The Arena Podcast | Episode 45: Organic Social That ACTUALLY Books Patients w/ Molly Cahill

Molly Cahill, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being here today.

I'm so excited to be here.

I'm excited as well. Well, we got a lot of talk about just, you know, for the off-air conversation, it's already got me excited to deep dive this topic with you. But first, you know, for my listeners, because my listeners are— they're all chiropractors and entrepreneurs and business owners, and they're probably wondering how you got into serving chiropractors. So I'd love to know the backstory there, how this girl from Alabama, if I'm correct about that.

You are. Do I still have an accent? I haven't lived there in like 16 years.

But when I said Cahill, it kind of sounded like—

Cahill. Yeah, I can turn it on if I need to. Whenever I go back home, it comes out like real thick.

Me too. Yeah. And it lasts about a week. So I come back and they're like—

Wait, you said Texas, right?

Texas. Yeah. East Texas.

Yeah, yeah. See, I don't think— it's sad sometimes. My, my daughter is 9 and she's never lived in Alabama. Like, she was the military child, you know. We're out now, but, um, she was born in San Diego. Anyway, she said, "You guys," the other day. I was like, I don't have a child that says "you guys." We say "y'all" in this family. This can't be my blood, you know.

Yeah, I love that.

Yeah, so it's a crazy story. I was on another chiropractor's podcast. It was so funny. I don't know if you know Danielle Rhodes. She's like, so tell me, was it like this big this big plan. I was like, hell no, I had zero. There was zero masterminding or planning of this, which I think is important for a lot of people and business owners to hear that. Like, I feel like when you hear origin stories, it's like, and this vision came to me and I journaled it and then it came. I'm like, there was no vision. It just like a series of events and next right steps led to this. So, um, my name is Molly and I am not a chiropractor and yet I do. I play one on Instagram every day. No, I always joke I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. You remember those commercials?

Yep, I do.

So I'm like, I know enough to be dangerous. I could probably pretend to be one out in public and people would have no idea. My friends call me Dr. Molly, which is hilarious.

Oh, that's funny.

I know. I literally just had a friend texting me 30 minutes ago about her daughter's molluscum. I was like, okay, here's what you need. So my background is actually in sales and marketing and PR. My very first job out of college, I sold advertising in a newspaper. This is 2008 when the recession hit. Um, I was having some really bad sciatica at like 22. And my family never went to the chiropractor. This wasn't like a common thing, right? I always thought it was like kind of scary, which if we should table the scary fear part because I want to talk about that later. But I was very scared of like what I thought a chiropractor was and all of that. But I was pretty desperate and I had just sold an ad in our newspaper to a chiropractor who was a new chiropractor in our town. And he kind of saw me like limping along and was like, well, hey, I could help you. And I was kind of like, okay, sure. You know, like very skeptical. 2 adjustments later, I was like out of pain and it was wild. I was like, oh my gosh, like my doctor had zero answers for me. I got prescribed a muscle relaxer. I mean, who can work or drive or live? You know what I mean? It's just not a solution. So fast forward, I got adjusted pretty regularly, but not— I mean, there would probably be like whole— maybe like years where I would go without and then, you know, I'd come in, come back. And then I was in medical sales for 6 years. So I called on pain and addiction clinics all day, every day for 6 years. So when you are in a pain and addiction clinic, you're like, shoot, like nobody's coming to save us. Like there's gotta be a better way, right? Like it was just so depressing. And fast forward more, my husband was a pilot in the Marine Corps and we didn't time things well. And he deployed for 6 months when I was 38 weeks pregnant. And I quit my corporate job. I had no plans of what I was gonna do next. I just knew I couldn't, like, I mean, I was working like 80-hour weeks. So quit my corporate job, and when my daughter was about a year old, I was friends with my personal chiropractor in San Diego, uh, shout out Dr. Chrissy. And she's like, hey, do you want to help me with my Instagram? And it's like the proverbial rest is history. It kind of snowballed from there.

Hey guys, I know you're enjoying this episode, but give me one second of your time. This is my shameless plug for the Chiro Ads Academy, where we're teaching docs how to bring their Facebook and Instagram ads in-house and generate repeatable, consistent new patients month after month without the headache and hassle of working with digital marketing agencies. It'll not save you $30,000 a year, but it'll also give you outsized returns. It's the same exact system that we're running inside our 7-figure practice right now. And last month alone, we generated a 34x return on investment. We spent $1,567 in Facebook ad spend and generated over $54,000 from Facebook ads alone. This system is proven, it's tested, and has been installed in over 150 practices across the world, and it can be installed in your practice as well so that you can generate similar results. Click the link in the show notes to watch a free training where I break down every single step of the entire system. And if you like what you hear, book a call so we can see if this system will work in your practice. Click the link below and I'll see you on the inside. Thanks for your time. Back to the episode. That is First off, the pain and addiction stuff, like, that really just like gave me chills, you know, thinking about that. That actually has a lot to do with why I'm a chiropractor, because whenever I, I got injured in the Air Force and they ended up medicating me and they put me into the alarm room because I couldn't work on the truck as a firefighter. And they ended up— I was on pain pills and I was on— they put me on Ritalin because I was having to work the night shift from 6 PM to 6 AM and I couldn't stay awake. I'd fallen asleep and shamefully missed a few emergency calls, which is like, I was the only one in there. I was a freaking 20-year-old kid. Um, wow. And they had completely disrupted my circadian rhythm. They threw me into the law room, was extremely high stress, big responsibility, you know. And so they medicated me, and so I started self-medicating to contradict the side effects from that medication. So I would wake up in the morning or get off in the morning, and I would drink vodka because you couldn't use anything other than alcohol in the military. It was depressant, so I was just trying to to counteract the effects of the stimulants so that I could get some sleep so that I could be back to work the next day. So I ended up in like a mental health crisis, of course, from the, the pharmaceuticals. And at the same time, obviously being a firefighter, most of our calls were medical calls. And so we'd go out, and I was, I was a probie, I was a new kid, so I would run in with the med bag. I'd ensure that there wasn't a life-threatening emergency, and then they would send me to go pull out all of their medications so that we could see if there was any type of medical response or anything that was happening due to medications. I was literally pulling prescription drug bottles out of all of these people's medicine cabinets, and it was something like, like an average of like 14 prescription medications or something like that. And so that was also part of my story, which was like wild. Yeah, just seeing the drug industry and how it was begin— beginning to infect our general population and causing a lot of like the chronic disease states that we were in, and I experienced it myself, you know, like I had suicidal ideation and it completely hijacked my brain and personality. The pharmaceutical, like, industry and having a firsthand experience on how impactful that can be in not just one person's life, but a large majority of our population's life, I think was part of what inspired me to get into holistic and alternative, alternative healthcare. So I'm glad to know that you, you have a similar story, and that's probably where a lot of your passion came for from for helping chiropractors.

Yeah, and I, I just— a sidebar there, like, you didn't even ask me this, but I— that's what I always have all of my chiropractors and all my— well, because I work with some acupuncturists, some other, like, local practitioners too, like you. When it comes to, quote, putting themselves out there on Instagram or whatever, I get a lot of, like, that should mentality. They're like, well, Travis said, or Molly said, I should be doing this to market my practice. And I'm like, no, no, because if that's your why, like, you're never gonna do it, right? Like, It sucks sometimes when you— it's like a drag. But when you go back to like, okay, why am I doing this? All right, there's someone in my community who desperately is seeking answers. I am the solution to their problem and they don't know I exist. So I'm gonna suck it up and put my big girl pants on and I'm gonna put myself out there so that they know that I exist so they can get help. And when you anchor in that versus like, oh, Travis said, or like, you know, Molly said I should be doing this thing. Like, it's like complete— to sound like ChatGPT— game changer.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's such a good point. I love that mindset reframe because you're right. Like, there are— I mean, it's the most leverageable asset that we've ever had, right? Everybody has a cell phone in their hand. Everybody is constantly scrolling on social media. And if we know that, you know, a large percentage is struggling from chronic disease, metabolic syndrome, they're overprescribed, they're in pain, they're dysregulated, and we know that to be the norm, then why would you not use the one media source or channel that all of these people are currently consumed by and put your message to traffic that person into your office so that they finally have an answer, a solution, and a support system? I love that. I mean, that's a, that's a great reframe on, on the why, and that's what chiropractors need, the bigness, you know. I think most chiropractors are philosophical and they're heart-centered. So if you can find a way to make it heart-focused and heart-centered and like, hey, put on your big girl, your big boy pants, you know, be courageous and go out there and get these people because they need you now more than ever.

