs. So for us, our posts are funny. Okay. We haven't gone the serious route with gardening. We've gone like, you know, all I want is 10 acres and chickens and cut flowers. I'm a simple girl, really, you know? So we'll go for that. And then that's, those are our like identifiers. Here you want the person to look and go, that's me.

But even in that, even in those funny posts, you're still bringing in some brand. It is brand.

It's all about brand. Absolutely. The colors, we have our company name right at the bottom of those posts. So every time they get shared and every time, honestly, I check mentions these are some of the most frequently shared posts. Okay. Yeah, 'cause it's just quick, right? Someone can read it really fast. A video, I've gotta click on it and I've gotta watch it all the way through. This, in like 3 seconds, I know exactly what, who you are. So that's why it's for positioning. So this is kind of establishing you as this is what kind of account this is. So after posts, then we have carousels.

Okay.

So carousels used to be like, No big thing. And in the, in 2023, Instagram majorly deprioritized carousels. They have suddenly brought them back and they're bigger than ever. And carousels are for connection. Okay. So this is where the person hasn't just said, oh, I like Kit. This is kind of, you know, a place for entrepreneurs to hang out. This is where they go, I like Nathan. Hmm. I wanna be where Nathan is. Cuz you might do a carousel that like opens up and says, I almost quit my first year. Let me tell you the story. And so all of a sudden—

I'm like invested in it. Exactly. And I'm hitting next at, you know, when I'm ready to turn the page in the story.

Yeah, you hook me, right? Like right from the start. Like one of my most, my best ones is like someone sent me a DM the other day, you know, and then someone, they had—

Oh, like that's the hook. That's the hook. Someone sent me a DM the other day.

Yeah, and then I put in parentheses, I said, you probably thought I do this too. And that was the open hook. And then I like tell a story. So this slows the scroll. You don't have to watch a whole video and like it majorly helps someone decide, do like, do I like this person or not? And some people will be like, I hate this person. You know, I don't wanna be near her at all. But you, it will find the right people. Right. So this is where you can go, you could go into your personal, you can do this with other creators. You could have creators tell their real stories. It doesn't all have to be super deep, you know, intimate either. It can be like, I read, I, this is one that I hooked on, actually this was a video, but you could be like, I'm an entrepreneur who's made X number, you know, of dollars and these are the 10 business books that changed my life. Mm-hmm. And then each swipe is a book. Yeah, I can see that working really well.

I'm realizing that a post that I did years ago that worked really well on X, was breaking down the 10 businesses that I had started before starting Kit. Oh, yes. And so that would be, it's connection. You're like, oh, you're just like me. I've built a bunch of businesses that haven't worked out yet. You know, all of that. You're telling the story. They get to know me better.

Yeah. So that should be your next carousel in Kit. Okay. Yeah. You'd be like, you know me as the face of Kit, but you don't know all the 10 businesses that happened to get me here. It's very powerful. So this is the connection. This is when they go, oh, I'm invested. I'm staying. Like, this is a company with heart. This is a company company that goes deep. And then you finish with stories. Okay. So stories is the place where you can directly sell. And I know I said, you know, I generally don't sell at all on Instagram, but if you're gonna sell, stories is where it can happen. Okay. Part of the magic of stories is they disappear every 24 hours. And so for me, I don't know about you, but when I'm busy, I don't really scroll Instagram anymore. But when I'm busy and I want like a little brain release, I literally go to Instagram, I find my favorite people, and I just watch their stories. I don't even know what they're posting. I just want to watch their stories. Right. So I want to see what they're doing, what they're up to. What's their life like? What's like, yeah, that's where I really get to go deep. And that's why this is the bottom of the funnel. It would be weird to start someone at a story, right? But if you've reached them here, they've come deep with you on the carousel and then they're like, what is she doing today? Like, what is she, what's her morning routine? You know, how does she use this? And so this is a place where you can do, where you do sales. And I was just telling you, We have unlocked this major amazing thing on stories, which is still using this ManyChat. Mm-hmm. And a lot of people do links on stories. And what I, we are finding, I'm not kidding, like I, I wanna do the math right since I screwed it up there. It's like a 10x on views. If instead of saying click this link, you say reply this word or whatever for your sale or your, yeah. Your giveaway or whatever you're doing. So stories are for sales. And you ask for the reply and Instagram sees all this conversation happening after your story and they're like, this story from Nathan is like really good. Like people are loving this thing. Everyone is replying. He's had like 500 people reply to this story. And so it feeds itself. So the Instagram, same thing, like giving Instagram what they want. They want engagement. And he, Adam says over and over and over again, The whole point, the thing they're truly trying to drill down on is community engagement. And so when they see someone in your DMs talking to you directly, they're not only gonna like push that story out further, but they're gonna push the next time that person logs in, guess whose posts they're gonna see first? Yours.

