How to Thrive On and Beyond Instagram for Women Entrepreneurs with Chronic Illness

Welcome to Business with Chronic Illness, the globally ranked podcast for women living with chronic illness who want to start and grow a business online. I'm your host, Nikita Williams, and I went from living a normal life to all of a sudden being in constant pain with no answers, to being diagnosed with multiple chronic illnesses and trying to make a livable income. I faced the challenge of adapting traditional business advice to fit my unique circumstances with chronic illness, feeling frustrated and burned out than I already was while managing my chronic illness to becoming an award-winning coach with a flexible, sustainable online coaching business. I found the surprisingly simple steps to starting and growing a profitable business without compromising my health or my peace.

Since then, I've helped dozens of women just like you learn how to do the same.

If you're ready to create a thriving business that aligns with your lifestyle and well-being, you're in the right place. Together, we're shifting the narrative of what's possible for women with chronic illness and how we make a living. This is Business with Chronic Illness.

Hey y'all, so excited about this episode. This is a replay from a live conversation that I had with my audience on Instagram talking about the changes and what we're seeing overall and just like the algorithm of things that's going on as far as marketing in your business on Instagram and how not to put all of your eggs in in one bucket. There have been some updates and more clarification around what's happening with what is being called Meta Verified, which I talk about often, like a lot in this episode. However, I want you to know that when you are listening to this replay, you're going to learn 3 things to help you diversify how you market and how you bring in leads or people who want to work with you without over— feeling overwhelmed, without wasting your spoons without doing the most and actually how doing this, doing some of these strategies help you grow offline, off of Instagram. And these are things that I've always kind of implemented in my business as a woman living with multiple chronic illnesses. So be ready to take some notes because there's some juicy bits in here. And if you want more information about what's going on with Meta Verified on Instagram, I will put a link link to it in the show notes so you can check, take a look at what's happening with that. But from my clarification or from what I've seen is that this is really geared, this new Meta Verified membership model, if you will, is really geared towards big box companies, like very big box companies on kind of having a more enriched customer service, but it won't affect reach for them or for us necessarily. However, Meta says this, but we all know that in the last year, especially in the last 6 months, Instagram has really been shifting and changing the way that we engage and how people engage, right? It's becoming more of a pay-to-play or to-be-seen model. On top of that, the way the world is operating when it comes to operating or using, um, Instagram is shifting as well. And so these things that I share with you as far as how to help your business to grow and to make sales outside of social media or how to better use Instagram are shared in this live. So be sure to stay tuned and I love to hear your feedback. There's a fun new feature here on my podcast that if you go to the show notes within the platform that you're listening to a podcast, you can actually send me a message. And if your message is something just of encouragement or a question, I will be able to answer them in my email list. That's where I'll be answering a lot of these questions or things that you guys share with me. So if you're not on my email list, be sure that you are on that email list and you can find that link in the show notes. All right, here's the episode.