I always say, especially if you're seasoned in practice, like go back to your Google reviews like once a week, set a timer and be like, man, okay, what I'm doing matters and I'm going to talk about it and then I'm going to help more people. And it's just a cycle. It's that simple, really, at the end of the day.

That's good. That's good. All right. Well, let's come back to that because I want to know— I want to know first off what people should be talking about. And you can probably get some tactical things, but let's— oh yeah, let's just— let's just kind of break it down like some type of talk track structure here. So I looked at your site and I, you know, I read through a bunch of the information of your messaging and how you message to chiropractors and healthcare practitioners. And one thing that you called out, which I like because I always kind of talk about this as well, is like the— I always say the build it and they will come mentality, but you call it the post it and they will come mentality. So I want to know about the post it and they will come. Like, why is that so consistent across the board with practitioners? And what do they actually need to do in order to make organic social media work for them?

So I actually say if you build it, they won't— or if you post it, they may— they won't come. Probably. I guess I would say it's kind of like the Field of Dreams, you know, if you build it, they will come.

That's what I was thinking.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like always not necessarily that straightforward. Because I do teach, um, a lot of people when they think about marketing on Instagram or wherever, they think about the outward-facing content. And I could talk about, I could just do a whole episode just on that, right? But there is so much behind-the-scenes stuff that is possible with Instagram that you wouldn't necessarily like, you're like, okay, I'm gonna go hack this chiropractor's account over here who's like crushing it and just try to replicate everything they're doing. If they're like following like the system I teach, there's stuff behind the scenes that you would not see. And that's kind of where that, if you build it, like, you know, they will come type thing. I always joke, maybe they won't come because Instagram is not a billboard. That's what a lot of people kind of make the mistake. And I get probably the number one question. I actually just did an episode on my own podcast about it and it released this week about, I get a ton of questions around like auto-posting and scheduling softwares and all of that. And they're like, well, what are you using to like auto-post all this? And listen, I know if you're busy seeing patients and you're actually the practitioner doing it themselves, or whether you have your front desk doing it or your CA or whatever. Uh, I get that it's not conducive to like be on Instagram all day, so that's not what I'm recommending when I say this. But Instagram was not— the reason that it's clunky, yes. Are there ways to auto-post? Yes. But the reason there's no like one really good streamlined way, and this is someone who's run an agency for 7 years, is because that's not its intended use. It is social media. So when I talk about the behind the scenes, I talk like always emphasize how important it is to be using it as a networking tool. So, you know, like instead of like having to go door to door, you're actually using some of Instagram's features to network with other local businesses in your area, with not just referral partners and colleagues, but just like, you know, other— like I said, things, things that are, you know, unique to your town. The beauty in doing like, like chiropractors or whatever is I love local marketing. To me, it is so much more rewarding. Your goalpost is so much closer than trying to just do like online. Oh, I can see— yes, does it open up opportunities to be like, I can see anybody anywhere? Great. But when it comes to local marketing, to me it is just so much easier to achieve what you're trying to achieve. And part of that is, like I said, leaning on like what I call kind of like— I call them my like scrappy, my scrappy non-scalable things that we teach our clients, or we do on behalf of some of our clients, and I teach in my programs how to do, like I said, with networking. So that looks like, like collab posts possibly, or like commenting on other local businesses' posts, sharing, you know, let's say you're a pregnancy baby chiropractor and there's like a mom's group that's hosting a workshop and you share that to your stories. Like you become a local resource for your ideal client beyond just your modality. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it absolutely does. I have a question. You know, obviously running two businesses, we've tried pretty much everything from an organic standpoint. And what we found is that whenever we post through, like, a scheduler, we've tried HighLevel, we've tried Later, we've tried Hootsuite. Whenever we use the scheduler, like, and, and we don't have big accounts, so it's not like we're seeing a huge discrepancy, but it's enough to actually catch our attention to when something is posted through one of those schedulers, it just consistently across the board does not get as much reach or engagement. Is there a reason for that?

Yeah, it just goes back to the fact that it's, like I said, it's, it's meant to be like social, right? Like they want you— so say you, Dr. Travis, you put out a post on your clinic's page, right? And let's say that it's like beautifully curated, the graphic looks great, but there's really no like personal touch to it. And then it's auto-posted. It's just like, it screams like, if I comment on this, clearly Dr. Travis is not here. He's not going to reply. Whereas something that's more kind of like authentic, made in the moment, maybe it's a little messy. Maybe for a lot of our clients, we'll use like the native Instagram fonts. Like, you know, we build it right in. We love Instagram's edits app. I don't know if you all use that, um, the edits app. Like, like I said, to try to make— that's why, in my opinion, TikTok took off is because people really just like didn't care about it being curated or pretty. It was like, oh, like I'm here with you right here in your living room. Like, I, I can, like, I have access to, to Dr. Travis. Like, I can ask him questions. And so that's why, like, the, in our experience, we found the pre-scheduled stuff typically doesn't perform as well. One thing we do for a lot of our clients is we do, you can schedule stuff natively through Instagram, not Meta Business Suite. It's actually a running joke in the social media management community about how bad Meta Business Suite is. Do you know that, that McDonald's, uh, CEO of him eating the burger, like, went viral or something, right? Yeah, yeah. I saw a meme that was like the McDonald's CEO eating a burger, only it's Mark Zuckerberg trying to use Meta Business Suite.

Oh, that's funny. That's so good.

Yeah, so you can schedule it like right through Instagram if you want to, but if you do that, make sure that you still carve out some intentional time every week, every, you know, Monday through Friday, or Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or however you want to do it, to be like— literally, I have clients who are students in my program who'll be like, Nobody ever— nobody ever comments on my stuff. And I'll go look at their page, and times they have gotten comments, they don't respond. So I'm like, what? Like, why would I comment if it looks like you're not here?

Like, you don't live here. You got to reinforce the behavior that you— that you're looking for.

Yeah, like, it's very obvious when someone—

you're like, oh, you don't live here.

Guilty of that.

Yeah, I'm guilty of that.

Yeah, and that's fine. Like I said, if that's not your— your focus and your goal, it is a lot of work. Like, there's a reason our agency has a 60-person waitlist, right? Like It's a lot of work.

It's a lot of work.

I'm not gonna— I get— I somehow ended up in the Claude Code algorithm and I was like, I want out because not that I don't think it's amazing and that you shouldn't be automating what you can, but I think that in the age of AI, if something doesn't feel frictionless, if it's like fast, easy, it's like, oh, I must be doing it wrong.

And it's like, I mean, you're doing it right.

Yeah. Like this stuff just takes time. Like this is relationship building. Your Instagram is not just like I'm gonna throw up a pretty post and then never look at it again, right? It's like your relationship, it's your community. So when you stop looking at it as like a, like I said, a billboard and look at it more as your little community ecosystem, it kind of changes things. So if you want to talk more about the community aspect, I can.

Well, I like, I like that analogy that it's not a billboard. And when you say that, do you mean like it's not static? Like it's not just like, or what do you mean by it's not a billboard? Like it's not It's not just like a static advertisement, like it's something that has to be alive and kind of constantly changing and actually showing different dimensions of you. Like, how do you, how do you explain that?

Great question. I think of it as like you're driving down the interstate, you see a billboard and then like you see it, the message maybe goes in, but like that's literally the only interaction you have with that business, right? Whereas when it comes to social, like, have you ever had the thrill of like leaving a comment on like a very big creator's account and they like reply to you? They respond. You know, so it's starstruck. We also teach our clients to post what we call conversation starter or can't help myself prompts. For our pregnancy chiropractors, it'll be like, how long were you in labor? And it's like different colored hearts for like 1 to 5 hours, 6 to whatever. And then you'll see like they'll get 40 comments of people because they can't help it. They have to play along. And then you'll see like your potential, like probably your patients like starting to interact with each other, right? Because they're like, oh my God, me too. Like, It's that community. It's like a living, breathing community, not just a like drive-by. Yeah.