Right, well, and the other thing I noticed with the DMs, or someone was telling me this, that out of all of the people you follow, say I follow 1,000 people on Instagram. Yeah. I'm really only gonna see stories. I, I could go through everyone's stories, but I'm not going to. Right. Um, and so who you see stories from is really driven by who you message. Yeah. And who's this DM. So any of these DM automations, all of that stuff is saying, great, you were 27 in their stories and they happened to get all the way down to you. Yeah. But in the future, now you're going to be top 5.

The next time you open up, and you guys should all test this if you don't believe me. Interact with some accounts and then close your app and reopen it and see if it's not true. Because it'll be true on your ex— you know, it's, we forget that what's happening on our page is exactly the same kind of thing that's happening on our followers' pages. Right. So we have seen, I was telling you this story, we have a clearance sale going on and I just posted on Saturday 2 posts. I had no makeup on, I was in my workout clothes, I was about to go to my daughter's soccer game and I literally had 2 minutes. 2 minutes, I'm telling you, 2 minutes. And I was like, hey guys, I'm actually, I opened it with a hook. I slid into the video and I go, I made a huge mistake this year. I ordered way too many tools. I don't know what I was thinking, but I wasn't thinking clearly and I ordered way too many. My loss, your gain. Here's the tools. And I showed them, I showed the quality. They're stainless steel, they're ash wood, they're beautiful. These are the 8 that are in the kit and the kit's on clearance sale. These would typically be this much and they're half off. Comment clearance and I'll send you the link. And I was telling you, I went to the soccer game and my phone's like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. We sold 100 in probably an hour. Wow. And within 24 hours we sold 450 from 2 stories that I recorded with no makeup on in my workout clothes. So that's the end of the funnel. It's pretty powerful.

What I love about everything you're doing on Instagram is because you're tying it so closely to revenue, your feedback loop everywhere, like you get feedback loops all over the place, but it's straight back to money. Yeah. Whereas so many people are like, well, if I build it for 3 years and then maybe it'll get to the size where I can make money. And you're like, no, let's—

well, even so, even the stories, okay. I watch, 'cause I do, I'll do like maybe 2 or 3 stories that all have the same keyword. And I was noticing yesterday, I did one about seeds and I did one that was like a picture of the board, like a behind the scenes of the product photo. And I was like, this is what I did to give you guys the product photo. That was the story that got the most replies. So like, I'll go back and look, you know, it's not even just the overall number, but you can get into so much minutia.

Which of the 3 stories made the biggest difference?

Yes. And so then the next time you do it, you don't have to waste the time on those other ones because that was the one that moved the needle. So, like, there is— we— the people, I just can't believe we're all sleeping on this, because it is like free marketing. It's free advertising, and we can do all this with this thing we're carrying around with us anyway. It's crazy. Like, you should be doing it right now. I should be.

We're going to just pause the episode and dive in.

Yeah, yeah, so I think I'm going to show you, actually, how you create videos.

Okay, so in this, Yeah. You're talking about like coming in here, the types of content that I should make, like break it down. Because I still feel like I'm at the 100 level when it comes to Instagram. Yeah. Like give me, how do we level this up? Like what specifically would you be doing? Or, you know, if you're recording a podcast with a guest, like what are the types of content you'd make?

Yeah. So if we were, if I were you, okay, then I would have had a tripod and a phone with me today. Yep. Okay. And I'm going to show you 6 videos that you could make, anyone watching could make from something as simple as recording a podcast. Okay. Because a lot of people say, Nicole, you have it easy, you're a gardener. You have so many things you can do.

You have something very visual. Very visual. I am a writer, I sit at my computer and I type.

