[Transcript starts at 1:06]
Hello, hello, hello, my podcast people, and thank you for joining me for yet another episode of my favorite podcast. It is Monday, August 21st when this episode drops. And as a reminder, yup, I'm doing it. As a reminder, the waitlist is open for round 14 of my Instagram Intensive. The Instagram Intensive is a six week online group coaching program that teaches health and fitness professionals exactly, I said exactly, how to use Instagram for online business.
The last day to get on the waitlist is this friday, this Friday, August 25th, we will start on September 12th. The waitlist gets early access to registration. I cap it at 50 people. So you want to make sure you get a spot, get on the waitlist, and they also get $100 off the regular price. So that will be in the show notes and you can check that out then. What am I saying? Check that out there.
Today we are talking about how to get your audience to engage with you. And honestly, I'm, I'm stoked about talking. I'm stoked to talk about this because this is a question that I get in some way, shape, or form, and I get it right. My whole shtick when it comes to running an online business is to wait to create.
Right. When we're talking about productizing a service- it is- and actually making money, I keep saying, I will die on the hill, wait to create. Meaning that you are waiting for people to say, Hey, I want this thing. I will buy this thing. And then you go and make that thing. But what do you do if no one is asking?
What do you do if no one is talking to you? You can listen to this episode and then do what I say.
So I think there's about, I think there's five things, or I've broken the episode down into five parts that, or five steps, five suggestions that I, that I think you can lean into in order to help increase that engagement.
Number one, this is the big dial movers, and this is a non negotiable thing that I talk about all the time, which is time, consistent reps, and asking. The time for just showing up and being consistent, that's a minimum of 18 months. It's realistically longer than that, but as a minimum, 18 months of consistent, concerted, consistent, concerted effort showing up. Consistency is not the same as frequency, but to me, yes, more is going to be better.
I talk about this all the time, the value of posting every day. So either way, suffice to say once every never ain't it. Yes. I would suggest that when we're talking about building this audience and showing up and earning trust that we're going to shoot for showing up daily.
The ask part of this, right- so it's time, consistent reps, and asking, ask for comments, ask for questions, ask for DMs, ask for reviews. I've been asking for them, right? And then make sure to get back to every single one. Use the fact that you have a small, a small audience to your advantage, right? You have the time to get back and actually answer things and, and respond to comments.
So, yes, to me it is okay to ask for things from the beginning, but it's just what are you asking for, right? Are you asking for comments? Are you asking for questions? Cool. Are you asking for money right away? I think that's a little bit like, ah, you don't have the trust yet. But I definitely ask for comments, questions, concerns from day one.
Second point here. Think about, I should say, second point here when we're looking to get your audience to engage with you, ask yourself, do people want to talk to you? Do people want to talk to me? Stop treating your content like a broadcast, right? It needs to be a two way street. To that end, you got to genuinely be interested in the person on the other side of the screen.
Be a good listener. So those initial people that are actually interacting, be a good listener. Be a good person, the other person on the side, the other, be a good recipient, be a good participant in the conversation, is what I should be saying, right? Remember the things that they tell you, or at least scroll back and see what the conversation was about.
Ask good follow up questions, great resource for that. My girl Ali Kershner, she's Kershner, K E R S H N E R dot Ali, A L I, on Instagram. Phenomenal resource for listening skills, communication skills.
Second component within this, when you're asking yourself, do people want to talk to me, is give people the gift of going second.
Meaning, the way that you get a little kid to tell you their name, that sounds like very bad that I just, the way I said that, but the way that you're gonna get a kid to tell you their name, you're trying to, you know, talk to this child, is to say yours first. You go and you're like, hey, my name's Shanté. What's your name? Not in a creepy way, but if you're just like, hey What's your name? They're gonna be way more resistant and hesitant to say it. Same thing on social media. Give first. Say your part first and then ask. So I've been using Threads a ton. Y'all know that I'm really enjoying it and on Threads when I ask a question, I always give my response first.