No, that's good. I mean, obviously I'm the ads guy and so, you know, like hearing the way that you speak about organic is something that we've done, but it's not something that we've been as intentional with. And so I can see now being in business and in practice as long as we have, the compounding nature of the little intention and the little amount of effort and the little amount of focus that we've provided to our Instagram and it's built into something decent, you know, just with consistency over time. So I can imagine like if you just, you know, stay the course, you have some type of strategy, you have somebody that's helping you with it, and you're consistent from a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis. Because for us it's like we're gonna get back on our organic social game. It's like 3 days of content and then nothing for 7 weeks, and then we do it again and then we do it again. And so our level of consistency with our organic has been so low, but that's because we're really good at driving traffic through our ad system and our ad funnel. Yes. And I got spoiled. I got spoiled, honestly.

Like, I mean, I don't blame you though. Like, if that was my, like, well, we can talk about that later. You need to coach me. I need to come have you on my podcast and you need to coach me through my blocks on ads. Okay. I told you I was gonna tell you this live so I could see your, your action.

Yep. Yep.

Go ahead. I've been in business for 7 years. Do you wanna know how much I've spent on ads in 7 years?

I would love to.

Probably less than $1,000.

Wow. Yeah. I probably, I probably spend, let's see, I probably spend almost $1,000. Well, no, $600 a day.

A day.

Yeah.

And it's not because I don't—

Not in my practice.

Just— Well, you know how it's like there's not—

Yeah.

You know, you know how it's like there's not one way to do something, right? Like there's multiple ways to achieve the same result. And I think I was literally just thinking this yesterday. I'm kind of running like a little mastermind starting in June and I was like, Dang it, I wish I had ads knowledge because I so badly think that this is the missing link in what I'm teaching and what I'm— even if now you can tell me if I'm wrong here, 'cause you're the ads guru. Even if they're using organic social as a free playground, they see what sticks and they put money just behind that, like as a start would be better than—

well, and what, what we found is it goes both ways. So like one thing that we can do is we can actually test content by people have differing opinions. This is my experience and my experience only. We can actually test content styles and test engagement through our ads first. We put money behind it and it allows us to get data way faster, and then we can take that and actually put it onto the organic channel, uh, and, you know, get good engagement and, and reach with that. But one thing that, that I always say, like, the reason why we put intention into the aesthetics of our Instagram and then also like quality posts. Like although we, we're not, um, we haven't been as consistent with quantity, like everything we put out is high quality is because we use our organic page like a landing page. So essentially we, essentially we run, we run ads, we have our specific ad strategy and it's mainly trust-based content. And so, you know, we hook their attention, we outline a problem. We outline our solution as a very simple 3-step solution. We give them social proof and a call to action. Well, the majority of the time, the exposure effect takes hold, which means that if they see it between 1 and 5 times, they don't have the trust built enough to actually take action on that, you know, call to action, which would be click the link below to schedule your appointment today. So instead, they just click our, our Instagram or land on our Instagram. And when they land on our Instagram, they scroll through And essentially it's like, does this content warrant my follow? And then they'll follow us from there. And so it took us way too long to figure out that we needed a follower funnel, but then we built out a follower funnel. And so that was, that's kind of mainly how organic has played into, into our approach was it's part of the holistic approach, but it's typically like our, or like our, like our, our, our catch-all almost. It's like, okay, they didn't make it through the funnel. But they made it back to our organic and now let's redirect them back into our funnel.

Yeah, I love that. And I think that's why I think organic and paid can work so well together because on your page with organic, you can do the like funnier, sillier trending stuff that you're not going to put money behind. It like when people land on your profile, to me, I say the main, the main, if you hear nothing else, the main goal of organic social in my opinion is to humanize your practice and give emotionality to it. So you either land on that and you're like, no, these people are not my people. I feel zero connection. Or you land on it and you're like, oh my God, these people look like this is my cup of tea, you know? And so like I was, I got an ad for like these sleep gummies or whatever. So I was like, oh, these look great. And so I went to their, I clicked on it. And like you said, I didn't have the trust yet. And I clicked on to go back to their page. And they hadn't posted in 2 years organically. And I immediately was like, are they out of business? Like, I'm not going to buy from them.

Is this a scam?

Yeah. Yeah. So I do think you need that, that mix of both. And this is something we haven't talked about. I think organic social can be great for retention. And excuse me if this is not the right chiropractic term, but almost like if you have ancillary services in your office, it's like, oh, I didn't know y'all did, you know, you had massage now or you have cupping or whatever. It's almost like a good way to almost like increase the value of each patient or like, oh, maybe they, like, for example, we just 2 weeks ago, we had a client who the mom was a patient and we posted a video, a reel on the client's page about baby sleep. And the mom was like, oh my gosh, I didn't even realize you saw babies. So like booked her baby an appointment from, you know, so it can be really good as like a, like I said, retention or like rebooking or like adding family members. For that.

I agree.

Continuous awareness.

Yeah. And it does exactly what you said. Like now, now I'm like, oh man, we need to be, we need to be doing some of these things immediately. My wheels are spinning. So we'll go back to our posting for 3 days. I'm sure after this podcast episode.

I think that's enough though. Like truly not 3 days and then waiting 7 weeks, but like 2 or 3 times a week is fine. Yeah. 2 or 3 times a week. Yeah. Twice a week.

Totally. Yeah. I mean, if we're, cause we're running so many ads, like we're on people's feeds. I can promise you that I can't go to dinner, you know, anywhere without them being like, oh, you're the chiropractor. I see your ads. I get your ads all the time. I've been meaning to come in. I'm like, man, it's kind of weird to be like a local celebrity. Yeah, you forget. You forget because it doesn't take that much work. And like, that's where I got complacent with organic is just because, you know, I did just get to post it, put money behind it, make sure it's strategically crafted. And we know that it's like conversion optimized. And you put money behind it. And if you're willing to spend, it goes out to thousands of people's eyeballs, but it's not a great long-term strategy. I will say that, like, it's a— I mean, it is if you can get really good at it, but you know, realistically, I think brand, I think brand is really coming back into its level of magnitude. And, you know, I think brand has a lot to do with, first off, your reputation, the consistency behind your message, the value that you offer your community. And then the size of that community. And if you can start to build this like consolidation of people and like, like you said, it just like continues to grow over time. And then there's so much like interconnectedness and like networks and webs in there that you can leverage. And that's something like Gary Vee, big fan of Gary Vee. Like that's what he always talks about is like just creating that expansive network over time that they can't really take away from you. Now, obviously, if they pull the plug on the platform, but hopefully you've been, you know, like collecting email addresses or something like that in a CRM and you're actually then transferring it into a place where you actually own that network of leads so that you can, if heaven forbid, Facebook shuts down, Instagram shuts down, any of these platforms shut down, like you still have ownership over that entire audience. Is that something that you recommend?

Actually, it's so funny. We were just talking about this yesterday with someone else. We don't build out any— a lot of our clients are like one-man, one-woman shows, you know what I mean? They're just, they're, we don't, we have a few bigger, like clinics of your size. We have a couple clients that would have that capacity, but I would actually love to know from you, like, do you recommend having like a free lead magnet or something like that for clinics? Like not for online businesses and then nurturing people that way?

You know, we haven't, we haven't done that again, not because I don't think it wouldn't be effective, but because we haven't had to. But you know, I think, I think that it's a brilliant idea. I think that especially now with like ManyChat, you know, I think, I think if you, if you can kind of weave it into like the follower funnel, like as soon as you get a follow, you hit them back with some type of auto response and humanize that auto response as much as possible or make it funny.

Be like, hey, this is probably so much.