There's nothing that I can make. Exactly. I'm going to give you 6 things you could do just from this room, just from this hour we've had together. Okay. Okay, so the easiest video everyone can make right now is what we call B-roll with text on top. Okay. Okay, so the first thing that Nathan should have been filming is he should just have his his phone up on a tripod, hit go before he starts the episode, and he could, he's just gonna film the whole thing, but you're gonna find a clip in here that was good. So just, I call 'em slam dunk shots. So you're just gonna search for like a slam dunk shot throughout the whole hour, and you're gonna cut it to about 5 to 7 seconds. [Speaker:NATHAN] Okay. [Speaker:KRYSTALINA] So really short, the shorter the better. And then you're gonna put some kind of B-roll on top. So this can be funny, this can be embarrassing, this could anger some people. You know, this could be in your entertaining space or you could put some quotes here and educate about it.

But we're gonna hang out really in one of these two.

Yeah, you could showcase about it. Like you could be like, I used to, it's crazy that I was a nobody and now I'm interviewing someone as famous as Nicole Byrd. Oh, 100%. It's crazy. Yeah. So like you can, you know, I started out at the farm and now I'm here with Nicole. Exactly. So you can put B-roll over text, but everyone watching, this is the easiest video to make. 5 to 7 seconds, pick a trending audio and put text on top. Okay. You're done. And then it's just that. You don't need a lot of different text. It's just one text and then you can have a long caption. That's where you give a really valuable caption. People are saying this doesn't work anymore, but it still works. Basically, the video loops as you read the caption, so it adds more views because you're reading this really long caption. Them. So in the caption, you can go crazy. You can tell us your whole life story and then always, always have the comment to get a DM. Okay. So that's the easiest. The second easiest is a time-lapse. So same, this is the same footage. I'm not asking you to take any new footage here. And you just have your phone set up, give it, put it on a wide angle and it would film the whole piece. Like you would come in here and turn it on and it would film the whole thing.

Yeah, you keep gesturing because you actually have, I have 6 cameras here. Yeah, but I'm just talking about— And you added, you added your phone on a tripod.

I practice what I preach. Yep. Yeah. So, so you would have that set up, set it up before you come in. And then you're going to film this whole thing. And then I film it in real time. A lot of people go to time lapse, but that gives you really poor quality. And then that's the only thing you can do with it. But because we film it in real time, we can do all these B-roll with text and then I can time lapse it. So I just squish it down to, again, like 5 to 7 seconds. You could make it longer if you want. This would be a chance where you could do several, several sets of text. So you could be like, 7 tips to be a great podcast guest. Number 1, check your math. You know, like this. Did you get it? You didn't get it. Okay, so, but you could put like 7 lessons, right? And it's rolling over the time lapse. Right. I did one where I time lapse myself. This is for my personal account where I'm cleaning out my closet. So I just time lapse myself cleaning out my closet. It's something I have to do, you know. Mm-hmm. Every day. And I taught, I said, Instagram has changed, hashtags don't work. And then I put set like the, these 4 things on top of me cleaning out my closet. So it's, um, have you heard the Pope in the Pool method? No. This idea is like this Pope, I don't even know who he was, but he would teach from the pool. And so it gave people something to look at while he was talking and made it much more interesting. Okay. So all of these are the Pope in the Pool method where you give someone something visually interesting to watch while they're learning something else, right?

And then you're hitting the two sides of it, like, oh, because you have that, you're reading a book and you're like, this is good and I should learn this, but honestly, I could just use some dopamine right now. Yeah. Anybody have some spare dopamine?

But my brain is fried from doom scrolling, so I will not be reading right now.

I'm just going to go scroll. So you're saying like, oh, I'm going to give you— I guess you see this with some of those accounts that I feel like are mostly AI-generated. Where they're taking something that's like aesthetically or visually satisfying. Yeah. Like chopping something up a certain way or whatever else. And they're just like, they're teaching you something. It doesn't really, there's not really a connection.