Hey everyone, this is your girl Nikita coming to you live to talk to you about the Instagram updates, how to grow your business even with or with Instagram, and just some of the things that's going on with what we're seeing as far as the social media landscape. I had a few of you all reach out to me in my DMs asking me about these IG Meta update things that are happening. And I, I never worried when these things happen, partially because I don't put all of my eggs in the Instagram bucket. So let's start there first. If you have been running your business and solely trying to run your business here on Instagram, then yes, this is something to be really concerned about. Because you're about to lose some control over who sees your content. You're losing even more control over the money and energy you need to spend in doing it. And so if you're all like, I don't know what you're talking about, that Meta Instagram update. So let me tell you what Instagram announced the other day. Just like we have the Meta Verified, which was supposed to just be for us to be able to have some communication, chat support, if something were to go wrong, if things weren't going to happen. Like if your account was stolen or whatever, someone was faking to be you, you could actually talk to a live person and get support. It's also a way for you to get a little bit more increased views because you are a verified Instagram profile. And it was just one tier. Instagram made an announcement recently that these tiers are now going to graduate over time. So they're actually in a testing mode. A testing mode at this time where there's going to be different layers, so, or different levels. So there's going to be another one where you can pay more over a period of time to get more reach, more views, and more quote-unquote support. Lots of people are up in arms about this, and a lot of people are worried, like, so does that mean my reach is going to change? Does that mean that people aren't going to see what I'm posting? Does it mean I'm gonna have to pay $50 upwards to $400 a month for my content to get reach? Some people are like, that just means I need to like invest in ads. It's so much cheaper just to do ads at this point. And I have just a very different perspective of all of the changes that happen on this platform because most of, mostly, mostly I have found that Instagram is gonna Instagram. They're in business for themselves. They're in business to make money. They have seen what we've seen, which there has been a drastic change in the way we engage and how many of us are even using social media, especially as business owners. And most of us are just not, like, we're just not using it as much as we used to. And so in order to quote unquote continue to grow their business, Instagram is going to focus on these things that help them make money. And get people to stay on the platform longer. And if you are paying to be on the platform, likely you're gonna be on the platform longer, right? And so I just have always had the thought as a business owner that I'm never just going to base my business or my marketing strategy on one platform. That's just never been a pillar for me. Yes, I'm comfortable here on Instagram. Yes, I love an Instagram page that's giving all the vibes, but I just don't depend on it. This is why I started with a podcast, why I still have my podcast, why I deeply depend and connect with community being the currency that creates the opportunities that I look for, collaborations and all of that jazz. And so that's something to think about for your business. If you've been putting all your eggs in one basket as Instagram being your main way of marketing, It's time to diversify. Some of my clients know this, but a lot of people don't know this. I've been like leaning into looking into like LinkedIn because that's where some of my clients are. There are new social media apps out here like Laps, which is a really fun one. There are other platforms and other places you can also double down on Pinterest, blogging, all these other resources that are actually more controlled by you than having to worry about what Instagram is going to do. So here's something to think about for the marketing strategy on Instagram. If you go, if, if you choose to stay on this platform and use it as your main way of connecting and growing your audience, if Instagram decides that they are going to move forward with this model of basically a pay to be seen, basically pay to be seen on a membership level, this thing. And the interesting, before I go off on that, the interesting thing about this mod— like, this membership kind of subscription model for Instagram is that it's not guaranteeing that your content is going to be in front of the people you want it to be in front of. It's just guaranteeing that it's going to get more random views. And this is why I believe if you're going to stay on Instagram, ads is way more affordable for you to, like, actually get your content in front of the right people and the people you want to work with. So it might be time to start taking some ad courses. Fortunately, I have a background in ads. Back in the day when I was doing digital marketing, things have shifted a bit, a little bit, a lot, a bit, I should say. It's actually changed a lot, but the mechanism of the foundations of ads haven't really changed, which is you have to be really good at who you're talking to, what your problems you're solving, and what they, what they want right now to fix problems that they want, that they need to solve right now. So there's that. I think I personally would just be more invested in learning about how to use ads than just spending money on Instagram on this membership level and not have a clue of who is going to see my content and have control over that to the best of my ability. It just doesn't make any sense. There's no way I'm spending upwards to $300 a month not having control. You could literally spend that much in ads and know that it's getting in front of the people that you want to connect with. And so that's something to think about. Secondly, if you're like, Nikita, I don't want to pay to play. I don't want no ads. I don't want to do anything. This is where collaboration is your superpower. You must, and I'm going to say this with very firm conviction, you must create content that is actually solving people's problems, actually something that they need. Not just what they want, but what they need. And even if it's what you consider a commodity item, something that you feel like people can live without, there's always a way to sell it in a way that shows people that this is what they need in an authentic, aligned, non-sleazy way. Secondly, collaborations. You will need to join power, if you will, with other people.