Yes, exactly. I love those. That makes me want to respond when it tries, when they try to act like a person, I'm like, dude, come on. Maybe that worked for the first 3 weeks that ManyChat was gaining popularity. Like, but it's obvious now. So just tell me, make a funny joke and then maybe I'll respond. But I think you can get some responsiveness out of people, maybe like inquiring, what did you come here for? You know, are you currently struggling with this, this, or this? And then if they say this, then I could see that immediately leading into, well, I'd love to offer you our free low back restoration PDF. Are you interested in that? And then like collecting that lead and now getting that into your contact list and GoHighLevel and then having some type of nurture sequence like that would be at a high level what, what you would want to do. But we haven't done that. So I'm going to put that on my list and, and, and try it and maybe we can come back and I can let you know how it worked.

Yeah, I was actually literally just thinking about this yesterday. This is like the perfect time for this conversation.

I was like, Which one of my clients would actually execute this and would actually let me go in and be like, yeah, and I have a team so I could, I could have, um, I could have one of my team members, uh, build that out. We actually use that for the Making Moves page, the Kai Rydes Academy, and it's been huge. I like, it's one of those things where we delayed it for so long actually implementing it because we had a limiting belief around how well it would work. And then as soon as we did it, it started working and we were like, no, we delayed it for a year. And then it took us 20 minutes to build. And then, you know, it's generated thousands of dollars in revenue and helped us help so many more practice members.

And that's how I run— like, I grew my list this past 30 days by like 270 contacts with zero ad spend, just with ManyChat and free templates. So yeah, so that's why I'm like, dang it, I've got to figure out my block around ads because I could just take this and—

you could—

clearly it works. So why am I not putting money behind it?

Yeah, well, it works. Yeah. If it didn't work, the best businesses in the world wouldn't be using it. I can tell you that it works because Meta puts like, I think, I think 99% of their revenue is generated from ad spend every year. And I think in one year alone, they invested over $40 billion in the user experience and optimizing the algorithm, make it usable for small business owners that don't have a high technical acumen. And so they actually are— they don't want this to be like conglomerates, like where marketing agencies are the only ones that understand how to place ads, how to read the data, how to, you know, turn things off or optimize for different outcomes inside the Meta Ads platform. They're making it extremely simple. And so I think that ads are only going to get easier to do as an individual, a small mom-and-pop business. And I think that they're still highly effective. Now it's getting more expensive, unfortunately, but you know, if you know how to make money off the back end of it, then it's totally worth it.

Well, you've convinced me I need to reopen it because literally it's been years because the last time I opened Ads Manager, I cried. I was like, I don't understand. I'm a smart person and I don't get it.

You would totally get it. I mean, like, it would literally take— I mean, it would take, it would take maybe an hour for you to like get oriented with it. And then you would need to know what you were looking for. You would need to know, like, you know, the click-through rate and the cost per lead and like, you know, how, how, how these numbers actually help you to make decisions. But once you understood that, like, it's just like any other skill. It's like it kind of doesn't leave, which is why I think it's such an important skill to learn because, I mean, I even though my background's in sales and marketing, I taught myself this organic side.

Like I have developed my own proprietary system. I call it a content ecosystem. System. I have heard no one else talk about it anywhere else, and it is my own thing that I figured out after you said just doing it and like getting in there. I was like, let's see if this works, and just taking that more experimental mindset. But yeah, I just kind of doodled down a couple notes because I didn't want to forget. But I do think you talked about— what did you say was like the big thing? Uh, you talked about ads, but I think one of the biggest currencies that we're going to see going forward with the rise of AI is relationships. And that is why I love— again, I love Instagram because it allows you to kind build those relationships in that community where it's like, you know what, um, there I need to like, I want to go on a hike. Like I bet Dr. Travis might have something on his page that like helps me know what's going on in the community. And little things like that. Like I said, people tend to kind of overlook because they think, oh, my page has to be— if I'm a chiropractor, my page has to only be about chiropractic. But like it can be adjacent stuff that your ideal patients are interested in. And that, like I said, just kind of, I always say, but you become like, you said, a local celebrity. Like you're like, oh, this guy knows what's going on in our town. And then you're the one who like everyone recommends, you know? Mm-hmm. Because like, oh, you just posted a reel, a collab reel of you at the CrossFit gym down the street. It's like, well, then all the CrossFit gym people are gonna be like, you should go see Dr. Travis. Yeah.

Well, and there's an associated status that we have whenever we see people frequently, and I think that that status is, you know, it's something that we should aspire to hold as chiropractors because really like you, you are a medical authority and, and that's what you want to be. You know, like you want to be able to get in the ring with an MD in the mind of the consumer. You know, like whenever they're, whenever they're contemplating on who they want to go see to help them solve this problem that is currently affecting their quality of life, like they want to think like, okay, I want to go. I know, I know that I have this option, which is allopathic medicine. I can go see my GP. They're probably going to give me some type of medication. But I'm really curious about this guy that I keep seeing pop up on my feed that keeps talking about these different technologies, these different modalities, ways to help me heal without drugs or surgery. Like, that seems intriguing to me. And although I've heard like weird stories by other people about chiropractors, I'd love to have my own experience. Yes. You know, and that feels like something worth trying because it's a little bit of money and a little bit of time, but I always know I can go that route if I need to. And that's what we have people coming in to our practice with.

I love that. And if you're in the US, it's a little different for like Canadians, not as strict. I don't know if you serve anybody in like New Zealand or Australia. They can't post any reviews or testimonials, which is like so tough for case studies. But if you're in the US, like we love— we've had case studies get 7 likes, okay, 0 comments, but get people picking up the phone to call. That's right. Because the content is not sexy. It is not going viral. Yeah, it, but it's that thing that maybe they landed on your page from an ad. They weren't quite sure, but then they saw a case study of a problem that some, like someone else is dealing with is exactly like them. And they're like, ah, booking. Yep.

That's exactly right.

And that's why I love it. It's because like I said, it just, it kind of helps to build that relationship. And like I said, going back to what I call a content ecosystem, a lot of people just assume like, oh, if I just educate the crap out of people, they will book an appointment. And it's like, no, you need all different types of content to actually get them like along the funnel and to hit the book button.

Yeah, tell me about that. Let's just dive into the content ecosystem. I'd love for you to be able— so now I'm at the point of this conversation where like, I want to hear what's in your brain. Like, what have you grown in your level of experience over the past 7 years helping how many chiropractors? A lot, right?

A lot. We always have around 30 in our agency. That's what still just feels doable for me. We've tried going beyond that and I'm like, then I feel like I'm losing— I don't know. Yeah.

And I have— that is such a respectful thing to say. Like, people don't even— Trust me, I know I'm in the industry, I'm in the coaching and the digital marketing industry. Saying that like, I don't want to go beyond 30 is like, work with her because I promise you there is no agency that is capping their capacity at that number of people to maintain quality of service. Like that's why I'm, I'm so devoted to like my messaging because most agencies are trying to scale to 300+ people that they're working with. And that's when you become a number and the product becomes diluted. So that's awesome.

Good for you. Yeah. Well, okay. Well, we'll start there. Why, why is it so important for me to not just be like, oh, I'm just going to go hire a bunch of $5 an hour offshore VAs and we're going to become a content factory. I'm like, well, because that's not what's working on Instagram anymore. I was like, oh my God, I'm going to get sued. Cause basically my podcast, I was like, if you're subscribed to a syndicated stock content service, like it's a waste of your money. Like it's not, it's not, you know, you get the, like the guy like, uh, Or like the graphic that says like, happy St. Patrick's Day.

I'm like, well, I know it's the worst.