Right? So I did one today and was saying that I would love to see a post count feature on Threads. And then I asked, what would, what feature would you all want to see? I gave my response first and then ask theirs. So kind of, if you summarize that, it's don't ask for a handout, ask for people to talk about themselves.
So when people are just like, hey, what do you want to hear more of? What do you want? What do you want? To me, that's kind of a little bit of a handout and you're having them do the work. I know that oftentimes it comes from a good place if you want to help, but your best bet is ask people to talk about themselves, things that they like, things that they want, things that they enjoy, things that they feel like they can't get wrong, right?
But give them the gift of going second.
Third part here, third thing to consider when trying to get, trying to increase the engagement that you have from your audience is ask yourself, what energy am I putting out into the world? Yeah, I'm going, I'm going down that, that route. I'm talking about energy. Are you engaging with other accounts in a way that isn't just for business?
Or are you just purely like trying to engage with your potential clients or people that might be potential clients? You will receive the energy that you put out into the world. You want more comments? Go comment on more people's stuff. You want more engagement? Go engage more with people's stuff, but not just so that you can get it in return.
Go say that you like someone's content. Go thank them. Go respond to their engagement polls and their stickers that are in their Stories. Offer help, big caveat here, or big, uh, not caveat, big, uh, qualifier here, if they ask, alright? Offer help, if they ask, and when they ask. People don't really want unsolicited advice, alright?
Let them ask first. The perfect example of, of how I like to do this, there's an account I follow that I love, uh, the guy's name is Bryan and his Instagram is lehighvalleyworkshop, we'll link it in the show notes. I love, I love, this is account, I love it. He has been very open about his mental health struggles and he does posts about it and I've DM'd him in the past not in response to his mental health struggles but he did a post one time and I was just, I just DM'd him and I was like thank you for this post. Like I do believe that he takes arrows for us and he says things that- he's a white man and I love the fact that he's a white man saying these things because we need voices in the space that say these things. And so I wrote to him to thank him about it. And I was like you probably get a zillion DMs you're not going to see this maybe you do maybe you don't but either way I'm sending it to you. And then the other day he had a post specifically about his mental health and how he struggles sometimes to like make these posts and he's very like self deprecating and it's just it was a great post um and a very like you know transparent post and I, instead- I was going to DM him and I was like you know what? Let me comment. Because I know other people are thinking this and they want to say something and they're scared to do it and I know that it feels good when you read a comment from people and so I commented. So ask yourself are you doing that?
What energy are you putting out into the world? It's also nice to put yourself in that position and be like, oh, what does this feel like to comment so publicly on someone's page? Like there's a reason people are more likely to DM you than to share something, even something kind, especially something kind, as a comment.
And so put that energy out into the world and also see what it feels like for your, your audience so that maybe you're more forgiving and patient with them when they don't comment. And yeah, just put that energy out into the world.
Fourth thing to consider to think about when you're looking to increase your audience engagement, create content that people actually want to engage with.
I think there's three types of posts as it relates to social media, namely Instagram. Informational posts, opinion posts, and engagement posts. You can absolutely mix and match, meaning that you can have an informational post that's also an engagement post, or an opinion post that's also engagement, you know, they can all go together.
But I think every post out there can be categorized into one of these three or more of these categories. Um, to me, I believe you should lead with informational posts, right? You, from a social media perspective, you need to provide value first. From a business perspective, you need to provide value first. So we're giving, giving, giving, giving, giving, giving, giving.
Give, give, give, give, give. We're teaching everything we know. But as it relates to the engagement side of it, right, and actually doing posts that are specifically for engagement, engagement could be entertaining. Where maybe if you're funny, cool, the kind of engagement that you get is you get a funny post and people laugh and they may share it.
You could get engagement by asking a question, right? And again, it this asking a question that people are not scared they're going to get wrong. And it's allowing people to talk about themselves. Ramit does a phenomenal job about this. And he'll basically be like, What's the worst financial advice you've ever received?