You need—

you will need to learn how to collaborate with other people that are serving aligned, similar, or opposing audiences to you, because this will help you widen your reach and widen who is going to find you. So if you're gonna be on this platform, I think, and you're— and Meta decides to do this thing on Instagram, I think collaborations will be your key to helping you expand your ability to reach more people. And then it's your job to create content that consistently serves them and it's good content. So if you've been having trouble with creating content that converts, then this is also going to be an issue for you. You have to learn how to talk to the problems, needs, and desires, and objections in your content. So you have to answer why people, why they may, they might want what you need and need what you need, but they feel like they don't have the time. They feel like they don't have the money. They feel like they don't believe that they themselves can actually do the thing. So you have to start creating content from that standpoint to help you to really stand out on this platform. But that's what I would do. If you're like, I'm staying on Instagram, I'm going to be here and this is the only place I'm going to spend my time marketing. I 100% believe you just have to learn how to create content that converts now. And collaborations are key. And if you have any bandwidth, learn how to use ads. They're actually not that hard once you get into them. It's a little bit of a learning curve, but it can be easy for you to do. But the easiest thing to do honestly is the collaboration piece. Join powers, find your people, connect and serve them in that way. And I think that's how you can grow your business here on social media, on Instagram, if you decide to stay. Now, if you're like, Nikita, I'll be on here occasionally. Hey, Akilah, I'm not trying to be on this, on this thing any longer than I need to be. I see some of you have been like, I kind of feel like I see the, the ending of the road of how this is going to be. And I just can't see myself doing this on Instagram. What I would recommend is that you have multiple other things you can do. Instagram is just one of the tools. That we can use. Currently, Facebook— currently Facebook, I don't believe, is using this model. So Facebook may become— and I've been noticing it, I've been seeing way more engagement on my Facebook page and my Facebook profile than I have on Instagram. I think groups is another place to spend time in. I think Facebook alone, I don't think they're going to roll this model out there. So I do think if you want to kind of interchange and go back to the Facebook world, you might be— if your people are there, If you're— your people are younger than— if they're in their 20s, your people aren't there. They're not active there. They're likely on Snapchat. They're likely on Laffs. They're likely on TikTok. And we don't know what's going on with TikTok. We don't know if it's actually going to get— like, it's banned until they have this whole thing that's going to change or whatever. We're just in a landscape of a lot of change when it comes to social media. So this is why I believe fundamental marketing is key. So that means even in your local area, connecting with people that you can collaborate, posting your own type of events in person or online, doing things like a blog or podcasting and collaborating in those different ways, especially when it comes to blog and blogging and your podcast, like utilize Pinterest, like really optimize the spaces of things that where you are creating content that is your own and make sure it's in places that people are looking for solutions to some of the things that they're looking for. So if you have a podcast and you're not using Pinterest, we need to use Pinterest. If you have a blog post or you have a blog and you're not using Pinterest, you should be using Pinterest in order to help drive traffic to your, your site. Because even with SEO changing because of AI, which is search engine optimization, we're just in a world of change when it comes to marketing. But here's what I'm so confident about and why I'm not worried. Businesses run on relationships and people.

People run—

businesses run on people. We will never replace our need of connecting and being with people. So double down on areas in your business and in your marketing strategy and in your sales strategies on ways you can connect with people in diversifying ways. It doesn't have to be hard, y'all. I know this is hard for us with chronic illness. We're like, I don't got the spoons for all this, Nikita. I don't got the energy for trying to figure all of this out. But I do recommend that some of the things that might be helpful is having virtual chats, connecting with people, looking for online networking events to go to. If you have the space and spoons, try to do that by going to in-person events. In-person events don't have to be businessy. They can be based on things that you enjoy that are crafts. You just need to be out in the world, and your identity as a business owner needs to be kind of front and center. So people need to know that you have a business. So when people ask you, hey, what's your name? What do you do? You tell them what your name is, and then you tell them about your business. We have to kind of, kind of go back to the fundamentals that never went away. But social media in a lot of different ways made it so easy for us to just like show up and post and people find us, right? So I think just going back to some of these fundamentals and leaning into conversations with people, you can grow multi-six, seven, and eight-figure businesses without social media. I know business owners who are and are continuing to do that. So I want to recommend to you, don't allow this to scare you. It just, it just allows for creativity. And this is stuff that I work with my clients on. Some of my clients hate social media, and so we're looking at different ways for them to show up and be seen, different conversations, different things that they need to do in their community and outside of their community in order to increase visibility and reach for people to know that you have a business and that you're open and you're taking clients, right? And so I just, I think it's really important to— hello, Naziel— to not allow this I thing to like throw you for a loop and like make you believe that it's impossible because now they're just making it so hard. For a long time, we've had it pretty good of being able to show up on a social media platform and like make money without having to pay in the contents of like paying for that service. Before Instagram, before social media, people did newsletters, billboards, networking events, like door— passing out door thingies in your door and stuff. And I think the essence of that foundational piece of how business worked then is kind of what we have to start thinking about now, but in the digital age that we're in. You can connect with, with people. Growing your email list right now is so important. If you haven't started an email list, start one. Get people on it. Incentivize people to get on it because email is not really changing. It's one of the most OG, low-key, and highest converting and most profitable way of growing your business. I leaned so much more into my email. That's where I use exclusive content. I talk about exclusive things on my email list. That's where I make sales. I know my person is seeing it because I'm in their inbox. And if I'm giving content that solves problems and I can literally do it from bed, I can do it from the sofa, I can do it from the bathroom.