I'm like that Memorial Day. Yeah. And like, it's not, that is not social in 2026 and beyond. Right. People want to know, like, I just was working with my agency team lead this morning. Um, I have 4 content creators right now and I just added a 5th. Um, I was working with my team lead this morning to kind of be like, okay, what, what do we want to do for all our clients this month? And one of them, it's like, and I source inspo from like outside of the health industry very often. Sometimes, you know, I'll source from inside, but I do try to source from outside the health industry just to try to like, you know, keep things fresh. And so one that I saw, I'm just pulling it up right here. Um, okay. The original prompt was like, my friends think I have a housekeeper, but my— something like, it was like, my friends think I have a housekeeper because my house is always clean, but really I just have this., and it was from like some Amazon influencer, like selling cleaning products. So I see that, I see that it went bananas. She got like 1,700 comments and I'm like, I can make this for our clients, right? It's like my friends that I just think that I just have a coffee IV. I don't, I get adjusted or like something like that. Or I don't, I eat protein in the morning and like, like in my brain I'm like, okay, this could be a carousel. And it's just like a selfie of Dr. Travis. Like that's the type of like more, I call it like kind of personal lifestyle content. That just can't be created by AI, right? Like, that is like you. Another thing that we're really seeing working is the word I, which is so wild being a marketing person. We were taught to never use the word I, or it was always supposed to be like you and your. But it's like, I used to struggle with insomnia and, you know, here's how I finally got relief. And like, people want to know, they're like, oh, okay, what did Dr. Travis do? And that's the type of content that we're seeing. So that's one part of my content ecosystem. I kind of call it like this like personal lifestyle content. Um, another type of content is your, like I was kind of talking about that collab community content that you're, um, so like I said, for you, if you're more of like rehab focused, like it's like, okay, maybe there's a physical therapist or a massage therapist or a CrossFit gym or a yoga studio or a meal prepping place or something like that. And you do literally a collab post on Instagram with that other business. We try to do 2 of these a month for our clients, sometimes just once, depends on what they send us. And when you add them as a collaborator, it lives on that business's page too, if they accept it. So then you're getting double exposure essentially, right? But I want you to think outside the box. It doesn't have to be just chiropractic adjacent. It could be like, this is your favorite, like, like one of our clients did, it was like Dr. Sydney's favorite date night spots in the East Valley. Like, it was like that post took off. Because it's like, oh, they see her. You know, when you're in practice with your patients who have been patients forever, they're asking you all these things, right? Like, what dentist do you go to? Or like, what, you know, like these are questions people ask. And again, you're almost giving yourself influencer energy without the ick, if that makes sense. You're not trying to sell Amazon jeans for 20 cents a click.

Um, I love— well, I just love it. Like, humanizes. I— so one of the things that's been catching my eye lately, and any listener will probably laugh whenever they see me post this content because I'm going to post some of these ads. But like the ads where like they're chopping an onion or like doing some type of like trivial task around the house, you know, like vacuuming the floor. It's like for some reason, like you just, you, you, that catches your attention and you want to listen. And regardless of like what they are, what they're selling, what their business is like, this task just makes them feel relatable. And so I don't know why it just like grabs my attention. And even though I know that now it is a trend, I still watch them. And, you know, I saw just the other day somebody was like, they had one of those and it was, it was a social media marketing, I think, bootcamp or something like that. But I watched the entire ad because they were like making some type of electrolyte drink, you know? And just, I don't know what it is about it, but it humanizes it.

It's a visual hook. It's a pattern interrupt. It's a visual hook. And so So that's why I tell my clients, I'm like, don't sit down in a chair with a mic and be like, hi, I'm Dr. Travis. I'm like, eh. I make a lot of my face-to-camera videos, I probably give people vertigo, like walking around the house. Walking around. Yeah. Because again, it's like a pattern interrupt and it feels more like casual. You're talking to a friend, like, oh, I get to know her personality. I just saw the inside of her garage. Like, you know what I mean? People think they're like in on something that they're not supposed to be. They're like, oh. So yeah, like going back to the, the content ecosystem, like I said, that personal lifestyle content, the, the community and collab content, uh, people get in their head about that too. I don't know if your audience is the same, but like, well, do I need to ask them permission? Do you need to ask them permission to give them free marketing? Like, no, like the other business, you know, like if they don't want to accept the request, they just won't. Or I would say, just to be honest, 50% of the time they probably don't accept it, but it's a lot of times because they're not Instagram savvy and they don't even know what it means. So we'll DM them and be like, hey, we added you as a collaborator, accept it if you know, it'll live on your feed, whatever.

Yeah. And you can, you can also just lead with value. You can be like, I wanted to put you in front of my audience. So if you want to accept it, then my people will see it. And I'd love to send people your way. So you make it about them instead of making it about you.

I mean, it's not that deep, you know what I mean? I think, but we get people who are like, get in their head about it. They're like, oh my God, if they don't accept it, they hate me. In that same vein, I just, I don't want to miss talking about this because it's important, but Almost every single town has some type of, even if you're in a small town, you could go like to the next biggest city over, especially in Boulder, like things to do around your city. Like there's influencer accounts sharing that type of stuff to your stories or like, you know, even commenting on their posts. Like I said, you're showing up everywhere. Like, like I said, those things to do in your town accounts. So that, that's kind of in that community collab thing. And then the third type that, um, I call, like I said, I call it my like engaging content. Bucket, which is its purpose is not to show how smart you are or how good you are at your job or to get people to book an appointment. It is literally just what some people would consider growth content. It is top of funnel. It's either a funny trend that's going to get a lot of comments, or it's one of, like I said, my, um, can't help myself prompts that I will give. It's like we did one for a chiropractor who was like, who does, um, a lot of pain and rehab stuff. And it's like, And he's a big CrossFitter. It's like, if you could never do one workout again, what would it be? And it was like burpees, box jumps, whatever. It's like people can't help themselves. They're like, oh my God, burpees. Like, I hate it. If you named your child after your pregnancy cravings, what would their names be? People can't help it. They're like, oh my God. Like, it might not get people to book an appointment, but it's the thing that's generating comments so that when you do post a case study that's more dry, people are more likely to see it. Because you have this ecosystem. So that's the fourth type of content, which is when I talk about the case studies, social proof, right? So like, show me, prove to me that you are actually doing the thing you claim you are doing. Now, social proof can kind of be like subliminally conveyed through your videos, right? If you're actually working on a patient in your video, that's social proof in and of itself. But like case studies, reviews, testimonials, all that. One thing to note about my content ecosystem that I call it, they, they're not all in a silo. Like they all can kind of overlap. So You might have a case study, to me that is educational and it's social proof, right? And it's kind of building your authority. So the next kind of type of content beyond social proof is educational authority building, your core evergreen. It always makes sense to talk about this stuff, right? Like low back pain, headaches, whatever it is you see. And like I said, that can kind of be blended with some of these other types. And then the last type is what I call a direct pitch. Which for some reason everybody thinks is like illegal, which is where you don't have to hide your call to action underneath like a whole long caption and education. You can literally just say, hey, we're accepting new appointment— new patients. That's the post. That's it. Like, you could literally post, here's our availability this week, we had a last-minute cancellation Thursday at 2. That's it. Like, it's not that fancy. So yeah, that's kind of my content ecosystem in a nutshell, because to me, whenever I thought about stuff as like growth, nurture, and conversion content, my brain would be I'm like, what? Like, I get what that means, but I'm like, I'm more like, I needed to see it as like examples. And if you can kind of hit all of those different types, then you've kind of covered growth, nurture, conversion in some way, shape, or form.

So that's how I teach it. I love that. So I got, we got, we got like kind of like lifestyle-based content. You have the collab or like community-based, community connection-based content. You have the prompt. So like some type of like prompted engagement. Is that— it was that— was that a pillar?

Engaging, which to me, like I said, they're like really funny trends that you see where people are like, tons of laughing emojis. Like, to me, those kind of fit in the same. You can either do it, you know, both accomplish the same goal of getting a lot of comments.

Yep, yep. And then you have social proof, and then you have a direct call to action. I love it. I love that because I think what you do is you— not that you templatize it, not that the content is templatized, but at least you have a— maybe a structure is a better word. So you have a structure. So it's like, okay, I don't know what to post? Well, you're not just going through infinite possibilities in your mind. You're going to your 5 content buckets. It's like, all right, which one of these? That one, that one. Like, and I'm sure you're teaching people to like plan this out and maybe be a little bit more structured, but some people aren't gonna be that way. I imagine you've worked with them before.

I'm personally not that way, but I do teach it. I have a 2-week content rotation system that I teach, like a 2-week batch. And actually what's funny about that 2-week batch, One of two of the, like, let's say you're gonna post 4 times a week, so it'd be 8 posts for 2 weeks. Two of those posts I teach are remakes of top performers. Mm-hmm. So that's the thing, like if you've been, that's another really big misconception. It's like, oh, I posted that one time so I can't post it again. And it's like, well, you as an ads guy know that's the silliest way to go. Yeah. Like you're gonna double down on what's working, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's part of what I teach when I'm like teaching you how to layer, like How does this all come together as like a skeleton or blueprint, if you will? And that's what I teach. Like, it's my very last module in my program is like how to actually plug this in to play.