And he'll go first and he'll talk about, you know, buying a house and people don't think about the hidden costs. And then he'll be like, I'd love to know, what's the worst financial advice you've ever received? And then that's an engagement post. Right. So it's not just purely broadcasting. It's not just purely his opinion.
Uh, he can teach if he wants, but he's also asking for that engagement. And that type of content lends itself to people actually engaging. If you're simply teaching all the time, which is what I want, I do want you to lead with informational posts, but if it's all that you're providing, people are not as apt to comment because then they don't have anything to say.
Maybe, maybe they could say thank you, but there's not necessarily, they don't have a relatability factor, and especially if it's like high level content, they're like, you know, what are they actually going to say? So they may not be commenting because they just actually don't have anything to say. Right?
It's not really on their level, if you will. So, to that end, get in your Stories. Your stories are an area where you can create so much quote unquote relatable content because you're just showing your life. Right? Where you're, if you're, sharing like, you know, PT stuff, physical therapy stuff, people are like, alright, cool, this is helpful, but I, like, don't know anything about it, and I, maybe I know that I need it, or I see that it could help me, but that's the extent of what I know.
Meanwhile, you go and show that you cook dinner, and people are like, you have that knife? I have that knife. We are the same. I'm going to DM you about it, and you get engagement that way, right? It's also private. Posting on someone's wall, everyone can see. Maybe people think, oh, I'm going to get embarrassed, people are going to think I'm stupid. I misspelled a word, like, people are nervous about it.
Whereas you get in your Stories, it's private, it's a low barrier to entry, and again, it's that relatable, relatability factor. So, that fourth component there, in looking to increase engagement, is create content that people actually want to engage with.
And then lastly, we have, lastly, when it, as it relates to looking to increase your audience engagement, diversify how you reach and teach your people. Two parts here. You can diversify within the platform, meaning that you're looking to, you're looking to, I was going to say once again, but I hadn't said this first, so it can't be once again. You're looking to, appeal to different learning styles.
So you could do a video Reel, you could do a carousel with swipe content. So for people that like to read. You could do something that's where you're just speaking a voiceover. So people that are more auditory processors. You could do a longer caption for people that want to get more in depth with things.
You could do a very short punchy quote for people that are like, I am busy. So different people, different learning styles, and we're looking to diversify that way as opposed to one single type of content. And that could theoretically increase engagement because you're, again, appealing to more learning styles.
You can look to diversify outside of the platform. And this is something I talk about doing after you've established yourself on one platform, right? You've dominated one social media platform, you've diversified within that platform, and now we can look to diversify outside of the platform. So, social media is audio visual, whereas an email or a blog, that's long form written content.
Threads, that's short form written content. Podcasts, that's long form audio. YouTube, that's long form video. So we see there's different styles outside of that main social media platform, or there's different platforms outside of that main social media platform that we can look to diversify into. This gives people more ways to engage with you.
So it's not just this one channel. And again, it appeals to more learning styles. Perhaps more importantly than this, and I have someone right in mind right now and she's listening, she knows that I'm thinking about her. Perhaps more importantly here is that it allows you to clarify and refine your own messaging.
So I know for me the podcast is phenomenal because it gives me so much room to discuss things and really think about things and work through things and be like, yeah, this is actually what I think about. It gives me nuance and be like, okay, this is actually what I'm trying to say. Which then allows me to clarify my message on other platforms.
And I can take something I said in a podcast and that I've clarified in a podcast and suddenly I can say it in a 500 character post on a 500 character thread because I've used the space, all the space on a podcast to really clarify and clean up, clean up my ideas, right? So the more specific I can be with the messaging, the clearer I can be with the messaging, the more convicted I can be with the messaging, the greater the likelihood that it actually lands with the right person, which then increases the likelihood of that person engaging with me, whether it's a DM or an email or a comment or whatever, right?