Totally. It's the same thing. So like when I was cleaning out my closet, that has nothing to do with Instagram. Right. Right. But I'm like, I'm mostly talking to moms and women my age. And so I'm pretty sure they can all identify with cleaning out their closet. Right. Right. So it feels like, okay, we're similar and then I'm gonna teach you something on top. So time-lapse is the second easiest. Okay. The third one that you can do is face-to-camera. Okay. And some people hate face-to-camera, but believe it or not, if you can get over the fear of it, it's actually the third easiest. And this would be, you would do this either before, after, or we could even do it right now. Okay. Where we just look at the short form. We're not looking at a fancy camera. We just look and you could be like, hey, today I have the most fabulous guest on my show. Her name's Nicole Burke. She's gonna give you a quick tip. To give you one quick tip on how she grew her Instagram to 1.5 million in 2 years. She's gonna give you one quick tip. And then I would just say the tip. And then that's, that's our face to camera. So it's just literally talking to the camera with your face. Okay. Um, people are often afraid of this. My hack, my little tip is the reason why most of us freak out in that situation is we're imagining gazillions of people watching us on the other side of that phone. Right. And so my hack that I always do is I just imagine one person I just pretend when I'm looking at that phone and doing a selfie, I pick one person that I know in my audience and I just pretend like I'm talking to them.

Okay, so let's do this right now. I'm gonna use this cam, I'm gonna use the fancy camera. I think it is higher up. Love it. Um, and okay, and so you would just make the reel.

We're gonna do it. We're gonna do it. Let's go. Okay.

So today on the podcast, I have the most incredible creator. Her name is Nicole Burke and she has built her Instagram account over 1.5 million subscribers. and she's gonna tell you the most important tip.

When you're posting on Instagram, the most videos you need to make are in the entertaining section. You need to entertain people before you educate them or try to sell to them. So think of an emotion that you want your people to feel: laughter, uh, enthusiasm, excitement, or just kind of embarrassment. Anything that will make them push the share button because they felt something when they saw a video from you. Post most of your content and entertain your people, your account will grow and so will your business.

That's amazing. So there's so much more great content like that in this episode. If you wanna watch the whole thing, comment Nicole below and I'll send you the link. Is that how it's done? That's it!

Wasn't that easy?

That was very easy.

Are you doing that already? No. Yes! We're gonna start. See, that's one video you can make every single time. Okay. And it was so easy. We were already here. We're already in—

And it shows the chemistry in the episode and all of that. Yeah. Someone's like, Oh, they seem fun. I wanna— Absolutely. Listen to that whole thing. Yep.

And you can even like, you could do several of them, right? So if like we got to the end of the podcast, you could be like, you could have this wonderful Kara over here. So you could pick out like the 3 or 4 most pithy statements. And say, hey, could you do this for me? And she could say, hey, let's run through these 4 lessons. And you know, you wouldn't even, you should be on it probably to identify, but you could be like, Nicole just dropped this bomb on our podcast. Guess. She's got to tell you this. Yep. Yeah. Okay. I love it. Face the camera. All right. Number 4 is going to be what we call transitional or a transition. And this is primarily going to be like that showcase kind of idea. You could do it in so many different ways. You could do like the start. Basically, you just want to think of before and afters. And it doesn't always have to be better, right? So it could be like before the podcast and you get, we're like all like excited, and then after the podcast and we're like, you know, exhausted. But it's basically a before and after. It can be blank space to like, you know, it could be this actually. It could be like before there's nothing here and then the after is all this.

Oh, that's interesting because if people know the show, they know that we're always drawing on it. Exactly. And there's a little bit of intrigue. It could say before and it's just this line. Exactly. And then after there's all this stuff and you're like, you know, comment Nicole to get. Totally.

So you could use the board, you could use our prep time, you know, but anything that shows a before and after These are easier for someone like me who's a garden creator, but you know, I could do it in my closet before and then after, and it still doesn't have, like the thing I'm posting doesn't have to do anything with my closet. I'm just showing a transition. People love transitions. Like they're on Instagram, TikTok, they're there to see change 'cause they're not making any 'cause they're doom scrolling. So they want to live vicariously through us. So when they see all this work you just did, it gives them hope gives them some sense of accomplishment even though they did nothing. Okay, number 5 is a little bit harder, and this would be more advanced. Don't do this until you're doing all these other, and this is what I call documentary. Okay. You do not have to be a filmmaker to do these. I did these and I did not even have a smartphone until 2015. So if I can do it, you can do it. Documentary is just that. You're documenting a whole process. So today what I would have done is like, like, you know, if I were gonna be your videographer, I would just film you walking in the room. I would film you kind of setting up your camera, maybe having a little chit-chat with me, film another clip of you sitting down, adjusting your microphone, film another clip of us like, you know, getting ready, getting mic'd up, film something of you writing here. Basically you're just kind of picking little clips of the main event. B-roll, this is like a, this is a term used in, in theater or whatever, and the B-roll is like not the main event. It's like a side view.