Yeah, that's good. Yeah. Like the Hormozy framework for that is like 70-20-10, which is like 70% of more of what worked, 20% of better. So trying to make what worked better and then 10% new. And that's pretty much what you do is you just rotate that over and over and over again. What he says is that like, you'll get tired of your content before anybody else does.

Like, I just posted a carousel that's now gone viral for me 3 times, the same carousel. All I've done is change the COVID slide. The whole rest of the slides are the exact same. That's good. But it works every time. Yep. So of course I just keep doing it. But I will say the one caveat with that is if you're only like, you know, like you said, it's, it's not 100%, right? If you're you're only doubling down on what has, quote, performed really well, you're going to miss out on that content that feels more dry, maybe not as sexy. Like I said, the case studies that are actually going to get people to book an appointment though. So like, that's why it can be fun to be like, oh, I'm just gonna— like, I'll see some offices who just have like a Gen Z front desk and they're just doing like funny reels all day, every day. Their Instagram's going crazy, but it's like, yeah, but we need a little You know, you gotta be okay with some of it not getting as good of views to know that that's the thing that's gonna get someone to book.

Yeah. No, I literally, um, probably within the past month had a conversation with, uh, a friend who has a, a practice that's somewhat close to here and they have just taken off on Instagram with organic stuff. Funny stuff. So funny. Brilliantly done. Like just the innovation that they've had. And I messaged him and I, I just wanted to give him some recognition. I'm like, dude, your Instagram is incredible. I've loved it lately. The content's so good. Like, keep it up. He's like, thanks. And he put laugh, laughy emojis. And he's like, now we just gotta figure out how to turn it into new patients. And I'm like, bro, I'm— that's the whole point. Like, what's the point of making these funny reels and like going viral and having all of this? Because me, the ads guy, like that's the only point of posting for me. That's literally like, if I'm making content, it's to drive new patients in the practice so that we can help reach more people and change more lives. And obviously, you know, in the business world make more money. So to me, I'm like, if you're not figuring out how to monetize that and you've been doing this for 6 months and putting this much energy into it, then yeah, man, you gotta, you gotta figure that out like yesterday or like 6 months ago. Like, shouldn't be thinking about that now.

That's why I call it an ecosystem, right? It's like if you only use a bunch of fertilizer on your lawn, like, it ain't gonna be good.

I know, it's, that's crazy. So Let's, let's get into— I have, I have some questions here.

Yeah.

So let's talk about the chiropractors that haven't been posting, that haven't been using their Instagram. There's so many that just like neglect their Instagram. Maybe they're referral-based, maybe they're afraid of the amount of work that it takes. Maybe they're afraid of the technology, maybe they're afraid of the camera. Let's say like chiropractor has neglected their Instagram, has 400 followers, they don't have a strategy. What are the first 3 things that you would tell these chiropractors to do to actually start to leverage this platform?

So the first thing that I would say is the thing I already said about the like returning to your why. So I'll skip that. That's always where I start. The second place that I usually send people, and it depends, like I kind of can gauge based on their practice, like do they have help, right? Because I don't know how your thoughts on this, but like if something you, if it's something you don't enjoy and it continuously gets put on your to-do list and never gets done, like that might be your sign to delegate, right? It doesn't have to be to an agency. It can be to, like I said, if you have staff, front desk, whatever. But if you don't have that and you're like, no, I'm gonna do it myself, then the one thing to know is that once you kind of implement the system that I teach for like 3 or 4 months, after that it's kind of like a rinse and repeat. So it's probably like ads, right? It's like the fir— the building phase is the hardest until you're like, okay, now I get it. Now I see what's working. I've put in the reps and it kind of starts to snowball from there. So I think that's important to note. Another thing that I always have people do is And tell me if this is something that you tell your clients too. I'm like, when was the last time you had a professional photographer in your office? Because I always hear, tell me, I don't know if you hear this. I'm just so busy with patient care. I don't think about taking time to film. I don't know if you hear that often.

Oh yeah, for sure.

Yeah. So I'm like, well, of course, if you're just like, oh, I'll get to it. It's like, it's not going to happen. Right. So I love, because it like forces you to do it. I love having people book a professional photographer. Get models of patients, you know, maybe you give them a free adjustment or whatever's allowed in your state of each like kind of patient demographic that you see. And then while you have that photographer in there, they are— you're shooting video, like a bunch of B-roll, like whatever that you have that you can use forever. And even beyond that, I feel like if you're like, that sounds like too much work, I don't want to start there. You still need to set aside time either like on Monday, you check your calendar and you're like, okay, I see that I'm, you know, helping a guy who's rehabbing his shoulder on Wednesday. I'm going to go and shoot him a message and see if he's all right if I film that day. I feel like guys are probably less concerned than— I remember I showed up to my chiropractor, this was about a year ago. I was running late. My hair was soaking wet. I had no makeup on and they're like, can I film you? I was like, no, I was like, you can get me face down. Um, so there's a pro tip. If someone doesn't want to be filmed face down, leg length check, whatever, that's fine. That's good. So like I said, carving out that kind of like intentional time to actually film. And then this is my favorite exercise to do, and it's so easy when people are like, but what do I post about? I'm like, you have all of the information right under your nose. Pull your last 10 new patients that were ideal, right? You can weed out the ones that weren't. Literally, what did they write down as their chief complaint? And that's your topic. Like, it's not that hard. So that can be kind of your like starting of like, okay, I know people are coming to me for this exact thing. And the important thing of that is you don't want to use topics that like once they got into the office, this is what you have determined is their issue. It's like, no, what did they write down as a chief complaint?

Like, that's so good.

It's so easy, right?

Like, that's exactly what we teach, Molly. So that's, that's exactly what I say. So like whenever we're talking about this, we talk about it in, in relation to hooks though. Like we're like, look, if you, if you're trying to find audio or visual hooks and you're looking to get people's attention, then you need to make it experience-based. Like, yeah, the, the ad might be for sciatica, but you're not going to say, do you have sciatica? You're going to say like, You know, does— do you have pain that radiates down the back of your leg when you bend down to tie your shoe? Like, just pull up your consultation form, put a, put a square down at the very bottom for like patient experiences or like things that they say, and then just write down things that they say. And if they say, you know, it hurts the most when I bend down to tie my shoe, and then you get 3 people in 1 week that say that exact thing, well, there's your next ad hook.

So same thing coming up, and I can't sit on the floor and play with my grandkids.

Exactly.

Yeah. That, that will stop my scroll. Even if this is what I tell people, they get so worried about being so specific. They're like, well, I'm going to alienate all these people. I'm like, I'm telling you from experience, the more I always say specificity in your hook, authority, and storytelling. If you have those three, so, you know, I tell all my patients who can't X, you know, this thing, you're like, oh, this guy's working with patients like he's a— or something like they play pickleball. It's like, if you haven't been able to play pickleball because of your shoulder pain or whatever. Or we did one for a practice that sees mostly women. It was like, if you can't put your hair up in a— I had a frozen shoulder in 2020. So this unfortunately came from experience. It's like, if you can't put your hair up in a ponytail or unhook your bra because of your shoulder pain, like, come see us. Like, it's so specific.

That's such a good hook.

Thanks.

I mean, those are, those are great hooks. Like, that much specificity is what you need. And like, what's really cool and like why we like that ad landscape is because You can test behind 5 different hooks and you can have 5 different hooks with the same body of the ad. And then you can have different hooks with different bodies and different copy. Then you can have different book, different hooks, different bodies, different copy, different call to actions. And then you're kind of playing like with, with this like essentially wheel of options and it's like, okay, that hook did the best, that body did the best, that copy did the best, that call to action did the best. And then you put it together and now you have a super ad. And then you take that and then you just, again, more, better, new. 70% of more, 20% of better, 10% new. And then you just kind of continue that process over and over again.