I can do it in a lot of different places, y'all.

So I can write up an email and send it to my people at any given time. If I have an email list, so that's the other thing I would say is really start building your community. Start building your group of people, your, your sales team, force, community. You have to start doing that. So if you don't have an email list, you need to start growing one. And the easiest way to start growing an email list is telling people that you have one and what they will get out of being on it. So for you all who are on my email list, you know, I send exclusive content, coaching content on how you can grow. Your business mindset things. I also have special offers and things like that that I send to my email list that I don't do anywhere else. So that's another way of you growing your business. Even if you have a product-based business, you need email. You especially need email. Like, if you have a product-based business, you need email. If people aren't on your email list, just like when Instagram, like, dies or the algorithm or something's doing something weird, You need email, like you just need email. So if you aren't using it or making it a part of your intention of having an email list and growing that email list, then that's where you need to start focusing your time on as well, especially before it kind of like all— we don't know what's going to happen. Instagram is just saying they're testing it. We, we don't know. Right. And so this is just a way to cover your butt. This is a way to give yourself more options, have more flexibility and freedom. And you can easily just reach out to past clients. You can reach out to people right now in your Instagram stories. You can reach out to people in your DMs. If you have a group, you can have people join your email list that way. Just start getting people to a place you have more control over that truly is yours. That email list is yours, right? And that helps you be able to market and sell. And it's the lowest and easiest converting mechanism when it comes to marketing online. Still to this day, it has been forever. If you don't know how to use email and it feels frustrating, I have an amazing coach that I can send your way. She has an amazing program that makes email super easy. You can write it fast, you can learn, and all that jazz. So let's break this down one more again. Hello, One Sick Beat Podcast. If you want to stay on Instagram and you're like, I'm, I'm here to stick it out. Here's what you're going to want to do if you don't want to pay for this membership thing. Really lean into collaborations, collaborations with the people you want to work with, people that serve an aligned audience or crossover, and sometimes even your competitors in a way, depending on what it is that you do. Secondly, make sure your content is good. Make sure it is actually serving a purpose. Don't just be doing it to do it. Like, in a lot of different ways, that could be a part of the problem, right? Make sure it's relevant to what you do and what you're trying to do. Third, third, ads might be something to look at because I definitely believe they will be way more affordable than this Meta membership thing. Like, and you'll have control over who is seeing it and who's not seeing it. You'll be able to tweak and be able to do adjustments if you decide to do that. So those are— that's the one thing. Hello everyone, welcome. Okay, so that's if you decide you want to stay on Instagram. And you're frustrated or you're trying to figure out what to do with this whole membership meta thing. Those are my 3 suggestions there. If you're coming on, you might want to go back and listen to the replay because I've been talking about this for a minute. Secondly, if you're like Nikita Williams, I'm done with the IG. I'm done with the Instagram. I think you need to diversify where you are if you've had all your eggs in this bucket of Instagram. I believe it should be something as far as content that you produce and you have control over. So that might be a podcast, that might be a blog, that might be a newsletter membership kind of thing that's free for people. Definitely email has to be a part of that, right? A way for you to build community is so important, and it's not just community to like make sales, but it's also to connect with other business owners that you can create like a referral network and things like that. So that is the other thing you want to do. Explore other social media platforms. Where your people are. So for me, that's LinkedIn. I'm thinking about going back to Facebook because I don't believe that this idea of the Meta membership thingy is going to roll over to Facebook. I think it's just for Instagram. So you might want to go there. We don't know what's going on with TikTok. So TikTok might be a place to go explore. I don't know. I have— I'm on there, but I'm not on there and I don't know what's going on with that platform. And so I'm just going to the places that I know I had a little bit more foundation of figuring out how it can work for my people. Know that different platforms, different people or groups of people are on it. On Facebook, anybody who's between the ages of like 30 and upwards-ish are usually on Insta— on, on Facebook, and they're usually on LinkedIn, right? So that's another place where your people are. Other ways I would say is to diversify the the, the content you're