So I have given you five ideas or five, you know, groups for, five groups of ideas for getting your audience to engage with you. For everyone, I want you to start and audit yourself and start with number one, which is the big dial mover and the non negotiables of time, consistent reps, and actually asking. If you haven't been doing this for at least 18 months, like keep going.
If you're only doing once a post once every never, do more. If you're doing it very inconsistently, you're doing one post, but it's like once, literally every never, get consistent first and then increase your frequency. And then if you're like, hey, I haven't really asked for any kind of interaction or engagement, start asking.
If you're all good there and you're like, yeah, I've been doing all that stuff. Okay. Well then think about one of the remaining four and work on that. That's part number two, or point number two was, do people want to talk to you? A. K. A. are you only broadcasting or are you genuinely interested in the people on the other side of the screen?
You're taking time to communicate, to converse with them, to care about them. What energy are you putting out into the world? Alright? Asking yourself that question. Are you engaging with people outside of a business context or is it business only? Look to create content that people actually want to engage with.
Number one, get in your Stories, please. That creates that likability factor that creates that relatability factor. It's lowers the barrier to entry. Great place if it's a- great place to start as a, from a content perspective, if you're looking to increase engagement. And then as it relates to purely engagement, um, types of content where you're asking questions and you're like, Hey, I want, you know, give me feedback or let's, let's give me, let's have an open communication here, let people talk about themselves. They love doing that.
And the last thing to consider here is diversifying how you reach and teach. You can do that within the platform or you can look to go beyond the platform. But again, with all these five ideas, I want you to start with the big dial movers. Make sure you're doing those and then you can pick which of the remaining four you want to attack, right?
All right, I'm gonna give us a review, read a review, because I love this. I told you maybe two episodes ago, uh, we got some more reviews in and it makes me happy. So I'm gonna read a review. If you want to leave a review, I would love it. Apple Podcasts, go find the podcast, Maestro on the mic, scroll down.
There's gonna be like an area for stars and underneath that- if you want to leave stars as a rating, five stars would be great. You want to leave a little review, there's a little hyperlink underneath that that says leave a review or write a review, something like that. And I love hearing from you. I do.
This one here that I'm about to read literally exploded my heart. It's from one of my clients and she's just someone that's been really really special to me and I I read it and I was sometimes I try to read them right directly live on here but I saw who this is from and I was just like oh my god like literally exploded my Maestro heart. So this review, five stars, always that's what it says it's from TLT 2021.
She said: Every Monday and Thursday I look forward to listening to Shante's podcast. It's not only her favorite podcast but mine too. Shante consistently provides valuable information that can be used by new business owners as well as seasoned business owners. I always walk away with a new idea or an action item that helps me move my business forward. Shanté is open and honest, smart and savvy, real and laugh out loud funny. I love the way she shares her real life experiences to help others know that they're not alone, as many of her experiences are shared by us. Keep doing what you're doing, Doc Coach.
And I knew it was this person because she calls me Doc Coach and I was like, my heart is exploded. So, you know who you are, TLT. You're my favorite. You are. Thank you so much.
So, one announcement and then I'll leave all the rest of you alone. Don't forget, the waitlist for round 14 of my Instagram Intensive closes this Friday, August 25th.
That's soon, folks. This Friday. August 25th. The Instagram Intensive is my six week online group coaching program that teaches health and fitness pros exactly how to use Instagram for online business. We start September 12th, the waitlist gets first dibs at registration. I limit it to 50 people to ensure quality.
So if you want to make sure you get a spot and you want to save 100 monies, tappy tap the link that's in the show notes, get on the waitlist and you will be the first to hear about the things. All right. It's hot in here so I'm going to wrap this up. Hopefully this ep- wow. Hopefully this episode helped you.
If you got questions, comments, concerns, recommendations, suggestions, sliding into the old DMs at themovementmaestro, or shoot me a text. 3 1 0 7 3 7 2 3 4 5. The text will be green. Cause it's my sideline, but I promise it is me as always endlessly appreciative for every single one of you. Until next time friends, Maestro, out.
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