Y'all should see us. You're watching the video version. We're nerding out here. We're like, yeah, yeah. Like, we're just like getting so excited. Yeah. Because if you, if you're creating content and you're like, Molly, I, this is what I hear a lot. Like, this isn't the question you asked. Cause you asked if somebody hasn't been posting. People are like, I've been posting and it's not working. And then I'll go look and it's like 5 reasons. 'Your baby needs chiropractic.' I'm like, that doesn't hit me where I am. You're, you're presenting zero pain points or problems to me. Now, if you want to do a whole other episode on fear-based marketing that happens around pediatric chiropractic, there are some posts I see that I am like, that's another day. I can't stand it. Fear-based. I don't like fear-based headlines. Okay. But when it comes to like, you know, we do a lot on like, I've seen hundreds of babies in the, you know, Raleigh, North Carolina area with chronic constipation and here's how we wean off Miralax. It's like, what? I didn't even know that was, you know, it's like that is hitting moms right where they are. They're Googling like, God, I have to keep giving my kid this, you know, versus like 3 reasons your baby needs chiropractic.

Well, yeah, that's not going to swipe right past it.

Yeah. Yeah.

I could talk about that. That's really good. I mean, you have to put yourself in the mind of the consumer, not in the mind. In the home of the consumer. It's like, what are these people experiencing every single day? Like, what, what is something that is so specific? I mean, honestly, what is something that is so specific to a general group of people but is going to feel ultra-specific to a single person? Like, that's what we care about. That's why we're so big on condition-specific approaches. And inside of our office, like, we have our condition-specific, um, ad. We could be talking about ads because that's typically what I do, but we have like our condition-specific ad funnels. And so essentially people will come into our practice and they think that we are solely a frozen shoulder office. And the reason why they think that is because we targeted them with that exact hook, with that exact, you know, problem explanation, with the exact solution breakdown, with the exact social proof, and then a call to action, then got them into a funnel that educated them fully on their frozen shoulder. What's contributing to it, how we solve it, and then gave them an opportunity to come in for our frozen shoulder exam process to get our frozen shoulder restoration program. And little do they know that we have 6 other condition-specific funnels that are running that are making people feel like we are the specialist for that exact condition.

So yeah, I love that. Those conditions, put them in your Instagram bio. Don't just say, like, if your bio is like, I help families restore their health, I don't know what the hell that means. That does speak to me. You know, we will say like colic, portocolis, constipation, sensory issues. Like, even if that is not all-encompassing because you only get 150 characters, it still is going to convert 10 times better. Like, I have a cosmetic acupuncturist client, and so I have like acne, pigmentation, aging, you know what I mean? Like Botox alternative, like all the things that people are like, this meets me exactly where I am. And with the more philosophical chiropractic client, which I have a lot, I get a lot of pushback because I'm like, no, we treat subluxations. I'm like, that's great, but nobody wakes up.

Nobody knows what that means.

Yeah.

No one's like, they're like, oh, a slight dislocation. I'm not, I'm not, I don't have a slight dislocation.

Yeah. No, I'm like, you have to meet them what is in their brain at that moment. And it's not as hard to answer that question as you think. Like I said, you pull your last 10 new patients. You ask yourself a handful of questions. What did they write down as their chief complaint? What can't they do because of this? What do they want to do because of this? What have they tried before? And how are you different? And like, you can put all of that into an AI project and it will— and then my other hack, my favorite hack, if you're established and you have a lot of Google reviews, copy and paste every single one of your Google reviews into AI and be like, what are the— what are the language— reflect back the language of these reviews into my content.

That's a great idea. So there's actually this thing called OnePage, onepage.com. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's essentially you can go to this URL, you, you can install this Chrome extension and you can actually go to a page and it'll download like a full extensive page. So you can probably get like, you know, 60, 70, 100 Google reviews all in one PDF. Take that PDF, boom, straight into, straight into Claude or Whatever.

Yeah, I used that when I was rebuilding my sales page actually, now that I, I just didn't remember the name of it, but yeah, it's really, really useful tool. Yeah. You've got all this information right under your nose.

And so such great access to resources that can help you solve the problem pretty quickly. I mean, especially like, I know that you have a few programs, I believe, that are like, they don't have to work with you directly, right? In the agency, you have some things that they can. So one, one of the things, let's get into that first. The pin post. I know that you're a big proponent of having like the pin post, and I am too, because like I said, we use our Instagram like a landing page. And so when they come to our landing page, I want them to be able to see first off, who are we, who do we serve, who's our ideal client, and social proof. So that's typically how we lay it out. How do you lay it out?

Same. Okay. Actually, we have one slide when you said that we literally want— I have these pin post templates that I'll offer your audience, but there's literally one slide and I should go get those. Yes, just mollykhill.com/pinned, or you can just DM me on Instagram the word pinned and it will— my robot will do it. Let's go! No, I am standing by checking every single one of them. Right?

Immediate response.

Yes. So part one of our templates is conditions we support. And it's— I'm like, I want you to keyword stuff the heck out of that slide because Instagram is keyworded now and it can read all of this, right? So, and it helps again, it helps people see themselves reflected in your practice. It's like, oh, they can help me. So yeah, we have like a, a meet the team, what to expect on your first visit, like hours, just like very basic stuff. But then I also suggest that you include like some social proof, like some testimonials on those as well. And we, we used to do 3 pinned posts across the top. We've recently changed to only doing 2 cuz you can have up to 20 slides in your carousel now. So we, we kind of do like 2 longer carousels instead of 3 posts posts because we like to leave room in that third spot for any time-sensitive events that might be going on for the client. Like maybe they're, you know, doing a food drive or they're hosting a workshop or something like that.

Or if they've had something go viral or perform really well, their most popular post.

Yeah, we'll put it in that third spot.

Yeah. Okay, I like that. Um, that's cool. Yeah, I, I— it would be— I'd be hard-pressed to, uh, to pull down any of my 3 because I created them to be like wide across and like kind of like the beautiful spread and like they got a lot of engagement. So I mean, definitely show some social proof and we continue to get engagement on those posts.

That's amazing. See, I think mine definitely need to be redone. It's like I'm like a cobbler's child. I'm like, I need to redo mine. Yeah, mine are old.

Yeah, ours are old too, but we probably need to redo them because I bet if I went in there right now, like the amount of Google reviews that we're citing and maybe some of the team members that we have in there aren't with the team anymore. So that's a good point.

I probably need a good refresh on that, but we have it as a task for our agency clients to renew them quarterly. But for myself, oh wow, it's been a hot minute.

I definitely haven't done that. Maybe every 4 years for me.

It's sometimes it might just be replacing the COVID slide with a different image or something. It's nothing fancy.

Yeah. Okay. Anything that I didn't ask that I should have asked?

I don't think so. I think I said just something to remember is showing your personality. Like I said, not making it this like like super buttoned up, like professional, untouchable. Like, think of it, like I said, as a community, and I think it'll kind of really shift how you're approaching it. And I do have what I call my comeback reel, which is to have in your back pocket anytime you're like, I haven't posted in a while. This is my— I always teach people, have this in your back pocket when you're like, okay, you don't have to be like, hey guys, proof of life, you're probably wondering where I've been. Like, no, nobody was wondering. I hate to break it to you, you don't have to announce your comeback.

That's hilarious. I see it all the time. I think the same thing.

I'm like, nobody knew you were gone, but thank you. But, and this might not go crazy, it might not get crazy tons of engagement, but it's literally just a reel of B-roll of you working with a patient in your office. And over the screen it says, patients we saw at our clinic in Boulder, Colorado this week. And maybe like 4 different things. It's like CrossFit athlete rehabbing his knee. D1 baseball player with the frozen shoulder, you know, or whatever. And just like, you don't wanna get more than like 4 cuz then it gets too much on a screen.

Are you making B— is this like B-roll with text overlay or something like that? Yeah. Or how— yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's it.

That's easy, right?