It sets the stage, you know, the context to it, all those things.

Yeah, it's like, it's like you're not, in a B-roll, you never look at the camera, okay? But like in a documentary, you're really capturing the main event. You're capturing the main action. And then the way you edit this is you just clip all those things together and kind of tell a story. Okay. And so on that, you could put text on top of it or you can just show the whole thing. And so like, let's say if he, you know, like you're like, wow, Nicole is famous. Famous, let's use her image and likeness. And so we like film all this, document it, and then people are like, wow, I know that girl, she's so famous, I gotta go find her on YouTube. So maybe don't use it on me, but like, you know, some of the other famous people you've worked with. But it's just, it like brings people behind the scenes and they eat that stuff up online. All right, and then the sixth kind is, can be actually very easy once you get a hang of it, and this is just memes or trends. And so I was sharing with you one that's trending right now, or at least was, is one off of Taylor Swift's new album where people like put up a little quote of like something they want in their life and then they go, "Stop talking dirty to me," and they just play the sound from the song. There was a trend a while back on TikTok that was like strawberry, strawberry, strawberry, strawberry, and the strawberries started beautiful and ended up terrible. And so all, you know, people made all kinds of memes of things being amazing and then ending up awful. There's all kinds of memes and trends that you can pick up on, and then you just apply it to your niche. So for you, you would take something that you see maybe with, you know, sports, and then you take that meme of, say, like, it could be like a football player who's like, oh, this just happened, my dad just told me last night, a football player caught the ball was gonna tie the game and sat on his butt like right before the, the touchdown line. And so like all he had to do was like go like this and he would've been across the line. And instead, you know, so you could take that exact recording and like put like me in quarter 4, you know, or something like that. Like me when I was just about to make it in my business. So you can take little things that are trending and then turn them into posts. So this takes someone that's watching memes. So if you're not a person who scrolls, if you're not a person who, who enjoys watching the internet, then this is gonna be hard for you. Yeah. But if you are a person who does that, you just look for the memes that are easy for you to make and you make 'em. Mm-hmm. But if for the majority of people watching who think that 1,000 videos is too much to make, you could literally make 1,000 of these and you would be way better off than you are now. That's amazing. Yeah, it's easy. 7, 7 seconds. That's it. Yeah.

So I mean, this has been a complete masterclass. Thank you for walking through all of this in detail. Yeah. I've been able to watch you do it from a distance, but to see you break it breakdown of like the different systems and formats. I think it's so impressive.

Yeah, well, I'm just waiting on Kit to start doing it. Yes, we will get right on that. I very much believe in this when I start getting those. I'm ready to get these in my feed. Yes, the entertainment ones. Oh, there's that video that makes me feel seen. I can't wait.

Oh, and look at that. The view count is 5 times higher than any other reel.

Nathan took my advice and it worked. Amazing. Amazing. Oh, sounds good. Well, you guys have built an incredible business and it's awesome to get to have this conversation. Hopefully we inspired a ton of you guys to get out there and post more. I was sharing with them before, you know, all of us are Oprah to somebody. And when I was growing up, I was having a hard time in high school, come home 4:00 PM every day, Oprah was there for me and I could count on her. She might be there as with a rerun, you know, but in some way I was gonna see Oprah every day at 4:00. And what struck me as a business owner and what you guys should believe too is that that you're Oprah to somebody. Somebody needs to see you in their feed very often. And you have a message, you have a purpose, and we have to get over ourselves and show up for our people. I love that. Yeah.

So if people wanna follow you, either Gardenary or any of your personal content, where should they go?

Yeah, so if you want help with posting more, I post a lot about Instagram, what's working for me in my business at Hey Nicole Burke. And I have lots of free lead magnets. Yep. 5-second videos, things like that at heynicoleburke.com. Maybe I'll share one of those. I'll share one of those resources with you guys to give away for free. And then if you wanna watch me do my thing, that's at Gardenary, G-A-R-D-E-N-A-R-Y-C-O, C-O. Sounds good. Yep.

Thank you so much for coming on.

Thank you so much for having me. You guys get out there and make some videos.

If you enjoyed this episode, go to YouTube and search The Nathan Barry Show. Then hit subscribe and make sure to like the video and drop a comment. I'd love to hear what some of your favorite parts of the video were and also just who else you think we should have on the show. Thank you so much for listening.