creating from not just being on the platform that you choose. So if it's podcasting, just because it's on Spotify and Apple and wherever it is, make sure that you start creating things for it to be found other places. For example, like Pinterest, for example, like collaborating with other business owners so that they can feature some of your content. All of this jazz is just another way of getting your content out there and diversifying how people find you. Yes, Instagram has been a great way for us to kind of reach audiences that don't know, but you can do that through collaboration and your own content. Hello everyone. So that is my thoughts on why I'm not worried about Instagram, Meta, new potential, I don't know what's gonna happen thing. I'm just not worried because there are other options and there are options that I've always built my business on. Foundationally, and so I'm not concerned. But if you haven't been, these are strategies that you definitely want to start kind of implementing and getting yourself into if you don't want to put— if you don't want to pay this Meta stuff. I know other, what do you call it, other people out there are like, go to the Meta and tell them how you're gonna boycott them and leave the platform and all that stuff. I'm like, I'm not that, I'm not that stressed about it. So I definitely just think there are other options, just other options. You don't have to worry. The thing you can be confident in is that if Instagram is not for you, you can still have a successful business. It will just mean you, it look, it will look different how you market your business. Then maybe the space and time it takes for you to convert a lead or a client or a purchase. Might look different in this little transition, but it can still work. So I just want to offer that for you. You can— I wish that there was a way to insert a song during this live, like, you can stay or you can go. Either way, it's okay. Like, it's either way, it's okay. If you want some more tips on this, I actually work with clients right now. Some clients literally avoid Instagram or don't like want to be on Instagram or any social media platform, and we work on in-person community and connection marketing and social selling in the context of in-person events. We do that. We have a strategy for that. If you're like, I want to explore other platforms that's not Instagram, we do that too. And I'm working with my clients at all different levels because some platforms have different energy, different expectations. And so it's really good to know what you're getting into, what will feel good for you and like your, your energy and your capacity as a chronic illness warrior, as someone living with multiple chronic illnesses or autoimmune diseases, or if you are working a 9 to 5 and you need more flexibility, some platforms are a lot more easier. Right now I'm exploring LinkedIn a lot more and I'm kind of liking it. I'm kind of liking it. Just, just to put that out there, the reach is kind of huge right now because it's, you know, it's going through a revamp. It's not just for old people, y'all. It's not just for old people and it's not just for like corporatey, corporatey people. It's really not. It's a really great place to find people. Who are looking for solutions, right? And a career base, especially if you're selling B2B. You're selling consumer, check back on Facebook. Get back on that. I did a live a couple of weeks ago and I got so much engagement from Facebook. I was like, what is this? What happened? So that might be another place to go back to and explore. I mentioned an app called Lapse. It's like a, it's a really fun app where you take a picture there's no video, there's— it's pictures like how Instagram used to be. However, it has to develop in a darkroom, so you can't post it immediately. But I can definitely see that app becoming like a fun way of creating anticipation and also community in a different way. Y'all, we just gotta get— start getting more creative with AI coming into the world and all these changes happening to social media and search engine or search engine optimization, like Google and searches and things like that. I just want you to lean into what I believe is the most important: connecting with people and helping them. That's it. Helping them will help you and help your business to grow. You just gotta know what problems you need to solve for them and how to help them do it and how to show why they should do it with you. So that's it for today. I'm about to hop on my group call with my girls inside of my group program where we talk about all this stuff in detail and like create plans specifically for them. So yeah, if you want to know more information about that, you can hop into my DMs and let me know. It's a lot more affordable than my one-on-one coaching, but you can just jump in and let me know.

That's a wrap for this episode of Business with Chronic Illness. If you would like to start and grow an online coaching business with me, head to the show notes to click a link to book a sales call and learn how to make money with chronic illness. You can also check out our website at www.craftedtothrive.com for this episode's show notes and join our email list to get exclusive content where I coach you on how to chronically grow a profitable business while living with chronic illness. Until next time, remember, yes, you are crafted to thrive.