Anybody can do that. Anybody can do that. It requires zero creative juices. It may or may not perform well. I don't really care. It at least gets you back and you're not overthinking it. It accomplishes my educational bucket. It accomplishes my social proof because it's like actually showing different types of patients that you work with. That's right. And, uh, actually we did have a client who did get a new patient from it when she posted it, which I was like, cool, I'll take it. I can't remember what it was. It was like a nursing neck thing or something. She was like, so yeah, that's my have in your back pocket anytime you're at a loss for creativity, you're in freeze, you know, fight, flight, freeze. And you're like, I gotta come back. It's gotta be epic. And then I always say, don't look at your stats on your first like 5 posts back. Like just don't even look. Don't even look. Just look at it as like a test versus like, because I think people put a lot of pressure. They're like, I'm coming back, it's gonna be epic. I'm like, don't look, just, just do it. I mean, there's my advice.

First off, I want you to tell me the, the metrics that matter because the vanity metrics that we've been conditioned to think matter don't matter. And I, at least from my understanding, you could probably tell me if that is true or not true. Is that true?

It depends, like followers, in this day and age don't really mean much anymore because, which I know sounds like a platitude cliché that everyone's like, guys, don't worry about your followers. Okay. Like, I feel like I can hear a lot of gurus saying that, but no, like truly, because the algorithm is interest-based. The algorithm does not really care who— I mean, is following an account an interest signal? Yes. But like, like you said, like if I have a frozen shoulder and I've been like looking up frozen shoulder stuff on Instagram, I'm going to start seeing all that content on my feed and in my Explore page, whether I'm following them or not. So I'm not saying that followers really make a big difference whether or not they actually do anything. Also, comments, like, especially when you're in healthcare, we have had so many. I could give you a handful of stories of times where a client will text me and be like, oh, just got a new patient from that reel. And I'll go look, I'm like, oh, you're the one that had 7 likes and 0 comments? Great. Like, it's just funny because it's hard because it makes our job hard because I'm like, I want to show you the pretty side, but like, um, a stat to leave you with is I recently read there were 90% of Instagram users are silent lurkers. Hmm. 90%.

That's me.

Yeah. So that's why we love carousels these days, because when someone takes the time to swipe through all your slides, that is engagement. I call it invisible engagement. You can't Google that. That's like a Molly-ism, but I call it invisible engagement because it is, it's still a signal. The algorithm knows that someone took the time to swipe through your whole carousel. They never liked it, saved it, shared it, whatever, but they swiped through every slide. I don't remember what your question was now. Metrics.

Yes. It was vanity metrics.

Yeah. Yeah. So that, um, I do like to just, for our clients, we send them like a little recap every month of like, you know, here's the 3 things that are going well. Here's something we'd like to improve upon. One thing that kind of bums me out is with, and this could have changed in the last week. Instagram changes all the time. At the time I'm recording this, to my best knowledge, you cannot see external link taps from Reels. You can only see it from posts, like non-video posts. Meaning if I post a carousel, I can look at my insights and see how many people tapped the link in my bio from that post. You can't do that on Reels, and that sucks. I don't know why they don't have that as a metric available, but that's another, that's a good metric to be tracking is like having, do you have a tracking link in like your link in bio in your Instagram? No. Yeah. Well, most our clients don't either, but like seeing how much traffic you're actually driving to like that booking link can be something helpful to know. Like, and then I always say, make sure you're keeping an eye on where your followers are located. Right? So we did have an instance a couple years ago where a client went viral, 3.2 million views, and now a lot of her followers are in India.

Wow.

So there's really nothing you can do about it, you know?

Hilarious.

Oh my gosh. Yeah. Um, so, you know, we're using keywords in every single video. We'll be like, did you know you can get a non-surgical facelift in Cincinnati, Ohio? Like, that's literally the text over the video. Like, so we're trying to really target, target the local stuff. So as long as you are in the green month over month, which is like you go tap on your professional dashboard, you look at the content and you're like growing, I think you're good.

Yeah, that's, that's good. That's my opinion.

As a non-data, I'm self-proclaimed creative, right? I'm a creative relationship girl. I'm trying to get more into the data, but so far it's worked for me.

For sure. That's why it's worked on social media. I mean, I always tell people, like, it's, it's so interesting that people think you need— I know accounts that have 30,000, 50,000, 100,000 followers that make no money. And we've built $2 million businesses off the back of accounts with less than 1,000 followers. So like, it's not about the size of the audience, like you said, it's more so about your ability to connect with people and get them into your practice. And I think that you found really formulaic ways to do that, just as we have from the ads angle. So I'd love to expose you to what advertising could do for your business, hopefully at some point, because I'm sure— Yeah. Well, all of your organic knowledge, everything that you have in that brain of yours can absolutely be replicated. For advertising, and then you just put money behind it and it reaches more people because you paid to reach those people. So that's what has always been great for me is I haven't had to, you know, build up the consistency and the engagement and feed, feed or fuel the algorithm in order for it to be spit out or put out in front of more people's eyeballs. I just pay for the eyeballs. And so I love it. My content always reaches more people because that's the smart one then.

The two of us.

We buy the attention. Yeah. Just like, we're gonna skip all the hard stuff and just go to the stuff that we know can put— I mean, it's not, it's not that it's not challenging. It's just that like, you're right. You know, like building that organic channel, like it takes a little bit of work. You got to get your hands dirty a little bit, but it doesn't have to be the doc. And that's the thing that, you know, I think we can drive home here. I did have a thought. One of the things that you were talking about was, you know, getting scheduled patients or like a photo shoot or something like that. One of the things that's worked well in our practice and other practices that we consult with is like delegating that task to a team member, being like, look, on this day, I want you to start scheduling and grabbing people that are coming in for different— because they know your people. The CAs know your people. They know what they came in with. They know what their experience has been like and if they feel better. And so you just delegate it to them and they're going to come back and be like, I got 5 people scheduled for this day. And you're going to be like, ah, all right, well, I guess we're doing this. Yeah. Um, you know, it kind of puts the pressure on you. And so if you delegate it to your team and you give them some type of reason to do that, maybe some, some type of small reward or reciprocation. Yes. Then, you know, it kind of gets structured into your day or into your week. And, uh, you know, before you know it, you have this system and it's, it's become easier and, and more frictionless because you're less uncomfortable doing it through all the repetition that you've had. And then you start to see the fruits of that labor. And then it becomes something that you can't not do. You know, you're like, I, I have to do this.

Yeah. One misconception is organic, organic social is also often called like a content hamster wheel. And I just don't really agree cuz I've found like, I have a local client, a chiropractor, literally I could walk there, it's down the street. I filmed for them for like an hour, like a year ago, and we're still using that video. Like you can, if you get a good bank, like over time you just, you've got it. You know?

Yep. Yeah, totally.

That's great. They've used that video before.

Like, nobody knows, you know, nobody's thinking that. No. All the limiting beliefs that we have around social media live right here, and it's in our mind. Like, none of that lives in the, in the mind of the consumers. So I think it's funny, as much experience as I've had, I think it's funny whenever people come on and they're like, hey Boulder, this is Dr. Travis from Move Chiropractic, and today I'm going to tell you about It's like nobody, nobody cares about any of that. Like you said, coming back and being like, I know you're probably wondering where I was. It's like all of these weird things inside our brain that we think we need to do as when it comes to like shooting content, like none of that is actually true. And you know, if you want to build a great audience, it's using content frameworks like your content ecosystem, which is beautifully, beautifully curated. I love that. I loved all those 5 buckets. You're welcome. All right, well, anything else that you want to leave the listeners with?

I keep trying to tell you more things, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna button it up because this has gone on, I know. But like I said, I, I love sharing this stuff. It's my absolute favorite thing to do. So I share tons of free content over on my Instagram. I have a podcast, all that jazz.

What's your Instagram?

Uh, it's Molly A Cahill, C-A-H-I-L-L. Molly Cahill without the A is apparently a very decorated water polo player.

Wow.

Not me.

Not to be confused with the celebrity water polo player.

I would drown.

Right?

The stamina of like, yeah, no. Yeah. And my podcast is Holistic Marketing Simplified.

Perfect. That's great. Awesome. Well, thank you for being on, Molly. At some point, if you want to have me on, I'd love to talk about advertising and yeah, we could—

So many questions for you. I can't wait.

I'm also an oversharer, so I'll probably just like blab the whole time. So if that's what you want, you can bring me on and I'd love to do it.

Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

Awesome. Thanks, Molly.